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

Axiomatic · Mar 16, 2018

AmbarGriss said:
Not anymore I presume, but we can't blame her, Kayden was presented in very simpathetic light before the reveal that she was a fucking nazi scum.

Wildbow is pretty amazing that way.

AmbarGriss · Mar 16, 2018

Axiomatic said:
Wildbow is pretty amazing that way.

Indeed, he is.

blackarrow · Mar 16, 2018

Hello, awesome people, I think we're so ready for another chapter from this pretty good (so far) Arc. Last time we left Undersiders and Bakuda+ endless numbers of ABB members in the middle of CULTURAL EXCHANGE between americans and asians and we had to watch, in the meantime, a documentary about the rising of the Fourth Reich in Brockton Bay. Now back to the much more interesting CULTURAL EXCHANGE. Shell we see it? Of course, this is what we're waiting for 4.07 | Worm

Grue raised his hands and blanketed the entire area in darkness. It wouldn't help much. Even if they hesitated or got confused in the darkness, the crush of bodies would eventually stumble into us, and we'd be beaten and battered under the sheer force of numbers. The only real advantage was that if any of them had guns, they probably wouldn't shoot, for fear of hitting their own guys.

I felt hands seize my waist, and lashed out with my baton. The hands let go, and the baton hit only air. After a moment, I felt the hands grab me again, the hold gentle. Not an enemy. Grue, I realized.
"Sorry," I muttered. He could hear inside his darkness, couldn't he?

He hoisted me up into the air, and I immediately understood his intent. I reached up and felt brick, then found the corrugated metal of the roof. I hauled myself up and turned around to reach for the next person, one hand gripping the edge of the roof to keep myself in place.
I found Regent and Tattletale's hands in the darkness and helped haul them up. I knew neither was Grue, because they were too light. Five or six seconds long, tense seconds then passed before Grue took my hand and hauled himself up.
We climbed down the far side, and Grue banished the darkness around us.
There were three ABB gang members standing at one end of the alley we'd just entered, and a fourth, lone member on the other. Both groups were looking the wrong way, and were standing still, which was as good an indication as any that they hadn't noticed us.
The sheer number of soldiers we'd seen didn't fit, and I said as much, "What the fuck? How many people was that?"
Grue was apparently thinking along the same lines. "The ABB shouldn't have that many members."
"They do now," Tattletale glanced over her shoulder at the ABB members behind us, then back to the lone one in front who still hadn't reacted to our approach, "Trap! Down!"
She practically shoved me to the ground, then took cover herself.

Ok, this is a real intense attack. Each ABB member is more or less forced by their new leader to kill the Undersiders and they have to climb up the lockets in order to escape (at least for the moment) from the sheer number of their attackers. As for how Bakuda got so many members in ABB (she seems, surprising, more efficient leader than Lung himself, which is not a good thing), its not hard to see that she probably coerced every single asian in the city to join ABB, under the threat that their families might receive a nicely wrapped little bomb through the mail, enough to have their entire yard and house blown up.

The lone figure in front of us shimmered, then disappeared. In his place, for just a fraction of a second, there was a cylindrical object the size of a mailbox. Knowing what kind of devices Bakuda specialized in, I drew my legs close to my body, screwed my eyes shut and covered my ears.

The force of the explosion hit me hard enough I could feel it in my bones. It lifted me clear off the ground. For a moment, it felt like I was floating, carried by a powerful, hot wind. I hit the ground with my elbows and knees first, and they thrummed with agony at the impact.
Chaos. The four or five storage lockers that had been closest to the canister had been reduced to chunks of flaming brick, none any bigger around than a beachball. Other lockers near those had doors, walls and roofs blown away. More than one locker had been actually used, because the blast had emptied them of its contents. Pieces of furniture, boxes of books, clothing, bundles of newspaper and boxes of papers filled the alley.

