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

AmbarGriss · Sep 13, 2018

Actually it is implied in that interlude that Teacher was the one who revelead to the whole Birdcage that Panacea was a healer, and Marquis was trying to levarege the situation.

rafuki22 · Sep 13, 2018

AmbarGriss said:
Actually it is implied in that interlude that Teacher was the one who revelead to the whole Birdcage that Panacea was a healer, and Marquis was trying to levarege the situation.

For reasons like this I do not like to judge fast.

Birdsie · Sep 13, 2018

blackarrow said:
On a different note: WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT, SIMURGH? Why did you destroyed Amelia's message to Dragon? Are you afraid that Dragon might find out a very important secret that she might use to bring you down and put an end to the smartest Endbringer in this way? Something about the Floating Space Abstract Creatures and the powers they give to people? Something about Simurgh's weaknesses? Anyway, if Simurgh decided to screw with Amelia's message then she's clearly AFRAID of something that is related to her, other Endbringers or their species as a whole (if they're indeed aliens).

Remember that the Simurgh uses subtle manipulation instead of full-out armageddon attacks to do just as much if not more damage than Behemoth or Leviathan.

Mannequin is literally a result of the Simurgh's manipulation, if you recall his backstory. His wife and child died in a Simurgh attack. Combine that with the Simurgh's abilities and you have a very well-oiled plot to create a very dangerous serial killer that will take hundreds of lives in the upcoming years.

Like grains of sand gathering over the course of the day. And by night, the Simurgh inherits a desert of intrigue that wreaks havoc across the world.

blackarrow · Sep 13, 2018

AmbarGriss said:
Actually it is implied in that interlude that Teacher was the one who revelead to the whole Birdcage that Panacea was a healer, and Marquis was trying to levarege the situation.

Really? I didn't noticed this. If Teacher did that for real then he must be REALLY desperate to have his people cured.

Anyway, now I'm not worried for Amelia anymore thanks to Glaistig Uaine.

blackarrow · Sep 13, 2018

Birdsie said:
Remember that the Simurgh uses subtle manipulation instead of full-out armageddon attacks to do just as much if not more damage than Behemoth or Leviathan.

Mannequin is literally a result of the Simurgh's manipulation, if you recall his backstory. His wife and child died in a Simurgh attack. Combine that with the Simurgh's abilities and you have a very well-oiled plot to create a very dangerous serial killer that will take hundreds of lives in the upcoming years.

Like grains of sand gathering over the course of the day. And by night, the Simurgh inherits a desert of intrigue that wreaks havoc across the world.

Of course I remember what Colin said about Sphere. Ok then, maybe Simurgh wasn't afraid because of Amelia's message (its a big possibility that Endbringers can't even experience fear or emotions like humans are doing), but she noticed that Amelia told Dragon some very important things about how humanity can be saved from Endbringers and Simurgh didn't liked what she heard (because the humanity is her enemy and of course that she wants it doomed instead of being saved) so she destroyed the message so Dragon will not be able to stop her and her Endbringers peers anymore from messing with humans. This is my new theory about Simurgh's intention and I think that is the closest one to truth. Too bad that Wildbow decided to not reveal the message, thus leaving his readers to believe what they want and not something for sure.

blackarrow · Sep 13, 2018

Xexilf said:
Without going into spoilers, theres a few obvious ways to screw coil over.

First is hit him the moment he splits,or put some suveilance in him and kill him at a specific time. If both of him die at once, thats it. Second is poison. If its slow acting enough that he splits after its been applied, it dosent matter anymore, because both of him will be dieing. The third is something mind affecting or power cancelling, but its anyones guess how that interacts.

Cauldron can remove Coil's power, making very easy for anyone to kill him. But they won't do that because Coil is very important to them. Coil can kill the whole Brockton Bay if he wants, Cauldron will not give a shit and will continue to support him.

Nobody knows when he splits timelines so nobody can kill him right in that moment, unfortunately. Not even Lisa. Maybe Glaistig Uaine would have know since she seems to have a deep knowledge of people's powers but she's locked in Birdcage and I'm not sure if she would have been interested to take Coil down if she was free. Who knows, maybe she'd have liked him instead and become his ally, depends of how strong or weak the morals (and interests) of this woman are.

fabledFreeboota · Sep 14, 2018

Coil's power is probably like, therapeutic as heck. "Today was boring, let's kill Mr Pritter. ", "Alright, you can go home now Mr Pritter."

Tithed_Verse · Sep 14, 2018

Question about worms. Is anyone else bothered that they birdcaged canary, but that August Prince gets a bye?

blackarrow · Sep 14, 2018

Tithed_Verse said:
Question about worms. Is anyone else bothered that they birdcaged canary, but that August Prince gets a bye?

I'm personally VERY BOTHERED about Paige being imprisoned. I care a lot for her and she wasn't even mentioned in this Interlude, unfortunately.

But I don't know who August Prince is. I suppose he's another villain who'll appear later in the story, right?

Tithed_Verse · Sep 14, 2018

blackarrow said:
I'm personally VERY BOTHERED about Paige being imprisoned. I care a lot for her and she wasn't even mentioned in this Interlude, unfortunately. But I don't know who August Prince is. I suppose he's another villain who'll appear later in the story, right?

Ah, sorry, I guess that was spoilers. My apology.

Prince Ire · Sep 14, 2018

I actually don't remember who August Prince is either.

blackarrow · Sep 15, 2018

Hello, people. I'm kind of sad that the Birdcage Interlude ended because I would have liked to read more about Amelia, Marquis, Glaistig Uaine, basically the prisoners I'm the most interested into. Not a single mention about Paige, unfortunately.

Last time when her fate was mentioned was few Arcs ago, during Dragon's Interlude. I remember that she was happy in the company of another woman, but the exact nature of their relationship: be romantic, a simple friendship or just keeping each other company, wasn't mentioned. Dragon observed that they feel good in each other's company. Alright, maybe next time Wildbow will remember that Paige still EXISTS and will allow her at least one short apparition. You know what? I reached the conclusion that Glaistig Uaine can be the most powerful parahuman in this story, topping Triumvirate members.

Her power allow her to steal dead people's powers. Imagine Glaistig Uaine absorbing the powers of each hero/villain who died during Leviathan's fight, or what if Eidolon or Legend will suddenly die and she'll take their powers (with the condition to be free from Birdcage and in the proximity of their bodies). Imagine this woman surpassing Dragon as the best Tinker if she'll absorb the knowledge of every dead Tinker in the world. I think the only limitation for Glaistig Uaine is that she have to be near the cadavers, otherwise the absorption and "revival" won't work. Anyway, she have a SCARY potential to become the most powerful human and the way she talks about spirits and faeries and that she have to be near a dead body to take their "souls" remind me of Valkyries, the mythological shieldmaidens whose job was to take the souls of dying soldiers with them in Valhalla (heaven in norse mythology). Glaistig Uaine should have called herself the Voice of Valkyrie or the Call of Valkyrie instead of the actual codename, would have been more fitting.

Ok, let's continue with Thomas Calvert aka Coil and Mr Macho trying to kill a BLIND, TEENAGE girl. Because...he's the man. A man who abuse children and kill apparently defenseless blind teenagers. He's so fucking "brave"

Monarch 16.11

I'd sensed the movement of his finger a fraction of a second before the gun went off, and tried to lean out of the way. It didn't help. Dodging bullets wasn't a trick I had my repertoire. Judging by the way the gun followed me as I moved, Thomas Calvert either knew his way around guns or he was using his power to help ensure he hit his target. Or, more likely, it was both.

Getting hit, the smallest part of me could only think costume can't stop a bullet after all. Except it wasn't even a complete thought. Just a momentary disappointment as I felt the impact of the bullet passing through my chest to my back.
I hit the ground, my mouth agape, and I couldn't feel my heartbeat in the aftermath of the hit. It felt like a sledgehammer had hit me in the dead center of my torso. I couldn't speak, couldn't even think in a coherent fashion.
But the remainder of my bugs were already flowing out of my costume as I fell prone. Capsaicin bugs moved in the general direction of Thomas Calvert and his soldiers, pre-prepared cords of thread unspooled from beneath my costume, trailing behind flying insects. I couldn't think straight enough to orchestrate a smart attack, to tell them to go for the weak points, but they advanced swiftly, biting exposed flesh and forming a barrier between me and my attackers.
Calvert backed away, his nose and mouth tucked into the crook of his elbow, eyes squinting shut. He emptied his clip in my general direction, but he didn't have a bead on me. He couldn't see, between the cloud of bugs between us and the bugs crawling on his face.
I had flying insects catch the end of his gun with a cord and pull it off target further, and he backed up. I went a step further and wound threads around other guns, hoping to forestall the inevitable onslaught of bullets. If I could find leverage, someone or something that was moving, and pull them off-target before they shot me down-
When he spoke, his voice was raised to be heard despite the muffling effect, "Out of the room. Fill it with bullets… no. Scratch that."

Thomas, you're so fucking stupid here. You should have been aware that Skitter's costume was bulletproof, she's not the kind of person who'd wear a vulnerable costume. You still don't know too much about her even if you kind of studied her while she was working for you. You should have used armor-piercing ammunition, not normal bullets.

Well, it is bad for you because she survived but good for me because...she survived. Now what? He's doing what he knows the best: he's running away because he's afraid of some bugs despite having a whole army to protect him. FUCKASS. He's going to either burn the room or use explosives, eight? Skitter is blind, injured by the bullets, surrounded from all sides, and extremely vulnerable given her situation. If Thomas will use grenades or bombs, I'm not sure how she'll survive unless there's a possibility for her to call Atlas so she can fly with him out of the building.

He's coming up with counter-counter-plans before I even have a strategy in mind.

"…Set her on fire. Her costume is bulletproof, and I want this done. I need to attend to other matters."
I couldn't breathe. I could exhale, was huffing small breaths of pain, but I felt like my chest had caved in. My pulse wasn't pounding, my blood seemed to move too slowly through my veins, and I couldn't inhale to inflate my crushed chest.
Through my bugs, I could sense the two men stepping forward. Each wore gas masks and each had a bottle in one hand. A pungent odor trailed behind them, overwhelming and oppressing my bugs' senses of smell and taste.
I pressed one hand to my chest, as if I could gauge the damage done, and reflexively pulled it away as I touched something hot. A snarl of metal, embedded in the thickest portion of the armor I'd designed into the chest, and it was hot enough that it hurt to touch it. A bullet, I thought. I'd never considered that bullets would be hot.
The realization coupled with the sting of the burn at the base of my palm helped to clarify my thoughts. The bullet hadn't penetrated. I'd felt, what, the shockwave of the bullet hitting? Or I'd filled in the blanks wrong in theexpectation of getting shot?
It didn't matter, because one of Thomas Calvert's soldiers had just flicked the switch on a lighter, and I realized the bottles they were holding had to be makeshift molotov cocktails.
Though my body was numb and my responses felt too sluggish, I reached behind my back. With some of the non-flying bugs still residing in my utility compartment, I found what I was looking for in a flash, drawing it from the slot I'd dedicated to it and getting it in position in my hand in an instant.
I aimed the pepper spray at the lighter and fired. It offered ten feet of range, and they were on the other side of the room, with a heaping mess of containment foam between us.
The pepper spray ignited and set fire to his sleeve and the shirt around his upper body. The lighter dropped to the ground as he thrashed, trying to pull his shirt off despite the gloves and the gas mask he wore.
It wasn't the brightest move, trying to stop someone from lighting a fuse by setting them on fire, but I wasn't in a position to be picky. I tried to push myself to my feet, but my chest flared with pain and I collapsed, putting me in a position that was almost worse. The pain lanced throughout my ribcage, as if the structural integrity wasn't there, and putting any strain on my torso threatened total collapse of everything that held it together.
My bugs were already moving towards the other guy with the molotov. He'd hesitated at seeing his buddy go up in flames, and now cords of thread were winding around the neck of the bottle, the fingers that gripped it and his wrist, entwining them.
"Irritating," I was aware of Thomas Calvert's voice in the next room. He'd retreated and shut the door behind him, but it burst open as the man with the molotov tied to his hand beat a retreat before it could be ignited by the still-thrashing man. Calvert added a snarled, "Damnation."
"If we use grenades-" one of the soldiers started.
"Do not use grenades. I assure you it does not work out the way you imagine it will. Give me that."
I could sense Director Calvert tearing the bottle free of the man's hand. I began arranging my bugs, creating a loose net with threads. It wouldn't stop the forward momentum, but I had some cord left. I began winding it around the light fixture on the ceiling. If I could catch the bottle-
He didn't do as I'd expected, he didn't light the rag, for one thing, and he didn't toss the bottle at me. Lobbing it underhanded, he tossed it at the floor just past the door. The bottle shattered and the contents, gasoline by the smell of it, spread across the other half of the room.
The burning soldier that was still in the room with me screamed, yelped out the word, "No!"
He made a break for the door, and Calvert shot him.

I knew that he'll burn the room with Skitter inside. More than that, he just killed one of his men because he was afraid (classical Thomas) that the man will set him on fire as well. Gosh, Thomas, you never cease to surprise me with your "loyalty" towards your people and how "fair" you're towards your opponents.

You even give them a chance to fight back, you have high morals, dude. Impressive. Leaving the sarcasm aside, even Jack proved to be a rather fair psychopath compared with Thomas. He gave Theo a chance to kill him in two years, he was willing to let the recruits fight in their own terms, he gave Cherish a second chance (he was still prepared to punish her however). As cruel and abusive and mad Jack is, he proved to be capable of something that Thomas will never be: he treats his opponents on almost equal terms.

While Thomas is trying to use all the tricks and traps to finish his enemies off without giving them a single chance to retaliate. See? This is one of many reasons I consider Jack being a far more better supervillain than Thomas. He makes the fights super-interesting while Thomas makes them annoying.

The bullet wasn't enough to stop the soldier's forward momentum, but one of the other soldiers kicked him hard in the stomach. Calvert used his foot to push the door closed as the man fell onto his back, landing in the pool of gasoline and broken glass.

His still-burning clothing ignited the accelerant. In a heartbeat, the floor in front of the door was on fire, and the room was filled with the shrill screams of the thrashing, burning soldier.
I experienced a moment of animal panic. The kind of mindless fear that was hardwired into our brains on a basic level, so that we, like a wolf, a deer or an ape would, knew that fire was bad. Smoke was bad. Fire was a thing to run from and I had nowhere to run.
I shook my head. Had to think.
There was one exit to the room. To get to it, I'd have to leap over a heap of containment foam, which I wasn't sure I could manage with the way my chest was hurting and with no real running start. Even if I passed the hurdle -and failure would mean I was stuck and trapped- I'd have to run through a pool of burning gasoline, avoid tripping on the flailing, burning man, get to the door and pull it open.
Except Calvert was calmly, efficiently ordering his men to gather tables and chairs and stack them against the door, as if the fire in the next room wasn't even a concern. A chair was propped up so it was under the doorknob, a heavier dining room table blocked the door itself. Three soldiers worked together to move a tattered sofa, lifting the end to put it on the table.
My bugs. I didn't have enough here in the building, not enough to mount a serious attack on Calvert. Most of the ones I'd brought with me had burned up as the room caught fire. Some clung to Calvert and his men, but they were too few to do more than hurt and annoy. In my mindless fear, I'd called for my bugs to come to me. Or my passenger had, perhaps. Maybe it was the two of us, working together through my subconscious.
Either way, I had only a few usable bugs, a whole mess of useless ones like moths, houseflies, cockroaches and ants from the surrounding neighborhood, and Thomas Calvert, Coil, was on his way out of the building.
I looked at the bigger scene. I was in one of the areas that had been abandoned when Leviathan attacked. This house hadn't been nice to begin with, and the flooding had made things worse. Calvert had prepped the area prior to teleporting me in. The house sat on the corner of the block, and the two neighboring houses had been bulldozed. There were no people in range that I could see. He would have cleared it out so there were no eyewitnesses. Portable chain link fences had been put up and bound together with loops of chain at the perimeter of the property. He was stepping through an opening now, and his men closed it behind him, threading chain through. Going by the lock one soldier held in his hand, they clearly planned to lock it as they had the others.
Just past the perimeter of the fence, there were a dozen trucks and cars surrounding the building, each turned toward the property, their headlights on.
Squads of soldiers stood beside and in front of the trucks, guns raised and ready. Most had machine guns or handguns, bandoleers of grenades and all-concealing body armor. Three had containment foam dispensers.
Leaving the property would be impossible, which didn't matter because I wasn't capable of leaving the room. There were two windows, only one of which I could reach, and both were boarded up. Not even just boarded up against the window frame, but the planks of wood were long and fixed to the studs of the wall, too. I ran my hand over the end of one plank and felt the raised bumps of nails or screws.

If only she can have a screwdriver to get rid of those screws. Or a hammer for nails. Or her knife to pry the planks free. Or even better, the gun that Trickster gave her. Do you still have that gun, Skitter? If you still have it and shoot the planks, then they'll be broken enough for you to evade through the window.

