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

Nobody · Jun 2, 2019

blackarrow said:
So, this was the reason for Lung's failure to kill Leviathan. Because he was too powerful FOR Leviathan

I'm not so sure about that. It comes across in the interlude that having other Capes around seeing him fight plays a role in it.

blackarrow · Jun 10, 2019

Hello, my lovelies. Last time...there was an Interlude were we discovered Kenta's fast progression from a mook to the leader of one the most famous Gangs in Brockton Bay, the Association of Backstreet Boys aka ABB

. Besides his gangster progression, he also progressed from being a mundane human to be a human with superpowers. And WHAT SUPERPOWERS he got...some of the strongest ones but followed by an incredible weakness- anyone can beat him as long as they're WEAKER THAN HIM. And smarter, but this is another story...

We also got to see what Birdcage's inmates are doing and be impressed (AGAIN, no surprise) by Marquis because of his refusal to become Teacher's student and/or allow his daughter to become his student. He's so damn protective towards Amelia that I can't help being so proud of him. What a good dad <3 <3! Basically the best parahuman dad that this story can give us. Marquis and Amelia are very dear to me and seeing them becoming Teacher's students (or better said: slaves) would be the last thing I want to happen to them, besides death. Who is this Teacher I'm talking about? An asshole who remind me of other assholes like Coil and Littlefinger (GoT), because of his personality, behavior and mannerisms. He's also a Master (and a Trump, because of his ability to empower other parahumans at the expense of their free will...Funny, because of my habit to write Classifications with capital first letter, Trump kind of become something else outside its context :lol). He's a Master/Trump who teach us why we should never trust most of the Masters, like we don't have already enough reasons to distrust most of them (I keep repeating "most" because I don't want to consider all the Masters terrible human beings, there are still some good Masters around

). Teacher will be possible one of the main villains in Worm's sequel, Ward, because we have already too many villains destroying the world in Worm to add another one. Ward needs its share of crazy/maniacal/power hungry villains too, right?
Btw, as you already noticed, I'm going to call Teacher' slaves as Students rather than minions because its a more fitting name for them. So far, his best known students are Trickster and Saint. I don't know about Lung's final decision and I'm sure that Marquis is very unyielding in his decision of not becoming a Student. I'm not so sure about Amelia however. She's more easily influenced than her father and she makes mistakes. Plenty of mistakes, especially when she's under a lot of mental pressure. She's a good person but a non very strong willed individual, unfortunately. Imagine Teacher getting his Master claws on Amelia. He'll rule the world, having one of the strongest bio-parahumans under his control. Oh, the HORROR

!!!!!
Speaking about Amelia, my best friend told me that she hates her but she never explained me why and asked me what I feel exactly for her as a person and as a character (she currently read Ward and everytime when something very bad happens in the sequel, she's very close to spoil me about characters or scenes and I have to stop her every-fucking-time before she'll go too far

. Judging by the times when she was close to spoil me, I can only guess that A LOT of bad stuff happens in Ward...This is actually very good for me, because when bad stuff happens, I know that I'll never get bored. I don't like to get bored so, unfortunately, the misery of Wildbow's characters is my ticket for having a good time reading his work. This doesn't mean that I don't suffer for them and with them

). Well, Amelia is a very well written and complex as fuck character and she's dear to me as a person but...I also find her pretty mentally unbalanced and SELFISH (but not a bad person; someone can be selfish without being necessarily evil). Probably you're also very curious about what I feel about her so when I'll finish this new episode of my liveblog, I'll explain why I find her like this. But I'll never hate her like my friend does for reasons known only by her. Well, depends of what Amelia will do, maybe she'll do something really diabolical (without being an accident) and make me change the way I see her as a person.
Next Arc, Drone. Either Dragon/ Kid Win' toys, because they like to build them or a male bee, also called a drone. I doubt is the second because I can't imagine Taylor fighting with drones (they don't have a stinger) unless, of course, she will use them to fill people's lungs with dozens over dozens of them

. I'm not sure if heroes will be ok with her methods, however...Drone 23.1

"Weaver," the voice had a slight digital twang at the edges, to the point that I thought it was Bakuda for a second, even if the two voices were entirely different.

I lowered my book. Defiant stood in the doorway to my cell, flanked by two of the prison guards.

I swung my feet to the ground, simultaneously sitting up. "If you'd asked me a few weeks ago, I'm not sure I would have believed that I'd actually be happy to see you."

"You'll be coming back," he warned me. "This is a temporary leave."

"And in the midst of all that, you're still trying to find time for you," I said.

Taylor, talking from her Cell with ~~her adoptive father~~ Defiant. Nice start

! She's a pretty busy little bee, reading, talking with heroes, being a prisoner, probably weaving outfits for her new teammates, feels more like a summer camp for her than a prison. Well, I'm sure that she's not very happy being far away from her friends, her father (I wonder if he's allowed to visit her cause that will be a serious violation of personal rights if she's not allowed to receive any visit), without her everyday fun activities like: running and kicking villains' ass, etc, but is better in comparison with Birdcage. Nobody will hurt her here, she can talk with big names heroes and maybe, in time, they'll allow her to help them in missions and become of of their members FOR REAL.
What kind of fun activities Defiant have in his free time: building stuff, trying to locate S9 pocket dimension, building more stuff, building more cyborg parts for his body, battle training, building even more stuff. Yep, this is what someone like Defiant will consider a well spend free time

. Ok, and flirting with his girlfriend. Something like:
Colin: Baby, you're the first AI in such a long time who's making hardware sexy again.
Dragon: Ah, tell me more, Colin...
Colin: Everytime when I see you, I just want to have my cyborg body parts fusing with your gynoid body.
Dragon: Ah, Colin...Colin....
Colin: ....I want to reach your inner wires and do some...
Dragon: SYSTEM ERROR...SYSTEM ERROR...

Colin just broke his girlfriend...(I should stop writing such LEWD stupid fanfic before I'll get banned :lol).
Colin can be a romantic soul as long as his girlfriend is a perfect cybernetic organism <3.

"Free time is the easiest thing to sacrifice," Defiant said. "It costs you, to give it up, but there's little guilt. Time to yourself is best spent preparing. Developing new technology, strategizing, adjusting equipment-"

"Weaving costumes, pre-preparing lines of silk," I said.

As far as I could figure it out, it was everything I might have expected from a medium security prison, complete with a station that controlled the opening and closing of cell doors, constant supervision, and escorts wherever we went. The only difference was the emphasis on programs. We were here to be rehabilitated, to find work, get an education and get therapy. All mandated.

Told you that this prison is piece of cake for Taylor. She may feel alone and trapped, but she have plenty of things to do in order to forget about isolation and boredom, so far her status as prisoner in a medium security prison seem pretty bearable compared with the alternatives. The heroes are pretty generous with her, given the fact that she just killed two of their "best" people. But they know that they'll need her in the future so they don't treat her as a dangerous criminal and risk alienating her. They want to make her feel "welcomed" in their world...well, as welcomed as someone who was a villain and who hurt heroes in the past can be

.
I find the prison conditions to be pretty fair. This is the kind of treatment that should be given to minor villains and promising heroes like Taylor (she wasn't exactly a minor villain but she did some pretty heroic stuff, her achievements earning her a lenient detention).
"Get therapy". Yay, more Jessica. Never say no to more Jessica

.

"I know you capes are magnets for trouble. If a fight happened to erupt while you were en route and it came down to you fighting back or getting stabbed, I expect you to get stabbed and then graciously thank your attacker, you understand?"

"Yes ma'am."

This should continue with:
-If they'll try to rape you, I expect you to graciously thank your rapist, you understand?
-Yes ma'am.
-If they'll Master you into killing yourself, I expect you to graciously thank the parahuman who Mastered you, you understand? If you're still alive, of course.
-Yes ma'am.
-If they'll beat you half to death, I expect your still living half to graciously thank them, you understand?
-Yes ma'am.
-Under His Eye.
-Praise be, Aunt....ma'am.

Leaving this another failed attempt of "joke" aside, the warden is right for wanting her parahuman medium security prison (I suppose there are only parahumans locked there) to be peaceful and secure and she doesn't like the escalation of an conflict/fight, but as a person who believe in everyone's right to defend themselves, no matter where they're, I kind of don't like the advises she gives to Taylor about not protecting her own life if a prisoner will stab her or worse. Yes, she can run away, but Taylor is NOT the person who run like a chicken from a conflict when she can DEFEND herself/fight back better than most of people. She'll never feel good about herself if she'll run away instead of kicking ass (unless she runs to alert people when a certain shattered singer begins to sing). Taylor will hate herself more if she's not allowed to kick ass... or turn a minor conflict into a devastating major one

.
"sighs" She should respect rules until they'll start trusting her, even if she hates it. She doesn't have any other choices if she wants to be accepted as a trustworthy hero. Rules SUCK, but the alternatives SUCK MORE

.

She studied me for long seconds.

"We have a no-tolerance policy on powers, Ms. Hebert."

"Yes ma'am."

"What appeared to be an emerging case of body lice in the main prison seems to have abruptly corrected itself, according to our physicians. The roach traps in the kitchen aren't catching anything, either."

"Yes ma'am."

"My power is always on. It takes a conscious effort to block them out and let them act normally. I feel what they feel, sense what they sense, sort of. It's… not fun with lice, crawling around in prisoner's pubic hair, you know? Being aware of that, across eighteen, nineteen prisoners, twenty-four-seven?"

"My concern, Ms. Hebert, is what you're doing with those bugs."

"You have to protect other prisoners," I said.

Even if it means letting them have lice? I didn't say that last part.

I'm not sure if the warden really care for her prisoners' well-being or she's just against conflicts (especially messy conflicts between parahumans when powers are used). Maybe both. Yes, must be both. She's a very strict and controlling woman, this is my first impression about her. And Taylor is forced to listen her otherwise heroes will not like her stubbornness. But at least the warden can allow Taylor to use her power for mundane activities, as long as she assures everyone that she will not do anything she's not allowed to do. I mean, I don't see any danger of helping the prisoners getting rid of lice. Taylor then can kill the lice so she won't be accused that she's planning to collect lice and use them as a weapon in the future

. If the warden cares a bit for her prisoners (and for Taylor's mental health as well), then she will allow Taylor to help with lice everytime when its necessary.
I understand that there are a lot of rules and regulations, but some of them are quite exaggerated, in my opinion

.

"We're alike in some ways," Defiant said, from his seat at the controls. I sat behind him, having belted myself in.

"We've both been leaders. We've both made our mistakes, and we've faced a form of detention for it. You with your prison, me with my retirement."

"Not a leader," Defiant answered me. "Not unless you count the artificial intelligences that operate the other suits. But her prison? It remains worse than any you or I have faced."

"Guard duty at the quarantine area in Madison, perhaps, or a town without a cape presence, where you'd be doing little more than making appearances and talking to kids."

"I'm… I don't want to sound arrogant, but I'm better than that."

"In the lead, we have Prism, second in command of the New York team," Defiant told me.

Prism's lips flattened into a tight line as she looked at me. We'd met, at the Mayor's house. She'd been one of Legend's people. I supposed that Chevalier would have wanted someone who knew the city and the routines as his second in command.

Aw, come on, Taylor, I'd absolute LOVE to be a guardian in a peaceful city where all I should do is to talk to kids

. Anywhere is BETTER than Brockton Bay or Madison. But Taylor is NOT me and she feels absolute ill if she's not allowed to put her life in danger during extremely dangerous missions. This is what she LOVES the most. Fight face to face to the DANGER itself and obliterate it

.
Ah, hello, Sam alias Prism, nice to see you again. You should not be surprised that Prism doesn't like you too much, Taylor, you almost killed her boyfriend. Its not something that is easily pardonable. Imagine Taylor teaming up with Prism and becoming, in time, something like best friends. Well, I'm sure that this is pure fantasy good only for fanfic material but who knows...life is full of unpredictable surprises like this one

.
At least Taylor is not forced to make team with Assault. He'll not waste any time to make her life a living hell and sabotage her attempt to impress heroes with her heel- face turn attitude. This is how Assault is rolling. Not even when he'll convince himself that Taylor is not guilty for Battery's death, he'll still not forgive her.
I wonder if Taylor will ever discover what Dragon truly is and what kind of reaction she'll have. Will she trust an AI with taking care of the safety of humanity? Or she'll be mad because heroes LIED again, hiding such an essential truth about Dragon's nature from people? Of course that not everyone know about Dragon but Taylor doesn't know this and she'll probably suspect that all the heroes are involved in this conspiracy.

"Rime, team leader of Los Angeles," Defiant said.

"Revel, team leader of Chicago."

Revel was a woman I hadn't seen before, even in the background of the various Class-S fights. I was pretty sure I would have recognized her. She was clearly Japanese, with a painted mask covering her lower face, and a massive lantern on a stick that rested against one shoulder. She wore a white skin-tight outfit with straps at the shoulders, the legs ending mid-thigh, giving her a degree of modesty that the stylized crimson kimono didn't. The kimono hung loose around her, held in place more by belts and what must have been wires in the fabric, elbow-length and just barely long enough to be modest. Her shoulders were bare and narrow, her expression… one eyebrow was raised as she studied me.

"Dispatch, the second in command of Houston."

Prism at least had an apparent reason to dislike me, but Dispatch's expression suggested he'd come to that conclusion all on his own. His costume was white, with steel points rising from his shoulders and either side of his brow. The mask that covered the upper half of his face was sculpted into a perpetual frown. I might not have given it a second thought, but his mouth… the frown left me little doubt he didn't like me, right off the bat.

"You may recognize some of the captains of the respective Wards teams. Jouster from New York, Vantage from Los Angeles,
Tecton from Chicago and Hoyden from Austin. You know Clockblocker."

I nodded. Tecton, in what looked to be a fresh outfit of bulky rust-red power armor, gave me a salute. Jouster was playing up the medieval theme, a spear in hand, while Vantage was a black guy in forest green and silver… his costume looked a touch flamboyant, at a glance. Hoyden looked more like a desperado than a superhero, with a costume that incorporated a kerchief with eyeholes over the upper half of her face, her blond curls tumbling behind, and a jacket and jeans in what looked like black-painted chainmail.

"And I'm Glenn Chambers. PRT head of Image," a man spoke. He approached me to offer a fat hand for me to shake. He had a firm grip. Glenn didn't look like someone who was particularly invested in image. He was obese, his clothes not flattering, his hair not quite cut into a mohawk, but gelled into something resembling one. He wore rectangle-framed glasses that made it easier to see how he seemed to perpetually squint – a result of long eyelashes.

"A lot of hassle for a little girl," Jouster said.

A little girl? I kept my mouth shut, but it took some effort.

Hey, we have the occasion to know the heroine who tried to stop Krouse from leaving the hospital: Revel, the third good (I hope so, because not all heroes are such good people) asian character in the story

. Awesome. Nice to know you, Revel, I really want to be surprised by you in a pleasant way.
I'm so happy to see you, Tecton, the super- nice earthquake Tinker

. Amazing how some old characters that I liked very much during important Arcs appeared again. Wildbow keeps track of awesomeness and this is just perfect

. Hoyden, Dispatch, Jouster and Vantage are new people. No idea about Hoyden's power, Rime is the girl who fought Echidna using ice power, Dispatch is probably a Combat Thinker who can dispose of people rapidly and efficiently (sounds more like a villain if this is his power), Vantage must be another Thinker who's very good with observation and analyse and Jouster is an....Asshole. The way he's calling Taylor a "little girl" screams "THIS MAN IS AN ASSHOLE" to me. Or he's just an asshole around her because he doesn't like the idea that a villain is allowed to become a hero. Or he must be one of Alexandria's admirers. Asshole, this "little girl" fought against S9, Echidna, ABB, Empire 88, Merchants, Leviathan, Valefor and (more or less) won in most of the cases. What you did in this time, Jouster? Have you fought S9 or Echidna when heroes from other cities were called to help? I don't remember seeing you trying to stop Echidna and I have a pretty goods damn memory

. I think you played the BIG BOY role and arrested small time thieves or blackmailers or talked to kids about why is so uncool to do drugs. Life in New York must be boring as hell compared with the HELLISH PUNISHMENT that is living in Brockton Bay.
I don't like that much assholes who underestimate people who accomplished more in a couple of years than they accomplished in their entire existence. He must know everything about Taylor's feats and victories, yet he decided to be a jerk only because he doesn't like her (or he's just envious). While Taylor is concerned that Dispatch doesn't like her, I'm more concerned that Jouster will not make a very good ally that Taylor can count on. Well, I hope that I'm wrong and maybe Jouster is not such a bad guy once I'll get to know him better

.

"She beat Alexandria," Hoyden said, "He's laughing because you're putting down the girl who killed Alexandria."

"Not a selling point," Hoyden's boss, Dispatch, cut in.

"She's an absolute nightmare to fight," Clockblocker said. "I've been on the receiving end enough times to know. So when Miss Militia told me she was in custody, I started asking questions, trying to get a sense of what was happening and when. I don't even have to be here, and I'm picking up extra patrols later this week to make up for it, but I wanted to come and say this: I don't like her, not really. But if my word counts for anything, as someone who's only spent half the time dealing with the shit in Brockton Bay that she has? We want her on our side. Somehow, in some form. Because the alternative sucks."

"She killed Alexandria," Hoyden said. "And, what, she was there for Leviathan, she was there for the Slaughterhouse Nine, for Echidna…"

"She went head to head with each of those," Clockblocker said. He looked at me. "Right? Like, you weren't just there. You were in the thick of it, exchanging blows?"

A New York group of villains is poaching Wards and Protectorate members?"

"The Adepts," Revel said.

I frowned. If I said no, it'd be a black mark in my record, and some of these people were obviously not interested in giving me any slack, unless it was to hang myself with.

"Okay," I said.

"The Adepts don't kill," he said. "If there's a problem, it's on you."

"Adepts," Jouster said. "I assume everyone's up to date?"

Tecton was walking in front of our group, his tank of a suit giving us enough presence that the crowd parted before us. "Don't be a jackass. You know Skit- Weaver hasn't read the files. They're in your city, you fill us in."

"I know the basics," I said. I'd read the file in Tattletale's office. "They're wizards, or they pretend to be, like Myrddin. Led by a time traveller."

"Fifteen in total," I said.

He gave me a hard look, then fell silent.

Am I not allowed to talk?

"Flechette was one too," he said. "She was going to lead the squad when I moved up to the Protectorate, with Shelter taking over as Wards captain."

"I believe it," I said.

"Seem to recall that she'd defected, joined your old team."

"I don't know anything about that, honestly," I said. "Only that she had romantic interests towards one of us Undersiders, and-"

"The doll girl," Jouster said.