"Everyone okay?" Grue asked, as he staggered to his feet.
"Ow. I'm burnt. Fuck! She was expecting us," Tattletale groaned. However bad her burns were, they weren't severe enough to be seen through the smoke and dust. "Set traps, had her people waiting. Shit, we were only a half hour later than we planned. How?"
"We have to move," Grue urged us, "This gets ten times harder if she finds us. Tattletale, watch for-"
"I already found you," Bakuda called out in what could have been a sing-song voice, if her mask didn't filter it down to a monotone, rythmless hiss. She emerged from the smoke that billowed from the explosion site; her hood was pulled back and her straight black hair was blowing in the wind. The lenses of her dark red goggles were almost the exact same color as the sky above her. There were five or six thugs just a step or two behind her, a middle aged guy that didn't look like a gang member, and a skinny boy who was probably younger than me. I was glad to see none of them had guns, but they were all armed with weapons of some sort.
"Not that you were hard to find," Bakuda continued, sweeping her arms out to gesture at the devastation all around her. "And if you think this only gets ten times harde-"
Grue blasted her, shutting her up, and his darkness billowed into a broad cloud as it struck her, enveloping her group. We took advantage of their momentary blindness to scramble for the other end of the alley.
We were only halfway down the length of the alley when there was a sound behind us, like the crack of a whip. It struck me as deeply wrong, since we shouldn't have been able to hear anything through Grue's darkness. All at once, it was like we were running against a powerful headwind.
Except it wasn't wind. As I looked for the source of the noise, I saw Grue's cloud of darkness shrinking. Debris began to slide towards the epicenter of the darkness, and the wind – the pull – began to increase in intensity.

She's bombing the fuck out of them. Wow, wow, Bakuda is a very smart (and super-crazy) villain and I find her very entertaining to watch in action but still she's trying to kill the Undersiders. Nobody KILLS my Undersiders and walks away like nothing happens! And what kind of bomb is the last one that she's using? Seems like a (I'm not good with science and technology, but I'll try my hand with the minimum knowledge I have)....a bomb able to generate a FUCKING BLACK HOLE? Did Bakuda just created a miniature black hole in the shape of a bomb? Maybe she'll be able to come out with time stopping bombs or instantly disintegration bomb, watch out, guys, she's not someone like Uber and Leet, far from them.

"Grab something!" Grue bellowed.

Breaking posture and lunging to one side was like forcing myself to leap over a hundred foot chasm. I don't know if I misjudged, or if the effect that was pulling on me increased in strength as I leaped, but my hand fell short of the doorknob. I missed the one on the neighboring locker as well.
I knew in an instant that even if I managed to get my hand on something, the force of the pull would yank me from it before I secured a grip. I grabbed my knife from its sheath at the small of my back and swung it with all the strength I could spare for the next door I saw. It bit into the wood, stopping me from being dragged backwards, or falling sideways. The one-hundred and twenty pound body hanging off of it was too much, though, and almost immediately, the knife began to slip from the hole.
It had slowed me down enough, though. As the force of the drag increased to the point that my body was parallel to the ground, I waited with my heart in my throat, watching the area where the knife met the door, seeing it slide out millimeter by millimeter. The moment it slipped free of the wood, I grabbed the doorknob that had been just a few feet beside my toes. My arm jolted painfully, but I managed to hold on and jam the knife into the gap between the door and the frame. Even with two things to hold onto, it didn't feel like enough.
All at once, the effect stopped. My body collapsed to the ground at the base of the locker, and I pried stiff fingers from the knife handle and knob. All up and down the street, massive clouds of dust rolled towards the point her device had gone off. The parts of the lockers that had been set on fire had been extinguished, but were still smouldering enough to send columns of dark smoke into the air.
Regent had found a grip on the edge of a locker's roof; it had either been bent prior to his getting a grip on it, or the force of the pull had bent the metal as he clung to it. Tattletale and Grue had apparently gotten a door of a locker open, because they exited as a pair, Grue limping slightly.
"What the fuck was that?" I panted, "A miniature black hole?"
Tattletale chuckled, "Guess so. That was brac-"
From the other side of the storage lockers, a canister arced through the air, clinked off the metal roof of a storage locker and landed in the middle of our group.
Grue was on it in a heartbeat, using his foot to slide it across the ground and into the locker he and Tattletale had just left. Without stopping, he opened his arms wide and ushered us all away as he ran away from it.
Even with brick and concrete in the way, the blast knocked us off our feet. That wasn't the scary part. As the initial blast passed, the remainder of the explosion seemed to happen in slow motion. Shattered chunks of the brick shack drifted through the air so slowly you could barely tell they were moving. As I watched, I could see them actually slowing down.