Call Atlas if you'll be successful. You don't know how high the building is and if you jump from the window, not even your costume will prevent you from breaking your bones. Don't confront Thomas, he'd very well protected by his army. Fly as fast as you can and alert Undersiders about everything that happened with Thomas setting a trap for you and trying to murder you in cold blood. I'm sure they'll be so pissed off that they'll help you to bring Thomas down. They care for you, almost all of them, especially Tattletale and Grue, and they'll not accept what Thomas did. Especially since their own lives are in a possible danger too. But last time, Tattletale agreed to go with Thomas. What if Thomas kidnapped her and keeps her prisoner somewhere? Won't be something he won't do.

An ant climbed off my fingertip to move over the surface of one bump.

Screws. Screws with hexagonal slots. Because Calvert wasn't willing to risk that I'd have a screwdriver on hand with a more typical head on it.
I laughed. It made my chest seize up in pain, it probably sounded a little crazed, but I laughed. It was too much.
This would be a perfect time for a second trigger event. Hadn't Lisa said that my mind-power link was enhanced whenever I felt trapped? I doubted I'd ever feel more trapped than I did right this moment. I couldn't see just how far the fire reached, because I was blind, and the heat of the fire was killing the bugs I needed for sensing my surroundings. I had only a minute or two before the room became an oven and killed off the rest, leaving me blind and roasting to death.
I coughed as a wave of smoke hit me, and ducked my head low to keep breathing.
No, I probably wouldn't burn to death. I'd suffocate as the flame ate up the oxygen, go out quietly before I started burning. Maybe I'd trigger then, after things got that bad. It wouldn't help, probably. I couldn't think of a single permutation of my powers that would get me out of this mess.
I went on the attack, sending my bugs after Calvert and his people. Too many were useless, many weren't even capable of biting. Still, I found three black widows in the immediate area. After a moment's consideration, I delivered them straight to Calvert. They found flesh at his neck and bit.
He swatted at them, pinched one between his fingers, and raised it in front of his face. Then he said something I didn't catch.
There was no hurry in his movements as he flicked the dead spider to the ground and called out an order to his men.
The order, I feared, I actually heard and understood. It helped that I had enough context to guess what the words were and fill in the blanks.
Burn it to the ground.
"Fuck you," I whispered, pressing my hands to the wooden planks. I coughed as I inhaled another waft of smoke, then coughed harder as the combination of the pain in my chest and the smoke I was inhaling in my attemtps to catch my breath made for a self-perpetuating cycle. Calvert's men were lighting more molotovs, tossing them over the fence they'd erected. One hit the side of the building. Another hit the front porch. Three or four more hit the lawn and surrounding property.
Calvert glanced over his shoulder, then confidently strode over to a car and took a seat in the back. He didn't have the driver take him away. No, he'd be more interested in watching, in verifying that things went according to plan. Putting himself in the car meant only that he was out of the reach of my bugs.
Not that he'd seemed concerned about the black widow bites.
Chances were good he'd already taken the necessary antivenins. Damn it, and the antivenin that worked on black widow spiders also worked on any number of other spiders. He'd probably suffer side effects, but that wouldn't be immediate.
I had to refocus. The one in immediate peril here was me.
I considered waiting for the fire to weaken the floorboards before leaping over the foam and plunging down to the lower level, then dismissed that idea. I wouldn't last that long, for one thing, and there was too much chance of me being injured.
There was only one real way out of the room, and that was the window. I'd have to ignore the men stationed outside for now. I considered using my knife to try to pry the board free of the wall and the frame. I doubted I had the strength, with my chest hurting like it was, and I doubted I could pry enough boards free in time. He'd put three screws in at each point of contact. Hell, I had suspicions that Calvert had considered the knife when he'd ordered that the windows be boarded up.
I drew my gun. I wasn't sure how much information Calvert had, but he hadn't seemed to care about the possibility of me opening fire on him while he'd been here. That, or he figured his power would give him an out if he happened to get shot in one reality.

Yes, FUCK YOU, THOMAS. Fuck you, you cowardly snake. Fuck you for treating everyone around you like your personal tools, not even human beings. Fuck you for trying to murder a 15 years old girl with such cruelty. A girl who never wanted to kill you or take your place, she only wanted what you promised that you'll give to her. You're the one who made the promise, after all, you could have told her the truth if you're honest about. FUCK YOU, you piece of shit without a heart, I'm gonna enjoy so much when you'll bite the dust even if this miracle might happen at the end of the whole story. I'm sure that he'll not die during this Arc because he must be prepared for everything, including for the possibility of Skitter to escape. That plus Cauldron should protect him otherwise what Doctor Mother babbled about Coil being the last hope for humanity won't make any sense if they'll let him die.

Good that you still have your gun, Skitter, now you can make your escape a little more easy.

It was hard, not just moving and aiming the gun while I was coughing and still reeling from the hit to my chest, but aiming at the targets I needed. I had only so many bullets, and there were too many planks to use several bullets to remove each one. No, it was better to angle the shot so I was hitting more than one plank at once, both the ones that had been nailed up on the outside of the building and the planks inside the room.

The recoil of the shot was so fierce that it made the pain in my chest flare up. I dropped the weapon, suppressing coughs. Even behind the lenses of my mask, my eyes were starting to tear up. Not that it particularly mattered, given how I couldn't see, but it was one more distraction. Bending over redoubled the pain and brought me to the point where I nearly collapsed, coughing to the point that I was seeing spots.
The floor was warm enough that more sensitive bugs were dying as they touched it. Finding where I'd dropped the gun was a combination of guesswork, fumbling with my hand and using more durable bugs to feel it out.
I picked it up and shot twice more. Fighting the pain in my chest, I reached up and pulled down on a board. It was splintered in three by the gunfire, two on the left and one on the right, and I managed to use my body weight to get the necessary force to tear it free.
Three more bullets and I was able to remove one more from the inside. I used the removed board and wedged it into the crack between the two boards on the far side, leveraging one free.
The gunfire had attracted attention. Someone called out an order, and a dozen machine guns pointed to the window. I went low, hiding not at the base of the window, but near the corner of the room, lying with my feet pointing towards them, my hands over my head, all too aware of the flames on the wall, within arm's reach.
Bullets punched through the exterior walls and interior walls both. One clipped through the floor to hit the armor at my back. The impact prompted another coughing fit, worse than any of the ones before.
I needed to get out, and soon.
They knew I needed to get out, and they weren't giving me the opportunity. There was a momentary pause as the soldiers ejected magazines. Or clips. Whatever I was supposed to call them. Guns weren't my thing. They replaced the clips and opened fire with another barrage.
I couldn't lie there, waiting for one to get lucky and hit me, for the smoke to get to me, or for any of the other possible fates I faced.
My bugs had gathered around the exterior of the building, called to me by my power, clinging to the roof and outside walls near the room. I took note of the cockroaches, then directed them to the trucks that had the building surrounded.
Cockroaches retained the ability to eat virtually anything. I could have used more, but I'd have to make do. They began eating through wiring.
My own situation was getting bad, now. The floor was quickly going from warm to hot. The containment foam was stopping the spread of the fire across the floor, but it wasn't stopping the progression of the flames beneath the floorboards. If the floor caved in beneath me, I'd be as dead as anything.
Commands went out, and the soldiers switched to firing at me in shifts, only a few firing at a given time while the others stood at the ready. It made for a relentless, unending barrage. The second shift was just starting up when the first of the headlights went out. The cockroaches had found the right wires.
As the truck headlights started flickering out, I commanded my bugs to gather at the base of the window. No less than five bullets tore through the mass as the bugs collected. The soldiers had only the light of the fires to go by, now, and they'd spotted the anomaly at the window.
The lump of bugs dropped to the ground, and more bullets penetrated the heap that landed at the base of the building. When the bugs rose, they rose in the general shape of a person, of me.
I desperately wanted to be out of the room. I was coughing more than I was breathing, and I worried that the next serious coughing fit would see me blacking out before I sucked in enough oxygen.
But I had to wait. I gathered more swarms and dropped them from the edge of the window. Every bug in a three block radius contributed to forming decoys.
Each decoy, in turn, had to act like it was sustaining gunfire. They moved slowly, stopping when the bullets hit, some flattening out to mimic falling to the ground. It made for slow progress as they advanced to the fence.
I couldn't stand to wait any longer. I knew I should make one or two more decoys before going ahead, but the conditions of the room were going from unbearable and dangerous to critical. I approached the windowsill as the next mass of bugs gathered, submerging myself in the midst of them, my hands on the window frame. I tried peeking through, but my hazy, ruined eyesight only offered me a glimpse of one blot where a single truck far to my left had a working headlight. I faced a small army; I was about to drop two stories to what had once been someone's garden, now a muddy mess of dirt and detritus, and-
One bullet hit me in the forearm, not too far from where Brutus had bitten me, months ago. I slumped onto the windowsill, cradling my arm. More out of desperation than anything redeemable, I forced myself forward between the broken planks and let myself drop to the ground below.
The landing wasn't as hard as it could have been, but it wasn't gentle either. I was left writhing, dry heaving, much of my attention on keeping from screaming in pain and keeping the bugs all around me.

God, Skitter is blind, is injured by bullets, her lungs are filled with smoke and now she dropped herself from the window (luckily for her, the distance wasn't too big). How many injuries this girl can take before she'll stop fighting? I think that even if she'll lose both her legs and arms, she'll still continue fighting, because this is how she's. Someone who doesn't know HOW and WHEN to give up. Someone who see (and can make) impossible as something possible and is not afraid to exceed her limits, while caught in the most dreadful situations possible.

I have a lot of things to criticize at her, but right now they're shadowed by my admiration for how much will to fight this girl have in her heart.

Now what? The soldiers will shoot at her once they'll find her and I doubt that her costume can protect her against a rain of endless bullets and fire. Maybe if she can use decoys to confuse them until they'll waste all the ammunition or they'll be like: 'Fuck this, mr Calvert, you didn't paid me for this shit. We're leaving.'

I used all the residual willpower I could manage to turn over, putting my back with the armor of my utility compartment and the added fabric of my cape towards the ongoing gunfire from Calvert's personal army. I covered the back of my head with my hands and fought the urge to cough. I doubted anyone would hear if I did, with the constant gunfire and the sound of something collapsing inside, but I couldn't risk a coughing fit that left me blind to my surroundings or passing out.

Now I was left with the task of passing through the perimeter. One of my swarm-decoys had reached the fence, and was apparently doing a good enough job of selling the possibility that it was me that they felt compelled to double-check with the occasional burst of machine gun fire. I commanded it to start climbing.
I had six decoys now, with another in progress at the window. I'd planned to crawl, to get to the fence and find my way through, but with my wrist like it was…
One of Calvert's men lit another molotov and tossed it at the base of the fence where the decoy was climbing. It was obliterated in an instant, and Calvert's men were forced to back away from the resulting bonfire.
If Thomas Calvert was using his power to guide his men, to give them an advantage and give them directions that would help narrow down the decoys, then I'd inevitably face the same fate as the decoy had after I got to the fence.
But he wasn't giving directions. He was in the truck, watching. No radios were sounding with instructions, not yet. He had to protect his perimeter, keep me from getting to freedom… but he was in a reactive position, not an offensive one where he could command an attack and then make it so it never happened if the attack went awry. No, I'd weathered that initial attack.
I wasn't sure exactly how I'd weathered it, but I had.
I crawled with three limbs, while my decoy formed a standing figure above and around me, then I joined the other decoys that were advancing on the fence.
Another molotov sailed over the fence to strike the lawn on the other side, incinerating one decoy that had ventured too close. Again, I noted, the soldiers backed off.
That wasn't entirely a bad thing. The more they backed up, the thinner the defensive lines were.
But I still needed to get to the fence and get over it without getting shot or set on fire.
I still had more bugs arriving from the extent of my range. Being trapped like I had hadn't given me a second trigger event. I wasn't so lucky. But it had extended my range. I tallied the resources I had at my disposal, considered how many more decoys I could create…
Then I reconsidered. No, I needed a distraction, and these slow-moving decoys weren't that.
The bugs I still had in reserve swept into the ranks of the soldiers, and I went flat for my own safety, covering my head.
"Behind you," one collection of bugs whispered to a soldier, my swarm-speak forming the necessary words. He whipped around to see nothing there.
"I'm going to eat you alive," another swarm spoke, somewhere nearby.
"Crawl inside your body and lay eggs."

Skitter will be a great addition in a horror movie as a supervillain, she doesn't necessarily need to make her apparition in person, its enough for her to scare the living daylights of her victims with talking swarms of bugs. The Conjuring 3: The Haunting of Skitter, the Bug Demon. I'd personally pay a fortune to see that movie.

She's scaring them good and I'm so very ok with her methods. They work under Thomas' orders so fuck them. They deserve a little scare and even more if Skitter is willing to do. They're lucky that Skitter is not a criminal. But at least she can mentally torture them a bit.

Calvert's voice sounded over a dozen radios in the area, "She's playing mind tricks. She's still near the house, and she's never killed or tortured before. Maintain the perimeter and do not use grenades."

Again, with the refusal on the subject of grenades. A reminder, even, this time. Was this a point where he'd split the timelines, bombarded the house with grenades in one reality and stuck to the guns in another?
Or had he already verified that I had a counterattack in mind for the grenades? He could have employed them in an earlier scenario and had things go catastrophically wrong on his end. There had to be a reason he wasn't using them instead of molotovs. Grenades would have been faster, given more immediate, definite results.
Then there was the possibility that this tied into his alibi, that he didn't want the Undersiders or even the Travelers to know he'd gone after one of them, and the use of several grenades would be too easily traced back to 'Coil'. He would stick to an over the top arson, maybe hide the police reports and suppress the media. If I was in a territory owned by the Travelers, maybe they'd accept a price for keeping this quiet from the Undersiders.
Or any combination of those things.
Then I remembered how I'd escaped from the hospital bed after the Endbringer attack.
The bugs continued whispering as they went on the attack, but their attack wasn't a headlong rush with stingers and pincers. As I lay flat on the ground, arms shielding my head, I took a different tack. I raided.
Bugs swept into pockets and pouches, searching the contents. First aid supplies, no. Gun magazines, almost too heavy.
I noticed the bandoleers of the grenades that Calvert had alluded to.
The decoys had forced the enemy to spread out gunfire. The soldiers were further diverted as my bugs tried to divest them of possessions, pushing at the gun magazines and attempting to slowly nudge them free of pouches. Spiders wove silk cords, and I chose my target, a soldier by the fence, between me and Coil.
Long seconds passed as bullets hit the earth only a short distance from me. I waited, prayed that the next thrown molotov wouldn't land near me.
At my instruction, flying bugs carried a cord out, connecting a grenade on his bandoleer to the fence. Another connected the same grenade's pin to the soldier next to him.
"Lose the grenades," my swarm buzzed, right next to him. "I'm pulling a pin."
The man next to him heard, stepped away, and the cord went taut. The pin slid free.
He had the grenade free in a second, but he simply held the bar at the side of the grenade down.
Damn.
"Think fast. Pulling two more," my swarm spoke. A benefit of speaking through the swarm was that it was hard to hear a lie in the tone.
He realized that he had only the two hands to hold down the bars for three grenades, and tossed the one in his hands towards the house. The cord connecting it to the fence halted the grenade's trajectory and it swung straight down into the waterlogged lawn on the far side of the fence.
When it detonated, it ripped through a section of fence and sent soldiers scattering for cover.
Be patient, I thought. I could have made a run for it then, but there was no use.
"She's pulling the pins!" the soldier who'd been near my target shouted.
They began retreating, and the defensive line thinned out further. Some soldiers were standing on the far side of the neighboring property, now.
"Need a visual!" someone shouted.
A flare sailed through the air to land on the lawn, fifty feet to my right. The light it provided would let them see through my decoys. If they put one too close o me, they'd see my silhouette.
More sailed my way, and I set to moving them before any landed too close to me.
I maintained the pressure, an indiscriminate attack that Calvert couldn't necessarily counter. I repeated the process, roughly, that I'd used to get the one oldier to throw a grenade, aiming to knock down the fence on the opposite side of the property. I made the cord tying it to the fence too thin, however, and he grenade landed closer to the base of the house. The fence remained standing, but the soldiers backed away in the face of the dust, smoke, and hot air hat billowed out from within the building.
"I'm pulling your pins next."
"Crawl up your asshole and leave you some tapeworms."
"I'm behind you."
"I can have centipedes crawl beneath your eyelids. Chew your eyes out at the root."
"Ever wonder if a mosquito could pass on the H.I.V. virus?"
The psychological pressure was important, too.
"Do not throw the grenades," Calvert's voice sounded over the radios.
The drawback of the psychological pressure was that many soldiers were now shooting indiscriminately at the property, and I didn't have anything even remotely resembling cover. I began belly-crawling across the grass, using my one good arm and my knees.
I felt an impact across my face. The briefest shriek escaped my lips before I remembered to clam up, managed to convince myself that it was only a clod of grass and dirt that a stray bullet had kicked up.
Someone had heard. A female soldier, she was on the other side of the fence, not five feet in front of me, and her head had snapped in my direction as I'd let the sound escape.
I barely had any of the pre-prepared silk cord left. I split the swarm around me into two, and sent one to my left. The soldier held her machine gun in one hand and fired at the running swarm, drawing a flare with the other hand. In the meantime, I was getting my feet under me, lunging.
Dragonflies carried the silk cord between the wires of the fence. I didn't go for the grenades on her bandoleer, but the can at her waist. They circled the pull-tab, and I held the other end of the cord, pulling.
My first guess was that it was a flashbang, in which case it could leave my bugs stunned and me exposed. My second guess was that it was incendiary, in which case I'd be murdering someone.
When it went off, I felt only relief. Smoke billowed around her as she called out to others, telling them I was near. I sensed her backing away, getting the canister free of her belt and tossing it aside, and had my bugs collect it and cart it her way. I crawled in the direction she wasn't walking, using my power to identify where the soldiers were moving and using the smoke for cover.
Scavenging used silk from previous attacks, my bugs arranged to pull more pins for smoke canisters.
The end result was chaos. It was the best result I could hope for. With the smoke at the open area of the fence and the possibility that I had climbed over nwhere the smoke masked things, they couldn't be sure of my location, and they couldn't shoot into the midst of their allies, so they were forced to retreat further.
I sensed Calvert's truck pulling away.
Calvert could use his power to prune away possibilities that didn't work for him, but only if he was aware of me, aware of my movements and how I was mounting my attack.
His retreat left me wondering if he'd deemed this situation unsalvageable. Had he deemed this a loss?