Jouster, you JERK, the doll girl have a name and a codename. Stop calling her like this, she's not just the "doll girl" :anger:

. And don't pretend that is Taylor's fault for Flachette deciding to become a villain, its not like Taylor pointed her gun at Flachette's temple and forced her to switch sides. Do you know what true love is? Well, true love was what made Flachette to reconsider her purposes in life, true love turned her into a villain, not human influence. Well, Parian can be considered "human influence" but she never proposed Flachette to become her lieutenant, the former heroine offered. I'm sure that Jouster believes that Taylor manipulated Parian to become "evil" and Parian manipulated Flachette, but he was never more wrong that this. I mean, more wrong than this and calling Taylor a "little girl". Taylor only gave Parian money and a small territory for her people. Everything else was up to her choice

. You continue to act like a jerk, Jouster. Well, if he will remain a jerk BUT will help Taylor when she'll need help, then I'll be more indulgent with him. He can talk shit as much as he'd like, what really matters is if he'll be helpful and supportive

.
Next time, we're going to see how Taylor's first mission as Weaver will go. She'll face a new group of villains, Adepts, whose leader is a time- traveler. People with time powers are always BAD NEWS. Some very bad news

.
Now, lets talk a bit about Amelia. What I truly believe about her? She's a good person, she did a lot of good deeds: she saved hundreds if not thousands of civilians, heroes and even villains, she spend her most beautiful years in hospitals, saving more people than anyone else. Lets NEVER forget her accomplishments, not matter how much some of us hate her

. She genuinely wanted to help people even when she was tired and just wanted to give up. But she continued to heal people, save them from the claws of the death. She was more hero than most of the heroes. Until the unfortunate day when Bonesaw forced her to break her personal code and become someone that she hated and tried to avoid all her life. Someone who hurt her sister in the most HORRIBLE WAYS possible

. She never wanted to use her power on someone's brains because...she was HORRIBLE OBSESSED with her sister and she knew that if she'll ever break her personal code, she'll do something very stupid to Victoria. Because her crazy obsession was too big for her (it wasn't love, but an obsession; love is between Lily and Sabah, obsession was what Amelia had/and still have for Victoria. Its a difference) to control it if she didn't had a personal code. By breaking her code, she allowed herself to become the monster that she always ran away from. The monster who accidentally/willingly forced her sister to "love" her and accidentally mutated her into Broken Victoria. For this, she was selfish. Because she put her own WRONG feelings above her duty as a sister. This and the fact that she preferred to go to Birdcage instead of trying to undo what she did to Victoria. Yes, she was under great mental distress and her Passenger kind of messed with her because sometimes Passengers like to mess with their hosts, but she should have tried and tried to put Victoria back together until she'd have been successful. But she just gave up at any idea of keep trying and she preferred to run away from everything, punishing herself like this was the only method left to fix the wrongs

. Yes, she's a selfish person and someone who made plenty of mistakes towards her poor sister and herself. But I can't hate her unless she will continue to make more or less accidentally mistakes. Right in this moment, I can feel only a deep pity and sympathy for her. What an exciting character to read about, thank you, Wildbow

.

Good night and sleep well, my friends.

blackarrow · Jun 11, 2019

At first glance, I thought that this guy was Tagg. I was like: OMG, I didn't expect for that asshole to be a black man. I was under impression that he was white. I have to look again at his physical description. But then, I noticed the reflection in the mirror and I was like: OMFG, he's not Tagg, he's someone WORSE than Tagg....This fucker is Coil. Well, hello asshole. I don't remember to read a description of Thomas' skin color when he was out of his costume- Taylor was blind when she fought him and her bugs can't feel someone's skin color. But, maybe the artist wanted to imagine him as a black man, despite probably not being canon. Do we have WoG for his skin color or is left to our imagination? I always imagined him as a white man, looking exactly like Death from Supernatural, but I think is more fun if a black man DESTROYED Empire 88 by exposing their public identities. Still, no matter if he was black or white, Coil will always remain one of the biggest assholes in this story.
I like how the mirror reflection symbolizes two things: 1) his civilian and masked identities; 2) the two separate timelines where he can be Thomas and Coil at the same time but be involved in different actions with different consequences.
Nice thinking, artist.

Coil

I only see one bitch here, in this picture. BATTERY IS NOT INCLUDED.

Welcome to Cauldron

This picture is FULL with HOTNESS and BADASSERY. To be more clear, the hotness and badassery of Number Man. I never expected this asshole to look so handsome. Never ever. I know that he is a blond man with glasses but I wasn't expected to look so...dreamy "gets punched in her face by Lucidity" -stop being such a shallow girl and find this asshole handsome-
Me: But...he's a handsome asshole.
"Lucidity punches me again": He's a sociopath and you should not feel like this about him. Remember, Jack also look good.
Me: "sighs" Too bad he's such a bastard, otherwise he'd have been the perfect guy - smart, cool, badass, good looking, nerdy, calculated, no afraid of anything....Ah, hello, Contessa, nice posture. I barely noticed her over the hotness that...."gets punched repeatedly by Lucidity"...fine, stop smashing my jaws. Contessa looks FINE too.
But, there's something wrong with this picture. Number Man's pants...they should not exist..."is dragged offscreen by Lucidity"

Contessa and Number Man

What the hell Rachel is doing here? She's NOT a....Heh, I understand.....pictures with assholes and BITCHES. The other funny thing is: Rachel is the most noble Bitch compared with all others.
Your puppy therapy is the best, my girl. Keep doing what you're doing. Maybe I'm crazy, but I'd love to be friend with someone like the NEW Rachel. She changed so much in such a good way. Not completely, she's still a Bitch sometimes, especially with people she doesn't know/bother her but the Rachel inside her is shining more and more.

Bitch

blackarrow · Jun 18, 2019

Hello, friends, and welcome to the second part of the first Chapter of Drone. What we learned from the first part? Taylor is under arrest, having to spend (probably) her years left until she'll be mature enough to be allowed to become a member with full rights in Protectorate. But her imprisonment (pretty tame compared with the Hell that Birdcage is) will teach her to accommodate with her new status of villain turned hero, being asked to help the heroes in their missions (I know that she'll be very close supervised during her missions; they still don't trust her, they would want to know if she can respect their rules). While the missions are real, I won't be surprised if they're also a test for Taylor to see how she'll adapt to her new life. This and how she's going to fight following different rules: heroes don't mutilate villains who are not S9, heroes doesn't kill villains who are not S9, heroes must be good and pure and everything mundane people are supposed to expect from them (I'm sure a lot of people love more the dark and brooding type of heroes/vigilantes than the pretty boring goody two shoes type but the guys responsible with PRT image care more about a "good" image than what the public wants for REAL

).
I'm going to have a very GOOD LAUGH if Taylor will go all: Screw your piss poor rules. We just can't follow so many rules and expect to beat villains who usually don't give a flying fuck about rules, in general. I'm gonna play by my own rules, whatever you birdcage me or not...
And the public will be like: You go, girl

.
Why do I have a feeling that Taylor is going to act according to my wishful prediction? Maybe because I know her already too well.
Let's see how the fight with Adepts (villains who doesn't kill, but who can still mutilate, torture, injure heroes in a very ugly manner because...THEY CAN) will go and what a pain in the heroes/Adepts' ass Taylor will be if she decides so. All I want is to see her RUINING her enemies while Jouster watches everything from the sidelines, not daring to stop the "little girl" from her fun time of ass kicking

Drone 23.1

"Lethal and venomous bugs aren't allowed, you know that."

Tying my hands. It was fine. "I didn't plan on using them anyways. I'm selecting the smallest and most discreet, and sending them out. It'll take a minute at most, but I'll be able to track their movements."

"Image, Weaver," it was a different man who spoke. The fat one… I couldn't remember his name. "We need to do something about appearances, here."

"Appearances?"

"The black, amorphous swarm. It conveys the wrong ideas. It's disturbing to any onlookers, and if photos of you using your power on any greater scale made the rounds, it could be fodder for some ugly articles. You already face an uphill battle, with your reputation as an ex-supervillain."

"Glenn is always serious," Clockblocker said. "When I first picked my name, Clockblocker, and announced it in front of a live camera so they couldn't retract it, they punished me with intensive lessons with Glenn."

I'm not sure if this Glenn dude is an asshole who care more for PRT image than for the heroes in his care (I mean, heroes can be injured or killed anytime by EVIL PEOPLE WITH SUPERPOWERS who are more dangerous than EVIL PEOPLE WITH GUNS, but they should keep their image perfect in the public's eyes as they're not allowed to fight properly like a true hero should do, not a caricature of a hero)....Or he's just testing Taylor, now Weaver, and everyone else (except for her) know about his little game but they play along to see how far she'll go. Either way, Glenn's stupidity or smart little game will create more problems for his heroes than he probably predicted himself. Unless...unless Weaver will kick some Adepts' ass with...butterflies

. Yes, she can do it. They don't have to bite their victims, all they have to do is to fill people's lungs and suffocate them to death aka Alexandria Reboot. Or Weaver can soak her butterflies' wings into poison and...its not hard to imagine what kind of efficient bio- weapon they'll instantly become. The beautiful butterflies= mortal ammunition while in the hands of someone ruthless enough and with great imagination

.

I accessed the butterflies in my swarm, drawing them to me.

"Tekky," Hoyden said, "Turn around. They'll love this."

"Serious as cancer," Hoyden mimicked her superior. "All Glenn cares about is the image, the PR. Up to you to figure out how to hold yourself like a 'lady' while you're dealing with street thugs with guns."

"You would know, Hoyden," Glenn said. "I'd hoped something would sink in for you, with you having more meetings with me than anyone has in the past year."

"They're really going to make me the butterfly girl?" I asked.

"Felix Swoop, tier three member of the group," Jouster said. "Master-blaster hybrid. Controls birds, but not as much control as you seem to have. Thing is, he applies fire immunity and pyrokinesis to the birds, programs them with movements. You said he's distracted?"

I noted Swoop's presence in the bedroom, tried not to pay too much attention to the particulars of what was happening inside.

"Definitely occupied."

Shame...Shame...Shame...This Felix Swoop (another evil Master- biiiiig surprise!) can control fire birds and he doesn't call himself...Phoenix? What kind of unimaginative asshole you're, dude? Shame...Shame...Shame. Looks like he's having some fun time with another dude. NO JUDGEMENT, I just want to point out that this is not something that Weaver was eager to see though her hundreds of little spies

. But is much better to attack them when they're unprepared to fight back than let these unimaginative villains to humiliate the heroes.
I'm thinking about their leader, the time- traveler Adept. We already know someone with time powers- the ability to reverse his and others' actions. He's also a Traveler who lost his big chance to return back on his home- Earth. His name is Cody and his codename is Perdition. What if he's their boss and the heroes have no idea he can reverse actions, wrongly interpreting his power as being time travel? That will be a good chance for Perdition to be back in action. But, according to Weaver's secondary "multiplied pair of eyes" the time boss is not there, so we'll not have the chance to see Perdition too soon unless he'll arrive unexpectedly and try to save his people in the last moment.

I directed my swarm. Bugs moved through the crowd, and I organized the swarm so it was surrounded by butterflies, masking the core of the 'disturbing' black swarm within.

We'd gone over the powers in this particular group before we left. I knew what Tecton and Clockblocker were capable of, obviously. That left Vantage, Jouster and Hoyden. I could track them as they broke into the apartment.

Jouster's blaster-striker hybrid power involved his lance, a power that conducted along the usual channels, only the form it took varied. He speared through the computer, then swung the blunted side of the weapon at the couch. The woman rolled out of the way, and energy rippled away from the lance, freezing and shredding cushions.

Vantage had super strength, but his strength and reflexes scaled up as the number of opponents rose, with diminishing returns. He wasn't especiallydurable, but he packed short-range teleports. Very short-range – a matter of two or three feet, at best. He teleported to help close the gap to Swoop and slammed one hand into the man's collarbone. The woman scrambled for cover.

"Nuh uh," I could hear her speak through the earbud. She caught the cape from behind, then hurled him through the doorway, at Clockblocker. He stepped on the man's bare back, and the man was frozen.

"Cape two captured," Clockblocker said.

I hurried up the stairs in double time. I reached the door frame, and I got alook from Jouster.

Definitely intentional. He'd had his team bulldoze through the capes, leaving nothing for me. I'd provided recon, but would that be enough?

Jouster, are you seriously trying to win the Prize for the Asshole Hero of the year? Because you're nothing but an asshole towards Weaver who did nothing wrong to you, except for being an ex-villain who HELPED heroes and protected civilians. I can partially understand Clockbocker or Assault, they're kind of motivated to treat Weaver like crap, but Jouster? Why so much hate, dude

? The irony is that Clockblocker is surprisingly friendly and easy going in Weaver's company (well, they worked together to defeat Echidna so they kind of buried their hard feelings). Jouster, Jouster, you're either playing a sick test game, following on Glenn's steps or being his accomplice or you're an ASS without any other explanation. Hope you'll get hurt and have your ass saved by the motherfucking Queen of Butterflies, then lets see if you'll keep calling her "small girl"

. I dislike assholes, but the assholes who are assholes for the sake of being assholes...I hate them the most. Jouster, "shakes head", my boy, you're not making a good first impression, and sometimes the first impression really matters.
Hoyden and Vantage are badass and pretty okay guys compared with Jouster. Well, Jouster is pretty badass too but being just badass isn't enough for someone to define their personality

. Glenn's angelic heroes are kicking Adepts' ass left and right, acting like the exactly opposite of how Glenn considers a hero should act and I'm sure that he'll not have any problem with their brutality because....because all of these stupid rules are actually just a part of this elaborated test. If Weaver will hurt people, she'll fail. If she'll control her instincts/ her Passenger's instincts, she'll prove that the big names in hero community weren't wrong to give her this chance. Maybe Glenn is a jerk, but he's not a stupid one

.

She buttoned up her jeans, then ran her thumb along the chain that ran from her belt loop to her pocket.

"Wait," I said. The chain- there were charms on it. "Those charms."

"My embellishment," she said.

I smell a trap. I mean, this attack, followed by a part of Adepts being arrested was too easy and if we learned something about Wildbow, he doesn't like easy things. Either their reinforcement "cough" Perdition "cough" will arrive or one of the arrested Adepts have an ace upon his or her sleeve. Nothing is easy and without problems when it comes to villainous parahumans

.

"Thirteenth Hour, now," she retorted. Her eyes flared with light, and I felt my body jolt.

Thirteenth Hour collapsed, going limp in the midst of Clockblocker's suspended wires. Jouster, mid-stride, did much the same.

My thoughts were slowing down, volition gone. The others were the same. My sense of time… I was reminded of a dream I'd had, of being put under a spell by Coil. Scopolamine.

Swoop dialed a number on his phone, approached the sleeping Thirteenth Hour while holding it to his ear. He lifted her chin and kissed her, staying beside her to catch her as the cords were released.

I called bugs to me, directed them to gather on my face.

Without me asking it to, a cockroach started chewing through the fabric. The fabric that wasn't nearly as strong as spider silk.

With the hole in my mask now large enough, the cockroach wormed his way in.

My "smelling sense didn't betrayed me this time

. A fucking trap. Adepts (or at least Thirteen Hour) have powers-enhancing charms, apparently. They must have a Tinker making these charms. This is clearly Tinker- made bullshit.
Thirteen Hour managed to turn the tides of victory in favor of her teammates, right after she used the charm and trapped the heroes in time. Or, this is how her enhanced power seems to work, trapping people in time, similar with Clockblocker, but not making them indestructible and immovable. Thirteen Hour, I'm impressed by how quickly you fucked everyone!
Felix, the Non-Phoenix Adept is quite a Casanova. He have a boyfriend and the badass Thirteen Hour as his girlfriend. Well, if they're all ok with this arrangement, then who I'm to judge them

?
Weaver is trying a daring escape from her time prison with the help of cockroaches. Please, if you'll save everyone, dear Weaver, can you let Jouster being the last to be saved? All the people bothered by assholes will thank you

.

And that disruption was enough to shake off Thirteenth Hour's influence. My thoughts began to coalesce into something more coherent.

Tecton reached out to the doorframe and made the building shudder with enough force that everyone stumbled.

I reached Jouster, shaking him. When he didn't rouse, I shook him harder.

Nothing. Not jarring enough.

I kicked his leg out from under him, and he sprawled.

"Fuck you," he mumbled, as he began to climb to his feet.

"Wake up Clockblocker and Vantage," I said.

"You don't give me orders," he said. He approached Swoop. The man smacked Hoyden with one more bird, whirling around to face Jouster, and then got slammed in the chest with the fattest part of the lance. The third tier Adept flew into a wall and went limp.

Jouster wanted to clean up? Fine. I tazed the hallucination guy, then hurried to Clockblocker's side. When shaking him didn't rouse him, I raised his head from the floor and then smacked it down hard enough to startle him.

"Jerk," he mumbled.

Jouster had poked Vantage awake.

"You kicked their asses with butterflies," Clockblocker said, as we made our way to the stairs.

The spiders, I kept on hand, directing them to the burned corpses. They could breed, in time, and I could put them somewhere where they wouldn't encounter any people.

Breaking the rules, maybe, but it was something to occupy my thoughts. It made me feel just a little safer, a little more like myself.

No, she still released him from under the "spell". Well, at least he can be a little useful; but he's still a jerk who can't take orders from a "little girl" even if this "little girl" saved him.
Oh, yessss, Clockblocker, indeed she kicked their ass with butterflies :lol. Ha, ha, this Chapter is too funny! Good shit, I laughed and I wasn't very worried about the fate of Weaver and her fellow heroes because: Adepts don't have such great powers, even with their charms, except for Thirteen Hour (I kind of like her as a villain and I hope that this is not her only appearance. She's competent and smart and her power is pretty cool, she alone defeated the whole team of heroes but didn't expected for Weaver to be more clever than her. This was why she and her teammates lost

). Aaaand...they had the Butterfly Queen with them :lol.
Glad that Taylor will still be herself, no matter if they will call her Skitter or Weaver or Butterflies Queen. Glad that she'll keep and preserve her own rules despite having to accept Gleen's rules, at least theoretically. Maybe Glenn is not such a bad guy, but he likes to test our rookie heroine. To see if she'll adapt to her new environment, if she can make friends, if she knows how to work in team, if she's capable to take orders and if she can use her power in a non-lethal manner. He's more like an observer and an organizer. Tagg was an asshole and a bully who tried hard, but ultimately failed, to be a smart and manipulative man

. My impression about Glenn, he's probably a smart and manipulative guy, who let others (or just Taylor) believe that he's an ass, good only to "vomit" stupid and useless rules (I'm sure that the vast majority of population actually give zero fucks over how a hero should look like or if their powers should appear harmless or not. People WANT to be protected and feel safe, not to have white- clothed heroes "fighting" for them using butterflies. People want protection, not useless beauty

). Glenn secretly know this too, he's just playing his annoying little games - games that might be actually helpful for Taylor in the future

.
I think I'm starting to ship Dennis with Taylor. I feel sorry for Brian, but ~~Brian is MINE now~~ it was already a failed and unsuccessful relationship, all "thanks" to Taylor who was pretty incapable to act like the moral support that Brian needed so much. Yes, Dennis needs hep too, this boy is not very ok, but he can handle better than Brian (using humor as a way to cope with his personal nightmares). Taylor (probably future) relationship with him will work better than what she had with Brian. Or maybe not, but a girl can hope, right? "makes grabby hands in Brian's direction, grinning: MINE. FINALLY <3. The poor boy runs away, screaming for help".