Yep, unfortunately I was right: a miniature black hole used as bomb. They're so close to be pulled in and I have to appreciate again Skitter's inhuman resistance at pain. I think I would have died right there if I were in her place, from the moment the black hole started to pull me in and my arm jolted painfully

. Bakuda still doesn't give up and attack them with...bombs capable to slow down the time. I was kind of right about time bombs, I'm both amazed by Bakuda's capacity to break every physics law like they're made out of thin paper and my capacity to predict some things. This situation doesn't look good at all. I think that, even if she's blinded by her own racist views of life, I'd prefer Purity to come and fuck Bakuda up because she's already getting on my nerves. Come on, Purity, do something really useful. Kill this maniacal terrorist.

Then I looked forward and saw plumes of smoke in fast motion and rubble bouncing across the ground at twice the normal speed, just ten feet ahead of us. It took me a precious second to realize why.

We were still in the blast area.
"Hurry!" I shouted, at the same moment that Tattletale yelled, "Go!"
We lunged forward, but I could see things continuing to speed up just in front of us. Which meant, really, that we were slowing down. Slowing to an absolute stop.
Somehow, I didn't think this effect would end in a matter of minutes like Clockblocker's did.
We broke through the perimeter of the effect with what felt like an abrupt change in air pressure. I didn't have a chance to check to see how close we'd come to being trapped in time forever, because Bakuda was behind the row of locker, launching another salvo – three projectiles that arced high into the air, plumes of purple smoke trailing behind them.

Grue shot blasts of darkness at them, probably in hopes of muffling the effects, and gasped, "Over the lockers!"
Regent and I were up on the row of lockers first, much the same way as we'd done it when the mob had been after us. Once Regent had climbed down to make room, Tattletale and I helped Grue up, and we climbed down the far side.
Again, on each end of the alleyway, there were members of the ABB. They weren't moving, which meant they either hadn't noticed us, or they were just holographic images hiding traps. My money was on the latter.
"Again," I panted, "Over." We couldn't risk another trap, another bomb blast too close to us. So we crossed the alley again and climbed on top of the next row of lockers.
We found ourselves staring down at a half dozen armed members of the ABB. Except they weren't your typical gang members. One of them was an elderly Chinese man, holding a hunting rifle. There was an girl who couldn't have been much older than twelve, holding a knife, who might have been his granddaughter. Of the eleven or twelve of them, only three had the thuggish look to them that really marked them as members of the gang. The rest just looked terrified.
The old man trained his gun on us, hesitated.
A thug with a tattoo on his neck spat out something in an Eastern language I couldn't place, the phrase ending with a very English, "Shoot!"

The Day of the Living Bombs!!! Now LIVE! I think even ISIS would be very envious on this infidel woman who's better than them at terrorist acts, they'll never be capable to come out with fucking bombs that can freeze fucking time! The Undersiders were surrounded by ABB members, and most of these people are not happy with what they're forced by Bomberwoman to do. I feel sorry for them, knowing that this wasn't their choice, Bakuda found ways to "convince" them to act like thugs (despite them being- maybe- honorable people). Purity, move your SHINING ASS here and stop this shit, its getting too far.