This is the first moment of weakness of Thomas. He really didn't expected for the Demon Bug to be so efficient at escaping his exorcism attempt and more than that to play some mind fuckery with his soldiers. Well, demons are not so easy to be defeated and send back to Hell, you should know this, Thomas. Anyway, looks like Thomas wasn't aware of Skitter's smart movements so he choose to retreat instead of using his power and find another way to defeat her. This might be a little chance for Skitter and Undersiders to defeat him, as long as he doesn't know what to expect from them. If Tattletale (if she's indeed a hostage) will break free too and he wouldn't know since he was so busy with Skitter, will Tattletale be able to steal a gun and shoot him when he'll return to where he's holding her? Will he die without a chance of a safe timeline if he'll not be aware of her escaping and having a gun pointed to him? Or someone else will save his skin in the last moment?

Was there another maneuver he had in mind? A bomb, a parahuman underling that he could sic on me?

Or would he seek leverage elsewhere?
My dad. The others.
I suddenly felt the urge to get away, and get away quickly.
My bugs hefted the items they'd successfully scavenged from pockets and pouches, carrying them to me. As the soldiers moved to cover the weak points in the perimeter, I struggled to my feet and walked through the smoke to the point where two of the temporary fences joined together. I used the keys my bugs had found and tried them, attempting to find the right key for the lock that linked the chain.
There were only so many possible keys, especially when I narrowed down the options to the three from soldiers nearest this lock. It popped open on the second try, I removed the chain as quietly as I could, and then I bit my lip to keep from crying out as I shifted the two sections of fence far enough apart that I could slide through.
My bugs carried the fuming smoke canister a short distance ahead of me, giving me some added cover to slip through the point where the enemy lines were thinnest.
Their radios crackled with instructions from their captains, and the soldiers started tossing their canisters of smoke towards the house before they could be used against them. It didn't matter. I'd already slipped past the worst of them. I approached one of the trucks that was furthest from the conflict. My bugs were on the soldier's helmets, and I knew which direction they were facing, allowing me to stay behind them, using the soft soles of my costume to move in near silence.
"Behind you," my bugs whispered. The soldier ignored them as he'd ignored the taunts and threats that were echoing through the neighborhood, without cease.
I slipped behind him and pulled his helmet off. He drew in a breath to cry out an alarm and only choked on the flood of flying insects that flowed into his nostrils and mouth. I was already dropping the helmet, switching my baton from my injured left arm to my right hand and striking the handgun out of his hand. I had to strike him in the head five times before he collapsed, blind, gagging and choking on the bugs.
Maybe he was faking, maybe he was unconscious. It didn't matter. My bugs swept over him and checked every pouch and pocket. I found his keys, then hurried over to the nearest truck.
I found the right key and started up the truck.
I'd turned sixteen without realizing it, not long ago. It was fitting that I'd be teaching myself how to drive right about now.
Driving slowly so I wouldn't call too much attention to the fact that I barely knew what I was doing, I pulled away from the scene.
I pulled over, pulled the emergency brake because I wasn't sure how to park, then checked my satellite phone. No service. It made sense Coil would cut my lines of communication. I tossed it out the window. No use giving him a way to track me.
We'd moved towards the beach from Coil's place. It made sense the other Undersiders would be heading north, to their individual lairs.
I was struck by an ugly connection between two thoughts. Calvert had mentioned he had other matters to attend to, and if Chariot's teleportation device mimicked Trickster's power, they'd had to swap something or somebody in. If he'd replaced me with a body double, he would want to stay in contact with her and help ensure things went her way with the other Undersiders.
On the other hand, if Calvert was looking for a way to get leverage over me, my dad was one very vulnerable target that he was aware of.
I was left to decide if I would go check on my dad or tackle the bigger, cape-related issues. It was a decision I'd had to make too many times in recent weeks.
It would have to be the Undersiders and Dinah. I hated to admit it, but if my dad was attacked and I had the Undersiders there by my side, they could only help. If the opposite were true, my dad would hamper me.
I disengaged the emergency brake and eased the truck into motion, fighting the urge to cough, knowing it would lead to wracking fits that forced me to stop in the middle of the street.
I'd seen how involved Calvert's maneuver had been at the debate. He had a grand plan, and it wasn't necessarily the one he'd shared with us earlier. I was now a glitch in his system, threatening to unravel everything he'd put together.
He had no reason to hold back, and he knew more about me than anyone I'd fought yet. He'd tried to strike at me directly, and I'd only barely escaped. I had little doubt he had other plans in mind, failsafes, traps and safeguards, and I had little choice but to run headlong into the thick of them.

Skitter is driving while blind and injured and without knowing how to drive in advance. And worse than everything, she doesn't have a driving licence. She's breaking the law. Unacceptable. This new generation of youth...."sighs"
If Thomas is using a body double for Skitter he can do the following: have her go to Skitter's home to take Danny prisoner or kill him

, or he can use her to pretend that she's the real Skitter in front of Undersiders and tell them that the real Skitter is a body double and she tried to kill the fake one, thus convincing them to attack real Skitter when she'll make her appearance. Since Tattletale is not with them, they won't be able to realize who the real Skitter is, unless Bitch's dogs are able to remember her after her scent and alert their Master. Of course they'll be able, they're dogs after all and dogs can remember many scents. That would what might destroy Thomas' plan if he wants to turn Undersiders against the real Skitter.

Good night and sleep well, my friends. Man, my patience is getting low with Thomas' survival chances, he needs to die as quickly as possible before my patience will expire and I'll become extremely pissed off.

blackarrow · Sep 15, 2018

rafuki22 said:
Think a little, some powers are always active (taylor), others have to be contained (tattletale, imp), most have to be activated (clockblocker, grue, regent, bitch), which is the group, in which they fit the majority of powers? In which fits the power of coil? Look at the interlude of coil.

Taylor's power is NOT always active. She can turn on and off her power when she wants. She proved to have a lot of control over her power, even when she's very angry (remember the Horror Meeting in Principal Office or numerous horrible things that her bullies did to her? If her power was always on, she'd have attacked them every freaking time but she controlled her retaliation masterfully). Coil can control his power too, he can split timelines everytime he wants and is sure on his success.

10moorem II · Sep 15, 2018

blackarrow said:
Taylor's power is NOT always active. She can turn on and off her power when she wants. She proved to have a lot of control over her power, even when she's very angry (remember the Horror Meeting in Principal Office or numerous horrible things that her bullies did to her? If her power was always on, she'd have attacked them every freaking time but she controlled her retaliation masterfully). Coil can control his power too, he can split timelines everytime he wants and is sure on his success.

Oh no, it is always on. Taylor just knows attacking them in broad daylight would end badly.

Plus she has the need to feel morally superior to them.

blackarrow · Sep 17, 2018

Hello, lovely souls. Time for another Update. Time to see Skitter driving while blind and even worse- without a driver licence- trying to follow Thomas aka When You'll Finally Die You Fucker? to see where he's going. My suspicions about his future actions are the following: he knows that- despite all his best efforts- Skitter still escaped and is following him and he doesn't want to use his power yet because he must know that even in other timeline Skitter will still survive no matter what he'll do. So, since he can't kill her himself he might try to make Undersiders kill her instead. How? Since she mentioned a possible body double, Thomas might use the Fake Skitter to pretend that she's attacked by the Real Skitter, turning Undersiders against the Real Skitter because they'll believe that she's the body double. That would be a very cruel, but smart plan that only Thomas (and me

) is capable to think at. Let's HOPE that he won't be successful in whatever he wants to do and Bitch's dogs will be capable to make the difference between a possible Fake Skitter and Skitter after their scent. I can't wait to see Thomas trying to run away while shouting from the tops of his lungs: 'And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids and that stupid Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitch!'

rofl:
Monarch 16.12

Finding my teammates wasn't hard; Calvert was telling me where they were.

He didn't tell me directly. No, this was more a casualty of being too careful, of putting too many secondary measures in place. He'd stationed soldiers to serve as lookouts at a wide perimeter around the Undersiders. I noticed one group, turned the truck to drive around them, and then noticed the second and third. They were three blocks away from the Undersiders, effectively surrounding my team, staggering their movements so only half were changing position at a given time.
I wondered how much battlefield experience Calvert actually had, or if it had been too long ago to matter. Had he forgotten what it was like to actually be in pursuit of a target in the midst of a sprawling urban environment? He probably could have tripped me up a fair bit more by dropping the perimeter and leaving me to try to track down my teammates.
No less than three radios for one squad buzzed with the noise of voices. The three soldiers picked up their radios and replied. Ok, so he was checking in with each squad. So maybe it was roughly as inconvenient as trying to find my teammates in the middle of nowhere.
Calvert had dropped me in Genesis' territory. It was about as far away as I could be from where I wanted to be, about ten minutes drive down Lord street and then a ways towards the water, if someone was driving quickly. I wasn't driving quickly; I spent far too long in the wrong gear, for one thing, I was clumsy with the car's controls and I was forced to drive even slower because the roads were treacherous. Damage to the road was hidden in the areas that were still flooded, where my bugs couldn't necessarily see them. Other roads were slick where there was just enough water to raise the oils up from the crevices of the road's surface to the point that tires would slip on them.
On the plus side, driving while blind wasn't as hard as I'd thought it would be. I was relying on my swarm, of course, but even then I figured the lack of sight would be more of an impairment.
After noting where the squads were deployed and coming to the conclusion that Calvert was using his soldiers to track the movements of my team, I had to stop to contemplate the situation and finally got around to the coughing that had been looming for a few minutes.
If I charged in, Calvert's men would collapse in on me. Three or four soldiers per squad, and there had to be eight or more squads, unless Calvert wasn't keeping troops moving in advance of the group. That made for twenty-five to fifty soldiers. That would be pretty much all of Calvert's troops that hadn't been at the house. I didn't fail to note how they were equipped, either. I could sense the general shape of what would be sniper rifles and one piece of artillery that looked to be a mortar.
Made sense that he would have had the perimeter in place to ensure Dinah didn't slip his grasp. If she was gone, then he might have maintained their positions to keep me from reuniting with my team after I escaped from his deathtrap.
Thing was, I had another problem here. Calvert had teleported me. I wasn't sure how he'd locked on to me, had ditched my phone as the most obvious measure, but I was worried that they could tag me with the thing and toss me into some backup trap reserved for one of my teammates.
All in all, I didn't want to give the soldiers a chance to see me, radio in general coordinates and then toss me out to some remote area on the other end of the city. Knowing that his power was least effective when he didn't have a full grasp on what was happening moment to moment was another reason to keep out of sight.
I did want to go on the offensive. I just wasn't sure how. If I attacked the individual squads, a check-in on Calvert's part would reveal that someone was picking them off and they would all go on the offensive. They might even shoot to eliminate my teammates. Grue, Imp, Bitch and the dogs might have the suits or natural durability to keep them alive in the face of a hail of gunfire, but Dinah didn't, and there was the possibility that the shots from the sniper rifles could penetrate the suits.
Or Calvert would order his squads to fire their mortars and wipe my teammates off the map. If I assumed he had more than one mortar positioned around them, added his power into the equation to give him two sets of barrages with different target zones, I doubted they would emerge unscathed.
That left me to wonder why he hadn't done something similar at the house. No grenades, no mortar, no bomb laying in wait.
Failing that, what was the trick behind the teleportation? Why hadn't he just teleported me back after I slipped away?

Maybe because he wants your teammates to kill you instead of him. He already failed few times to murder you and even if he'll teleport you back he probably knows that you'll escape again, despite having your eyes injured, your lungs fucked and every part of your body screaming in agony. You'll still escape because you're Determination embodied in a single human being.

But how are you going to escape if Bitch, Grue, Imp and Regent will be all against you, believing you to be the enemy? You can't confront all of them, not even Bitch alone, especially given your poor health condition. Imp alone can kill you by stabbing you in your throat before you'll finish exclaiming: What the fuck! But there's something I keep wondering about. Why Thomas didn't teleported her right under the bomb when it exploded during the Mayoral Debate Massacre? This doesn't make any sense since he obviously planned to kill her long time before the Mayoral Debate (all these preparations demanded a certain time in order to be ready). If he would have teleported her right under the bomb, he wouldn't have bothered right now with new ways of killing her. Despite being a Genius of Evil, Thomas is prone to make some really stupid mistakes.

Did he want to keep me alive? Or had he actually expected me to escape? Had he looked at all my past confrontations and gauged that I could probably make it, and it was no skin off his nose if I didn't?

Hell, it was possible he'd used his power to help ensure I'd make it this far, to further some greater scheme.
Whether I wanted to deal with the soldiers, get the Undersiders out of the way of those mortars or avoid falling into some greater trap laid by Calvert, I needed more information.
The Undersiders were walking, judging solely by the speed the soldiers were adjusting their positions. I wasn't sure where Atlas was, but I'd driven past the site where we'd picked up Dinah and he hadn't been there. I could guess that Dinah wasn't keen on riding the dogs, so that made sense.
I slipped bugs into position on the soldiers to track their movements, then moved in closer, pulling the car into park and climbing out. Better to move on foot.
I'd picked up masses of bugs on my slow-ish drive through the city, and I guided them as close to the soldiers as I could get them without giving myself away.
The tint of my lenses didn't help with the haze over my vision. Still, opening my eyes, I could see it was evening, and the city wasn't offering much in the way of ambient light, given the inconsistent availability of power. I coupled the use of my bugs with my eyesight to try to spot the glare of flashlights or headlights, but peeks suggested that the soldiers were operating in darkness. Night vision goggles, perhaps.
The tint of my lenses didn't help with the haze over my vision. Still, opening my eyes, I could see it was evening, and the city wasn't offering much in the way of ambient light, given the inconsistent availability of power. I coupled the use of my bugs with my eyesight to try to spot the glare of flashlights or headlights, but peeks suggested that the soldiers were operating in darkness. Night vision goggles, perhaps.
I waited until the squad nearest to me shifted to follow, noted how the squads to the north and the southeast of them were holding position, guns at the ready. Calvert would have told them I'd escaped and that they should keep an eye out. Their wariness made sense.
Still, I was able to advance closer, following the group that was moving to follow, getting closer while keeping buildings and other obstructions between us. Not the easiest thing in the world when I had to use the presence of the bugs to estimate where their line of sight extended, but I managed to get within half a block of them, crouching behind a van. Swarms waited just around the corners.
I wasn't attacking, though. No, my interest was on getting close enough that I could reach my teammates with my power. Calvert had apparently stationed his men with my power's range in mind, but he didn't necessarily know that my power's range extended in certain circumstances. Getting just a little closer, I could sense them, walking down the middle of the road. I drew my bugs around me, not in the shape of a person, but to mimic the curves and bumps of the truck I was kneeling beside, so my silhouette wouldn't stand out so dramatically.
I could sense Bitch, still on Bentley's back as he trailed behind the rest of the group. Bastard was lying across her lap, apparently asleep.
I sensed Grue and Imp, walking just ahead of Bitch and Bentley.
And I sensed Dinah, walking hand in hand with a girl who shared my build, who had hair of the same length and a costume similar to my own.

I was fucking RIGHT.

In fact, both I and Skitter were right. Thomas is using a girl who pretends that she's Skitter who'll probably convince Undersiders that she was attacked and injured by Coil and his "fake" Skitter (meaning the real Skitter). Or, now I have another theory: she might attack Undersiders to make them believe that Skitter betrayed them again. They'll believe, especially Bitch, who still doesn't entirely trust Skitter and without Tattletale around to know that they're attacked by a Fake Skitter, they'll believe for real that Skitter is betraying them again. I won't blame them, I won't blame them at all, I'd believe the same if I were in their place. Especially with my paranoia about people's intentions and everything.