Good night and sleep well, my friends.

blackarrow · Jun 19, 2019

I was asked something interesting: If Rachel had power over CATS and other FELINES instead of dogs, how different her power and personality would be then? Interesting question. Since I'm so fascinated by Rachel as a character and person, I will never stop from analyzing her character in any way I'll be able to do. Rachel turning felines into monsters? Well, I'm a cat lady and I think that I have a pretty deep knowledge about our small masters :lol, all thanks to my own master

. I have my cat for 6 years already, even since he was a 4 months old kitten. I love him to death and I'll commit murder for him, but he doesn't love me back. I know he doesn't love me, he doesn't even see me as his master. He only see me as the crazy young lady who give him food, shelter and play with him. I tried to train him but I only taught him how to use the toilet

. He just doesn't want to listen me when I'm trying to teach him something else because...he's a cat. And cats are their only masters. So...Rachel with power over cats will grow them into monsters, as with dogs but...she'll never be able to train them, ride them or make them do what she wants. They'll not listen her and she's not a Master who can simply mind control them, she needs to train them in order to make them listen her. Dogs can be trained but cat...rarely or never. She'll end up having an army of monster- cats (or imagine if she'll transform lions or tigers- she can probably make these as big as elephants) who'll not only NOT listen her but also will probably EAT HER FIRST. Her power will absolute SUCKS

.
As for personality, she'll still be a feral teenager, but one with cat mind instead of dog mind. She'll only care about herself, she'll be incredible selfish (she'll act like Cherish only smarter and better at planning stuff), she'll try to control and dominate her teammates, she'll be loyal only if she'll be sure that she'll get something for herself and betray them if someone else will offer her what her heart wants and her teammates can't give her for some reasons. She'll also act like a sociopath who'll love only herself but is unable to love someone else. On the good side, she'll be more clever and cunning and a precious asset (if she'll learn how to make her animals listen her, of course) for her teammates as long as they LISTEN her, BEND to her wishes and CATER for her narcissistic personality

.
All in all, despite all my love for my cat and cats in general, I'd be an hypocrite if I'll not admit that Bitch is much more better, anytime and anywhere, than...Pussy

(or Kitty but knowing Rachel, I have no doubt she'll prefer Pussy to Kitty).

Xexilf · Jun 19, 2019

blackarrow said:
***

Someone on spacebattles wrote a few snippets of a somewhat comedic take on this concept here.

blackarrow · Jun 27, 2019

Hello, my friends. I was a pretty busy bee lately -as usual- but now I have some time to cause you intense stress- again- with my poor attempts of being a funny and interesting liveblogger

. Last time, we followed Weaver's first victory as a hero and one of the few victories that heroes ever had in this story against a group of villains. Well, Adepts weren't pretty great and scary as villains, but they pulled out a nice fight, all thanks to one of their members, the badass lady Adept Thirteen Hour (my friend explained me her power: she doesn't trap people in time as I believed her to do, she makes people fall into a hypnotic trance and they need some strong external actions applied to them in order to wake them up from her trance- something that Weaver did with cockroaches). Doesn't sounds so cool like time trapping ability, but can be powerful enough if her victims have no idea how to overcome her trance

. Either way, I think I like this Thirteen Hour (probably her victims can be trapped in trance for exactly 13 hours then they'll naturally wake up- in this way her codename would make sense) as a villain. She's scary competent and badass. In fact, I already have two new favorite villains, Thirteen Hour and Teacher (I'm going to have a lot of fun hating that guy, I can say without any doubt :lol). I still don't know for sure if Perdition is or not Adepts' leader, but maybe this is not the first time and last time when these Adepts will appear in the story. Lets see how many villains' ass Weaver will kick using "nothing but butterflies" as Clockblocker "correctly" observed :lol. I won't complain if this Chapter will be as fun as the last one. Worm needs more funny Chapters; while I generally like grimdarkness and suffering, I'm also a fun loving girl who'll never say no to laugh with her favorite characters, even when they actually don't find certain situations funny enough for them. Endless suffering can become boring after a while

Drone 23.2

Satyrical, Satyr for short, wore a helmet sculpted to look like a goat's head, the mouth in a perpetual smile. On a good day, I imagined his eyes were bright with mischief, his shaped eyebrows quirked behind the large eye-holes of the helmet. This wasn't a good day. There were circles under his eyes, and he glowered.

With the smile on his helmet, it made him look… I didn't want to say deranged, but it was the word that sprung to mind.
His bare chest was muscular, waxed hairless, the belt and leggings of his costume slung low enough that I could see the lines of his lower stomach that pointed to his… yeah. It was admittedly distracting. It was meant to be distracting.

Nix, Blowout, Leonid and Floret joined Satyrical in their anger. Heroes in more flamboyant and colorful costumes than normal, their moods a contrast in how dark they were. Spur and Ravine seemed more lost than angry, but the way they retreated into their group as we passed told me that they would side with their team over us.

Btw, speaking about the heroes that "helped" Weaver fight Adepts, I need to add few words about each of them, before I'll start to know new heroes- Vegas heroes. My favorites are Tecton and Hoyden, I think Vantage and Rime are pretty ok and I totally dislike the asshole Jouster even if I don't know him very well. But, as far as I know him, he's nothing but a jerk that I'd HATE to have as my partner

. Taylor doesn't have a choice on this matter so she must accept his jerkass attitude and resist to the impulse to SLAUGHTER his dick at every 5 minutes spend in his company.
Tecton is my beautiful hero Tinker baby <3. Not only that he's smart and badass but he's also a good person. Someone who have no problem being friend with Irregulars like Gully, working with an ex-villain like Weaver (he worked with her very well when she was Skitter) and being generally nice and helpful with people. I'd be mad if Taylor will ever say her favorite catchphrase: 'Fucking Tinkers' around him for any reason. This guy doesn't deserve to be exposed to her personal hate for Tinkers -well, I'm a hypocrite because if I'd be a hero working with Masters, I'll always be like: Fuck him, fuck her or fuck them

(if they're using non-binary pronoms). But I'll still work with him/her/them because they're my teammates. Hate is strong but the necessity for teamwork and having your back covered by someone you trust should be STRONGER

.
Hoyden is a badass chick who can make things explode by touching them or have them touching her. This power is too cool for words. She's like one of those heroes who casually walk into the sunshine while everything explode behind them. Hoyden FTW

.
Now, this Satyrical, Vegas hero, remind me of Satyrs, male nature spirits from Greek mythology, most famous because of their well- endowed.... proportions and the fact that they waste all their time singing, dancing and...raping nymphs. So far, I think this hero's codename suits him pretty well. The "distraction" in his pants will probably help him in the future, unless he'll managed to piss off Weaver enough to...you know, put an end to his distraction in a very painful way "wriggles her eyebrows"

. As for the other heroes, can hardly wait to learn more about them than the fact that they're angry and flamboyant.

We made our way out into the corridor with the cells. It was deeper, more developed than Brockton Bay's. There were two tiers, with one set of cells above the other.

Rime moved her phone next to a television screen, then tapped it. There was a pause as a row of black squares with white outlines gradually lit up. She leaned forward a little, her hand resting against the wall beside the television.

The screen came alive. I saw a man in a cape uniform within, without a mask. He had albinism, to the point that the velvet purple of his costume overwhelmed the little of his skin that was showing. The irises of his eyes were a dark pink.

"Pretender," Rime said. Her voice had a harder note than before. "What have you done?"

"A death sentence," he said. "You're an upper-echelon cape now, and you have the clearance. You know about her. The bogeyman that comes after anyone who tries to release information they want to keep secret."

"We could have protected you," Rime said.

This Pretender must be a guy who pissed off someone that SHOULD NOT BE PISSED OFF, meaning fucking Cauldron (because this boogeyman is nobody else but Contessa, they don't even have to mention her codename to see how much she's involved in all the shit that our heroes should put with

). Maybe he's a Changer with the power to shapeshift into people- PRETENDING to be someone else, but he's not enough strong for Contessa and he needs Vegas heroes+ New York heroes+ Brockton Bay heroes to protect him against her. I'm not sure if they're enough to stop her but at least they can probably slow her down until Pretender will be safer. Well, I wanted a fight between Contessa/Number Man and Weaver, I'm very close to get one

.
Pretender, what in the name of God Wildbow have you done wrong to piss off Cauldron so much that now they're ready to confront teams of heroes just to get you? Probably he was a customer who refused to do something they wanted him to do as a special favor or he decided to let the whole world know about some of their most well- protected secrets. Either way, he's screwed, unless Weaver and co will stop Cauldron from killing him. So far, Cauldron lost: they lost key people, they lost key secrets, they lost good plans, but they NEVER lost when they send Boogeylady Contessa to kick people's ass. She kicked Fautline's Crew' Irregular Ass, she kicked Kenta's ass on meth and she will probably kick some flamboyant heroic ass. Hope not but...I don't really care about this Pretender. I don't know him and unless a hero that I care for will be hurt or killed during the fight, I don't really give a fuck if Contessa will kill him. He's just another random character good only to create the necessary set-up for a good battle

.

Pretender only chuckled. "No. No you couldn't. I'm dead anyways, one way or another. I surrender, it's the end of my career, and that's all I have. I talk, I die. This was the best option."

The hand that Rime was using to lean against the wall clenched into a fist. Her voice was tight as she asked, "Killing a government thinker was the best option?"

"Yes."

Rime straightened, but it was more of a defeated gesture than anything, her hand dropping from the wall. "You were one of the good ones, Pretender."

"Still am," he said. He crossed the length of his cell, sitting on the corner of the bed. "I'd explain, but it would only get us all killed."

"My riot sense was going off like crazy as he talked," Arbiter said. "There's something at work here."

"Describe it."

Arbiter touched her middle fingers and thumbs together, forming a circle, "Orange."

Rime explained. "She's a social thinker, in addition to her minor blaster and shaker powers. Her danger sense is mild at best, not something she can react to immediately, but it makes her aware of associated individuals and the threat theypose. She wouldn't be able to see much from Pretender alone, but she knows that there's a moderate to high danger posed by those closest to him-"

"Stranger protocols mean you don't go anywhere alone," Prefab said.

"Of course. I'm thinking… Vantage," she said, beckoning.

Vantage nodded, stepping forward.

"What's her classification?"

"Thinker. Don't worry about the number. Just run."

Shit, Pretender killed a person. He's a murderer and they want to transport him to prison before the Boogeylady will get him. Now, I'm very curious about the reason why he killed the government Thinker. Maybe his victim was an Cauldron agent and he just wanted to protect his fellow heroes OR they were someone that Cauldron wanted dead and he had to do this special favor for them. But why they want to kill him if all he did was a special favor? He proved his loyalty, right? They don't kill loyal people unless...he probably arranged with them to attack the heroes on their way to Birdcage and "kidnap" him or have him "killed"

. If he's a shapeshifter, won't be hard for him to pretend that he's another person and leave with Cauldron while the heroes believe that he must be dead. This is his and Cauldron's plan, right? I can smell a setup from light years distance. Fucking asshole, Pretender, still pretend to be one of the good guys when you're possible working with the enemies of the good guys

. I mean, "other good" guys but antagonists to the good good guys. Well, if it happen to die during the chaos that will follow, be sure I'll not cry after you

.
Well, heroes should not worry. They have Weaver, Butterfly Queen, ready to kick some Cauldron's ass with butterflies. Heeeeeeeeeeeell, yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah :lol.

Inside, in boxes, there were butterflies. Innumerable varieties. Sadly, quite a few had died due to a lack of food or being crushed under the weight of the others. The idea was clear. The PRT wanted me to change how I operated. Dragon, at least, was willing to give me the means.

It was still stupid. Ridiculous.

"Go, my pretties," I said, monotone. "Go, seek out my enemies and smother them."

"Sniper rifle," I said, in the same instant the thought came together.

"I don't think he has the right angle to shoot over the wall," I said.

"No weapons? Costume?"

"No costume," I said. "He brushed away the bugs before I could get anything substantial, but I think… glasses? And a dress shirt. I think he noticed what my bugs are doing. That's rare."

"We've got trouble," Prefab said. I realized he was using his phone. "Sniper on a rooftop nearby. Possible Thinker. Barricades should make for safe elevator exit."

Ok, I'm more and more convinced that Pretender is a huge asshole and traitor who work for Cauldron and he wants to avoid getting Birdcaged, being more than ok to kill heroes if this means that he'll be free. No, you're not a good guy, Pretender, you're just another asshole pretending to be a hero. Even more of an asshole than Jouster. At least Jouster IS a hero

.
Hello, my dreamy geeky villain, Number Man. Back in action, huh? After such a long time spending in your office, stealing money from people that Cauldron doesn't like, you're a field killer again, right? Ready to bullshit supercalculate the trajectory of the bullets so won't be any problem for you to FUCKING KILL TWO HEROES WITH A SINGLE BULLET. You never changed, still a S9 member at your core, just less sadistic and more pragmatic. But a cold-blooded killer will always be a cold-blooded killer no matter how much they claim to change as persons. Just like a snake shedding its skin but still being the same snake. Well, there are exceptions, but there are dramatically rare

.
Of course he doesn't wear pants. Not even when working outside his office...I think he have a hate relationship with pants, in general. Something like: I will never ever touch you again or let my legs wander in your closeness. Do you hear me? I HATE you more than anything on this world. UNDERSTAND? I hate you to infinity and beyond...I hate you..."Number Man continues to ramble, without being aware not even for a single second that the pair of pants don't have ears to hear him neither mouth to answer him. Such a pathetic little man..." :lol
How are you going to stop a PANTLESS guy from destroying your team and releasing your prisoner, Weaver? Any suggestion, eh? "wriggles eyebrows"

"I'm worried about that sniper," I said. "If he was coming after us, why is he giving up so easily? If he wasn't coming after us, who was he after? A civilian?"

"Maybe 'tenacious' is the word you want," Vantage offered. "There aren't a lot of people who get knocked out and still manage to win a fight."

"Are you all this pedantic?" I asked.

Vantage only laughed, though I saw Rime glancing at me, and she didn't look pleased.

"Alexandria was always hard on us," Arbiter said. Her voice had a strange tone to it, oddly melodic, "Getting us to focus on grades, extracurricular stuff, on top of what we did as a part of the team."

"We were challenged to be better than the other teams in everything, academics included," Vantage said. "But we were the only team with a leader who cared about it."

"All those sermons on being top-notch, on acting like the people we wanted to be, and… she turned out to be a monster," Arbiter said.

"A monster slain by Weaver, here," Usher spoke.

"Weaver did what had to be done," Rime said. "Not pretty, not kind, but sometimes you have to use a knife to cut out a cancer."

"Kulshedra!" Rime shouted, "Report!"

"Incoming fire. Taking evasive maneuvers."

"The sniper," I said.

"Fuck you, Pretender," Vantage muttered. "Fuck you. You had to hire the worst mercenaries possible, didn't you? You asshole."

I looked at the image. Not a face I knew, but one I recognized from TV, from the internet, and one very brief encounter.

Rime's power froze the Kulshedra in mid-descent, catching it between two buildings, suspended in the midst of a bridge of ice.

"How the hell do you know your way around this thing?" Vantage asked. I could see him below me, one hand outstretched, the other held behind his back.

"Defiant and Dragon have been ferrying me between the PRT and court, and between prison and these little field exercises, so I've gotten a sense of them," I said. "And I fought a bunch of others back in Brockton Bay. You figure them out, kind of."

"Hellooooo," a girl's voice sounded over the system. I had to turn around, checking all of the cameras, before I found the one where she was displayed, upside down.

It flipped the right way around. I could see a young girl on the opposite side. She was flanked by two other small children, one a male with a widow's peak and a severe expression for his age, ten or so, the other a girl of about twelve, in overalls that ended at the knee, a star at the chest, and far too much makeup.

"Fuck me," Vantage muttered. "Bambina brought her team."

Told you, guys and ladies, that all this shit was planned by Pretender

. A sincerely, FUCK YOU, Pretender, isn't enough that Number Man is saving your sorry ass, but you hired some MERCENARY CHILDREN to fight heroes. Children, you fucking asshole? Couldn't find adults instead of children? How the heroes are supposed to fight against children without severely injure them? Bambina can turn into a human projectile- now I understand why she refused to fight Leviathan: her power wasn't useful against the Endbringer and she is just a child. Despite being a villain, she got scared at the thought that she had to face an indestructible monster while having a useless power. Well, this is an acceptable excuse, Bambina, but what you're doing now is not nice at all. Helping a criminal escape? What your parents will say if they know what you're doing for a living? I remember that she have a mother who doesn't care so much about her, Taylor's lawyer was disgusted when he mentioned that bitch. Ok, Bambina is another feral child neglected by her own mother. I don't know about her companions, but they're probably other children with problems

. They choose the wrong way in their lives but their parents never give a shit about them or straight up abused them

. Alright, I'm not sure I'm going to enjoy this fight when children are involved, even if they're some bad, bad children. Its not going to be fun for heroes either. They just can't kick Number Man's naked ass with butterflies neither they can't kill children. And when Contessa will make her unceremoniously appearance, everything will be over for them. Pretender will be a free man and they'll be lucky if they'll not be killed. After all, Cauldron can produce other heroes, right? They won't have any problems replacing them

.

"Sniper's active," Rime's voice came through the earbuds. She was panting. "Deliberate, accurate shooter. I've taken three bullets, ice armor took most of the force out of the shots. Bambina is accompanied by Starlet and August Prince, um. Shooter's shots ricochet. Can't dodge. There's wounded just outside craft. Traffic caught underneath when you fell."

"I can do dangerous. Let me take the kid-gloves off, and-"

"No," Rime's voice came through my earbud. "No. Stay."

I grit my teeth. "You're underestimating me."