We were down off the other side of the lockers before he could make up his mind. Grue created a cloud of darkness over the top of the lockers, to discourage them from following.

"What the fuck?" Regent gasped. We hadn't stopped running or struggling since Bakuda had sicced the crowd on us.
"They're scared, not loyal," Tattletale spoke, not as out of breath as Regent, but still definitely feeling the effect of the last few minutes of running and climbing, "She's forcing them to serve as her soldiers. Threatening them or their families, probably."
"Then she's been working on that for some time," Grue said.
"Since Lung got arrested," Tattletale confirmed, "Where the fuck do we go?"
"Back over the same wall," Grue decided. "I'll blind them, we cross over at a different point in case they open fire where they last saw us."

Before we could put the plan into motion, there was another explosion. We staggered into the front wall of the storage locker we'd just climbed down from, collapsing in a heap. My entire body felt hot, and my ears were ringing, and we hadn't even been that close.
As I raised my head, I saw that one of the storage lockers across from us had been leveled. Through the gap, I saw Bakuda standing astride the back of a jeep, one hand gripping the roll cage that arced over top of the vehicle. She was saying something to the thugs in the front and passenger seats, but I couldn't make it out over the feedback noise in my ears. They peeled off to the right, and for just a fraction of a second, she looked at me.
I reached for my bugs and directed them towards her, but she was moving too fast. That left me the option of spreading them out so they were in her way, in the hopes that she would run straight into them, and maybe enough would survive the bug-against-a-windshield impact to give me a sense of where she was.
"She's going around," I said, grabbing at Tattletale's wrist, "We can't go over the wall."
"We gotta keep running," Regent panted. I was having trouble hearing him.
"No," Grue stopped him, "That's what she wants. She's herding us into the next trap."
"Where do we go, then?" Regent asked, impatient, "Fight her head on? Catch her by surprise? If I can see her, I can mess with her aim."

Tattletale agrees with me. Bakuda forcibly recruited them and she won't have any problem to use them even as human shields if Undersiders would catch the right moment to attack her. She's that kind of person who'd sacrifice anyone for her "noble" mission. A psychopath who doesn't give a crap about human life.

"No. She's got enough raw firepower to kill us even if she misses," Grue shook his head, "We don't have many options. We go over this wall again, we won't just have to deal with the thugs and the old man. We go down either end of this alley, we're walking face first into a bomb. So we have to backtrack. No choice."

I wished there was another option. Backtracking meant moving back toward the center of the facility, it meant prolonging our escape, and possibly running headlong into ABB troops.
We headed for the gap that Bakuda's latest explosion had created in the lockers, and Grue filled the alley we were leaving with darkness, to help cover our escape. The little road was empty, except for the still figures at either end.
As we started to climb over the next row of lockers, we felt rather than heard a series of explosions rip through the area behind us. Bakuda was bombarding the cloud of darkness with a series of explosives. I guess you didn't need to see if you could hit that hard.

We climbed down from the lockers and found ourselves in the same place we'd been when we escaped the mob. There were three still figures at one end of the alley, doubtlessly a concealed bomb, and the destruction caused by the explosions and the miniature black hole in a can on the other. If we climbed over the locker, we faced the risk of throwing ourselves straight into the mob we'd fled. We'd have the element of surprise, but we'd be outnumbered, and our firepower was virtually nil.
By unspoken agreement, we headed towards the end of the alley where the hologram-bomb had gone off, where plumes of dust were still settling.
We were greeted by the sound of guns being cocked.
My heart sank. Twenty or so members of the ABB had guns of various sorts trained on us. Kneeling, sitting and crouching in front of the two groups, so they were out of the way of the guns and out of sight, were thirty or so other people Bakuda had 'recruited'. There was a businessman and a woman that could have been his wife, a girl wearing the Immaculata school uniform, from the Christian private school in the south end of the city, about my age. There were two older men, three older women with graying hair, and a group of guys and girls that might have been University students were standing together. Everyday people.
They weren't gang members, but I could think of them as her soldiers; Every one of them held a weapon of some sort.