But Bitch's dogs can save the situation. Unless the Fake Skitter found a method to imitate Skitter' scent. But there's another solution: Dinah herself. If she can use her power right in this moment, maybe she can see in the future that her chances to escape while in the company of Fake Skitter are below 0 and she might realize that everything is a trap. She's not a stupid girl, after all.

I didn't want to give anything away by swarming her with bugs to sense where our costumes differed, but it was pretty damn close. She even had bugs on her costume. Some were drawn there by pheromones, and some were pinned in place. Her utility compartment differed from mine. She had a knife, longer and narrower than mine, and two guns holstered within. Some grenade canisters were tucked into the spaces by the shoulders where the short cape could cover them.

If Calvert's preparation of the building prior to teleporting me in hadn't made me think his betrayal was premeditated, this certainly cinched it. Copying my costume, finding someone who fit my shape to the point that the others wouldn't notice? Someone apparently capable of using a gun?
Dinah was still with them. They hadn't dropped her off, even though Calvert could have arranged something like fake parents to accept Dinah. Or maybe someone had raised that possibility and fake Skitter was taking Dinah back to 'her' territory to look after for a bit. The other Undersiders would leave, maybe, and Dinah would go straight back to Calvert's possession.
I wished I had a better sense of Calvert's overarching plan. What would happen to the other Undersiders? What would he do with fake Skitter? He couldn't hope to maintain the ruse for any meaningful length of time.
There had to be a reason he hadn't just bombed them here and erased the last of his enemies in one fell swoop. How much of the plan that he'd shared had been real?
This situation wasn't so different from the one I'd just escaped. There was the immediate threat, the mortars, and there was the one beyond that, with the soldiers ready to gun down my allies. Bitch could have rescued Dinah, Imp and Grue from the mortars, given a chance to run, and Grue and Imp could deal with the guns, but the biggest issue, the biggest difference in where they were now compared to where I'd been, was that they weren't aware of the threat.
If I could communicate with them, perhaps I could have coordinated them, managed something. But it was evening and the black and brown bodies of my bugs wouldn't be able to spell out anything obvious against a dark background. My phone had been locked out and the presence of the false Skitter meant I couldn't deliver a message unless it was very subtle.
Any mistake on my part threatened to provoke an ugly situation. Calvert could order the mortar strike and teleport Dinah and false Skitter out.
No, I didn't think there were many options when it came to communicating with Grue. Imp? Maybe that was a better option, given her ability to disappear, meet up with me and then rejoin the others.
Except I didn't have an explicit strategy in mind, and I wasn't willing to gamble that Calvert hadn't accounted for Imp with some kind of surveillance with an electronic filter, like the screen of Dragon's battlesuit.
Rachel? No. I was pretty sure she couldn't read and write well enough to follow any directions, so I couldn't even explain anything complex without saying it aloud, and doing that would be hard, speaking through my bugs without alerting the doppleganger in their ranks.
I could abandon them, try to find Tattletale or my dad, but Tattletale was going to be behind even more layers of security, if she was inside Coil's underground base, and going to see my dad felt like a detour that wouldn't do anything to address this situation.
That left me one potential ally. I sent a ladybug to Dinah, settled it on her right hand, the one that the mock Skitter wasn't holding.
She glanced at it, her head turning a fraction, then moved her hand to hide it from false Skitter. I felt her clench her fist, the skin between the ladybug's legs stretching so the legs were pulled slightly apart.
Dinah knew that Skitter wasn't me. There was no other reason to hide the ladybug.

YES, FUCKING YES.

Dinah used her power and now she knows who the Fake Skitter is. And its a huge possibility that she'll help Skitter into revealing Thomas' demented plan. Good job, Dinah, I knew I could count on you.

Fake Skitter might be a soldier or Genesis' projection. Gosh, Genesis continues to piss me off a little with how "eager" she seems to be to help Thomas, but I understand her reasons behind this "eagerness" and I can't really judge her. She's a nice girl who cares so much for her friend that she'd sacrifice her morals only to see her friend well again. I don't agree with her choice but I agree with her strong feelings for Noelle (I'm sure they're good friends otherwise Genesis wouldn't go so far if she's unconcerned for Noelle's fate). Let's see what Dinah can do in order to warn the Undersiders about the imminent danger coming from the impostor.

I didn't like the idea of that. If I was interpreting it the way I was supposed to, it seemed suicidal. Did she want me to come to where she was? If she was, was her power guiding that request, or was she still powerless and simply wanting to be rescued?

Breaking past enemy lines without getting seen, only to… what? Make myself a mortar target alongside my teammates? Where was the advantage? What was the asset to putting myself in the thick of it?
Calvert had to anticipate that I'd try to rescue my teammates. His soldiers wouldn't be on guard against an outside threat like this if he didn't. What did he expect I would do? I wouldn't charge headlong into his soldiers. I wouldsee them. I'd find some way around them, maybe turn some aspect of the situation to my advantage.
There were too many possibilities when it came to ways I might leverage things. He couldn't narrow down what I'd do because that was how I operated. I was versatile.
Then what was the common element? I was tired, I was hurting, fighting the urge to cough, lest I inform the soldiers I was here. I couldn't think of any solid way to tackle this situation, but in scenarios where I could, what might the common elements be?
I'd be using my power, for one thing. Calvert couldn't do anything about that unless he'd had Leet devise some kind of counter-weapon. It was all too possible, but I didn't have the time to consider all the possibilities there.
I didn't have the time.
The other common element, the drawback to my power, to my mode of operation, was that I wasn't dynamic. I wasn't a blitz hitter, in and out in a flash. I could be aggressive, impulsive, improvising on the fly, but it took metime to get my soldiers in a row, to prepare my tools and drag things to where I needed to be. Fighting Mannequin had been like that, those two long minutes of sustaining a beating while I got all the supplies and spiders to the site of our skirmish.
Even escaping the house, it hadn't been quick. I'd had to hunker down and amass enough decoys before dropping from the window.
Calvert had studied us. He'd be aware of this.
Dinah and faux Skitter were walking. Whatever excuse they'd given for not being able to ride Atlas, they'd opted to travel on foot instead of riding on Bentley or catching a ride in the truck Calvert's man had driven. Maybe that wasn't because Dinah was scared of the dogs. Maybe faux Skitter had suggested it, encouraged this for some greater plan.
They wanted to let me catch up. They were betting I'd get here, then take time to deal with the squads so my teammates weren't in danger. By doing that… what? How would he capitalize on it?
Identify the direction I was attacking from, then bring all the soldiers he'd had at the deathtrap house here to corner me? Bring the Travelers? Über? Leet?
Dinah struck the side of her leg with the bug she held, hard. Grue said something I didn't catch.
The message was clear. Now.

Dinah wants to help. I think she used her power again, despite the danger of headaches, and she analyzed all the possibilities of the right time when Skitter have to take action. She stopped at the best possibility and signaled Skitter. Thomas, this little girl is smarter than you.

You had a great occasion to kill Skitter with the bomb but you missed it. Dinah have an occasion to mess with your plans and she's using it as efficiently as possible. Shame on you, stop spending so much time around Uber and Leet. Their companionship is not doing any good to the efficiency of your evil master plans.

:lol

If Calvert was expecting me to delay, to take my time and be methodical about this, and Dinah was urging me to be aggressive, throw myself headlong into this situation, that had to point to something. I'd decide what the hell I was supposed to do while I was en route. I broke into a run.

I couldn't move directly to their location. I had to backtrack, find a route that didn't put me in view of any of the watching squads. The activity was making me cough, and I was forced to suppress it or limit it to muffled choking as I got closer to the soldiers.
Sweeping the whole of my range with my bugs, I found a route. I had to backtrack a touch, move a bit closer to the water, but I found the construction site, and I found the ladder leading into a hole in the ground. From there, it was a short climb to accessing the storm drains.
The acoustics of the storm drains made for a lot of noise, even if it wasn't raining aboveground. The water varied from knee-high to waist-high, depending on how much debris had filtered down, and it was moving with enough speed that it interfered with my ability to run. My chest screamed at me in pain every time I was forced to stoop down to touch ground with my good hand for added support, and I didn't dare cough for fear that the same acoustics that made the area echo with the flowing water would carry something to the ears of soldiers above.
The realization hit me when my swarm reached far enough to sense the second mortar and accompanying squad of soldiers. There was an advantage to putting myself in the middle of the mortar's target area. I just had to get there.
I picked up my pace, hurrying in the direction of my teammates and Dinah, slipping on the slimy footing and loose grit, trying not to cough and failing. It didn't matter too much. I was past the perimeter and closing in on my teammates, using my bugs to figure out which turns I needed to make and which paths were most open to travel.
In a matter of minutes, I was close enough that I had to find a way up. My bugs identified a ladder, and I pushed my way up, using one shoulder and my legs to lift the drain cover from its housing.
I emerged just far enough away that I thought the sound of the cover wouldn't be audible. Bentley perked his ears up as I used my good hand to set the drain down, but didn't do anything further.
My concern and my worry were driving my range outward. I was sending any bug I didn't need for sensing my surroundings to the periphery of my range, gathering them near the mortars. Spiders threaded cords of silk together, and other bugs gathered en-masse. Being here, at the bullseye, with my range extended like it was? It meant I could strike at each of the four mortars simultaneously.
I hit each squad of soldiers in the same moment, a tide of bugs washing over them. I tried to wind cords around the noses of the mortars, snag them on anyone who was moving, but they were too stable.
One soldier grabbed a bomb and moved to load it into the tube of the mortar. In an instant, I had the full mass of that one swarm on him, slipping beneath the stylized, high quality armor and masks Coil outfitted his mercenaries with. They bit, stung and attempted to wind cords around him, tying his hands, for lack of a better word. He put the mortar down and backed off, and I eased up on him, settling for a more general form of attack.
Snipers couldn't fire, mortars were out of commission, and the soldiers weren't in a position to attack.
And faux Skitter raised her head a fraction, her back straightening. If I could see, and if I were in a position to see her, I might have missed it, but I was aware with my bugs on her. She knew. A headset beneath her mask? A communications device in her ear, feeding her info?
I ran towards my team. Bugs stirred around the others, as I attempted to rouse them and get their attention.
Fake Skitter wheeled around, reaching behind her back to draw her gun. Her arm caught Dinah around the shoulders, hugging the girl to her side.
I missed the first part of what she said. The meaning was clear. "…got no more use for you."
And she sounded like me as she said it. I could sense the shock on the part of my teammates.
And I could sense the trap fall into place, as though a switch had been flicked.
The bugs I'd placed on my teammates to sense where they were went on the attack. It wasn't my command.
I tried to push the bugs to stop, but my power was drowned out. It wasn't that the commands they were receiving were more powerful than mine, more that they kept coming, a singular, crude set of commands extending across my entire range, maybe even further, every half second, overriding any ongoing instructions to my bugs. Attack, move this way, attack, move this way.

Despite all the attempts of Dinah and Skitter to help each other, Fake Skitter realized what Skitter is planning/doing and decided to take action herself. Or rather Genesis decided for her, if she's indeed a projection. I wonder how she have Skitter's power? Maybe Genesis copied Skitter's power for her projection or if she's human, its a huge possibility that she's using a Tinker tech (something made by Leet or Chariot) who allow her to control bugs in almost the same way Skitter is doing. Something like a device transmitting electrical and chemical signals to bugs? Skitter will have troubles too with the device, because the bugs won't listen to her but to the signals they receive from the Tinker-tech. She can't protect her team, she can't protect Dinah, she can't even protect herself. She's completely blind and powerless in a world hostile to her.

Grue said something, and I couldn't catch it.

"Betraying us!?" Bitch screamed the words. Next to Bentley, she was suffering the worst of it as the bugs attacked.
"Sorry…" my doppleganger said. I missed the tail end of what she said after that, but it ended with, "…the plan."
Sorry, Bitch. It was always the plan.
"No!" I shouted, and the act of shouting made me cough until my knees buckled. I could feel the bugs gathering on me, attacking mindlessly, collecting on my scalp. Still coughing, I reversed the short cape that sat around my shoulders and pulled it over my head to serve as a hood. It didn't do anything to kill the bugs that were still alive and present, but it kept more from accumulating.
I was too far away for any of them to hear. A block away. Miles away, for all the good it did.
The other Skitter fired her gun at Bitch, one shot after another. Grue blanketed the area in darkness, and the false Skitter dropped her weapon. I could sense Bitch slumping on Bentley's back, Bastard spilling from her lap to hit the ground and roll on impact.
Did he clone me?
No. I could sense the movements of the bugs throughout my range, even if I couldn't control them. They were moving in a massive, slow spiral, drifting counterclockwise and attacking anyone they came in contact with, and the center of the effect, where they were settling and gathering in piles? A box in the center of one building.
Had to get there, shut it down.
I struggled to my feet, half-running, half-staggering as bugs gathered in a heavy carpet on me. I was lightheaded, exhausted, still coughing, and the first of the bugs were arriving from where they'd been attacking the soldiers.
I sensed Dinah in the midst of the swarm. The pheromones that false Skitter wore were serving to override the pulses from the box, keeping bees and wasps from doing too much damage to the pair. I wasn't sure how they planned to deal with the more dangerous spiders, but the bugs that were moving across land were slowed by the constant vertical ascents and descents as they ran into buildings and other features of the landscape.
False Skitter hurled a canister into the midst of my teammates.
A flashbang. I could see the flare of light, the concussive sound that scattered the bugs that had congregated on them. Heading for the swarm box, I wasn't close enough for it to really affect me.
The mortar crews were packing up their equipment and climbing into the trucks to beat a retreat from the scene. This is Calvert's doing. He was convincing the others that 'I' was turning on them the second I had Dinah. He'd probably rigged it so I would disappear afterward. Skitter out of the picture, in a way that was totally believable given my prior actions. The Undersiders would be mad, they'd be hurt, but they'd still be his.
Except I was here. I could convince them it was a trick. Either shut off the swarm box or take a left turn, show up where they were, and things would make sense in an instant, two Skitters, one a fake…
No, I had to shut off the box. I could feel blood, where some bugs had found flesh on Rachel and the dogs. If too many bee or wasp stings struck home, someone could be seriously hurt, needing epinephrine.
I could sense Dinah moving one hand, drawing it across her chest in deliberate gestures. From shoulder to shoulder, down the side of her body from her armpit, turning to cross the base of her ribs…
Letters. S. O. R. R.

And then the realization hit me with Alexandria's super-strong fist. Dinah wasn't helping Real Skitter when she signaled her but Fake Skitter, making her aware of Real Skitter's presence. Dinah betrayed Skitter.

No, Dinah, I'm NOT mad at you, even if you did what you did. I perfectly understand that Thomas forced you to play this trick on Skitter, luring her in a trap. Its not your fault, you poor innocent child "hugs Dinah without any care about Fake Skitter's reactions", you're forced by a MONSTER to betray the person who wanted to save you more than anyone else.

Please, Skitter, find the Bugs Box Device and crush Thomas' skull with it. Everyone will be thankful to you except for Doctor Mother who'll sulk in a corner of her lab. Gosh, I hope that Bitch will be ok, she was shoot by the Fake Skitter but maybe the super-jacket that Skitter made for her protected her somehow.

There was no time for the Y. Both Dinah and the other Skitter disappeared, replaced by a collection of rubble and a single flashbang. The others were still reeling from the first when the second flashbang detonated.