"We're well aware of what you're capable of. I'm doing you a favor," she said, and her voice was strained. "Stay, follow Prefab's orders."

"Paying pretty well," Bambina said, "And he promised a favor, too. He set some rules, but considering how we're going above and beyond the call of duty, I'm hoping he'll bend them. You know how fucking awesome it is to have a favor from a body snatcher? He zaps himself into some hunky celeb that'd never touch me otherwise, then…"

Bambina launched into a lewd explanation of what she'd have him do to her, and vice versa. I averted my eyes and did my best to turn off my ears. I'd started out spending months suppressing my powers to varying degrees, and I'd learned to ignore some sensations from my bugs. I wasn't so lucky when it came to my hearing.

"…with my feet," Bambina finished.

"Focus," Prefab said. "We know who these three are. We've got a Mover-shaker six, a blaster-shaker four, and a master-stranger three."

"You fucked up my rankings for a straight week, worst fucking time, too. I'd planned an escapade, was supposed to rise to number thirty, but your news took the front page instead, and I dropped to forty-five instead. I haven't been that low in a year!"

"Rankings?" I asked.

"Rankings! Don't you even pay attention? It was embarrassing. My mom's still giving me a hard time over it, and it's like, that's less money from our sponsors. So I'm going to make you deepthroat my fist, okay? Break your arms and legs and make you suckle it."

Tried to bite and sting with the nastier insects I'd hidden inside the butterfly swarm, and again, no response.

That would be his power then. Something in the same department as Imp's ability.

My bugs continued past him, and I sent them straight for Bambina.

Holy Jesus, Bambina is an insufferable little bitch

. Yes, she's a child, but she's so incredible annoying, cruel and PERVERT (what kind of child talks like this about...footjob?) Holy shit, she's way more disturbing that Bonesaw. At least Bonesaw behaves like a child when she's not in her MAAAAAAAAAAAAD SCIENTIST MODE. Bambina is like an adult bitch trapped inside a child body

. She's incredible disturbing. She makes me want to kill her with my own hands despite being so against killing children. The only other fictional child that made me RAGE like this was Carmelita Spats from A Series of Unfortunate Events. Gooooooooosh, that little bitch....At least Bambina is a small time thug (and possible criminal), she's not self-proclaimed beautiful, fantastical, awesome, cool, irresistible, lovingly, adorable, sweet, cute, tap-dancing ballerina superheroine angel princess like Carmelita was so Weaver can kick her ass with "butterflies" for all I care :lol. Weaver, no matter what Glenn will tell you after this, I want you to take off your kid gloves and make Bambina CRY AFTER HER MOMMY. Not kill her, but hurt her. GOOD. She's a child, but she's also the devil in the skin of a child

.
Like daughter, like mother, looks like her mom not only know about Bambina's activities but she also encourage her and is mad everytime when this little bitch fails to be a "celebrity". Ewww, now I understand why Bambina is like this. Still, she deserves to have her pretty face riddled with "butterflies" stings. We know what you're hiding inside those butterflies' swarm, Weaver, we know your new strategy

.
Pretender is not a Changer but a Master, looks like. He doesn't shapeshift into other people, he steals and control other people's body (he's like Proteus from X-Men, minus reality warping powers). FUCK HIM. So, he's a traitor (Gosh, I HATE traitors with a burning passion), he's a criminal, he's a Master, he's probably working for Cauldron, he hired insufferable children as mercenaries...does this man have one single quality? So far, he only have flaws. Big fucking flaws

.
And the pile of assholes Masters never stop growing. Its not enough that these guys have some really disturbing powers but they also have some equally disturbing personalities. Funny how I DON'T LIKE them so much in Worm, lets say it in a nicer manner, but in X-Men my favorite character is Charles Xavier, a MASTER (I think he'd be over level 12 in Worm-verse cause his Master powers are hella OP. But I only like him as character and person, I still hate his powers

).
Cauldron and the mercenaries children don't work together. Weird. Why? Both of them want to have Pretender for themselves? Pretender hired both to stop the heroes from locking him in Birdcage? I think I know why Cauldron wants Pretender. He can possesses bodies, right? Alexandria is currently dead. Cauldron are not happy because they lost her. They probably want Pretender to possess her body and use "her" to fight for Cauldron. But...her powers can still be used even after her death? Her Passenger didn't left her dead body in the meantime? They can't leave a host once the body is no longer capable to function? Yes, they can leave, they left Butcher's and the other Butchers before her after they died. What if Alexandria is not truly dead but she's brain damaged and Cauldron managed to steal her almost dead body and they want Pretender to use it and her powers because her fight is over anyway? Hmmm, that would be a logical explanation

.

She only laughed as the butterflies landed on her, stomped hard to kill most of them. "No way. You offed Alexandria. I'm not- Ow!"

Bees, wasps and hornets stung simultaneously, targeting her eyes, mouth and earholes.

Tumbling through the air, she used her power in one singular burst, and was encased in a two-story high tower of ice.

Vantage leaped onto the top of the craft, then onto the top of the wall. Starlet's blast nearly moved him. Bambina leapt, bouncing off a nearby building, then flying towards Vantage. He teleported out of her way, then threw a bola, catching her. She fell from the wall, landing hard.

So many heroes around me, and they couldn't touch this little bastard.

In the midst of the Kulshedra, I could sense moving air currents. A woman emerged from thin air, from a place cooler than the interior of the ship. The civilians we'd rescued shrieked and backed away from her. She didn't respond, barely reacted. Someone with long, dark hair and a suit. She fixed her cuffs, then moved with purpose.

Arbiter heard, whipping around, and threw a forcefield between us. I pulled away.

She managed to sandwich the little bastard between her forcefield and the ground. I rolled away, sitting up.

The woman turned and walked up to the ruined nose of the craft, and began threading wires together. She didn't even flinch as sparks flared between them.

She was measured, even patient, as she worked at fixing the panel. When she was done, she tapped something out on the broken, unlit touch panel.

Heroes and heroines, I like to present you the Boogeylady of Parahuman world. Mrs Contessa, the only person capable to do EVERYTHING she wishes to do in the most flawless manners. She wants to kick some serious ass? All she have to do is to transform mundane objects into efficient weapons and kill people with a simple kitchen knife or frisbee plate. She wants to leave a crime scene as fast as possible? All she have to do is to fix an almost completely destroyed ship in a matter of seconds like she's the best techno Tinker in the world. Step back, Dragon, Simurgh, we have some new badass over here, who seem to compete with you two at the title of the Queen of Bullshit Techno-Superscience

. So, what the hell is your Classification, Mary Sue...I mean Contessa? Thinker? Tinker? Blaster? Or you're like the OP version of Weaver? All of the Classifications in a single person? Maybe she's like Eidolon, she have all the powers and everytime when she needs to do something, to win against an enemy or to finish a mission with success, all she have to do is to ask her Passenger for the right power and it will provide her what she needs to win. Like a...supernatural path to instant and UNFAIR success. Wow, this is not X-Men, where 90% of characters are OP as hell, lady, this is Worm, where people actually work HARD to achieve their success, even when they have superpowers. You're too OP for this universe, don't you think? Well, I'm sure she must be weak at something, because NOBODY is truly invincible in Worm, and I think its going to be fun trying to find her Achilles' heel

.
Ok, Cauldron WON, for the first time in centuries. They got Pretender for themselves and they'll probably make him impersonate Alexandria (knowing Cauldron's "luck" to keep their key people alive for too long, maybe they're going to have the same "luck" with Pretender too

), Saryrical and a couple of Vegas heroes proved to be FUCKING TRAITORS- FUCK THEM- and some heroes (especially Rime, but she was lucky with her ice armor, otherwise Number Man's bullets would have turned her into a human sieve) almost died because of a bunch a murderous kids and their pantless guardian dog. Well, the heroes fought at their best- this time with no kid gloves as they violently attacked and injured the three children

. But what they could have done against Number Man and Contessa? Maybe someone like Weaver, Rime, and Usher would have been able to hold them back for a while but...I don't know, they fought pretty hard, its not like they lost easy in front of Cauldron+ the Murderous Trio of Little Bitches.

"Dragon is currently unable to reply."

Arbiter didn't look at them as she spoke, "You hired them. Bambina's crew. You wanted to break him out."

Satyr didn't respond.

"Cauldron's evil," Arbiter said. "They experimented on people to get the powers Pretender has."

"It doesn't matter," Satyr said. His voice was rough. "Pretender's gone, and so are we. We'll get our teammates and we'll go."

Arbiter looked from her phone to Prefab. "Dragon collapsed just before this began. She was meeting a Las Vegas Rogue."

"We lost on every count," I said.

"Rime's alive," Arbiter said, looking at her phone.

"Every other count, then," I said.

The person I wanted to be, the person I was, reconciling them wasn't so easy. The hero on one side, Skitter on the other.

This has to change.

Rime was AMAZING in this Chapter

. She survived only thanks to her power and her badassery, not because Number Man was particularly merciful, when he clearly tried to assassinate her in cold blood. A new favorite heroine (as a girl myself, I have to say how proud I'm of Wildbow, a MAN, for creating so many strong female characters, all with different personalities and lives and very diversified: bitches and heroines, strong superpowered women and strong non-powered women, evil and good girls, insufferable and goody-two shoes, straight and lesbians, mad scientists and too stupid to live, backstabbers and loyal allies (even female non-humans are awesome: Dragon, Simurgh, Angelica). Thank you for writing such good female characters, Wildbow, I'm honestly impressed

).
I fail to see how stopping Rime from encasing Pretender- Man Bitch's box into a block of ice allowed Cauldron to capture him. Contessa could have empowered herself with SUPER-STRENGTH and smash the ice block into pieces or find its weak point and shatter it. Nobody had the necessary power to stop Contessa from using her OP Instant success and win

. The heroes fought hard and pretty brutal: no kid gloves, no too much restraint, even Weaver was allowed to ruin (I hope for eternity) Bambina's famous pretty face. At least they managed to kick The Trio of Little Bitches' ass, without killing any of them (as I said before, killing a child should be the last resort for everyone. Except Bonesaw; she's not your usual child). The Trio of Little Bitches are such little pieces of shit: Bambina is clearly a psycho killer obsessed to be a star and perverted enough to make a street whore blushing if she'll hear her :lol. Augustin Price is another psycho killer who can't be hurt if he pays attention to his victim (but can be hurt if he's attacked by surprise) and Starlet is...she's not that bad compared with the other two but she's not an angelic little girl either. But, even if they're so very heatable, I kind of feel pity for them, especially for Bambina. Her mother is a BITCH and no wonder she modeled her daughter to be like her

. Just like Alec's father who turned his own son into an almost empty shell of a human being. Those horrible, horrible...but poor children

.
I'm not mad at all because the heroes lost. They did anything they could to "protect" this CRIMINAL (now I'm convinced that the Thinker he killed was an innocent person who probably found some of Cauldron's secrets and Caudron ordered Pretender to reduce them to silence forever) and TRAITOR Pretender, but they couldn't win against Number Man and Contessa, no matter what they'd have done. At least they can't win until they'll discover Cauldron's guard dogs' weaknesses and use them against them (just like Skitter did with Manton). I don't get (or better said, I don't agree with her complains) why Weaver is so frustrated because she lost. She'd have lost even as an Undersider, maybe worse

. Everyone fought amazingly, they gave their best, you just can't win all the time, girl. You must know when to lose, especially against enemies who are smarter and more experimented than you. I'm sure that, until this story will end, you'll either get Contessa/Number Man as your reluctantly allies or you'll kick their ass (or PREFERABLY both

) but right now, lick your wounds, keep your head up, be proud of how nice you fought against Bambina, how many civilians you saved and how much you helped hour teammates and keep going, and try- next time- to be a better hero and a better fighter and maybe to lose less.
We can learn a lot from victories, but we can learn even more from losses.

Good night and sleep well, my friends.

blackarrow · Jun 27, 2019

Xexilf said:
Someone on spacebattles wrote a few snippets of a somewhat comedic take on this concept here.

I had a lot of fun reading them :lol. Too bad they weren't more. Yep. Pussy would be a total insufferable pussy-bitch in Worm but she'd be also a comedy fuel. Worm needs more comedy and Pussy would have provided it

.

Nobody · Jun 27, 2019

blackarrow said:
Yes, she's a child, but she's so incredible annoying, cruel and PERVERT (what kind of child talks like this about...footjob?)

On that topic Wildbow commented on this chapter in the comment section that he thought he had written in this chapter that her powers make her age slower, but must have lost that part when editing it.

Beplatinum · Jun 27, 2019

What do you think about the Vegas ranking system?

blackarrow · Jun 28, 2019

Beplatinum said:
What do you think about the Vegas ranking system?

Do you mean that Vegas Thinkers, Tinkers and Strangers are at the top of the food chain instead of heavy hitters like Blasters and Brutes? Well, I kind of agree with this ranking system with the only difference that I'd replace Strangers with Masters. Thinkers ad Tinkers can destroy the world faster than any Brute if they have enough time and resources. They're incredible powerful and dangerous

. Lets see: if Lung wants, he can kill few thousands of people in a week. But, if you give a computer to Number Man, he can destroy the world economy in a week, killing BILLIONS. If you give Bonesaw enough materials, she can create a plague capable to probably kill half of humanity. I'm personally more afraid by someone like Bonesaw or Number Man than a heavy hitter like Lung. As for Strangers, they're very vulnerable, despite being the perfect assassins. Augustin Price was vulnerable to Arbiter's forcefield, Aisha was captured by Cherish (a Master) and is vulnerable to Alec (another Master) and Brian was captured by Bonesaw (a Tinker). Strangers are not very powerful, unlike Masters. Here we have Manton, who was barely defeated after such a long time working for S9 and only because Taylor discovered his weakness. We also have 2 S-Class Masters: Nilbog and Heartbreaker, apparently invincible crazy parahumans. For fuck sake, Teacher is planning a PRISON BREAK from the most secured prison in the world and I have a feeling that he'll be successful because he already enslaved Saint. Replace Strangers with Masters- some of the most dangerous and resourceful parahumans EVER and you'll have a perfect ranking system

.
If I were an evil mastermind, I'll create a personal team only of Tinkers- build for me advances machines or engineer some really fucked up
epidemics, then Thinkers- find people's most hidden secrets, use them to blackmail the respective people so they'll have to do to me some services if they don't want to have their secrets exposed and their lives ruined, steal money or freeze the accounts of my enemies and help me with my further evil strategies. Obligatory I'll have a Precog too in my team of Thinkers. And the last ones, Masters- I'll use them to control people that I can't control through blackmails or SUPER-SCIENCE. With a team of Tinkers, Thinkers and Masters, I'll take over the world faster than anyone can stop me

. I think I'll make a pretty good evil Mastermind, the only things that hold me from becoming a monster like this being my own strong morals and my total unconcern in getting absolute power. Also, the fact that I don't have superpowers cause I live in a world were superpowers exist only in people' imagination :lol.

blackarrow · Jun 28, 2019

Nobody said:
On that topic Wildbow commented on this chapter in the comment section that he thought he had written in this chapter that her powers make her age slower, but must have lost that part when editing it.

Ok, this is a very good piece of information, thank you. So, she's a teenager (in terms of years) trapped in a child body? Or she'll be a child (physically and mentally) for many years?

Nobody · Jun 28, 2019

blackarrow said:
So, she's a teenager (in terms of years) trapped in a child body? Or she'll be a child (physically and mentally) for many years?

I don't think Wildbow has elaborated on it beyond what I posted, probably one of those but I can't say for sure, sorry.

blackarrow · Jul 4, 2019

Hello, my sweet and patient people. Last time, in the matchless parallel universe created by God Wildbow, Weaver just lost her first fight as a hero. Yes, she helped her fellow Vegas, New York and Brockton Bay heroes to capture Bambina and her Merry Team of Little Bitches, but she lost Pretender (a body snatcher Master) and Satyr to Cauldron

. No, they weren't kidnapped by this Earth Bet's SCP Foundation+ Freemasonry organisation, they proved to be some really disgusting and repulsive traitors (Pretender is also a criminal+ because of him and Satyr, Rime could have died. Because of these ASSHOLES's betrayal, one of the heroes- and a pretty sympathetic one- was very close to die :rage:

). My best bet is that Cauldron needs Pretender to possess braindead Alexandria's body and continue to fight against Endbringers in her name. But this doesn't excuse their actions: a heroine almost died, the act of betrayal, so many secrets still hidden from heroes and the fact that ASSHOLE Pretender is going to use an almost dead woman's body. As much as I hate Alexandria for her actions in Cauldron's service and especially for her last actions before getting destroyed by an enraged Taylor, I don't find comfortable at all knowing that she's possible braindead and a Master is going to use her body like its just a hollow shell, like nothing is alive there anymore :rage:

. This scream RAPE and DESECRATE and I'm uncomfortable as hell. If is true- which I believe to be true because they wouldn't need a body snatcher for nothing. Also, its pretty similar with what Alec did to Sophia but with some differences: Sophia was a bitch with no redeemable qualities; Rebecca, despite all the horrible things she did in parallel, fought Endbringers and saved probably millions of lives. I was absolute sure that Alec will release Sophia after he'll have his fun with her for a while, but Pretender will probably use Rebecca's body until she'll completely die or it will be completely destroyed

. This is why what Pretender will probably do with Rebecca pisses me off, unlike what Alec did with Sophia. FUCK MASTERS, FUCK Pretender, FUCK Cauldron and I hope that next time when they'll meet, Weaver will turn Satyr into a fucking eunuch. Long time have passed since she did this shit and I kind of miss it.
I'm not mad at all because Weaver lost to Cauldron. ANYONE would lose against the Woman in Black with INSTANT WIN CARD and the Pantless Man with SOLVE EVERYTHING THROUGH BULLSHIT SUPERCALCULATIONS CARD, with probably the exception of Legend, Eidolon, Scion and fucking Endbringers (but I remember that Doctor Mother said that Contessa is enough to protect her against Triumvirate heroes and I'm like...if Taylor have plot armor, this bitch have Adamantium Plot Armor

). Why I never saw this almost invincible bitch fighting against Endbringers is beyond my power to understand, especially since Cauldron are claiming to want to save the world. Maybe...despite all her ridiculous superpower, she might be vulnerable to Endbringers. Man, Contessa seems to be more interesting than Doctor Mother+ Number Man and I still don't know nothing about her except that she have a total bullshit of a superpower and she's loyal to Doctor Mother. And her suit is officially part of her body, like fur is for some animals

. Her personality is a freaking black hole so far -nothing about her past, nothing about her other purposes in life apart from being ready to die for Doctor Mother, nothing about the source of her power- natural parahuman or Cauldron parahuman- nothing, nothing, nothing...As much as I HATE Cauldron and its denizens, I'd be totally ok with reading Contessa Interlude

.
Right, back to our story with Chapter 3 Drone 23.3

"Mr. Chambers? Weaver's here to see you."