Undersiders were completely and utterly and hopelessly TRAPPED. Surrounded from all sides by ABB members and human shields, with bombs exploding everywhere, and the female version of a terrorist Joker probably laughing in the distance because her plan to fuck them up worked so flawlessly. Shit! Tattletale, don't you have any plan B or C up your sleeves? Cause your situation doesn't looks great (I'm seriously worried for them now if someone didn't noticed this yet

).

There were kitchen knives, baseball bats, pipes, shovels, two-by-fours, chains, crowbars and one guy even had a sword that was, oddly enough, not Japanese. There was a look of grim resignation on their faces, circles under their eyes that spoke of exhaustion, as they watched us.

Behind their assembled group, standing astride the Jeep, one foot resting on her modified jeep-mounted mortar launcher, an altered grenade launcher danging from one strap around her shoulders, was Bakuda. All around her were boxes of her specialized grenades and mortar rounds, bolted onto the back of the Jeep, blinking with various colored LEDs.
She put her hands on her grenade launcher as she tilted
her head to one side. Her robotic voice crackled through the still air.
"Checkmate."

Yes, checkmate, indeed, you chess player bombs obsessed bitch! You fucked some poor asians up in order to fuck Undersiders up even more. Fell good about yourself, eh? Back to what I said before, I think Bakuda is perfect for being a female Joker. She's insane, unpredictable, highly intelligent, ruthless, resourceful, homicidal, anarchist, but also silly, a bit comical, playful and imaginative. Female Joker all the way, baby! Who's going to be her male Harley Quinn? Oni Lee?

Next chapter will be reviewed very soon. I'm dying to see how Undersiders will survive to this crazy bomber and her pitiful army. Bye!

AmbarGriss · Mar 16, 2018

Is that a good time to reveal that Bakuda is also on my list of favorites with Tattletale and Panacea?

Leila Hann · Mar 16, 2018

Bakuda is...definitely the best Joker-analogue in this story.

HeWhoAdds · Mar 16, 2018

Leila Hann said:
Bakadu is...definitely the best Joker-analogue in this story.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one in the fandom who actually kinda liked the other one.

In their first appearance, anyway.

blackarrow · Mar 16, 2018

Hello again with a new chapter 4.08 | Worm where Undersiders are trapped into a very dire situation and I think I'm gonna raise Shell (love using title puns, ok?

) if one or more will be seriously injured by this terrorist fucker or her people. Don't hurt my babies! I'm thinking about 4 possibilities of how Undersiders will escape: 1) Purity (but I was thinking better and I kind don't want her to appear because she might kill those innocent asians as well and they don't deserve this

);
2) Bitch will evade from her imprisonment and save her teammates by herself (or at least distract ABB's attention enough for them to run away);
3) Bakuda will make a mistake (hard to believe this because she's very well prepared);
4) Undersiders' boss will come into their help;
At least one should become true, okay?

I'd discovered facing down more than a dozen gunmen, thirty or so people with improvised weapons and a mad scientist with a fetish for bombs made me really, really appreciate what Bitch brought to the team.
"All of this," Tattletale spoke very carefully, "You were toying with us. It's why you didn't have your people shoot at us from the start."
"You're very right." Bakuda's mask may have altered her voice to something approximating Robbie the Robot with a sore throat, but I got the impression she tried to make up for it with body language. She shook her finger at Tattletale like she was scolding a dog. "But I think you, specifically, should shut up. Boys?"
She rested her hand on the head of an ABB member standing in front of her jeep with a pistol in his hands. He flinched at the touch. "If the blonde opens her mouth again, open fire on their entire group. I don't care what the others have to say, but she stays quiet."
Her soldiers adjusted their grips on their guns, and more than one turned the barrel of their weapons to point towards Tattletale, specifically. Glancing at Tattletale, I saw her eyes narrow, her lips press together in a hard line.