More boarded up windows and doors. I fired my gun at the handle of the door and then kicked. I did more damage to myself than the door, collapsing in another coughing fit.
The others recovered before I did. I could sense Grue standing, shouting something. I couldn't understand him with the effect his power had on his voice. Not the first time I'd run into that issue. Rachel was up too, using Bentley to stand, one hand pressed to her side. I sensed the hot knot of metal where it had impacted the reinforced jacket I'd given her. Good.
"Find her!" she shouted. "Find Skitter! Hurt! Kill!"
Bentley broke into a run, zig-zagging across the street they were standing on toward where false Skitter had been.
Did they make her smell like me? They had to have, to keep the dogs from barking distress. But how? Had Calvert had his men raid my stuff? Had he used my dirty laundry?
I felt violated, not just because of the potential trespass, but the extent to which they'd stolen my identity and abused it.
Bentley raised his head and then turned right in a loping run that would put him behind me in a matter of seconds. Then he'd have my trail, he'd zone in on me… I could picture what happened next. I wasn't in a state to put up a fight.
I climbed to my feet, reloading my gun, then fired three more times at the door handle. A gnat that was following the spiral summons of the swarm box made contact with a deadbolt on the far side of the door, and I shot at that too. This time, when I kicked, it opened. I collapsed to the ground, my cough so fierce and ragged that I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd been expelling flecks of blood into the inside of my mask.
Bentley spotted me and began charging. I crawled inside, brought my legs up to my chest to get them out of the way of the door, and kicked it shut.
The mutant bulldog was too large for the door. When he impacted it, it split across the midsection, the upper half coming free of the hinges, and the surrounding brickwork bulged inward, cracked mortar showering down around me. The wooden framework around the door kept him from getting much further, wooden pillars of support that were a foot thick on each side. It made sense that Calvert had picked a fortified structure to stick the swarm box inside. Small blessing that it afforded me some small advantage as well.
Bentley butted his head against the doorway again, getting no further than before, then backed away a few steps and howled. Bitch and Grue were already en route, following the sound of gunshots. I could hear Bitch howl a response to Bentley's cry, an utterance of raw anger and promised violence. Bastard was at Bitch's side. He was bigger, growing spikes of bone and an armor of calcified muscle. He would fit through the door.
I crawled for the swarm box. The bugs were thick, and though they couldn't penetrate my costume, they were making their way into the folds at my neck, around my hood. It was due to numbers rather than any design, but it was stifling. I could barely breathe, and having to climb through a mass of bugs as big as a large tank, feeling them biting, stinging, feeling the venom the wasps and bees were injecting into me…
I raised myself up enough to get a grip on the tarp that covered the box, and then let myself collapse to the ground, coughing, maintaining my grip so I pulled the tarp off as I fell. I was seeing bright spots in my vision, which shouldn't have been the case, because I couldn't see anything.
Getting onto my knees so I could find the wires of the swarm box was a gradual process, made heavier by the mass of bugs on and around me. Every bug for what had to be at least a mile in every direction, gathering here.
I tore at one handful of wires. Nothing. It was just a matter of time. I had a minute or two, judging by the speed Bitch and Grue were moving.
I reached to grab another and felt a hand on my wrist. Imp hauled my hand back, pulling me off-balance, then kicked me square in the chest. I doubted there was a place she could have hit me where it would have hurt more.

Imp is super-pissed, especially for "betraying" her brother who's also your boyfriend, and I agree with her point of view. Maybe I wouldn't be so violent like her, but I'd have been seriously pissed too. Bitch survived thanks to the Miracle-Jacket and she's also more angry than usual for feeling betrayed again. I understand her in the same way I understand Imp. As for Grue, Skitter is his girlfriend, not only his teammate and he likes her a lot, even if he doesn't know how to express his feelings. He must feel double betrayed: first by his teammate second by his lover. Poor Grue. Poor EVERYONE caught in Thomas' trap.

Please, guys, at least LISTEN her before you'll kill her. I know you have reasons to feel betrayed and angry but give her a chance to explain what happened. A single chance, this is what I'm asking for. Yes, I'd give Skitter a chance if I were in Imp's place, for example. Even if I'd feel angry as fuck I'll still give her a small benefit of the doubt, being ready to listen her story and decide afterwards if I believe her or not. I think Grue will listen, because he's the most pragmatic and rational of them, in Tattletale's absence.

I lay on the floor, alternately writhing and spasming as pain lanced through me.

"Did the doggie get you?" Imp growled the question. "Good. Turn off your fucking power."
I had only a helpless noise to offer in response.
"I warned you. Warned you what you were in for if you let my brother down. So do I use the knife, make it quick?" she drew a knife. Then she drew her taser with her other hand, "Or do I stick you with this until you stop using your power? Then we can find some place where you don't have your bugs, and take the slow option."
Grue and Bitch entered through the door, and I heard Grue mutter something. Bitch gripped Bastard by the collar.
"Imp. You found her," he said. He sounded strangely unaffected by recent events. There was no emotion to his voice.
"We were just discussing options."
"I heard. Taser won't do anything. Worse than anything, she'll use her power while she's asleep," Grue said.
I opened my mouth to speak, coughed instead.
"What about if she's dead?" Bitch asked. She didn't sound disaffected. She sounded pissed. "I can do it, if you two can't stomach it."
The lack of a response from Grue was unnerving. He kneeled beside me, putting one knee on my bad wrist. I cried out in pain, coughed more. He just stared. Not that he could see much, with the way the bugs filled the room.
When he finally spoke, it was one word. "Why?"
I struggled to gain my breath, to center my thoughts. I felt dizzy.
What could I say? Was there anything that would convince them?

I remember something. Grue's power. He can steal Skitter's power to see if the bugs are attacking under her command or they're influenced by Bugs Box Device. He can tell the difference and realize that she never betrayed them. Please, Grue, I appreciate a lot that, unlike Imp and Bitch, you're willing to listen Skitter, but you have to use your power to see how innocent she's. USE YOUR FORCE, GRUE!!!

If I said it wasn't me, would they believe me? If I turned their attention to the swarm box, would they think it was a bomb?

He waited patiently for me to recover enough to respond.
"Use…" I wheezed in a breath, "Dark."
I closed my eyes as the darkness flowed over me. I felt my power weaken, realized I'd unconsciously been pushing the bugs to hold back. I felt their attack intensify.
Grue stood. He opened his hand, fingers splayed, and his darkness dissipated. He turned to Bitch, gestured to Bastard.
"Yeah?" she asked.
"Yeah." He pointed.
"You sure?"
"I'm sure."
Bitch whistled, Bastard lunged, and the swarm box caved in beneath the wolf cub's front paws.
The swarm went quiet.
Grue offered me a hand, I took it, and he hauled me to my feet. I was unable to balance, dizzy, and leaned heavily into him.
"You're not buying this, are you?" Imp asked.
"It wasn't her."
"She's playing you."
"It wasn't her."
Imp folded her arms. Bitch didn't move.
Grue murmured, "Explain what's happened. Then we need to take care of you."
I shook my head.
"No?"
I coughed briefly. "Tattletale. Regent too. They're in trouble. We left them with Calvert. With Coil."

Thank you, Grue, thank you for listening Skitter's suggestion (and MY suggestion) about using your power. You're such a rational and good person, you're willing to listen someone despite believing she was going to kill you and everyone else.

You got a big white ball from me, you smart human being. If you'll know what your girlfriend had to endure, you'll want to kill Thomas with your hands. But Thomas doesn't deserve to be killed. Death will be too easy for this fucker. He deserves something similar with Cherish. Even if I can't think now at another punishment like Cherishs but whatever will be Thomas surely deserves it for everything he did lately, starting with trying to kill Skitter, using Dinah against Skitter, taking advantage on Undersiders' weaknesses and siccing them on Skitter and finally making in a way for Skitter to be hunted down and almost killed by the only real friends she ever had. Let's not forget that he's keeping Tattletale and Regent hostages and I'm sure that a monster like him takes a great pleasure in torturing them. Surely death is too easy for him. Guys, I can't hate Jack or Doctor Mother or any supervillain I can think of and is not a silicon statue as much as I hate Thomas right now. In only 3 Chapters he did more awful things to the main characters than Jack personally (not with the help of his team) did during the few Arcs dedicated to S9 Menace.

Good night and sleep well, my friends.

blackarrow · Sep 17, 2018

10moorem II said:
Oh no, it is always on. Taylor just knows attacking them in broad daylight would end badly.

Plus she has the need to feel morally superior to them.

If her power is always on, then how she can control it so masterful ? She almost never seem to lose control over her power in every situation, with only few exceptions. Aisha's power is always on and she needs a lot of concentration to turn it off, to give you an example. So, Taylor have an impressive control for someone whose power is always on.

blackarrow · Sep 17, 2018

I have an request. If Coil will be killed, please, confirm me once I will finish liveblogging the Chapter where he'll be killed if he's dead for real or he's alive and well in another timeline. Because I'm not sure if I will have to be happy about his "death" or not, with his power I can't be sure what is real or not. Thank you, my dears.

10moorem II · Sep 17, 2018

blackarrow said:
If her power is always on, then how she can control it so masterful ? She almost never seem to lose control over her power in every situation, with only few exceptions. Aisha's power is always on and she needs a lot of concentration to turn it off, to give you an example. So, Taylor have an impressive control for someone whose power is always on.

Let's just say that "impressive control" is part of the package.

fabledFreeboota · Sep 18, 2018

blackarrow said:
I have an request. If Coil will be killed, please, confirm me once I will finish liveblogging the Chapter where he'll be killed if he's dead for real or he's alive and well in another timeline. Because I'm not sure if I will have to be happy about his "death" or not, with his power I can't be sure what is real or not. Thank you, my dears.

But blackarrow, if he was only alive in another timeline, wouldn't only he know that?

blackarrow · Sep 18, 2018

Hello, my friends. Last time, Skitter barely escaped alive after Thomas tried the following: to shoot her, burn her, use her own teammates against her, but he didn't tried the most useful method to kill an annoying cat (because of her 9 lives, get it?) like Skitter, the one with the bomb that I was talking about.

Grue -bless be his soul forever- listened her and used his power to see if she's indeed a traitor or another victim of the biggest traitor. Now, I think that they'll apologize for almost maiming her, even if is not actually their fault, bring masterfully manipulated by the Devil himself, but apologizes are always welcomed. Then they'll make plans to release Tattletale and Regent then take Thomas down. How? I have no freaking idea, but this is something that they should try because if Thomas will continue to live, he'll fuck everyone up, including the whole City who doesn't deserve to have such a cowardly and heartless dictator.

But first they should stage Skitter's "death", somehow, pretending that they killed her for real, to appear more credible in Thomas' eyes. I watched a lot of Crime TV Series to know what they should do: like steal a cadaver from morgue (or a fucking mannequin), dress it in Skitter's costume, cover it with blood, put a wig on it and VOILA, Thomas will believe that Skitter was killed by her teammates and everything will go to normal.

Really? But what if Thomas will ask Dinah what she's seeing in the future and Dinah have to tell him the truth? Ok, a lot of "what of" and not a single certain answer. Let's see if we can find the answers in this new Chapter Monarch 16.13

With Grue's help, I seated myself on the intact edge of the destroyed swarmbox, scattering my insects to the walls and ceiling of the room. Grue paced a little, while I eyed Imp and Bitch. My female teammates didn't look entirely convinced, and I couldn't blame them. They'd just seen someone who matched my description attacking them. The nighttime darkness and the lack of city lights hadn't helped, and the obscuring swarm of bugs had helped hide the details from the moment the impostor gave them reason to suspect her.

"What happened?" Grue asked me.
"We arrived at the place he was keeping Dinah, she grabbed my hand, we turned around, and the headlights flashed. Then I was somewhere else."
"He switched to his highbeams, momentarily. Don't know about the others, but my eyes had adjusted to the dark. I couldn't see anything, used my darkness to try to cover us in case he was pulling something, but nothing happened. Turned around and you were fine."
"Except it wasn't me."
Grue nodded slowly. "Looked like you, sounded like you."
"I don't know how. Genesis?"
"Didn't strike me as much of an actor."
"Then I don't know," I said, feeling lame. I knew I didn't sound convincing.
"What happened? Was he only trying to separate you from us?"
"I'm ninety-five percent sure he tried to kill me."
"What's the other five percent?" Grue asked.
"I'm not a hundred percent sure of anything. But he didn't have a bomb waiting to go off when I arrived, so that leaves me with some doubt. He didshoot me, and set the building on fire around me. And he had soldiers waiting to gun me down if I stepped outside."
"Did he want you to come here, to frame you?"
"No," I said, shaking my head. "Doesn't make sense. Just as easy for 'Skitter' to disappear with Dinah, leaving you guys angry but still loyal. I think the way he wanted it, I'd die of the gunshot or burn up in a housefire, and he could use the lack of living reporters in Brockton Bay alongside some bribe money for the Travelers to ensure you guys didn't know what he'd pulled. Maybe something comes out later about me betraying you, to put it in perspective and put any lingering doubts to rest."
"He teleported you into a burning house, shot you, surrounded you with soldiers. And you escaped," Imp said.
"Barely." I touched the knot of metal where the bullet had settled in my armor. "I guess it's bulletproof after all. I got away because of stuff he wasn't aware of, mainly. My costume, tactics I've been using in the field, the fact I had a gun. Don't know if Calvert knew about that. Are you okay, Rachel?"
Rachel didn't respond. Her head was turned my way, and I could imagine her staring, trying to read me. Her hand gripped the chain at Bastard's neck.
"It wasn't me," I told her.
"It wasn't her," Grue confirmed. "I saw with her power. That box was controlling the bugs."
Bitch nodded slowly. I couldn't see her expression to know whether she was glaring at me or narrowing her eyes behind her mask.
"If you have any doubts," I said, "You can stay in a position to attack me if something happens. One whistle or one hand signal away from commanding Bastard or Bentley to tear me apart. I hope you won't leap to any conclusions, but-"
"It's fine."
"Are you sure? Because I don't want there to be any hard feelings or… I don't want there to be hard feelings."
I'd almost said retaliation, but I'd decided I didn't want to bring that up.
"It's fine," she said, and there was a touch of anger to the words. "This shadow and dagger shit pisses me off."
"Cloak and dagger," Imp offered.
Bitch made a low, grunting noise in her throat that fell somewhere between a huff of anger, a belch and a grunt. "The way you acted before, the way that person acted when she shot me and the way you're acting now, none of it makes sense, and maybe that's 'cause I'm stupid. But I'm going to handle this my way. Next time someone shoots at me, I kill them. Or I have Bastard eat their hands and feet."

No apologizes? I don't think I'm happy with this whole "no apologizes" stuff. I know that they have almost nothing to apologize for, but still...they still attacked her and if Grue wasn't such a pragmatic guy, Imp would have stabbed her or she would have served as Bitch's dogs' feast. Anyway, nice reference about Cloak and Dagger, Bitch and Imp, look like you know a thing or two about fictional heroes (I'm sure Cloak and Dagger are fictional in your world too. I wonder what you have to say about X-Men and how the mutants there have powers thanks to a special gene, not to aliens). Besides, one time I compared Grue with Cloak because they're pretty similar in many things.

No, Bitch, you're not stupid. Don't underestimate yourself like this. You're actually opposite of being stupid, you're smart and you're very talented in what you like to do the most- training your dogs and taking care of them. You're also excellent at reading people around you, you're the only one who didn't liked Coil first time when you met him in person. You're not street-smart like Imp, super-cunning like Tattletale, clever like Regent or pragmatic like Grue. Or a battle-genius and formidable planner like Skitter. But you have your own intelligence, a raw, almost feral intelligence, but is just as important as the others' intelligence, and you should stop selling it so short.

"You shouldn't maim people," I said.

"Says the person who just emptied a gun clip at us," Imp said. When Grue and I turned her way, she raised her hands, "Kidding. I'm just kidding."
"…Want me to kill them instead?" Bitch asked.
"No! No. Just… nevermind. But hold back a bit for now. And don't call yourself stupid. You think in a different way, that's all."
She offered a noncommittal grunt in response.
"We should talk rescue plans," I said. "Calvert invited Tattletale to join him, probably so she wouldn't tip us off about the body double. That means she's probably caught. Regent too, since we sent him to look after her. This is the kind of situation we were hoping to avoid by playing along with his grand plan."
"Having to tackle his full forces to save Tattletale, Regent and Dinah."
"Right. If we go charging into this, we or one of his hostages will get killed."
"I could go in," Imp said. "Get them, walk them out."
"No. He knows us. He's anticipated something like this. Probably has for the Travelers, too. He'll have planned around our powers, with counters in mind for each of us. That means video cameras to keep an eye out for you."
"Pain in the ass."
"Indirect attack?" Grue suggested.
"It won't work if he's holed up somewhere safe. Not with the countermeasures he'll have put in place. If he's in his underground base until this all blows over, then he'll be impossible to access," I said. I had to stop to cough.
Nobody chimed in with an answer or idea while I recovered.
I went on. "If he's in the PRT offices, then we'll probably have to get past the Travelers, his soldiers, his PRT officers, any countermeasures he's put in place and any countermeasures the PRT put in place. It'd be a question of staggering out his various lines of defense so the more questionable ones are out of sight of the good guys."
"And he still has his hostages," Grue said.
"Fuck it," I groaned, then I coughed more.
"You need a hospital," Grue told me.
I shook my head, then regretted it. I felt dizzy. Vaguely nauseous. It was as though simply stopping and letting the adrenaline kick down a notch was letting symptoms emerge. "Can't. Not now."
"You're nearly dead on your feet."
"I'll manage," I said. I turned my eyes to the place I'd been lying while Imp stood over me. "What if I was dead?"
"Hm?"
"Calvert doesn't have a way to know how this turned out. Do you have phone service?"
Grue reached for his phone, but Imp had hers out first. "Sure."
"He cut my phone off. I threw it away in case it could be used to track me, or in case it was how he was getting a hold on me with that teleportation device. If he suspected you, wouldn't he do the same, limit your options?"
"So you think he thinks maybe something happened. Or he's waiting to see if we bought his ruse."
"He knows I was in the area. I attacked his men trying to save you guys. He had gunmen and explosives teams ready to wipe you off the map if you caught on to what that impostor was doing. So what happens if you call him and tell him you killed me?"