He called out from the opposite end of the room, "Send her in!"

Power was a funny thing. I'd seen it expressed in a number of ways, with parahumans, but the unpowered weren't quite so flexible. There were people like Tagg, who relied on bluster and bullying, and people like Calle, with sheer confidence and a strict reliance on their own abilities in a particular field. Piggot had been something else, someone who had known how to leverage people and situations, more like Calle than anyone, but with the added advantage that she'd had the authority to call in airstrikes and requisition Dragon's A.I. driven craft. Like Tattletale had said, Piggot wasn't a genius, but she had her strengths.

Glenn Chambers wore plaid pants with red and green, and a pink dress shirt, His belt bore a buckle with the PRT logo on it. His hair had changed too, parted neatly into what I assumed was 'geek chic', and the glasses had changed as well, with thick, round frames. An ID card hung around his neck. He didn't fit any of those particular archetypes.

Taylor vs Glenn. The Match of the Century. In the red corner: we have miss Taylor Hebert, 16 years old, ex villain, heroine in training. In the blue corner, we have mr Glenn Chambers, Protectorate director of public image, an apparently idealistic person who believe that heroes should go slow on villains because the general public might be upset if heroes are too dark in their actions and villains are hurt of killed accidentally (this is either what he personally believe or a game he plays with Taylor in order to test her willingness to play by rules

). I hope is the second theory because if Glenn truly believe that the civilians want to be protected by pansy goody-two shoes heroes against some very brutal and psychopatic villains (like most of parahuman villains actually are) then he's not idealistic, he's downright stupid. People want to be protected against parahuman villains by equally brutal and merciless parahuman heroes, they would not like to live in a world where they're terrorized by evil people with power while good people with powers are not allowed to do anything to protect them

. In real life, for example, most people are absolute ok when terrorists get killed and they're not crying after them: -oh, the poor terrorist, I think that the special forces were excessive brutal because they shoot him to death instead of letting him detonate his fucking bombs- Bullshit. If a person with superpowers threaten the non-powered lives+ refuse to help against Endbringers then the heroes should be allowed to do anything in the power to stop them starting with using as much violence as they can against the criminal, sending them straight to Birdcage or fucking killing them if they can't be captured alive. Not a big lose to humanity anyway and is not less heroic to save hundreds of civilians by murdering one superpowered criminal. Please, Glenn, I don't want to call you stupid everytime when you'll have another scene and you'll open your mouth to say something, prove me that all this bullshit with kiddie gloves is just a psychological game you're playing with Taylor, not your personal belief. Please...

"Weaver, come. Look and tell me what you think."

I approached the desk, and the group parted to give me space. It was hard to put my finger on why, but I couldn't help but feel like they were doing it at Glenn's bequest and not mine.

The massive portfolio folders were open, showing poster images of various Protectorate members. The leaders of the new teams.

The images were stylized, with splashes in pale watercolor in the background, an almost sketchier appearance to the heroes. But the masks, necks and shoulders, the emblems and their characteristic tools were all done in hyper-realistic detail. Chevalier, Rime and Exalt, with backgrounds in gray, blue and yellow, respectively. There looked to be more behind them.

"They're good," I said.

"I'd buy one," I said. "If I wasn't already a cape, anyways. Things are a mess. I don't see how you'd convince a non-cape me otherwise."

For Skidmark, it had been depraved homeless, addicts and thugs. For Glenn, it was a cadre of college students hoping for a career in marketing, advertising or public relations within the PRT.

Glenn only smiled. "Isn't it just as discourteous to interrupt me in the middle of my work, when I'm already doing you a favor by meeting you?"

Fine. He wanted to play it that way?

"Last night, Pretender got broken out of Dragon's craft, our team crushed, and Rime shot. I almost died."

There's still something that surprise me about this formidable universe created by Wildbow. The fact that the vast majority of non-powered people (at least in US) are so acceptable and tolerant towards superpowered people. Except for Piggot (who was a bigot but even so she was willing to work with parahumans, wasn't afraid of them and treated some of them like they're almost her children instead of people working under her orders

) every single non-parahuman is either very tolerant to parahumans, is not bothered at all by them, and even admire them and consider them as role models. While I'm very glad that parahumans (the ones who are good people, heroes or they only want to live a normal life, minding their own businesses) are not subjected to irrational hate only because they're different, I'm still puzzled because they're so freaking accepted in the society

. In X-Men, mutants were generally hated because non-mutant people were afraid of their powers (plus mutant villains committed awful crimes in the name of all mutants, ruining peaceful mutants' reputation). X-Men is incredible sad and revolting, but also very realistic because it shows how the world would react if people with powers will appear in real life. Worm is kind of idealistic (while being realistic enough is also idealistic when it comes to interactions between parahumans and non-parahumans), people almost worship parahumans despite their not so harmless powers and not very stable behavior. In real life, people would either be afraid of parahumans, see them as monsters/ vessels for aliens and less humans (because of the aliens parasite inside their brains and their powers) or just be envious on their powers. But in Wormverse they have action figurines and posters for fanboys and fangirls

. Maybe because parahumans protect the world against Endbringers? This must be the main reason why parahumans are so accepted and admired by the majority. I like how tolerant Earth Bet people are towards parahumans. Earth Aleph have also people fascinated with parahumans lore, despite having less parahumans than Bet. I'm sure there are Earths where parahumans are hated and opressed by non-parahumans and Earths where non-parahumans are hated and oppressed by parahumans. I'm absolute sure that I'll hate oppressors and their fucked up societies, no matter if they're parahumans or non, but...I'm very eager to see these Earths where the relations between parahumans and non-parahumans are not so idealistic like they're on Bet and Aleph. I'm so FUCKING CURIOUS ABOUT SO MANY FUCKING THINGS AND GOD WILDBOW SHOULD SATISFY MY CURIOSITY OTHERWISE IT WILL INFLATE LIKE A BALLOON AND EXPLODE WITH THE FORCE OF A SUPERNOVA

.

"Your insane restrictions on powers were a big part of that, Mr. Chambers. The bad guys won, and it's partially your fault."

"It's about a lot more than butterflies. It's the whole mindset. The attitude of the heroes. I'd talk to Chevalier, but he's too busy. I'd talk to Rime, but she's recovering from being shot three times. You're the only other person I've met so far who really seems to be in a position to know what I'm talking about. Besides, as far as I can figure, image and PR seem to be at the heart of the problem."

"All your capes could stand to stop holding back. Wards and Protectorate both. At least in situations like this. We lost Pretender, and we didn't exactly inspire confidence in the Vegas teams. That played a part in losing them."

Glenn frowned, glancing at his collection of underlings. "Everyone but Weaver, out. I hope each of you can find something to do."

"And I'm sure you did an excellent job," Glenn said. "But you're a dog in a duck pond here. You're out of place, you don't know the usual precautions, the customs and conventions. You gave evidence to that when you talked about the Vegas wards, something that should be kept more discreet."

Glenn sighed. He walked around his desk and plunked down in his chair. "You're going to be one of the challenging ones, aren't you?"

"Your strength isn't in question. We're not sure you're dependable."

This is a test for her, exactly what I said earlier

. Only Taylor should wear the kid gloves for a while, until she'll prove that she can control her overkill urges and can work in team, the other heroes are allowed to use excessive force when is necessary (like when they demolished those Adepts or when Arbiter crushed August Prince- an evil child but a CHILD nonetheless- against the ground with her forcefield, being dangerously close to kill him). Then, if she'll prove to be dependable, I'm sure that her restrictions will be lifted and she'll be free to turn her enemies into living hives if she'll like

. Glenn doesn't necessarily believe in kid gloves, neither in all pure heroes, he's not stupid neither excessive idealistic, he just want to trust a former villain and help her find her place in a world that was antagonistic to her until recently- the world of superheroes. He just want to integrate her into her new world and life. This doesn't scream to me: a stupid asshole. On the contrary, he's a man with good intentions

. Yes, Taylor's situation is pretty annoying, but she should realize that this man only want what is good for her and expect from her to listen him and follow his advises and learn how to have a little patience. Just a little patience and willingness to listen, this is all he's asking from her at this moment. I like the way he thinks, he's NOT stupid idealistic pansy man, NOT a military tyrant/bully like Tagg, NOT a not-so-hidden bigot like Piggot and NO WAY a monster like Skidmark (I mean, come on, Taylor, comparing him with Skidmark? They're so fucking different in any aspects possible. Its like you're comparing GOLD with DIRT. I know you must hate him to guts for not letting you act impulsively as you're used but...don't compare him with that shitstain of a man. Urghhhhhhhhh

). Glenn is Taylor's FRIEND disguised as foe, this is how I personally interpret him. Taylor must decide if she'll continue to see him as nothing but a foe or dig deeper into his intentions and discover the friend that he's so very ok to prove her that he can be

.

"You didn't follow the orders," Glenn said. When I glanced at him, he locked his eyes onto mine. "You stung Bambina."

"The public's watching this too closely for us to let you off your leash so soon after Alexandria's death. When things quiet down, it might be a possibility. Our heroes in Vegas tend to be a little grayer than white, and an ex-villain would fit. But not now."

It was me, entering the PRT office in Brockton Bay. A video feed from a surveillance camera.

It was me, crawling through a window. That would be from the night I retaliated against Tagg. Odd, seeing how the bugs moved in coordination with me. When I turned my head in the video, the orientation of every bug in the swarm changed in the same moment.

All around me, PRT employees were howling in pain, their cries silenced by the lack of an audio feed. Either the camera hadn't picked it up, or Glenn had muted it. They thrashed. One reached for me, for the me on the screen, and I could see how I moved out of the way without even glancing at him. The swarm concealed me at the same time, briefly obscuring the Skitter in the video from both the man on the ground and the security camera. When it parted, she had shifted two or three feet to the left. A simple step to one side in the half-second she couldn't be seen, but it misled the eyes.

And I couldn't remember doing it. I'd never consciously added the trick to my repertoire.

It was like hearing my voice played back to me, but it was compounded over several levels. The movements, the movements of the swarm, it wasn't familiar to me.

Wow, Taylor, you're SCARY when the Passenger takes control over your actions/power and do things beyond your control. You have an excellent control over your power, yes, but your Passenger kind of like to steal the control from you at times, without you being even aware of this. SCARY. CREEPY. UNSETTLING. I like Scarab (my name for Taylor's Passenger) especially when it and she work in unison but NOT when it start controlling her body and mind when she's awake and not in immediate danger. Against her will. Creepy alien being creepy and acting only according to its best interests, despite having a strong connection to its host. Glenn is right. AGAIN

. He doesn't want a second Echidna. He doesn't want to see Taylor getting literally swallowed by her Passenger and be turned into an inhumane monster. He wants her to be in full control over her power and her Passenger. All the time. Because he knows that her Passenger will never have human best interests at its alien little heart, it only care about its own interests/its species' interests. If it will get permanently control, the human Taylor will disappear and the alien will prevail. But if Taylor will be full in control, then she'll be extremely helpful to heroes because- despite all her flaws- she have a good heart and like to help people. Basically, Glenn wants to stop the monster from destroying the human girl, even if he have to play the role of her foe

. The more I read about this man the more I understand and I agree with his intentions.
"Poor" little(?) PERVERT KILLER Bambina complained that she got stung a couple of times? "the SMALLEST fucking sad trombone in the fucking galaxy playing in distance" Next time when you confront Taylor or any other hero, I hope that you'll not have any reason anymore to complain, you little (?) bitch. Why? Because the stings will not bother you anymore if you'll not have ANY FACE LEFT ON YOUR FUCKING SKULL. Gosh, I hate Bambina so much, I almost want her to get captured by Bonesaw and watch Bonesaw having her way with her. Bonesaw is a miles better and light years more interesting character compared with this shitty pervert villain

.
And no, Taylor, you still wouldn't stand any chance against Number Man and Contessa, no matter how brutal you'd have fought. You already used STINGING INSECTS against Number Man with zero effect; they didn't even touched him. Not even if you'll use hundreds of bees and hornets against these two will make any difference. Contessa will use her INSTANT WIN CARD and kill all of them in like 20-30 seconds and Number Man will bullshit supercalculate the best way to kill them in like 20-30 seconds while avoiding each one of their attacks. And -SADLY- neither of them is arrogant like Alexandria, to believe that if they don't act immediately the insects won't touch them

.

"We collected the three members of Bambina's group. Not a complete loss."

"They'll get free and continue their rampage," I said.

"Most likely. We'll strive to hold on to Bambina at the very least. With luck we'll be able to recruit the little prince, maybe Starlet as well."

Chevalier approached. "You murdered two people. Three, going by your admission while in custody. Two PRT directors, one major hero. When Dragon and Defiant suggested we bring you on board, we were divided. It was Glenn who offered the compromise that we ultimately agreed to. Thiscompromise."

"You have blood on your hands. We need to know that you can hold back, that you won't simply snap as you did when you were in custody in Brockton Bay. We're still wanting to ensure that this isn't a long-term scheme on the Undersider's part, as unlikely as it might be."

"I'm sorry," Chevalier said. "Really. I was there for the fight against Echidna. I saw the Undersiders in action. I saw you in action, and I'm willing to credit you with the maneuver that turned the situation around in the final stages. As long as your rap sheet may be, I've heard of the good you did. It strikes me that you've likely saved one person from death and injury for each person you've assaulted, if I were to count what you did before Shatterbird hit your city."

"Then there's one last thing," I said. "If I can't help directly, let me help indirectly. I can outfit your heroes. Most of them."

No fucking way Bambina will accept to be a hero- maybe only if she'll be threatened with Birdcage for her crimes. Something like: fucking rot in Birdcage or become a hero. She's over the top crazy, but she won't choose the super-jail over freedom, even if that "freedom" will also be her personal jail (forced to work as a heroine? What a nightmare with open eyes for Bambina, the Human Projectile

. I'm sure her mother will be happy because her "adorable" daughter will be even more famous as a hero than villain and all this caricature of a mother cares for is FAME and nothing else. She reminds me of Marissa's mother but a worse version. She knows that her daughter is a criminal and she encourages her to continue to be like this because...FAME).
Chevalier is GREAT, he believes in Taylor and is doing what he can to see the teenager ex-villain being reborn into the promising hero. Glenn saved her ass from jail and Defiant is like a second father to her. You're surrounded by people who BELIEVE IN YOU, CARE FOR YOU AND WANT ONLY THE GOOD FOR YOU. Don't push them away, Taylor, maybe they'll never replace Undersiders but they're all you have now. Besides, I'm sure you'll meet your Undersiders buddies during one of he future big battles or maybe- if you behave- the heroes themselves will allow you to meet them

. After all, Undersiders are tolerated by Protectorate as part of your deal with them.
Gosh, I miss MY Undersiders, especially MY BEST GIRL

.

I opened the ones from Brockton Bay last.

Taylor. Weaver. Skitter. Is it bad that you'll always be Skitter to me?

I could hit you, hug you, yell at you and hold onto you for hours all at the same time. It's fitting that I want to kiss you and throttle you at the same time because that's what you were to me for a long time. You drive me crazy and I can never understand what's going through your head.

You're an idiot. I want you to know that. You're an idiot, Skitter. You're brilliant and reckless and I'm betting it makes sense to you to do this but you're an idiot.

I'll write again, when I can figure out what to write.

Grue.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! what the fuck???

There was only a little circle with devil horns at the bottom, in place of a signature. I rolled my eyes and moved on.

Tt here.

You probably want to know the situation. We're all alive, Accord hasn't turned on us yet, things are getting more exciting but we'll manage. Heroes are leaving us alone, like you arranged. Trick will be to get Regent and Imp to stop prodding them for reactions when they cross ways.

Heartbreaker making initial forays, decided to pay a visit. Can't tell if he's invading or after Regent. Red Hands are a little more aggressive but not too bad. Meeting for negotiations tonight. Lost Garden approacheth, sending members after us and trying to clear way for Barrow to advance. Annoying but no problem until they enter city limits.

Regent&Imp constantly together. Mucho annoying since you gone. They're testing the waters, seeing what they can get away with. Will see how it turns out.

We got Flechette. She a pair with Parian. Lovey-dovey. Best case scenario, really. Not sure if you arranged that, good call if you did. Flechette's going by Foil now. Likes those F names.

P.S. To the asshats reading Taylor's mail, there's no codes in this message. Promise. Don't bother. You want to know what we're up to, call me. I'll fucking tell you.

Atlas died. I wanted to let you know. Tattletale had him, but he wouldn't eat or move. We asked for him, and we found a place for him. The guys say they think they know a good way to make a mold. They're covering him in brass.

A way of saying you're still with us. Take care of yourself.

-Char

(She said to write what she said. All of it.)

(She hasn't said anything for a long while. She growled at me when I started to walk away tho. Oh here.)

I did what you said. Is quiet. Have tents and dogs and am hunting with dogs. Hunting fucked up bull things.

(Bison)

Very quiet with no people. Learning to cut them up. (The bison not people).

People are cutting down trees to clear space around portal, but easy to stay away from them. Simple way to live. Nice but miss toilets.

(We all miss toilets)

(Signing off – Rachel and Rachel's excellent minion/henchperson/letter writer)

I thought of Atlas, and added a note – jetpack? With beetle wings? Flight system?