Hospital can wait, Skitter is more busy now hunting down a dangerous snake than taking care of her blindness and wounds. Her teammates aren't aware that she's blind, she didn't told them a word. I wonder how they'll react. I can see each one reacting in their own way: Grue will be super-worried, asking Skitter to stay behind until the whole thing with Thomas will be over <3, Bitch will encourage Skitter to not show any weakness to the enemy and keep fighting

, Imp will make some stupid jokes about Skitter being blind despite having "so many eyes at her disposition"

and Bitch's dogs will not give a fuck because they're dogs and they don't understand why blindness for humans is so bad

. They only know words like "Master", "Kill", "Hurt", and its enough for them. Alright, they're going to stage Skitter's death as I predicted they'll do. A cadaver? A mannequin? Its going to be fun if Skitter will take her costume down and fill it with enough bugs to make it appear as a real human body. But not funny enough for Thomas. Now I'm imagining him shooting Skitter's costume to be sure that she's dead beyond any doubt then a swarm of bugs will fly/crawl out the costume in the next second, covering Thomas and his people. I'm laughing like crazy right now thanks to this mental image.

rofl:

"He asks us to meet him at one of those secure locations you mentioned, and we can't refuse without revealing that we know what he tried to pull. And destroying that box might have clued him in anyways."

"Fuck," I muttered.
"When the other Skitter disappeared with the girl, how did she do it? Exactly."
"Teleporting," I said. "Threw the first flashbang, teleported out, leaving rubble and another flashbang behind."
"Mm," he said, "Okay."
"Why are you so curious about that?"
"Just thinking something through. Give me a second to think." He pointed at me, "Make sure you're taking deep breaths in the meantime. Even if it hurts."
I nodded and did as he asked. For a little while, I ignored my bugs and focused on tallying the damage I'd sustained. My breath wheezed and rattled, my chest hurt every time it or something attached to it moved, and my eyes stung when I opened them. Not that there was any point.
Grue was pacing, breathing hard, while Imp and Bitch stood by. It was a bit of a reversal of the norm. I could sense Bitch scratching around Bastard's ears, her fingernails digging in deep to get past the areas with armor and bony spikes. Imp was on the other side of the room, leaning against one of the wooden pillars and watching her brother.
"I'm calling him," Grue announced, still panting a bit. Before any of us could protest, he said, "Quiet."
I closed my mouth.
He put the phone on speaker. I could hear it ring.
Funny how something so mundane as the ring of a phone could sound so ominous and eerie, given the context of a situation.
"Grue," It was Calvert's voice. "What-"
When Grue spoke, his words were growls, barks. "You better not have had anything to do with this, or I swear, this is over. We're done, gone."
I could virtually hear Calvert switching mental gears to try to adapt to this. "Slow down and then explain. I don't know what you're talking about."
"Skitter attacked us and then she used your technology to leave the scene. I know you wanted to keep that girl, but going so far as to fucking turn on us-"
"Grue," Calvert's voice was hard, firm, "Slow down. It doesn't make sense that I'd arrange things that way. Why go through the motions of giving my pet to Skitter, only to… you haven't fully explained what happened. You said she attacked you? Are you sure?"
"Pretty fucking sure, Coil. She shot Rachel and then turned on me. Imp disarmed her. Then she teleported away using the same device you described to us an hour ago."
"I… I see. Is Rachel all right? And who else was with you, my driver? You're all unharmed?"
"Your driver went ahead. No, we're all fine, except for Skitter."
"You said she teleported away."
"She didn't get more than two blocks away. We chased her down and stopped her."
My eyes widened a bit. I could imagine Calvert's next words before he spoke them, was already moving.
"Show me. Send a picture through the phone."
I shifted position so I lay in the depression that Bastard's front paws had made in the swarm box. It was a scene I had to stage in seconds, using dragonflies and wasps to carry hairs across my mask, moving my hand so my wrist bent at an awkward angle where the metal folded. The final touch was bringing all the bugs from around the swarm box to carpet me and the floor.
Not a half second after I finished, I heard the digitized camera sound.
"I see. That's quite unfortunate. Where's Dinah?"
You know where Dinah is.
"I don't know," Grue said. "I'm far more interested in hearing how Skitter managed to use your technology to do this."
"You're sure?"
"I saw it with my own two eyes," Grue said. "She threw a flashbang, but light and darkness don't affect me the way they do others. You know that much."
Grue was lying, adding an element Calvert wasn't aware of, to throw him off track. Good.
"I didn't, believe it or not," Calvert said. "And I don't know how she would have gotten access to the controls.
One moment. I'll have to call you right back."
My swarm felt Grue stiffen. He raised his voice, "Don't hang up on me!"
The speaker phone buzzed with the dial tone.
We stared at each other. Or the others stared and I used my swarm sense to observe. As a group, we were still and quiet for long seconds, the dial tone still blaring.
Grue hit the button.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Being aggressive, keeping him on his heels. If he's constantly defending himself, he won't be able to turn things back on us."
"Except he hung up. He's going to think through his options and give you an excuse when he's ready."
"I didn't think he'd hang up."
I frowned. I was thinking back to the meeting I'd had with the school, when my dad had been with me and we'd accused the trio of bullying. Both Emma's dad and the school had played their little power games.
"It's a tactic," I said. "He regains control of the situation by being the one who can call back, and it helps establish the idea of him being an authority figure."
"Damn," he said. "Sorry. It made sense in my head, but I didn't think it through, I'm tired. Didn't sleep last night. I figured it was better to call sooner than later."
"It's okay. Maybe call him back?"
He didn't get a chance. The phone rang.
"This wasn't the kind of response I wanted, Coil," Grue growled into the phone, the second he'd answered.
I heard the beep as he switched it to speaker phone. Calvert was already talking. "- have sequestered Regent in my custody, out of concern that he controlled Victor to have the young man hack into my systems."
"You and I both know that Victor didn't have that kind of access, and we didn't know about your teleportation technology until an hour ago."
"I fear Skitter may have known, and I'm simply covering my bases. Once we've verified what happened and that Regent wasn't complicit, I'll release him. You can understand where I'm wanting to be careful, given this turn of events."
"I don't understand anything, Coil," I heard a tremor of emotion in Grue's voice. "I liked Skitter, and she's dead. The use of the teleporter says you're complicit. I want to look you in the eye and believe you weren't a part of this."
"We'll sort this matter out. If you'll come to my headquarters, we can discuss this."
"No. Not your headquarters. Not with the possibility you pulled this shit on us. We'll meet somewhere else. Somewhere open."
There was a pause. "As you wish. Name a location."

Coil is evidently lying about Regent. He didn't took him prisoner because of Victor, but because he's a strong Master and Coil was afraid that he might control Coil's people in his closeness, manipulating them into killing Coil. And Coil wanted to avoid this unpleasant situation. He also took Tattletale as his hostage because her power would have stopped Undersiders from attacking Skitter and she'd have told them about Coil's plans. Regent and Tattletale were the most dangerous Undersiders for Coil.

He also probably tortured Tattletale to get information about Undersiders' next movements. My heart is crying for poor Tattletale's fate in the hands of this rattlesnake.

I'm sure he KNOWS that Undersiders are staging Skitter's death and once the Undersiders will reach the destination, they'll be surrounded by Coil's super-army. Before you'll go at the meeting point, you guys make sure that you have plan B at your disposition. Plan C too if plan B will also fail.

Grue, this time, was the one caught off guard. Calvert's response was fast, and Grue clearly didn't have an area in mind.

A place where we'd be able to set up faster than Calvert, ideally open, not riddled with attack routes and vantage points for his soldiers…
I thought of a spot, and the air caught in my throat as I suppressed a small noise. I almost coughed. I drew the word in the air with my bugs.
"The market, north end," Grue said, reading it. "You know it?"
"I do. It's shut down at present."
"Right. You come with only one small squad of soldiers, bring Tattletale and Regent."
"If-" Calvert started.
Grue hung up on him. He looked at me, "Authority, right?"
"Right," I said. But all I could hear was the emotion in his voice when he'd been talking about the idea that I'd been dead. Pretending. Grue wasn't a guy who showed his emotions, he didn't strike me as an actor. Hearing that had affected me more than I thought it would. I didn't want to ask if it was because he really cared or if it was because he'd tapped into something else, some vulnerability that his recent trauma had left open to him.
I coughed lightly. "The market's a good spot. His people were at the south end of town. It'll take him a bit to get there, so he won't be able to stage any kind of ambush."
"It works. But if we're meeting him, what are you doing?"
"Staying nearby," I said. "I'll wait in the wings. In the meantime, we should see if we can get our hands on something that we could have Bastard maul to the point that it looks like my mutilated remains."
"There a butcher still in service anywhere?" Grue asked.
"We'll figure something out," I replied.
The market was almost empty, an expanse of asphalt devoid of cars, surrounded by tall grass. There were still faint marks where the treads and scoops of bulldozers had pushed the dirt and debris to the far side of the lot. Only a few stalls were standing, but the displays were empty.
I felt exposed, naked. I was wearing only my old costume and the built-in makeshift skirt to cover me where the fire had eaten away at the leggings. My utility compartment was the one that had been damaged during our altercation with the Nine, holding the bare essentials, while my new mask and the upper half of my remade costume were presently being worn by the fake we'd made. The sacrifice of the costume hurt, and the process of putting the fake together hadn't been pretty.
The head, upper body and arms were simply taken from a child's mannequin we'd salvaged from the inside of a store display and stuffed into the top of my costume. To get the meat for the torn midsection, I'd had to use my bugs to root out and kill a raccoon from the bins of a dumpster. I'd cut it open and tied the entrails to the base of the mannequin's torso with my spiders. A wig that vaguely matched my own hair was simply bound to the head. We soaked the body, the wig in particular, with the blood of the dead raccoon.
Bentley's tail wagged as he carried the thing delicately in his heavy jaws, one arm and a bloody mess of hair dangling from the left side of his mouth, raccoon intestines hanging out the other.
I headed into the tall grass and hunkered down. Volumes of insects and arachnids that I'd picked up during our trek to the market settled around me, hidden at the base of the grass.
Adrenaline kept me awake, despite the fatigue that I was experiencing. It had been an intense few days, an intense few weeks, with minimal chance to rest. My body was probably struggling to heal, and draining what little reserves I had remaining. Still, I wasn't about to doze off.
Calvert arrived after ten or fifteen minutes, pulling up with one armored van. All in all, he had only four soldiers with him. He walked within twenty feet of me as he crossed the tall grass. I was aware of his footsteps crushing my bugs as he passed over the swarm.
Oblivious, he approached Grue, Imp, Bitch and the dogs.
"Ah. You brought Skitter. It seems there's little doubt she's dead. A terrible shame."
"No kidding," Imp said.
"I'd suggest my man look over the body, verify that it was her, but I suppose there's no point trying."
"Bentley wouldn't let you get that close to his treat," Bitch said.
Bentley growled, as if he understood the words and wanted to make it absolutely clear.
"Don't talk about her like that," Grue said. "Calling her a treat?"
"She betrayed us," Imp said. "Why do you care?"
"Enough," Calvert said, his voice hard. "Enough bickering. My time is valuable, and I'm not willing to waste it on entertaining this ruse."
I didn't have many bugs deployed on my allies or on Calvert, but I could still feel the others tense in surprise.
"Yes, I know. I commend you for trying, I might have believed you, but I do have other resources on hand."
"Then-" Grue started.
"Ah, bup bup," Calvert raised a hand, "I was talking. As I was saying, I have other resources available. I have a small cadre of supervillains, a small group of heroes, all the resources of the PRT and PRT computer systems, and all of their tools."
He snapped his fingers, and soldiers began to teleport down to the edges of the market. Most were positioned so that the Undersiders would have to run off the edge of the pavement, over the grass and into the water if they wanted to get away. Surrounding a target while holding guns only promised to get people shot. The effect, as it was, was good enough.
The Travelers teleported in behind Calvert, followed by Chariot, Circus, Über and Leet, and a few of his lieutenants. People in suits. One held a laptop while the other typed on it.
Every gun, tinker made or otherwise, was pointed at my teammates.
Another gun pressed against the back of my head. Soldiers had teleported in behind me.

As I was sure about Thomas seeing behind their little trick, unfortunately it happened. Poor raccoon, it died an underserved death in vain.

Now they're surrounded not only by Coil's super-army, but also by his most loyal hit-parahumans and Travelers. I really don't see how they can fight everyone and escape. Maybe they'd have a chance against the hit-parahumans, but Travelers will show Undersiders why Dinah said that if Travelers will encounter S9 members, they'll have more chances to survive them than Undersiders will have. Plus, there are the soldiers too. Skitter's costumes may protect them against few bullets, but I won't be surprised if Thomas took care to equip his men with armor-piercing bullets in the meantime. After all, he won't want the story with Skitter to repeat.

I felt despair sweep through me. No. Too many. Didn't think he could teleport this many in.

The gun barrel prodded me, and I stood. I walked with the gun pressed between my shoulderblades, just abovethe spot where my utility compartment hung.
"Skitter. How nice of you to join us."
"Cut the fake civility," I said. "Where are our teammates?"
"Regent and Tattletale are safe and locked up, rest assured. I must say, I'm quite disappointed. I really had hoped this would work out, and the loss of the Undersiders sets me back by weeks or months in the grand scheme of my plan. Imp, you can cease trying to run. My men have cameras on you," Calvert gestured toward the laptop.
Imp moved her mask to spit on the ground, just to my right. It was a bit of a shock to find her standing there.
"Farewell, Under-"
"Wait." I said. Raising my voice made me cough.
"I don't see any point to waiting."
I hurried to recover and speak before he could give the order. "Dead man's switch."
Calvert sighed. "Ah. You are irritating, you know? On more than one occasion, I know, you've argued for the sake of the greater good. I've viewed the recordings the PRT has of your appearances at major events and I've come to know you fairly well. It's rather hypocritical that you're now working so hard to fight against the greater good."
"Against your rule."
"Essentially so. If you simply would have died quietly, the Undersiders wouldn't have been stirred to rebellion, I could have established a peace we haven't seen since the day Scion arrived and everyone involved here could have walked away happier and healthier. Your friends included."

BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT in all the languages of this earth. Thomas will never bring peace and prosperity in Brockton Bay or anywhere else. Everything he's saying is only a lie. Its like the biblical story of the snake-devil who deceived Eve with empty promises making her eat the apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What an allegory I made, I know...:lol Thomas deceives anyone he can with the same empty promises: City have financial difficulties but will prosper under his care, City is slowly destroyed by villains but he'll take care to eliminate them, heroes can't protect the City but he's the only one who can. I can see the future of Brockton Bay under Thomas' leadership: only he and his people will prosper not the random citizen, he and his people will remain the most dangerous villains, replacing the more tame ones, the City will turn into a paradise of villains pretending to be good guys and corruption. Now the City tomorrow the whole country because Thomas will not stop at a single city.

People like Thomas exist in real life, maybe this detail make him the most realistic villain in this story (Jack and Bonesaw- in my opinion- are the best villains but not the most realistic ones because I think that there's a very small/zero possibility for someone to meet a completely twisted serial killer who want to destroy the world and believes that he have the means to do it. Or a child with sick imagination who's also a successful mad scientist and an artist in her free time. People like them...real life have no place for them). But people like Thomas: corrupted politicians/ex-military men who convince the people to trust them by telling them what they want to hear, leaders with enough MONEY (the BEST superpower in our real world

) and influence to have entire nations kneeling at their feet, these people...these people exist, are scarily dangerous and apparently invincible. I said apparently invincible, because history and the actual events taught me that nobody is entirely invincible and anyone can fall when they expect the least.
This is the main reason why Thomas scares the crap out of me. Jack and Bonesaw don't scare me, I hate them, yes, but I'm also entertained by them. On the other side, Thomas scares me more than the entire S9 team (except for Mannequin) because he's so damn... realistic. And I don't like to be scared. Not at all, mister Calvert.

Good night and sleep well, my friends. I'll continue with the second part tomorrow and see how bad Undersiders will be fucked.

rafuki22 · Sep 18, 2018

Blackarrow, I want you to think about the consequences of Coil's death, for a moment, I want you to give up your preconceptions and think about the consequences. This is not a confirmation of Coil's death.
The real life has no place for people like coil? Forgive me but they are still here.
Just because you hate coil does not mean he's lying about brockton bay, he seems to believe what he says.

blackarrow · Sep 18, 2018

rafuki22 said:
Blackarrow, I want you to think about the consequences of Coil's death, for a moment, I want you to give up your preconceptions and think about the consequences. This is not a confirmation of Coil's death.
The real life has no place for people like coil? Forgive me but they are still here.
Just because you hate coil does not mean he's lying about brockton bay, he seems to believe what he says.

I said that real life have no place for people like Jack and Bonesaw, read it again, not like Coil. Because people like Jack and Bonesaw are not realistic characters while you can meet a lot of corrupted and lying politicians/dictators like Coil everywhere. Read it again, please, you got it wrong what I was trying to say. Besides, I'm absolute convinced that he's lying about everything he said. He's going to be a dictator who'll not keep not even a single promise. This is how people like him act in real life. For example, Hitler promised a lot of things to germans before coming to power. He indeed worked to stop the free falling of german economy but he also did way more bad stuff than what he promised to his own people. Well, Coil is kind of like him and like dozens of others dictators who were great manipulators of their people.
Consequences? If he will, people in Brockton Bay will live as happy free people, not slaves to a corrupt dictator, Dinah will be free and back to her family, nobody will try to kill Undersiders anymore (at least for a short while) and JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED. Consequences will be as "negative" as they'll be if Jack will die

I don't trust a single word this snake is hissing. If you like him and believe him then go ahead. You're free to do as you please. As for me: a dead Coil is the best Coil for everyone.

rafuki22 · Sep 19, 2018

blackarrow said:
I said that real life have no place for people like Jack and Bonesaw, read it again, not like Coil. Because people like Jack and Bonesaw are not realistic characters while you can meet a lot of corrupted and lying politicians/dictators like Coil everywhere. Read it again, please, you got it wrong what I was trying to say. Besides, I'm absolute convinced that he's lying about everything he said. He's going to be a dictator who'll not keep not even a single promise. This is how people like him act in real life. For example, Hitler promised a lot of things to germans before coming to power. He indeed worked to stop the free falling of german economy but he also did way more bad stuff than what he promised to his own people. Well, Coil is kind of like him and like dozens of others dictators who were great manipulators of their people.
Consequences? If he will, people in Brockton Bay will live as happy free people, not slaves to a corrupt dictator, Dinah will be free and back to her family, nobody will try to kill Undersiders anymore (at least for a short while) and JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED. Consequences will be as "negative" as they'll be if Jack will die
I don't trust a single word this snake is hissing. If you like him and believe him then go ahead. You're free to do as you please. As for me: a dead Coil is the best Coil for everyone.

It's not that I believe in coil, I do not do it, and I've written it many times (ha), but is it proven many times that Taylor and you have, how to say it? Tunel vision? Yes, we go with that.
Who will keep brockton afloat? The possible participation of cauldron?
Yes, I read wrong, I'm sorry, however, people like jack and bonesaw still exist, and are more realistic than you think ... at least when it comes to mentality.
Just because you think you're right does not mean you're not wrong.

blackarrow · Sep 20, 2018

Hello, buddies. Time to continue with Undersiders trying to NOT DIE so early in this story, while being surrounded by Thomas the Talking Snake, his army of mercenaries and child soldiers, Travelers, Uber and Leet, Chariot and the strange parahuman Circus. Let's see how lucky Undersiders will be because only the pure luck and God himself can save them now. Or an unexpected and total off-screen plan B that is going to surprise me.

Before I'll take a look, I want to tell you that my friend compared me with a villain who'll appear (she said) later in the story. She didn't told me if they're a man, a woman or bi-gender like Circus. She only told me that, knowing me, she believes that I'll dislike and like them at the same time and I have some things in common with them.

One of them: my general lack of trust in humans and how much I doubt about them. Second: my obsession with order and the hard to control impulse to repeat what I'm doing over and over again. I'm sure I have OCD because I like all my things to be in perfect order and I feel sick if something is not in the position or the order I want to be. Everything in my house is perfectly arranged, starting with my clothes and shoes and finishing with small things like pens, buttons, needles.

They're arranged after size, quick utility and even color. Yes, I admit that I'm so obsessed that when me and my parents visited family friends I couldn't exactly stop myself from arranging certain things in their house that I didn't liked how they were arranged. Should I add how embarrassed my mom felt (my father found the whole situation pretty hilarious)? Gosh, you can only imagine the expression of stupefaction of my family's friends but they're polite enough to not say anything. :lol I felt embarrassed as well, but I would do the same again and again because my obsession is stronger than my self control.

Do you know how I keep all the notes about Worm in my computer? Arranged in alphabetical order in a folder: each name and codename in alphabetical order, each affiliation in the same order, each power -the same order.

So, my friend told me that I'm pretty similar with a supervillain in this story who didn't appeared yet. Alright, hope that is not another Coil cause I'll flip my shit if I'm sharing traits with a second Coil Monarch 16.13

"Tattletale excepted," I responded.

"Tattletale excepted, I admit. Too dangerous to be left unchecked. A shame. Now, you were saying?"
"I arranged a dead man's switch. Kind of. Unless one of my subordinates receives a message from me every twenty minutes, she'll mass-send emails to everyone important and even a few unimportant people."
"Detailing the true nature of Thomas Calvert, I suspect?"
"Yeah."
"I hate to break it to you, dear Skitter, but this isn't enough leverage for me to let you walk away."
I turned my head in the direction of my teammates. With my power, I noted their presence. Grue, Imp, Bitch, her dog.
"None of us?" I asked.
"No. I'm more confident in my ability to handle the chaos that any email creates than I am in my ability to get you and your teammates under my thumb again."
"Okay," I said. I could feel sweat running cold down the back of my neck. "Then I have a few questions, and a couple of requests. Satisfy that, and I can disable the dead man's switch."
"The requests first, if you please."
"Dinah goes free when you're done. You don't keep her forever."
"Agreed."
"My dad, you don't touch him."
"I haven't and I won't have reason to."
"And you take care of Rachel's dogs."
Calvert nodded, but I could sense his patience was running out.
"You do what you can to stop Jack from doing what he can to end the world. If you have capes at your disposal, you give them some job related to that. To stopping it."
"Fine. Is that it?"
"If none of us here get to live, at least promise Tattletale gets to."
"Fine. That can be arranged."
"I'll need to see her, to verify she's okay. I get that you can't prove you haven't gone after my dad in retaliation for earlier, but you can bring her here."
Calvert nodded at Chariot, who pressed a button on his wrist.
Tattletale appeared in a flash of light, arms bound behind her, legs shackled. She wore headgear that had her blindfolded and gagged. I couldn't quite tell, but it looked like the ears were plugged too.
"Satisfied?" Calvert asked.
"No. It could be a body double, like you arranged for me. I'd like to confirm with her."
"No. The restraints are in place for a reason."
"Then it's a body double," I said. "And I'll let the timer run down on this damaging piece of email."
"I'm willing to run that risk."
"Use your power," I told him. "I'm going to say the words rose-L. She'll reply with something green, followed by the letter A."
"I'm familiar with your codes."
"Great. And if she doesn't, shoot us. If there's a problem, go with your other world."
"You know how my power works?" Calvert sighed. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised in the end, with the name she chose. No."
"It's all I'm asking for. You can send your computer experts to the destination I name, they'll check the computer memory to verify no messages were sent, check the phones of everyone on my call history that you don't already know, and then you'll know you're in the clear. That's what I'm offering you in exchange for the assurance that at least Tattletale will get to live. Peace of mind."
"I could kill your liaison, you realize. She's a loose end."
I thought of Charlotte, hoped I wouldn't regret getting her involved.

-Releasing Dinah is BULLSHIT. Thomas will NEVER release Dinah because he'll need her to secure his position of power for the rest of his life. So, an empty promise.

-Not killing Tattletale is BULLSHIT. Tattletale knows a lot about him and she's a danger to him and he'll not be crazy enough to let to only person who can bring him down with the POWER OF INFORMATION free and alive. So, another empty promise.

-He'll not take care of Bitch'a dogs cause he'll kill all the Undersiders. He doesn't need them anymore, they know his real identity, they can cooperate with heroes in exchange of not being arrested to expose him as the villainous director of PRT. Bullshit promise.

-The only promise I can see him keeping is to not touch Skitter's father. But only because that Danny is not a danger for Thomas.
So, Skitter, are you so willing to trust Thomas after everything he did to you and your teammates? Or, better said, are you willing to be such a BIG DUMBASS? I swear to every God in existence, if Thomas will discover Charlotte and will kill her, this will be your fault, Skitter. Because you involved her while still trusting Thomas' poisoned words. You already involved her and he'll find her even if you'll not give him any name. He have the means and possibilities to find people that he doesn't like. I'll blame you if something bad will happen to that girl in the same way I blamed you for what you did to Triumph.

"I hope you won't. All I've told her is that she should await my message and send the file I composed if she doesn't hear from me regularly. I hope you'll let Tattletale and my civilian live, but if you won't, if you break your word, I guess I'll have to live with you looking a little worse in the eyes of the people who work for you. Like the Travelers."

"Don't bring us into this, Skitter," Trickster said. "This is your mess. Your consequences."
"I didn't do anything. He was the one who turned on us first," I protested.
I sensed Trickster turn Calvert's way.
Calvert sighed audibly. "As Skitter knows about my power and ever so kindly revealed the broad strokes of it to everyone in earshot, I suppose there's no loss in explaining. I tortured one member of the Undersiders for information, in another world, days ago. They revealed that you were plotting to turn on me if I refused to release Dinah. I cannot afford to release her, so my hand was forced."
"So it's our fault?" Imp asked.
"Ultimately, yes."
"How did you make those body doubles? Genesis?"
"The old-fashioned way. The one that replaced you was a Sudanese child soldier. I was preparing for the eventuality of your betrayal since the day after Leviathan attacked and your… wobbly allegiances became perfectly clear. It's amusing, but the files you stole from the PRT offices after rejoining the Undersiders supplied much of the video footage my hired experts used to coach her in the particulars of how you move and speak. When you went to convince the Mayor of our way of thinking, Trickster carried the devices Leet designed to record the particular signals you use to command your bugs."
"Which is how you built the swarm box."
"The Famine Engine," Leet said.
"Whatever."
"Any further questions?"
"Why didn't you drop me on top of a bomb?"
"An unfortunate side effect of Leet's power. Leet believes it was the proximity to the bomb or the particular signature of the vat of acid that made it so likely to occur, but with my power I observed that it wasn't merely a chance that the teleportation would fail and your well-trained body double would be caught instead, but a surety. No less than twelve tries with the variables changed slightly. Leet's power sabotages him, it seems."
"Is that Leet's passenger at work?"
"Passenger? Ah, that's what Bonesaw calls the agents. Yes, I suppose that might be the case. In any event, we nearly ran out of time before verifying that guns, fire and alcohol wouldn't skew his power. Whatever the cause of the errors was."
"Okay. So I don't suppose you want to let me confirm it's Tattletale and tell you who to contact to cancel the dead man's switch?"
"No."
"You've been careful every step of the way. Thinking five steps ahead, amassing resources, amassing top- notch underlings, getting us working for you, getting the Travelers. I'm surprised you're willing to let things go ass-backwards when you're so close to tying up the last loose end."
"It's precisely because I'm careful that I'm not willing to let Tattletale open her mouth and speak."
"You're still pretending it's Tattletale," I said.
"It is. I had no reason to arrange a body double for her as I did for you."
"You had every reason. Like you said, you didn't trust her, you couldn't let her work unchecked, and it would have been too unusual if the two members of the Undersiders that posed the biggest threat to your goals happened to disappear at once."
Calvert shook his head and touched fingers to his forehead, as if exasperated. "Your underling and Tattletale can live. That's all I'm willing to offer. You'll have to take my word on both points"
"Your word is worth nothing," Bitch spat the words.
Calvert reacted as if he'd been slapped.
"You promised me safety, security, so long as I joined this team. I've never been less safe, less secure. Everybody lies through their teeth. Maybe there's a couple of them I can stand anyways, but they're still liars, they've made me a liar, and you're the worst liar of them all. It's fitting you wear a snake on your costume."

Bitch, I'm gonna slap you next time when you'll call yourself stupid. You're more intelligent than a lot of people+ you have a keen observation and you're not afraid to say what you think. You're honest to a fault. I agree with you completely. Thomas' word means nothing, he's the worst liar and manipulator and his behavior fits with his costume. I and Bitch share the same opinions and beliefs about Thomas.

He went so far to sacrifice a sudanese child soldier, letting him die in his place. This "man" doesn't deserve any pity not even from people obsessed to not kill a fly. He indeed planned to teleport Skitter right on the bomb, just like I proposed that he should have done (but my version was- under bomb- not on the top of the bomb). Thanks to the alien who gave Leet his power (bless its little abstract, Lovecraftian-like heart, the alien sabotages Leet's power, thus inadvertently saving Skitter's life. Thank you, alien, I'm starting to like you without knowing much about you except that you hate Leet, the human host of your power, to guts for some reasons. Have fun sabotaging him and much as you'd like).

rofl:

"Enough," Calvert said, "Anything more and I'll order my men to shoot you."

"Shoot her and you'll never get the info you need from me," I said.
"You're a cheat, Coil!" Bitch barked.
"I'll have your dogs shot if you say another word," Calvert said.
Bitch fell silent.
Silence reigned for long seconds. I was aware of my bugs, knew that I couldn't have them attack without us getting shot. I knew my armor was bulletproof, Bitch's armored jacket was the same way, but the thinner fabric, or a bullet through the lens or eyehole of a mask? There were a lot of soldiers here. Even if the suits could stop the bullets from penetrating, we could be pulverized anyways.
I heard a wave crash against the shore, not far away. Long seconds passed.
"If it settles the matter, then fine," Calvert said. He signaled Chariot.
Another Tattletale appeared. She dropped to her knees the second she materialized. She wore a similar headset and bindings.
"Free her mouth and one ear. Be ready to gag her again the second she speaks."
One of his soldiers approached the kneeling Tattletale. He undid the gag and freed her ear of the plug that was held in place with wire.
"Rose-L," I called out.
"Stringbean-A," she replied. She grunted as the soldier forced the gag back into her mouth.
"She gets to live," I told Calvert. "If nothing else, you guys are going to need her help to figure out how Jack Slash ends the world in twenty-three months."
"It's amusing," Calvert said, "That you keep asking me for things I was already prepared to do. You wanted me to improve the city, to restore it to a working state. Already planned. And this? Killing Tattletale was never in the cards. I intend to keep her like I do my pet. Her power will be invaluable. Rest assured, I will offer every bit of assistance I can when the end of the world approaches."
"I suppose it was too much to expect that you'd let her go," I said. My heart pounded in my chest. I wasn't exactly feeling top-notch, so simply standing was feeling like a bit of a challenge. Fighting back, acting? No. No use. "Her name is Charlotte. She's staying in the red brick house a block to the east of my dad's place. She has a laptop, but she doesn't know what I put on it."
"Very well. Men? Ready-"
"-You're not going to check?"
"Aim…"
"Calvert!" I said, "Coil!"
"Fire."

See, Skitter? You fucking believed him against, with Tattletale, and he fucked you again, making fun of your naivety. He'll never release Tattletale or Dinah, and even worse, he's planning to treat Tattlelate just like he's treating Dinah: keep her on drugs, locked in a room, abuse her (all kinds of abuse I can think at right now) and so on.

The same he's planning for Noelle too, Trickster, stop being a dumbass blinded by love in the same manner Skitter is blinded by naivety. Thomas considers Noelle as his weapon and he'll use her in this way.

Trickster and the rest of Travelers with the EXCEPTION of Ballistic still believe Thomas and I'm sitting there hoping that Ballistic will make a move to betray his teammates and help Undersiders, stopping Thomas' men before they'll kill them. Or the heroes will appear out of blue because they found out about Thomas' identity as Coil thanks to Charlotte. Or Alexandria, telling him that Doctor Mother changed her mind about him being the savior of humanity and decided that he's actually a danger that should be removed by any means. Or Tattletale to have a really spectacular plan. Any solution that will keep Undersiders alive and will fuck Thomas up is a good solution.

The sound of the gunshots was deafening, debilitating when I was already missing my sense of sight, my bugs not present enough to give me a sense of the surroundings. I sensed Grue get hit, then Bentley… I took one in the stomach and folded over.

When the smoke cleared, for lack of a better term, we were still standing. There was the sound of a few isolated scuffles in the ranks of the soldiers. My bugs moved to the ends of gun barrels and to the soldiers themselves, noting their postures and positions.
Roughly half of the soldiers that surrounded us were holding the other half hostage. A few had managed to get shots off, but a quick feel-around with my bugs verified that nobody had been hurt enough to be knocked to the ground. Most of the bullets had gone over our heads.
"What is this?" Calvert asked. "Travelers-"
"Don't do a thing, Travelers," Grue boomed out, in his eerie, hollow voice. "Someone remove Tattletale's bindings."
One of the soldiers approached Tattletale and began undoing the restrictive binding. She wobbled slightly as she stood, working her jaw in the absence of the gag.
"Glad to see the stringbean plan worked out in the end," she said. "Those of you I haven't been in contact with, please hear me out. I'm paying twice what Calvert is for a year's salary, and I'm paying it all upfront. Look to the other team captains if you don't believe me. Fish, Minor, Richards, Meck, I've talked to them, and they've agreed."

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS. TATTLETALE HAD A PLAN. TATTLETALE HAD A WONDERFUL PLAN TO SAVE UNDERSIDERS AND DEFEAT THOMAS. SHE'S THE BEST, SHE'S ONE OF THE BEST CHARACTERS I'VE EVER READ ABOUT. SHE'S FUCKING PERFECT. Seriously, I can hardly type normal words here because I'm crying

. I'm crying in happiness, in delight, in joy, in....the JUSTICE WAS SERVED, Undersiders survived, Tattletale is GOLD and LOVE and...fucking kill Thomas. I don't care who, but someone should kill him. Even if Tattletale bought half of his men, Thomas- if they'll allow him to live- will get in a short time even more soldiers, will become even more powerful and will get his revenge for this humiliation. Even if she took his money as well, Thomas will become rich again because of his power and intelligence. There's no stalemate for him: there's either a total victory for Undersiders resulting in his death or a total victory for him. I know its hard to kill a man who seem to be already vanquished but death is the only way Thomas can be defeated for real.