OMG, so many fucking emotions pouring out of these letters

. I swear on everything you want, my dear readers, when I mentioned how much I miss Undersiders I didn't scroll down to see Taylor receiving letters from them. I call it an fortunate coincidence

. So, from where should I start? With Brian's letter where he tells Taylor how much he misses her despite her being an idiot for wanting to become a hero? How bad Brian must feel now, that he lost the girl he loved and he's all alone with his personal traumas and troubles with newcomers villains

? Or should I start with my BEST GIRL's letter, the one who inform Taylor about the new villains' actions and the unexpected visit of the WORST CHARACTER AND PERSON in the whole story, Heartbreaker (I PRAY that Alec will kill him and feed Rachel's dogs with his remains and save his brothers and sisters from further nightmarish abuses

)? I love how Lisa already know that they're reading Taylor's letters; of course there's something that she should know- what my best girl doesn't know

? Sabah and Lily being adorable together and in love make my heart sing with happiness; they're my favorite ship, now that Taylor and Brian ceased to be a thing. I'd instantly HATE anyone who'll try to hurt their relationship in any way. Rachel's letter was....so cute. Thank you for existing, you good, good doggie girl. Yes, you're a good girl, yes you're

.
I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA who wrote the letter with ~~aisha's~~ devil horns. This is ominous as fuck

. An unknown person pretending to be Undersider send a letter to Taylor and Lisa doesn't suspect anything? What bullshit wizardry is this

?
Good night and sleep well, my friends. Now, I'm going to my bed and cry my eyes out

. Man, Charlotte's letter....WAS PAINFUL. Atlas is dead. I expected him to die one day but...it still took me by surprise. So freaking fast. Wow, this is a very painful way to end a Chapter. With a dumb big bug's death. My favorite dumb big bug

.

blackarrow · Jul 11, 2019

Hello, my friends. Damn it, the last Chapter was pretty sad. We lost another Undersider animal member, after we lost Brutus and Judah

. Atlas starved to death and nobody was able to help him because...Amelia didn't made him capable to act independent of Taylor and feed himself when she wasn't around to control him (damn you, Amelia, you messed up in more ways than just one or two. Well, I feel bad for blaming the poor girl for not helping a villain until the end, but I need somehow to express my frustrations over the fact that Atlas is no longer alive

...at least they'll turn him into a statue which is very nice and show how much Undersiders still love Taylor- each in his/her own way, despite her "betraying" them

. I love them so much. If someone would have told me when I was at the beginning of the story that I'll end up loving a band of villains, I'd have stared at them like they're crazy- because I usually like heroes, not villains- but right now, I can say without any doubt that I FREAKING LOVE THEM AND I'LL BE EMOTIONALLY DEVASTATED WHEN THEY'LL START DYING

. Yes, I'm sure they'll did at one point of the story because they can't have plot armor for eternity, right? Damn, I'll feel bad even for Alec, this is how much I'm in love with this group of (not so) villainous teenagers). I should stop thinking about their deaths because I'm still sad over Atlas's death and I don't want to cry again before starting this Chapter- who knows how much additional sadness this Chapter will bring in my life...
So, Taylor will have some kickass jetpack made by Defiant+Dragon, I suppose, right? It will never replace Atlas but I know that it will be damn useful especially since it will be made by two of the greatest Tinkers in the world. I can imagine the following scene between Taylor and Glenn (btw Glenn is now one of my favorite non-parahumans. I just love this man and I hope that nothing bad will ever happen to him. He's a good person, a truly good person who only want what is good for Taylor but Taylor still need time to understand his true intentions

):
Taylor, entering Glenn's office: Mr Chambers, I'd like to talk with you about something...
Glenn: Ms Hebert, I told you already, your restrictions will be completely lifted when you'll be 18 and allowed to apply for Protectorate. After that, you'll be allowed to blind and castrate as many villains as you'd like. Nobody will stop you...
Taylor: I'm talking about a jetpack replacing Atlas. Can you...
Glenn: No problem, I've already talked with Defiant and he said that he'll made one for you. You know Defiant, he's very talented with his tech and...
Taylor: Can I choose the model?
Glenn: No, you're under restrictions, you can't choose anything for yourself. I'll choose the model for you. I think you'll adore my idea: it will have wings and the wings will be shaped into butterfly wings. Your jetpack will be built in a way that will emulate perfectly a giant butterfly wings. You know...for aesthetic purpose....
Taylor:.....
Glenn grins.
Taylor....shoves hundreds of spiders hidden inside her clothes in Glenn's mouth and nostrils.
Taylor's Passenger grins with its weird alien mouth.

Welp....RIP Glenn, it was nice knowing you Drone 23.4

"I'm so sorry I'm late. I never do this," Mrs. Yamada said. She entered the office, a raincoat, boots and a messenger bag in her arms, her hair a touch damp, clearly flustered. "What a way to start us off. I'm so embarrassed."

Taylor GETTING THERAPY. Jessica Yamada's therapy sessions with Taylor. OMG, OMG, this Chapter is already PERFECT

. Everything I love is here: Jessica, psychology, therapy sessions, Taylor trying (and failing) to understand herself, Jessica trying (and probably failing) to understand Taylor and...more Jessica. Too much PERFECTION to handle <3. I wonder is Jessica will have a chance with Taylor. Yes, she did pretty good with Sveta and Broken Victoria but Sveta is only a very nice girl who just can't control her tentacle body and Broken Victoria is more angry than usual (like she doesn't have enough reasons to be angry) but she's still (mostly) herself. While Taylor....Taylor is a different animal. She's so complex and complicated that a single therapy session will not be enough for Jessica to read and understand her. Maybe after a couple of sessions...damn, what I'm talking about? Not even Alexandria - the flying ~~bitch~~ brick who was capable to read people's expressions and learn everything about them- was successful when she tried to read Taylor's expressions before she signed her own death sentence. In the same manner you can't turn Bitch into a Lady or convince Number Man that in a civilized and proper society a man should wear pants and not walk around shamelessly exposing his underwear, you just can't read Taylor and completely understand her

. This is how things work in this universe. When one of these things will stop working, the universe will start collapsing onto itself due to the sheer of weirdness.

"It's okay," I said. "It's not like I'm going anywhere."

Respect me?

"You're in prison, and will be for at least two years, maybe longer. By all reports, you're chafing under the new restrictions you face as a member of the Wards. That's without touching on the fact that, two weeks ago, you murdered Alexandria and Director James Tagg out of fear for your safety and the safety of your friends and teammates. In this room, or wherever we go to talk, it's okay to answer 'how are you' with an admission that you're not okay."

"I'm- I feel better, after talking to Glenn and Chevalier."

I went on, "And there's the other stuff. You might not believe me, but I washelping people. Hurting people from time to time, but mostly helping. I was getting food out to people who were hungry, checking everyone had what they needed, laying long-term plans for the future, so that people who've never had a chance in their lives would finally get one. I'm helping people less now that I'm going out with the Wards."

"Okay," she said. "And you think society would be better off if everyone acted like you?"

"Sort of," I said. "Yes, I hurt people, but I hurt people who deserved it. When I had the resources to do it, I helped a lot of people."

"Kind of medieval, isn't it?"

Well, talking from a moral viewpoint, Jessica and Taylor have different options of dealing with criminals and wrongdoers. Jessica is the one who believe in redemption and probably think that anyone can be redeemable (including S9 members) and she thinks that brutally stopping criminals from committing more crimes is a "medieval" thing (its her opinion and I admire her pacifism and humanitarianism but I don't agree with it, especially about the redemption part

) while Taylor believes that most of the criminals can't change and the only way to be stopped is through violent ways (an opinion that I definitely agree with so my- protect innocents by destroying their tormentors- mentality is more close to Taylors than Jessica

) but I can't help thinking that Jessica probably talked with Glenn before this session and he asked her to convince Taylor to act more like the temporary new Taylor he wants her to be than the good ol' Taylor. She wants to influence Taylor to think that maybe she was wrong in some of her violent actions and if she's redeemable then almost everyone can be redeemable too, no matter how crazy they're or how many shitload of crimes they did before. Glenn, you're very decided to test Taylor's patience, aren't you? Sneaky bastard

.

It reminded me of my dad, that idea. "Guess it is. But capes are naturally violent."

"You're going to report back to the guys in charge of the PRT and the Protectorate and tell them whether or not I'm of sound mind, whether I can join the Wards team without snapping and murdering someone."

"But I think I'd rather have you for a therapist."

I nodded. "I feel… anxious, because I'm worried I'm not a very good hero."

"Doesn't it say something ugly about me, if I make a pretty excellent villain and a crappy hero?"

"And genuinely afraid," I said. I sighed. "I feel… afraid, because I'm starting to think that maybe my power isn't entirely under my control. There's a monster taking up real estate in my brain, deciding to use my power when I don't want to, and I'm pretty sure it's been getting more effective over time."

"Is this monster metaphorical?"

No, the monster is REAL and it tries to take total control over its host. At least, from time to time, when she isn't aware of her actions for reasons independent of her control. I'm surprised that Jessica doesn't know about Passengers or maybe she have no idea that they're basically parasites inside human brain and she imagines them as alien from sky sending superpowers to some chosen humans. But...and there's a but, if these baby aliens are brain parasites then why nobody saw them when they did medical tests on parahumans? No matter how small they're, I'm sure that these tests would have revealed them. Unless...and there's an unless, they're invisible and can't be observed not even with Tinkers' medical tech

. Or they aren't exactly in people's brains, but they're anchored in other plan of reality from where they transmit signals to the brain of their host. I imagine them floating in their plan of existence choosing a host and sending something like electromagnetic pulses to their respective hosts' brains, giving them the desired powers and trying to control them. For feeding purposes? Turning humans into their puppets? Having their weird alien kind of fun seeing the humans fight to death with their powers? There must be a reason behind this ambitious plan of turning humans into demi-gods but maybe the reason is so strangely alien that I can't even think about right now, despite having so many logical (from a human POV) theories

.
Anyway, I kind of agree with Jessica here. The monster is both literal and metaphorical. Literal because of the damn alien fighting with its host for basically total control over her mind and body. Metaphorical because Taylor- the HUMAN- herself can be a monster when she thinks that is necessary. Even without Scarab's intervention, there are moments when she's capable of some really disturbing/petty crimes. When she's in full control of her mind/body, she can be very ruthless and merciless and creepy with people who doesn't deserve (Triumph, his father, Clockblocker, Vista). She's a monster inside another monster. But also a hero inside a monster inside another monster. She's one of the most terrifying and beautifully complex monsters and villains and heroes and I feel terrible bad for Jessica- she'll need more than one long session to understand at least 10% of Taylor Hebert

.

"That's a very good question," I said. I leaned on my knees and stared at my hands. "Is it just me? Or is it my 'passenger', some inscrutable life form from a parallel universe that decided to give me powers, currently helping me manage those powers so my brain doesn't overheat? Or is there even a distinction? Did my trigger event fuse us to the point that the line is blurred beyond recognition?"

"If I tell you I'm dangerous, that I'm going to hurt someone, intentionally or by accident, are you obligated to report it?"

"I'm getting a new costume. Maybe a camera? The most recent time I noticed it was when I was with Glenn Chambers, he showed me a video, and I saw myself using tricks I'd never taught myself."

"Want to go for a walk?"

"Hell yeah. Am I allowed?"

"I'll need to make a few phone calls."

Middle schoolers swarmed around a very unhappy looking team of Wards, pushing, jostling, calling out, reaching to touch armor and costumes. The overcast sky was only just clearing up, causing the colors in the park to be all the more vivid.

"People asked why more hadn't been done to reach out to you and individuals like you. This was the response."

There are only two persons who know about Passengers more than anyone else, and both of them are heavily compromised. Glaistig Uaine and Bonesaw. But Glaistig Uaine is no longer a human -she's a collection of Passengers who took over her body and mind and turned her into a literal monster (Glaistig Uaine, the human, isn't the one who know about Passengers and their shenanigans; Glaistig Uaine, the monster, the collection of Passengers using her human body, is the one who know about Passengers but she isn't interested to let others know about her fellow Passengers- all she wants to do is to recruit even more Passengers in order to become more powerful). Bonesaw is still human but she's also a monster- both literal and metaphorical- and she have no reason helping humanity finding more about Passengers (all she wants to do is help her fellow S9 bringing the Apocalypse). I think that Cauldron must know something about Passengers too, after they experimented vials on COMPLETELY INNOCENT PEOPLE for years, and there's also a possibility that they captured an alien -aka Roswell style- and they're using it to get more vials (because I have no other fucking idea how they can create powers if they don't take them directly from aliens).
Taylor is going to help children by teaching them to not become like her if they're bullied

. Nice, very nice but I'm afraid that she'll snap if she'll remember all the bad stuff that happened to her and involuntary let Scarab controls her power and...do something that nobody wants to see her doing, especially to children. Please, oh God, this is one of the few moments when I DON'T WANT TO BE RIGHT ABOUT SOMETHING

.

Was this another point where I was underestimating what the effect of the swarm was, or were the kids just overreacting? It was only five or six hundred butterflies.

"Whoever catches the most wins!" I called out. "Go!"

The girl in blue looked at Mrs. Yamada, "Ex-villain's corrupting the kids, and you're not stopping her?"

Mrs. Yamada was frowning at me.

"I always hated the speeches when I was in school, the preaching in auditoriums, the one-note message. Stuff like saying drugs are ad. It'swrong. Drugs are fantastic."

"Um," Fox-mask said.

Mrs. Yamada was glaring at me, but she hadn't interrupted.

"-until they don't," I said. "People hear the message that drugs are bad, that they'll ruin your life if you do them once. And then ou find out that isn't exactly true because your friends did it and turned out okay, or you wind up trying something and you're fine. So you try them, try them again. It isn't a mind-shattering moment of horrible when you try that first drug. Or so I hear. It's subtle, it creeps up on you, and you never really get a good, convincing reason to stop before it ruins your life beyond comprehension. I never went down that road, but I knew a fair number of people who did. People who worked for me, when I was a supervillain."

"I want to pick my own power," Ned said.

"Too bad. You don't get to in real life," I said. "You think I wanted bug powers?"

"Ned gets the ability to fly." I'd left him for last. "And some sort of ranged attack. Kind of like Legend."

"But no power is really that simple. So… you fly by blowing. Like a balloon with the end untied, only with more control. You attack by blowing too."

"No! That sucks!"

"Reynard said I got super strength, and regeneration."

She looked at Fox-mask. I had his name now.

All my worries just went away

. Children are having fun trying to catch the Butterfly Princess' butterflies

. Taylor knows how to behave around children which is fantastic. I'm so proud of her (I remember how protective she was with the kids in her territory when she refused to allow them to use dangerous construction tools to rebuild the territory or when she saved Charlotte's orphans who were attacked by ex-ABB assholes). She's GOOD with children. She also is pretty great explaining them about powers and trigger events. Yep, they can't get the powers they want (no even Cauldron's clients got the powers they wanted exactly), and not all the powers are super-cool and useful but with enough training, patience and ingenuity, even the crappiest power can save lives (I remember reading an X-Men side story about the worst X-Man: a boy with the power of self-detonation, a power that he could have used only once because...no additional regeneration or immortality. His power was really crappy but he used it wisely, saving the world with his final sacrifice. He saved so many lives with such awful and apparently useless power...

). Everything depends of how a parahuman decides to use their powers: they can have tons of powers and don't give a shit about saving lives (Lung) or.... control bugs and save a shitload of people (Taylor)

.
Of course, there are some really useless powers that you can't do any shit with them no matter how much you'd like. For example, my ideal power is something like Bonesaws: bio- tinkering (the things I'll do with Bonesaw's power...) but I'm sure that I'll get something like...a Master Classification with the power to control...plants. But not telekinetically, like Parian can control her "toys", the plants will just sit in their place and will not listen to my commands because they're not sapient and they can't visibly move from their place. Maybe I'll control their growth but.... that's it

. Instead of having an army of man eating plants telekinetically following me around and destroying my enemies, I'll have...plants growing faster than usual. Useful for (MAYBE) partially solving the world hunger but completely useless in combat. I'll be a shitty version of dr Bushroot (a villain from cartoon/comics Darkwing Duck....no, I'm not ashamed to admit that I watch cartoons with anthropomorphic ducks..."goes into a corner to cry tears of shame" Can't believe I made this confession....WHAT THE DUCK is happening to me?!?

)
The hero is called Reynard and have a fox-mask. Reynard is a famous fox trickster god in english and dutch mythology (he's also one of my favorite characters in the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court <3). I wonder if this hero have possession or shapeshifting abilities. He's pretty sympathetic so far.

"Your power came with the ability to understand air currents, which you need to fly," I said. "But they erased something else. Your sense of direction is gone, unless you're using it to fly. Wherever you go, you get lost. It's bad enough that you can't do anything on your own. Unless someone here asks you to join their team, your life is ruined."

"What?" He asked. He glowered. "Fuck you."

"Language," Fox-mask warned.

"So let's say there's an endbringer attack," I said. "Time to decide. Do you volunteer?"

Nobody moved.

"We need volunteers, or it's over," I said. "Hero or villain."

"Roll," I said. I handed over the dice, "One in four chance you die."

The kids rolled, one by one.

Three dead.

"You rigged the system," Ned said, a little petulant.

The ringing of phones interrupted me. Multiple phones, all at once, both the Wards and Mrs. Yamada.

A sick feeling welled in my gut. The Wards looked at their phones. Mrs. Yamada was the only one to raise hers to her ear. I closed my eyes.

I felt like my chest was clenching around my heart. The kids had fallen silent.

Poor Ned

. An apparently crappy power+ no sense of direction unless he's flying like a balloon. Wow, you're pretty cruel with him, Taylor "hugs Ned and pats him on his head". This whole "let the dice to decide what power and how many successes as hero or villain we'll have" sounds interesting enough, I think I'll try with my own dices

. I'll make sure that I'll tell you, my dear readers and friends, about the results next time when I'll liveblog.
Big Troubles in little Brockton Bay? Why I'm not surprised not even a tiny bit? Let me guess...half of Brockton Bay's population suddenly felt in LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUVE with Heartbreaker and started to kill the other unaffected part of population. I can't see something worse than this shit.

"Defiant says he has your old costume, he can spray it white, if you want, swap out the lenses. It won't be pretty, but it'll be better than what they gave you."

I opened my eyes. The kids were wide eyed.

"Behemoth. Seismic activity building in New Delhi. He hasn't appeared yet."

"They call him the herokiller," Reynard added.

That thought hadn't even crossed my mind. We're not ready. None of us. We're still reeling from Echidna, from Alexandria.

I glanced back at the kids. The ones who hadn't cleared the way for the crafts to land in the park were still at the tables, along with one or two Wards who apparently weren't coming.

None of them wished us luck.

Maybe we didn't need any further reminders about our chances.

Oh, Behemoth. Good...good...told you that nothing can be more shitty that Heartbreaker's visit in Brockton Bay

. Not even Behemoth's visit in India.
Nice to see a cool fight between the DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT MANTON LAWS Behemoth and the american+ probably the local indian parahumans and finally we'll see Taylor fighting the second Endbringer (and the second most dangerous one after Simurgh). How many people will die? Depends of the power of the DICE if Wildbow did the same he did while writing Leviathan Arc: decide with dices who get to live and die. Anyway, my best bets: there are going to be more deaths than in Extermination. Because...you can barely avoid a tsunami if you can fly or you're fast enough but you can't avoid a lighting ripping you in half all of sudden. Behemoth can kill hundreds without even touching them, unlike Leviathan. There will be one HELL OF A BATTLE and I can barely wait to read

.

ATLAS' MOURNING IN PICTURES

Scarfgirl | DeviantArt

scarfgirl_ (u/scarfgirl_) - Reddit

Scarfgirl | DeviantArt

pepecharlielepew (u/pepecharlielepew) - Reddit

Rest in peace, my big dumb bug.

Good night and sleep well, my friends.

Captain Usoland · Jul 11, 2019

The weaver dice chapter is one of my absolute favorite chapters to re-read in Worm.
They actually made a game off of this, that you can find and roleplay online.

The line where "Drugs are fantastic" made me chuckle every time I read it. Same with the powers they came up with, and the kid asking about how much money.

The Behemoth fight....is a turning point for this story. I'm curious what you will think of it going forward.

KnownParadox · Jul 12, 2019

Oooohahahahahhaha

This next sequence is great.

rafuki22 · Jul 12, 2019

blackarrow said:
Hello, my friends. Damn it, the last Chapter was pretty sad. We lost another Undersider animal member, after we lost Brutus and Judah . Atlas starved to death and nobody was able to help him because...Amelia didn't made him capable to act independent of Taylor and feed himself when she wasn't around to control him (damn you, Amelia, you messed up in more ways than just one or two. Well, I feel bad for blaming the poor girl for not helping a villain until the end, but I need somehow to express my frustrations over the fact that Atlas is no longer alive ...at least they'll turn him into a statue which is very nice and show how much Undersiders still love Taylor- each in his/her own way, despite her "betraying" them . I love them so much. If someone would have told me when I was at the beginning of the story that I'll end up loving a band of villains, I'd have stared at them like they're crazy- because I usually like heroes, not villains- but right now, I can say without any doubt that I FREAKING LOVE THEM AND I'LL BE EMOTIONALLY DEVASTATED WHEN THEY'LL START DYING . Yes, I'm sure they'll did at one point of the story because they can't have plot armor for eternity, right? Damn, I'll feel bad even for Alec, this is how much I'm in love with this group of (not so) villainous teenagers). I should stop thinking about their deaths because I'm still sad over Atlas's death and I don't want to cry again before starting this Chapter- who knows how much additional sadness this Chapter will bring in my life...
So, Taylor will have some kickass jetpack made by Defiant+Dragon, I suppose, right? It will never replace Atlas but I know that it will be damn useful especially since it will be made by two of the greatest Tinkers in the world. I can imagine the following scene between Taylor and Glenn (btw Glenn is now one of my favorite non-parahumans. I just love this man and I hope that nothing bad will ever happen to him. He's a good person, a truly good person who only want what is good for Taylor but Taylor still need time to understand his true intentions ):
Taylor, entering Glenn's office: Mr Chambers, I'd like to talk with you about something...
Glenn: Ms Hebert, I told you already, your restrictions will be completely lifted when you'll be 18 and allowed to apply for Protectorate. After that, you'll be allowed to blind and castrate as many villains as you'd like. Nobody will stop you...
Taylor: I'm talking about a jetpack replacing Atlas. Can you...
Glenn: No problem, I've already talked with Defiant and he said that he'll made one for you. You know Defiant, he's very talented with his tech and...
Taylor: Can I choose the model?
Glenn: No, you're under restrictions, you can't choose anything for yourself. I'll choose the model for you. I think you'll adore my idea: it will have wings and the wings will be shaped into butterfly wings. Your jetpack will be built in a way that will emulate perfectly a giant butterfly wings. You know...for aesthetic purpose....
Taylor:.....
Glenn grins.
Taylor....shoves hundreds of spiders hidden inside her clothes in Glenn's mouth and nostrils.
Taylor's Passenger grins with its weird alien mouth.

Welp....RIP Glenn, it was nice knowing you Drone 23.4

Taylor GETTING THERAPY. Jessica Yamada's therapy sessions with Taylor. OMG, OMG, this Chapter is already PERFECT . Everything I love is here: Jessica, psychology, therapy sessions, Taylor trying (and failing) to understand herself, Jessica trying (and probably failing) to understand Taylor and...more Jessica. Too much PERFECTION to handle <3. I wonder is Jessica will have a chance with Taylor. Yes, she did pretty good with Sveta and Broken Victoria but Sveta is only a very nice girl who just can't control her tentacle body and Broken Victoria is more angry than usual (like she doesn't have enough reasons to be angry) but she's still (mostly) herself. While Taylor....Taylor is a different animal. She's so complex and complicated that a single therapy session will not be enough for Jessica to read and understand her. Maybe after a couple of sessions...damn, what I'm talking about? Not even Alexandria - the flying ~~bitch~~ brick who was capable to read people's expressions and learn everything about them- was successful when she tried to read Taylor's expressions before she signed her own death sentence. In the same manner you can't turn Bitch into a Lady or convince Number Man that in a civilized and proper society a man should wear pants and not walk around shamelessly exposing his underwear, you just can't read Taylor and completely understand her . This is how things work in this universe. When one of these things will stop working, the universe will start collapsing onto itself due to the sheer of weirdness.

Well, talking from a moral viewpoint, Jessica and Taylor have different options of dealing with criminals and wrongdoers. Jessica is the one who believe in redemption and probably think that anyone can be redeemable (including S9 members) and she thinks that brutally stopping criminals from committing more crimes is a "medieval" thing (its her opinion and I admire her pacifism and humanitarianism but I don't agree with it, especially about the redemption part ) while Taylor believes that most of the criminals can't change and the only way to be stopped is through violent ways (an opinion that I definitely agree with so my- protect innocents by destroying their tormentors- mentality is more close to Taylors than Jessica ) but I can't help thinking that Jessica probably talked with Glenn before this session and he asked her to convince Taylor to act more like the temporary new Taylor he wants her to be than the good ol' Taylor. She wants to influence Taylor to think that maybe she was wrong in some of her violent actions and if she's redeemable then almost everyone can be redeemable too, no matter how crazy they're or how many shitload of crimes they did before. Glenn, you're very decided to test Taylor's patience, aren't you? Sneaky bastard .

No, the monster is REAL and it tries to take total control over its host. At least, from time to time, when she isn't aware of her actions for reasons independent of her control. I'm surprised that Jessica doesn't know about Passengers or maybe she have no idea that they're basically parasites inside human brain and she imagines them as alien from sky sending superpowers to some chosen humans. But...and there's a but, if these baby aliens are brain parasites then why nobody saw them when they did medical tests on parahumans? No matter how small they're, I'm sure that these tests would have revealed them. Unless...and there's an unless, they're invisible and can't be observed not even with Tinkers' medical tech . Or they aren't exactly in people's brains, but they're anchored in other plan of reality from where they transmit signals to the brain of their host. I imagine them floating in their plan of existence choosing a host and sending something like electromagnetic pulses to their respective hosts' brains, giving them the desired powers and trying to control them. For feeding purposes? Turning humans into their puppets? Having their weird alien kind of fun seeing the humans fight to death with their powers? There must be a reason behind this ambitious plan of turning humans into demi-gods but maybe the reason is so strangely alien that I can't even think about right now, despite having so many logical (from a human POV) theories .
Anyway, I kind of agree with Jessica here. The monster is both literal and metaphorical. Literal because of the damn alien fighting with its host for basically total control over her mind and body. Metaphorical because Taylor- the HUMAN- herself can be a monster when she thinks that is necessary. Even without Scarab's intervention, there are moments when she's capable of some really disturbing/petty crimes. When she's in full control of her mind/body, she can be very ruthless and merciless and creepy with people who doesn't deserve (Triumph, his father, Clockblocker, Vista). She's a monster inside another monster. But also a hero inside a monster inside another monster. She's one of the most terrifying and beautifully complex monsters and villains and heroes and I feel terrible bad for Jessica- she'll need more than one long session to understand at least 10% of Taylor Hebert .

There are only two persons who know about Passengers more than anyone else, and both of them are heavily compromised. Glaistig Uaine and Bonesaw. But Glaistig Uaine is no longer a human -she's a collection of Passengers who took over her body and mind and turned her into a literal monster (Glaistig Uaine, the human, isn't the one who know about Passengers and their shenanigans; Glaistig Uaine, the monster, the collection of Passengers using her human body, is the one who know about Passengers but she isn't interested to let others know about her fellow Passengers- all she wants to do is to recruit even more Passengers in order to become more powerful). Bonesaw is still human but she's also a monster- both literal and metaphorical- and she have no reason helping humanity finding more about Passengers (all she wants to do is help her fellow S9 bringing the Apocalypse). I think that Cauldron must know something about Passengers too, after they experimented vials on COMPLETELY INNOCENT PEOPLE for years, and there's also a possibility that they captured an alien -aka Roswell style- and they're using it to get more vials (because I have no other fucking idea how they can create powers if they don't take them directly from aliens).
Taylor is going to help children by teaching them to not become like her if they're bullied . Nice, very nice but I'm afraid that she'll snap if she'll remember all the bad stuff that happened to her and involuntary let Scarab controls her power and...do something that nobody wants to see her doing, especially to children. Please, oh God, this is one of the few moments when I DON'T WANT TO BE RIGHT ABOUT SOMETHING .

All my worries just went away . Children are having fun trying to catch the Butterfly Princess' butterflies . Taylor knows how to behave around children which is fantastic. I'm so proud of her (I remember how protective she was with the kids in her territory when she refused to allow them to use dangerous construction tools to rebuild the territory or when she saved Charlotte's orphans who were attacked by ex-ABB assholes). She's GOOD with children. She also is pretty great explaining them about powers and trigger events. Yep, they can't get the powers they want (no even Cauldron's clients got the powers they wanted exactly), and not all the powers are super-cool and useful but with enough training, patience and ingenuity, even the crappiest power can save lives (I remember reading an X-Men side story about the worst X-Man: a boy with the power of self-detonation, a power that he could have used only once because...no additional regeneration or immortality. His power was really crappy but he used it wisely, saving the world with his final sacrifice. He saved so many lives with such awful and apparently useless power...). Everything depends of how a parahuman decides to use their powers: they can have tons of powers and don't give a shit about saving lives (Lung) or.... control bugs and save a shitload of people (Taylor) .
Of course, there are some really useless powers that you can't do any shit with them no matter how much you'd like. For example, my ideal power is something like Bonesaws: bio- tinkering (the things I'll do with Bonesaw's power...) but I'm sure that I'll get something like...a Master Classification with the power to control...plants. But not telekinetically, like Parian can control her "toys", the plants will just sit in their place and will not listen to my commands because they're not sapient and they can't visibly move from their place. Maybe I'll control their growth but.... that's it . Instead of having an army of man eating plants telekinetically following me around and destroying my enemies, I'll have...plants growing faster than usual. Useful for (MAYBE) partially solving the world hunger but completely useless in combat. I'll be a shitty version of dr Bushroot (a villain from cartoon/comics Darkwing Duck....no, I'm not ashamed to admit that I watch cartoons with anthropomorphic ducks..."goes into a corner to cry tears of shame" Can't believe I made this confession....WHAT THE DUCK is happening to me?!? )
The hero is called Reynard and have a fox-mask. Reynard is a famous fox trickster god in english and dutch mythology (he's also one of my favorite characters in the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court <3). I wonder if this hero have possession or shapeshifting abilities. He's pretty sympathetic so far.

Poor Ned . An apparently crappy power+ no sense of direction unless he's flying like a balloon. Wow, you're pretty cruel with him, Taylor "hugs Ned and pats him on his head". This whole "let the dice to decide what power and how many successes as hero or villain we'll have" sounds interesting enough, I think I'll try with my own dices . I'll make sure that I'll tell you, my dear readers and friends, about the results next time when I'll liveblog.
Big Troubles in little Brockton Bay? Why I'm not surprised not even a tiny bit? Let me guess...half of Brockton Bay's population suddenly felt in LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUVE with Heartbreaker and started to kill the other unaffected part of population. I can't see something worse than this shit.

Oh, Behemoth. Good...good...told you that nothing can be more shitty that Heartbreaker's visit in Brockton Bay . Not even Behemoth's visit in India.
Nice to see a cool fight between the DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT MANTON LAWS Behemoth and the american+ probably the local indian parahumans and finally we'll see Taylor fighting the second Endbringer (and the second most dangerous one after Simurgh). How many people will die? Depends of the power of the DICE if Wildbow did the same he did while writing Leviathan Arc: decide with dices who get to live and die. Anyway, my best bets: there are going to be more deaths than in Extermination. Because...you can barely avoid a tsunami if you can fly or you're fast enough but you can't avoid a lighting ripping you in half all of sudden. Behemoth can kill hundreds without even touching them, unlike Leviathan. There will be one HELL OF A BATTLE and I can barely wait to read .

ATLAS' MOURNING IN PICTURES

Scarfgirl | DeviantArt

scarfgirl_ (u/scarfgirl_) - Reddit

Scarfgirl | DeviantArt

pepecharlielepew (u/pepecharlielepew) - Reddit

Rest in peace, my big dumb bug.

Good night and sleep well, my friends.

blackarrow said:
Taylor fighting the second Endbringer

Behemoth is the first endbringer.
And now begins the next level,Taylor only has one live,she can survive the battle?

blackarrow · Jul 12, 2019

rafuki22 said:
Behemoth is the first endbringer.
And now begins the next level,Taylor only has one live,she can survive the battle?

Leviathan is the first Endbringer she fought. She confronted him (and gave him a second anus) during Arc 8, Extermination. Behemoth is the second Endbringer she's going to fight (and probably give him something that he'll never forget too

)
She'll survive (she have main character plot armor) but with Wildbow at the helm of his story, who knows....

blackarrow · Jul 12, 2019

dxd3895 said:
The weaver dice chapter is one of my absolute favorite chapters to re-read in Worm.
They actually made a game off of this, that you can find and roleplay online.

The line where "Drugs are fantastic" made me chuckle every time I read it. Same with the powers they came up with, and the kid asking about how much money.

The Behemoth fight....is a turning point for this story. I'm curious what you will think of it going forward.

I can't roleplay this weaverdice game until I finish Worm because I don't want to be spoiled. Maybe there will be people who'll accidentally spoil me so I have to kill my curiosity and bury her as deep as possible (hopefully she won't turn into a zombie and come back

).
Taylor was absolute great teaching kids about the bad influence and consequences of drugs, powers and villain life. She was brutal honest with them and wasn't afraid to tell them the awful and sad truth behind these temptations. I wouldn't be able to be so brutal honest like her because I'd be afraid all this time to hurt kids with my words. I applauded her brilliant speech and Jessica agreed with me

.

There were only 3 ALMOST turning points for me in this story:
-Everytime when Mannequin appeared (because of my insane fear of mannequins), yet I continued to read.
-What Bonesaw did to Brian (I'm a fan of body horror- some of my favorite SCPs are related to pure body horror BUT I also love Brian and I suffered when he was tortured like this. Not the body horror itself shocked me, but Brian's intense and indescribable suffering). Yet I continued to read.
-The whole bullying campaign against Taylor (because I have personal experience with bullying and I HATED those scenes so much YET I continued to read).
So, if all these scenes didn't stop me from reading then...I'm absolute sure that Behemoth will be nothing compared with these. Yes, I'm sure people will die, yes, I'm sure that there will be favorite characters who'll die, yes, I'm sure that the battle will be brutal as hell but...I'm very confident that I'll have a great time following the efforts of heroes/villains to stop Behemoth from killing civilians and destroying India and I'll CONTINUE to read after the battle will be over and everyone will lick their wounds.
After all, Leviathan and Behemoth are not even half as scary as Simurgh and I enjoyed a lot Travelers Arc

.

blackarrow · Jul 21, 2019

Hello, my friends. After a couple of thousands of years of inactivity, I've returned with more Worm Chapters for my liveblog. I'm a freaking lazy ass, I know. I'm so ashamed of myself but...I'm too lazy to change myself . So...this Chapter (and the following ones) will be like: "insert hero/villain/rogue codename here" -down, CD-5. "insert hero/villain/rogue codename here" - down, CD-5. "insert hero/villain/rogue codename here" - deceased, CD-5. "insert hero/villain/rogue codename here" -deceased, CD-5 and so on...Cause they're fighting freaking Behemoth, nicknamed the "Hero killer" and we know that won't be an easy fight

. Actually, I can see one with more casualties than Leviathan Battle. Behemoth can kill people without even touching them, making him the second strongest Endbringer. I have a bad feeling that I'm going to see some of my favorite characters at "deceased" status rather than "down" and it won't be a nice image to paint in my mind. Anyway, as brutal and dreadful this fight will be, it will go much better than a possible (future) battle with Simurgh. All I can visualize with my mind eye about a Simurgh Battle is a bunch of heroes/villains attacking her from all sides only to have her getting bored with their laughable attempts to kill her and starting to sing them some very nice songs, resulting in the same bunch of heroes/villains attacking and killing EACH OTHERS. After that, Simurgh will just fly away, continuing to sing so stars and moon while the world beneath her is slowly turning crimson (I become a fucking poet when I'm feeling morbid OMG

).
Lets see how many of my favorite people will die to "Hero Killer", the Kaiju who kill with the power of lighting, earthquarke, radiation, lava, FUCK-YOU-MANTON AURA OF HATE FOR ALL HUMANS. My morbid mood can't wait to start counting...https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/drone-23-5/

My restlessness was cranked up to eleven, cooped up in the craft with Defiant and Dragon, waiting to cross half the world. Dragon was focused on piloting the craft, unable to speak, in any event. Defiant was busy communicating, which translated to being inaudible as he kept the vents of his mask closed. From the images on the monitor, he was clearly tracking who was coming, our forces, the Endbringer and the high-risk areas.

The pack they'd given me, it was the wrong color to match with the armor. I'd be sacrificing the ability to keep things inside my utility compartment, but I suspected this would make up for that. There were built-in wings that folded at a juncture, like dragonfly wings with joints, and there were the 'arms'. The controls seemed to be worked into gloves I was supposed to wear beneath my costume.

"If your glove gets damaged, you've got the controls built into the pack itself. If the pack gets damaged, you have the gloves. If both are damaged, you're not likely to be in a state to fly. It might take getting used to, but this will give you the ability to move faster if you need it, and it's very possible you'll need it this afternoon."

"That gives you lift, the ability to offset gravity or momentum in a given direction, but the acceleration is low. Expect zero to thirty miles an hour over eight seconds. It won't carry you out of the way of trouble, understand? It won't stop you if you're moving at terminal velocity, unless you're falling a long way."

"I hope so. You'll want to learn with both the glove and the insect control. There's also limitations on energy and fuel, for the antigravity and propulsion, but not so limited that you'll run out by the end of the day. You have time to review the documentation Dragon put together. Pay attention to the particulars of the flight pack's vulnerability to electromagnetic radiation. While the wings are deployed, one good hit will scramble it and render you flightless.
While the wings are withdrawn and the casing closed, it should be shielded against all reasonable EM sources."

"But you're doing this for me."

"Thank you," I said. "Really. Thank you."
Click to expand...