There was a slight shift in the tension among the soldiers. The ones at gunpoint began slowly lowering their weapons, and the ones holding them there similarly let it calm a notch.

"Lies," Calvert said. There was an uncharacteristic degree of emotion in his voice. "I've tracked your funding. I know exactly how much money you have."
"Not exactly. See, I revealed this to my team, just a little while ago, but I've sort of been skimming."
"From me?"
"A bit. Not as much as you'd think. You keep good accounts. But our targets? For sure. Like, we go rob the Brockton Bay central bank, and maybe I skip off for five minutes to go visit the CEO's room, use his computer to get access to more funds, and shift them into a personal account. Or I keep a few of the more valuable pieces of paperwork, or I pocket something expensive during a job. Funny thing about a power like mine, it helps me figure out what I can get away with."
"You haven't taken enough to pay twice what I can."
"You'd be surprised. And some of your assets are in a position to be picked up by yours truly. Safe deposit boxes and safes don't mean much against me. So that's a bit more funding of yours that I can borrow to pay these guys. A year up front, and I'm not asking them to do a single thing. Most of them, anyways. I'm just asking that they ship out of Brockton Bay or they stay on the down-low."
"I'll pay triple," Calvert said.
"You can't pay triple," Tattletale said, stretching as the chains around her wrists and ankles were undone. "You've dented your coffers too much with the city revitalization. Didn't help that you paid such an exorbitant sum to the Dragonslayers for the information they were offering."
"That was your idea."
"Yeah," Tattletale said. "You were desperate enough to deal with the Dragon threat before your big show at the debate that you didn't make too big an issue of it. Either way, you forgot the cardinal rule of employing mercenaries. They follow the person with the money."
"I didn't forget," Calvert said, "I had that in mind every step of the way. I was exceedingly careful of how much funding I provided."
"Okay," Tattletale sounded almost chirpy. "But you didn't account for the possibility that I was picking up as much on my own as I was."
Calvert made a noise that was a borderline snarl.
"Undersiders," Trickster said. "This goes no further. Call it a stalemate, but we need his assistance."
"Calvert's lying, you know," Tattletale said. "He can maybe help you, but he can't help Noelle. None of the plans he's been talking about will work, and he knows they won't work. He wants Noelle for entirely different reasons. He thinks he can get her on a leash, so he's got firepower even if he gets rid of the supervillains working under him. A threat that only the great PRT leader Thomas Calvert can address."
"I'd rather see the truth of that for myself. You touch him and we kill you."
"You guys aren't wearing the same kind of durable costume we are," Tattletale said. "If you want to make a point of it, my soldiers can gun you down."

I'm still crying, you know. I can't really stop, this victory was exactly what I wanted to happen: My lovely Undersiders are alive, Tattletale is the best character, using the money that she took without Thomas' knowledge to pay his mercenaries and turn them into her loyal people; she also had this plan even from the beginning of this story ( its a huge possibility that she planned to recruit Skitter and turn her into a villain as part of her efforts to take Thomas down because she knew that Skitter will be a great help

). On the other side, Thomas is defeated, but not dead yet and...I feel terrible sorry for Trickster and Travelers- the only hope for the cure of their friends is on the way to be eliminated and Noelle is lost forever.

Trickster' soul must be crushed now and I'm empathizing with this young man so much right now but he also should understand once for all that Thomas never wanted to help Noelle; he only wanted to use her as his personal monster just like he used Dinah as his personal precog and Tattletale as his personal informant.

"I can swap your group with mine the second the gunshots happen," Trickster replied, unfazed. "You don't want to do that."

I tried to speak, coughed once instead. When I finally had my voice, I said, "Ballistic. Sundancer. Any other Traveler with doubts, I know you guys aren't happy with the status quo. If you want to stop running, stop moving constantly and move to Brockton Bay permanently, we'll have you. We need you, even."
A long pause stretched out, then Ballistic stepped forward.
"Hey, man," Trickster said. "No."
"I'm done. This was a doomed quest from the start," Ballistic said. He stopped at Grue's side, turned around to face his teammates.
"Sundancer?" I asked. "You said before that you were lonely, that all of this was too intense for you. Even the stuff I've done, it didn't sit right with you. I get that. Don't you want to stop? To say goodbye to this life?"
Trickster looked at Sundancer, "Mars."
She shook her head. "No. No, Skitter. I'm staying. Don't have another choice."
"Genesis?"
She was in the form of a girl, but wore a simple mask. "Someone's got to stay and be a real leader to this team. No. I'm standing by Trickster."
"Teleport me to safety," Calvert said. "Escort me away, and everything I have is yours."
"Everything you have is mine already," Tattletale cut in. "You've been dethroned, C-man. I'm going to rule as the mastermind behind the scene in Brockton Bay, organize the territories, pay the bills. My partners will see to the territories themselves. I suppose I won't be head of the PRT, but I'm suspicious we'll be able to work out a truce of sorts with the good guys. Hopefully we'll get someone more sensible than Piggot and less shady than you."
"Trickster," Calvert said. "I can put you in touch with the woman who can cure her. Someone who knows as much or more about Parahumans than anyone on the planet. It won't be free, but I can subsidize the costs. ut I have to be alive to-"
Trickster collapsed to the ground. Sundancer and Genesis turned, confused, and Ballistic caught Genesis with a spray of pellets. She dissipated into gory wisps of whatever substance formed her body.
Sundancer was only just creating her sun when she collapsed as well. I could see Imp bending over, prodding the bodies. Über, Leet and Chariot backed away as guns turned to point at them.
"Anyone who shoots one of the Undersiders will receive one million dollars!" Calvert shouted.
I waited for the inevitable bullet. It didn't come.
"Skitter and I had a little talk," Tattletale said. "Way back when the city had been freshly sieged by the Endbringer and rejoining the team wasn't even a consideration. I raised the idea of going after you, of taking you down. We knew that if you were going to let down your guard, if you were going to slip up at all, it would be when you were closest to achieving your goals."
Calvert only glared.
"If you made any one mistake, it was keeping me at your base towards the end of the fiasco with the Nine. The problem with keeping your friends close and your enemies closer? It puts your enemies in the midst of your friends, so they can discuss better means of payment with the right team captains. Or they can maybe arrange to put something in Noelle's vault during one of the feeding times, a few fire alarms with a low battery, tucked in where the door meets the wall. Irritate her, so she's awake that much more, and she then costs you sleep."
"That metaphor fell apart," Imp commented.
Tattletale shrugged. "Not so much a metaphor, but I got off track."
"Pettiness," Calvert said.
"Strategic. Lots of little things add up. Seeding doubts. Making you second guess plans. Keep you up at night wondering, planning just a bit more, in bothyour realities. You were too focused on the big picture, on the thing I could find out, keeping me off-balance, that you missed out on my ability to see the little things, to exploit them. And it wore on you. You didn't realize how much, but it did, and maybe that's why you were that much more susceptible to making the critical mistake here."
"Damn you," Calvert said.
"But you made the mistake we needed you to make, using your power here,while you were talking to us. There's no escape routes, now. The only loyalty you have is bought with coin, and I have more cash than you do."
"Then send me to the Birdcage and be done with it," Calvert said.

No, Thomas, damn YOU. Your end is near, they're not going to forgive you. You're irremediable, you hurt/killed too man people to deserve a second chance, you don't regret your actions not even a single moment, you'll escape from Birdcage or become a fucking feared leader over everyone there so there's no point for you being send there, you don't have not even a single drop of kindness, humanity, humility and honesty in your soul as black as your Coil's costume. You're less than a human and even less than an animal. Why they should spare your miserable life? For you to get revenge on them when you'll be able to do it? No way, Skitter is not naive anymore. And even if she still might be a little naive, Tattletale can simply order her soldiers to kill him, without caring what Skitter wants to do.

If he used his power right now, he'll DIE in both timelines, right? He's not survive in the second timeline because he already split the timelines and the same thing is happening to him without him being able to fix his mistake by spiting the timelines again, right? Because he have the possibility of only a second timeline, a second chance, not more timelines. Did I got it right, guys?

"To jail?" Tattletale asked. "No, no no no. I know you have contingency plans. Arrangements. We send you to prison and someone breaks you out before you get there."

I took a step forward, then made myself take another.
"It doesn't have to be you," Tattletale told me.
"No," I told her. "I think it does."
Calvert turned my way, let his head sink back so it rested against the ground. "So it comes down to this."
I thought of the countless lives I'd put at risk, if not directly, then indirectly: the ABB blowing up parts of the city, the ensuing gang war, Purity leveling buildings because she blamed us for the loss of her daughter.
There was the fat superhero I'd left to die when the tidal wave was incoming. I recalled leaving the dying Merchant to bleed out when I'd rescued Bryce from the merchant's festival of blood. There were the people in my territory, the old doctor who'd had her throat cut because I hadn't realized Mannequin was close until it was too late. The gas attack that killed nearly twenty people and the fires Burnscar had set in my territory, both because I'd provoked them and failed to consider how readily they'd go after the vulnerable point that was all the people I'd been trying to protect.
I remembered trying to kill Mannequin with grenades, going all-out in attempting to end a man's life. A madman, a monster, but it was what it was.
And, much more recently, there was the case of me bringing Triumph so close to death that he'd needed life support.
I'd come to terms with so much of that by telling myself it was leading to this. I'd known deep down it would happen. That my fight against Calvert would have to end here.
I walked forward until Calvert was beneath me. I drew my gun, checked there was ammo in the clip.
"You're not a killer," Calvert said.

She's not a killer, despite trying to kill people who deserved to be killed, like Mannequin and Bakuda or people who never deserved to die, like Triumph. But, YOU MADE her a killer, Thomas, you turned her into a cold-blooded killer ready to kill an already defeated man

(you know what, my friends? As much as I hate Thomas and want him to die already, I don't think I'd be able to kill him if I were in Skitter's place, especially since he's almost finished. I can see myself killing in self defense or in a very unpredictable act of blind rage but not in cold blood. NEVER in cold blood. But I'll let others to kill him, because someone should do what is right). And killing Thomas Calvert is RIGHT.

"No…" I replied. I couldn't see, so I screwed my eyes closed, felt the moisture of tears threatening to spill forth. I took in a deep breath.

"…But I suppose, in a roundabout way, you made me into one," I finished. I aimed the gun and fired.
The gun dropped from my hand as the recoil jarred it. It clattered to the pavement. It was quiet enough that I could only hear the ocean water crashing against the shore, just off the beach.
As an afterthought, I kicked the gun a distance away from where Calvert lay. Not that there was much point. I tried to learn from my mistakes.
I felt Tattletale's arm settle around my shoulders. "We're done. This is over."
"The Travelers will be pissed. I can't- we can't kill them," I said.
"We won't. They'll move on. They have no more reason to stay."
Grue stepped around my left side, bent down, took Calvert's cell phone from the man's belt and then tossed it to Tattletale. As Tattletale withdrew her arm from my shoulders, he stepped forward to give me a hug. "Let's go."
I nodded into his shoulder.
We turned away. With my swarm sense I was able to recognize Minor, Tattletale's man, helmetless, opening the doors of one van for us. I took a seat.
It wasn't Tattletale or Grue that sat down beside me, but Rachel. She took my hand in hers, held it fiercely. I wasn't sure what to make of it, so I simply accepted it.
We stopped at Coil's underground base. Tattletale's underground base. It was a relief to escape the silence of the van, surreal to be in the dim noise of downtown again. Much of the area still lacked power, but there were the noises of the occasional car, of people clamoring on the bottom floor of an apartment building. City noises.
"You okay?" Grue asked.
"More bothered by the fact that I'm not bothered," I said. I knew how little sense I was making, but I didn't feel like elaborating.
"But you're okay?"
I nodded, coughed fiercely for a few seconds.
"Our next stop after this is the hospital."
"Okay," I agreed.
As it had been at sunset, the base was empty. The metal walkway sang with my footsteps as I walked to the far end of the complex. I stopped at a door without a handle.
"Here," Tattletale said. She held Calvert's cell phone. Held it up and pressed a sequence of buttons.
The door clicked open. I forced my fingers into the gap and hauled it open. Heavy and metal.
There was one more door, one with a key lock. Tattletale stepped over to the desk and got the key, opened it.
Dinah was inside with an unassuming man in a turtleneck sweater and corduroy pants.
"Go," Tattletale told the man. "Your boss is dead. Just go."
He fled.
"I'm going to get Regent," she said. "Think we'll leave Shatterbird in her soundproof cage for now, just to be
safe."
I nodded absently. I was holding on to Grue for support, watched as Dinah stood from the bed and slowly
approached.
Her voice was barely above a whisper as she stared down at the ground between us, "I've been waiting for this for so very long."
It didn't sound like an accusation. More the words of someone who had been forced to watch the clock for
days, weeks, months. Anticipating a possible moment that might never come.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry it took so long."
She shook her head, "I'm the one who's sorry, you were trying hard and I set you up, so you'd go the way
where your friends tried to kill you. I shouldn't have-"
"Hey, it's okay. It offered us the best chances in the end, right?"
She bobbed her head in a nod.
A second later, she was running to me, wrapping her arms around my midsection. I winced in pain as her
forehead banged against my chest.
"Medical care," Grue said.
"For both of us," I replied. "Dinah and me."
"Yeah."
As a trio, we stepped out onto the walkway, where Tattletale and Regent should have been waiting.
But I could see Regent at the end of the walkway, and Tattletale wasn't with him. She was hurrying down the
spiral stairs just to Regent's left.
I leaned over the walkway, as much as I was able with the pain in my chest and Dinah clinging to my
midsection. My eyes went wide. A moment later, I was hurrying after Tattletale, holding Dinah's hand in one
of my own and Grue's elbow in the other.
We stopped when we reached Tattletale. She stood facing the vault door. The one that was used to seal
Noelle within.
There were two vault doors, one set behind the other, and both were ruined, the one closest to us nearly folded in half, hanging by one hinge.
"A final act of spite," Tattletale said. She looked at the phone in her hand. "He made sure she heard our
conversation."
"You didn't notice?"
"He was using his ability to create alternate worlds to throw my power for a bit of a loop. I was more focused
on the possibility that he had a loyal soldier in the ranks or a sniper waiting in the distance, ready to take a
shot at one of us."
The odor that wafted from the open vault was like sweat and rotten meat. It was dark. Nothing about it gave the sense of a teenage girl's living space.
"On a scale of one to ten," I asked, "Just how bad is this?"
"Let me answer your question with another question," Tattletale said. "You think we could convince the PRT to turn on the air raid sirens?"

THINGS I ADORED IN THIS CHAPTER:
-Tattletale rather predictable victory (but still surprising) against Coil. Arcs ago, I said- more as a joke than something serious- that Tattletale might be the one who'll end Coil's tyranny.

-Tattletale becoming the Queen of Brockton Bay (I TRUST Brockton Bay on her hands, she's a natural good leader and she obviously have good intentions).
-Thomas being killed....? I still can't enjoy properly this scene because I'm not sure 100% of his death. Can someone confirm me that he died in both timelines because the same scene happened two times and he was basically trapped because of his mistake to use his power right in that moment? Thank you.

-Ballistic being a wise young man and taking the right decision.

-Dinah BEING FINALLY FREE AND HAPPY.

-Bitch's closeness to Skitter.

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKED IN THIS CHAPTER:
-Thomas' final act of revenge.
-Travelers having their hopes destroyed (I sympathise so FREAKING MUCH with Trickster)

-Ballistic taking the right decision BUT betraying his friends at the same time.

-Everything about Travelers and their collective TRAGEDY (I don't pity not even Faultline Crew as much as I pity Travelers. At least Faultline Crew are happy together despite their personal problems).

-Skitter becoming a cold-blooded killer, despite being motivated to be one.
I'll talk about Noelle -this Proto-Endbringer that I'm sure she must hate Undersiders so much for taking her only hope for cure away from her- but in the next Chapter.

Good night and sleep well, my friend. God, what a hell of a Chapter with one of the most WTF hellish of an ending.

blackarrow · Sep 20, 2018

rafuki22 said:
It's not that I believe in coil, I do not do it, and I've written it many times (ha), but is it proven many times that Taylor and you have, how to say it? Tunel vision? Yes, we go with that.
Who will keep brockton afloat? The possible participation of cauldron?
Yes, I read wrong, I'm sorry, however, people like jack and bonesaw still exist, and are more realistic than you think ... at least when it comes to mentality.
Just because you think you're right does not mean you're not wrong.

I'm gonna ask you a question and I hope you'll answer with sincerity. If you're in Skitter's place, would you kill Coil, a "man" who was already defeated, knowing that you're killing him in cold blood despite being a NECESSITY to end his life? Because, NOW I'm sure that I won't be capable to do it myself but I'll still ask anyway someone else to pull the trigger.

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

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