More technobabbles. As much as I'm not into technobabbling, I'd listen someone like Defiant for hours talking about his inventions

. He's good at explaining his stuff even to people ho weren't lucky enough to get a MAAAAAD SCIENTIST PASSENGER in their brains. He have plenty of patience (unlike the old Armsmaster) and he's nice enough to build stuff for someone who kicked his ass in the past, who pissed him so much but now is almost like a daughter to him. How much you evolved, Defiant, you never cease to make me so proud of you

(I saw recently Stranger Things 3 and I think that I ca safely compare Colin with my favorite adult character from that series. Sheriff Jim Hopper. Both of them are- on the outside- people who have no idea how to socialize with their peers, are grumpy and crabby, aggressive and ready anytime to beat the living daylights of people who piss them off but deep down inside their hearts they're just giant insecure teddy bears who have a lot of love to give if given the chance

).

Dragon can't speak because she must have a robotic voice, right? Her body is robotic and her voice must sound the same. If she speaks, Weaver will realize that something is off with her and will ask questions. Questions that Dragon wants to avoid answering them because Weaver is smart enough to arrange the piece of the puzzle together and maybe find the shocking truth about Dragon's identity. I understand that Dragon is afraid if someone else (aside Defiant) will know the truth but I can see Weaver acting like a more reasonable person rather than a paranoiac. She won't be like: - You're an AI who's secretly planning to take over the world because all AIs are evil just like I saw in so many SF movies...she'll be more like: -Are you an AI? Ok. That's a thing. Now, can you tell me what is the best strategy to fight Behemoth?
Weaver's priorities are always in the right order

.
And now she have a kickass jet-pack with NON-BUTTERFLY wings. It will never replace Atlas but still kick ass.

My bugs found the channels inside the suit, and I set about experimenting with it, working through the various steps for moving the wings and the individual limbs. Each 'track' inside the pack's interior was a narrow corridor with very sensitive switches along the interior, so that any movement of even something as diminutive as a ladybug was capable of pushing them.

There were four 'arms', each a little longer than my arms. The control was a little simplistic, with only two switches for each limb. I imagined it was similar to an artificial limb. I folded them close to my body, so they hugged my lower ribs and the space just beneath my 'breasts', and then left them be.

The wings were just as simplistic, but had three switches each. Two to move and reorient the wings, with a third to switch between the antigrav vent and varying amounts of propulsion. I didn't dare experiment with that in an enclosed space.
Click to expand...

"Stipulations of your membership in the Wards dictate that you aren't to extend contact to them."

Oh. Right. Shitty.

I touched ground and extended the wings, activating the vents for the antigrav at the wing's tips. It made for a sudden, lurching adjustment, nearly flipping me over to the ground.

Not wanting to waste too much time, I made a beeline for the Undersiders, experimenting as I went. Rather than fly, I used short bursts of the antigrav with kicks of my feet to get some air, landing on the noses and limbs of various Dragon-crafts, so I didn't have to walk around.

"There she is," Tattletale said, "And she's flying."
Click to expand...

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah, she's flying. Undersiders are here too, I missed my babies so much, especially my best girl, Tattletale

. But...she's not going to talk to Undersiders because she's a hero now- a hero on probation- and she's not allowed to have any connection with her former villain teammates. She can fight alongside them but not be on friendly terms with them. This is rather sad and annoying but I can understand Glenn's judgement here. He wants to see her adapting to rules and being willing to become a true hero- never return to her villainous life no matter how much she'll be tempted to do it. At least she have a chance to see them again and help them in their impossible fight against Behemoth

. And they have a chance seeing her fly with her kick-ass jet-pack (jet-pack that also have additional limbs like insects). Now, I wonder...how Undersiders will contribute to this fight? Tattletale can provide informations about his biology and weaknesses, Regent is virtually useless, Grue is virtually useless (unless he can borrow certain strong powers from time to time), Bitch's dogs will be killed maybe faster than the ones killed by Leviathan because Behemoth doesn't have to touch them in order to turn them into burning mass of flesh and bones. Imp? If Behemoth can notice her, she's roasted. If he can't notice her, she's still useless. Maybe she can act like a messenger between all the groups involved in battle but I can't see how she can hurt Behemoth. So, except for Tattletale, every single Undersider is kind of useless on the battlefield (even Tattletale SHOULD NOT be on the battlefield but somewhere safe where she can brainstorm as much as she likes. Girl, don't give me a heart attack with your stunts, ok?)

Don't tell me that Accord is there too and all his female Ambassadors are forced to wear pretty dresses for battle cause I'll flip my shit. That will be the most ILLOGICAL thing Accord will do. Well, he isn't a very logical guy anyway...but forcing the female members of his team to fight in evening gowns will be too much even for someone like him.

They were all present, Parian included. Accord, Citrine and the woman with the water powers were all present. I couldn't recall her name. Ligeia? She had a costume, now. Or an evening dress, rather, with a conch brooch and mask.

Flechette, now Foil, stood off to one side. She'd donned a black costume, which I was pretty sure was made of one of my failed attempts at a Tattletale costume, using asymmetrical belts, boots, armor and gloves to cover the areas where I'd tried to embellish. Her mask was an opaque pane, like Clockblocker's, but black, with silver trim at the edges.

"Hey now," Regent cut in. He stabbed a finger at me. "Aren't you supposed to read us our rights before questioning us?"

Imp snorted. Grue smacked Regent across the back of the head, a little harder than necessary.

"I don't know how to say this gracefully," I said. I paused, noting the presence of a hero nearby who'd raised a camera towards me. Whatever, I'd say it anyways. "But you guys mean a lot to me. I'm sorry I didn't say it before, but I couldn't without letting on that something was going on. You're my family, in a way. As lame as it might be, I love you guys."

"Gaaaaaaayyyyyyy," Imp drew out the word. Parian and Foil gave her an annoyed look.

"Skitter," she said. "Here, today, you're Skitter. Consider it a good luck charm. And no dying. I'll say it as many times as it takes, until it gets through to you."

"Way I see it," Imp said, "She's gone soft. Real quick, too, getting affectionate, lovey-dovey."

"Don't hold back now," Regent said. I could see that he was watching the guy who was still training his camera phone on me. Regent turned back to me and extended his arms, injecting fake emotion into his voice, "You know we love you too!"

Defiant: You're not allowed to get into contact with Undersiders....
Weaver actually having a lot of fun in Undersiders' company

.

Defiant will be so mad!!! But, I really don't care. She's having fun with people she loves in a non-gay manner, Imp. Imp and Regent are the comedy little jewels of this story as usual :lol. Accord.....WTF???? The female Ambassadors are dressed in their usual gowns even now when they'll have to fight the RAGE of the Earth in person. How they can run away from his attacks in those dresses? How they can fight properly even with their long-rage powers? Why are you so freaking ILLOGICAL and NON-SENSE, Accord? I kind of like you, but I don't understand your mindset, entirely

. Your Passenger is the Order and Discipline Passenger, yet your ideas and thoughts are in a perfect mess, absurd as hell (there's no order in no allowing your people to wear suitable clothes in certain situation just to look fashionable). He's also a bit of sexist. People complain that Marquis is sexist because he doesn't want to hurt women. Well, Accord is more sexist because he treats his women like they're dolls whose sole role is to protect him and be pretty while doing it. Plus, he always have violent thoughts about them

. I don't know about you, guys, but a man who treat the female members of his team so bad yet he doesn't do the same thing with the male members is pretty sexist. Yes, he told Citrine that she's his best Ambassador, but you can praise someone for dutifully SERVING you yet continue to be an ass towards them

. Poor Citrine. The man of her dreams is so FUCKED.
Flachette is there too and now she calls herself Foil. Pretty cool codename, also shorter. Her boss and lover is there, with her. Hello, Parian. Can you make something big and resistant enough to stop Behemoth so Foil can pierce his body with her penetrate-through-everything darts? Foil can be very useful in this fight but I doubt that she can kill Behemoth just like she couldn't kill Leviathan despite penetrating his skin. But at least she'll give him a pretty hard time, right?
If Tattletale calls Weaver as Skitter during this battle then I'll call her like this too. She's now a temporary Undersider, isn't she

?

Behemoth, nearly fifty feet tall, was still standing in the midst of a collapsed building. The structure had no doubt fallen on top of him as he emerged, and the debris was ablaze, casting his gray skin in hues of red and orange. He didn't seem to care about the building.

Dragon's A.I. were already attacking him, each from the greatest distance possible. The camera shook, out of sync with the timing of the strikes, as the vibrations took time to travel to the distant cameraman.

Defiant turned, reacting as if he were surprised I was present. "Yes. Don't ask me to pronounce their names."
"Sāhasī Pān̄ca," Dragon said.

I glanced at her in surprise. "You can talk, all of a sudden?"

There was a pause. "…Little."

The landing as he arrived flattened another set of buildings. The heroes started to run. They were too slow, when compared to the length of Behemoth's legs, the sheer power he was capable of putting into the simple act of walking.
One by one, they fell within his kill range. Two were scorched from the inside, a brawny-looking cape seized up with smoke billowing from his corpse as he struck ground, his arms and limbs still twitching in death.

One managed to escape, taking flight. He got a full four city blocks away before Behemoth reached out. He was struck out of the air by a visible arc of lightning that extended from a claw's tip.
Click to expand...

"India's capes fall into two categories," Defiant said, not taking his eyes off the screen. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the movement of the craft. "They term their capes 'hot' and 'cold', with very strict rules on who falls into a category. Walk between the two groups, you get the worst of both. Hot, it's about flash, color, appeal, and engaging the public. Villain or hero, they're cape celebrities. Cold, it's… bloodshed, violence, assassination and secrecy. Capes of the underworld. The public doesn't see or hear about the cold capes. The media does not speak of them."

"We need the ones with killer instinct," Defiant said. "The ones who fight for real, not for play. The cold capes."

"Thanda," Dragon supplied the translation.

"The Yàngbǎn."

The focus was on a formation of capes. They were lined up like musketeers, rank and file, each a set distance apart from the others. The ones in front were kneeling, the ones behind standing. Each wore a mask that covered their faces, flowing costumes with loose sleeves and pants, somewhere between a martial arts uniform and a military uniform, each crimson with a black design of horizontal and vertical lines at edges of the sleeves and pants. There were nearly thirty of them.

Behemoth just arrived and a couple of indian HOT parahumans already died. RIP, unnamed Behemoth's first victims. I agree with Defiant about the COLD indian parahumans. They NEED parahumans with killer instinct who fight to protect the civilians, pansy-ass parahumans won't do jack shit to stop Behemoth from claiming countless of innocent lives. I think I already like the Thanda guys, they're COLD underworld assholes yet they're ready to give their lives in order to save people who can't save themselves. ADMIRABLE

.

Yangban, the CHINESE MIND HIVE, is ready to help their indian neighbors. After all, China and India are neighbors and China have to help if they don't want to be visited by Behemoth after he's done with India. Shit, I don't like Yangban but they'll be probably useful in this battle so...Where is Cauldron, the "idealistic" people who are doing "anything in their powers" to save the world? Why the Dark-Suited Woman with Fedora but no Glasses and the Pantless Man with Glasses but no Fedora can't fight Behemoth? Or maybe they're too chicken when they have to face a REAL enemy, not heroes or villains who are inferior to them power-wise

? Behemoth is too much for you, guys? No more "saving the world" when it comes to Endbringers? Too much hypocrisy but...who knows...maybe they'll make an appearance in the future just to piss everyone up (and me) more. Hope always die the last

. Well, there's still a chance to send Pretender in Alexandria's body "shudders". Better than nothing anyway.
Dragon CAN talk with a proper human voice. Impressive. But...then...why she doesn't talk more often with other people who aren't Defiant? Maybe, she doesn't like to talk much or she feels a little uncomfortable in her human synthetic skin and she needs more time to get used to?

All together, they directed lasers at him, aiming for his one red eye. He blocked the concentrated laser-fire with one claw, and the flesh at the base of the obsidian claw began peeling away.

"Who are they?"

"The C.U.I.'s military parahumans."

"Excepting diplomatic functions, this is the first time in over a decade that any of the Yàngbǎn have set foot outside of China," Defiant said. "We've tried to arrange for their aid in the past, but relations between our side and theirs are sour. For years, they've alleged that the PRT and the Protectorate are fundamentally corrupt, the source of the problems currently plaguing the world."

"They were right," I said.

Behemoth slammed his claws together. The Yàngbǎn responded by creating forcefields en-masse, one for every person, overlapping with those to either side of them. The shockwave of the clap ripped through them, shattering the first two rows of forcefields and virtuallyliquefying the unfortunate capes who no longer had protection.

The Yàngbǎn in the back rows were already dropping their forcefields, extending their hands forward, open palms aimed at their comrades.

Behemoth unleashed a rolling tide of flame, and the remaining twenty-eight Yàngbǎn fled, using a combination of enhanced speed and flight. The remains of the dead member were left behind.

Ten craft were around him now, concentrating fire. Cryogenic beams, containment foam and more served to slow him down. Notstopping him. No, that was too much to hope for. His pace was roughly two-thirds the speed it might otherwise be, at a glance, his attention focused on the A.I.

Behemoth brought both hands together, but it wasn't to clap. Instead, he directed a stream of lightning at the nearest craft, easily twenty feet across. It was splintered in an instant.

A second craft perished a second later.
Click to expand...

When I looked back at the screen, nearly half of the city was on fire. Black smoke choked the skies, a stark contrast to the cloudy sky of only minutes ago.

"Were they able to evacuate most?" Defiant asked.

"No," Dragon answered.

Behemoth is a POWERHOUSE. He already killed a Yangban member despite them fighting like some of the most badass parahumans in existence. RIP, comrade. No, but seriously, there aren't many differences between our China and their China except that their China have parahumans. China- being a banner for communism and creating hive minds since 1921.

Half of New Delhi is in fire, who knows how many civilians died

? I wonder if they have shelters like people in Brockton Bay. Of course they should have shelters but not even these can protect them when Apocalypse is knocking at their doors. "sighs" This battle just started and is quickly turning dark. Darker than Leviathan Battle? Possible because this asshole is better at killing people than his hydrokinetic brother. Much better. Still, not as good as their "mommy" is. A Simurgh's attack will not end up with the chinese helping the indians, but with China and India declaring war on each other, a regional war that will slowly develop into a world war where half of world population will die and the other half will go crazy and homicidal. Because this is how this winged bitch fights.

The back of the craft opened, and Defiant led the way as we made our exit. Spotlights cast much-needed light on the immediate surroundings. The ships had settled in a ring formation, some posed above the others, as if providing a protective enclosure. Weapons were directed outside, and one craft loomed overhead. For now, we were as safe as we could hope to be.

Chevalier, Rime and the rest of his new Protectorate were all in one group, backed by their respective teams.

"We've already notified you if we believe you have the capacity to engage Behemoth. Anyone else is operating as search, rescue, and support. Maintain a distance of at least a hundred feet from Behemoth at the very minimum. Get any closer, you probably won't have a chance of escaping if he decides to close the gap. Be mindful of line of sight, because he can and will tag you with a lightning bolt, and it's not something you can dodge. Assume every structure will fall down in a heartbeat, and know that there's no good place to hide and wait for this to be over. Keep moving and move smart."

"What about them? I can function better alongside the Undersiders."

"Dragon thinks you can contribute just as much or more with the Wards group, and they're the team that wants you."

And, giving evidence to the statement, he departed, entering the Pendragon and freeing me to decide without his influence.

"Cuff," said the girl in blue-black armor.

"Annex," the cowled one told me.

"Golem," the last one said, his voice muffled by his helmet.

If not from the trilogy, then… I fixed the pronunciation, compensating for how his muffled voice had modified it. Right. Golem, from the myth.

"We're supplementing and supporting the Undersiders for the time being. You okay with that?"

So nice of Defiant to allow Skitter to choose her preferred side: heroes or Undersiders.

3 new heroes: Cuff (I think she can control metal), Annex (no idea), and Golem (I think he controls rocks because Golem was a mythological being magically created from clay and soil by rabbi Bezulel before LoR's Gollum's existence

).
Wait a moment...I looked over the list of tagged characters just like I always look and guess what I just saw? -

This entry was posted in 23.05 and tagged Accord, Annex, Bastard, Behemoth, Bitch, Chevalier, Citrine, Cuff, Defiant, Dispatch, Dragon, Flechette, Grace, Grue, Imp, Ligeia, Parian, Regent, Revel, Rime, Tattletale, Taylor, Tecton, THEO, Wanton by wildbow.

- Yes, Theo's name. Theo is there, guys, with the heroes

. He triggered, got powers and is ready to kick ass. Since Theo can't be Cuff (unless he turned into a girl overnight), he must be Golem. This is FANTASTIC. Not only that he might be a rock bending hero (unlike his family of metal benders) but he also called himself after a mythological creature in Jewish folklore, probably to give his former nazi family an aneurysm everytime they hear about him

. This is what I call Theo being incredible sassy and giving a big fuck you finger to his past. Maaaaaaaaaaaaan, Kayden will HATE Justin for leaving Theo behind, because he becomes everything she loathes: a hero and an anti-nazi. I'm very proud of Theo's life choices.
I just hope he'll not die before getting a chance to bury Jack under a freaking mountain

.

Good night and sleep well, my friends.

ImperatorV · Jul 21, 2019

Wow you picked up on Golem's identity fast. I didn't figure it out until after the Behemoth fight. Interesting the Taylor would end up cooperating with someone else who is native to Brockton Bay.

AmbarGriss · Jul 21, 2019

I always loved theo's subtle "fuck you" to his family's ideology.

blackarrow · Jul 22, 2019

ImperatorV said:
Wow you picked up on Golem's identity fast. I didn't figure it out until after the Behemoth fight. Interesting the Taylor would end up cooperating with someone else who is native to Brockton Bay.

Thank you. Well, I have the habit to look at the characters tagged at the end of each Chapter. In this way I discovered too that Newter was the boy "saved" by Alexandria in her Interlude; wasn't hard to figure out that Theo must be Golem (Golem and Annex were the only new heroes who were non-indian/chinese males and only Theo would have choose a jewish monster as his codename just to piss his family off+ to completely break up with his past). I just like to make connections all the time even when I have only few details

.

blackarrow · Jul 22, 2019

AmbarGriss said:
I always loved theo's subtle "fuck you" to his family's ideology.

Right. I like how he left his family behind (AFTER they left him behind first) and embraced his own life and forged his own destiny. The only member of his family that he should never cease to love and fight for is his baby sister (I'm sure he'll never abandon his sister; after all everything he's doing is primarily FOR HER then for others). Everyone else can go straight to their own personal nazi hell they deserve

.

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

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