"Yeah," Bakuda straightened up, put a foot up on the top of the Jeep's door and rested her arms on her knee, leaning towards us. "You're the only one I don't get. Don't know your powers. But seeing how you and the skinny boy baited my ineffectual mercenaries, I think I'm going to play it safe and have you be quiet. Maybe it's a subsonic thing, altering moods as you talk, maybe it's something else. I dunno. But you shut up, 'Kay?"
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Tattletale give the slightest nod.
"Now, I'm in a bit of a pickle," Bakuda hissed, examining the back of her hand. It seemed she wasn't just compensating for the mechanical voice with body language; she liked to talk. Not that I was complaining. "See, Lung taught me a lot, but the lesson I really took to heart was that being an effective leader is all about fear. Career like ours, people are only truly loyal to someone if they are terrified of them. Enough fear, and they stop worrying about their own interests, stop wondering if they can usurp you, and they dedicate themselves entirely to making you happy. Or at least, to keeping you from being unhappy."
She hopped down from the jeep and grabbed the hair of a taller, longer haired Japanese guy from a group of twenty-somethings. Winding his hair in her hands, she made him bend over until his ear was right in front of her, "Isn't that right?"
He mumbled a reply and she released him, "But it goes further, doesn't it? See, I may have inherited the ABB-"

Bakuda doesn't have any idea how Tattletale's powers work but at least she knows than this girl can fuck her up with her mouth alone (omg, this sounds like...please, don't think at something else than what I'm trying to say here

) and she doesn't want to take a risk. Smart move, japanese Joker. She's also very proud about herself because she forced people to be loyal to her by installing fear and terror in their bones. Well, great achievement, Bakuda "sarcastically claps" you're such a "good" and "honorable" human being. I'm so impressed!

It was almost imperceptible, but I saw a flicker of movement around Tattletale's face. A change of expression or a movement of her head. When I glanced her way, though, I couldn't guess what it had been.
Bakuda continued without a pause, "But I also inherited Lung's enemies. So I have a dilemma, you see. What can I do to you that's going to convince them that I'm worth steering clear of? What gesture would be effective enough that it would have their people running for the hills when they see me coming?"
She wheeled around and grabbed a pistol from the hands of one of her thugs, "Give."
She then strode forward into the midst of the crowd.
"There's not enough bugs here." I took advantage of the pause in her monologue to whisper under my breath, hoping the others would catch it, praying I wasn't being too loud. At least my mask covered my face, hid the fact that my lips were moving, "Regent?"
"Can't disarm this many guns," he whispered his reply. "I mean, I-

"You." Bakuda called out, startling us. She wasn't paying attention to us, though. A Korean-American guy in a private school uniform – from Immaculata High, in the nicest part of the city – was cringing in front of her. The crowd slowly backed away, clearing a few feet of space around the two of them.
"Y-yes?" the boy replied.
"Park Jihoo, yes? Ever hold a gun before?"
"No."
"Ever beat someone up?"
"Please, I never… no."
"Ever get in a fight? I mean a real fight, biting, scratching, reaching for the nearest thing you could use as a weapon?"
"N-no, Bakuda."
"Then you're perfect for my little demonstration." Bakuda pressed the pistol into his hands, "Shoot one of them."
The guy held the gun like it was a live scorpion, with two fingers, at arm's length, "Please, I can't."

I was absolute right when I said that Bakuda made Undersiders her main targets because they're Lung's enemies in the first place. And she's doing exactly what her boss did, only with much more efficiency. She also forces an innocent poor man to shoot one of the Undersiders, despite the young korean clearly refusing to be aggressive with people who never did anything wrong to him. God, I hope, for his own sake, that he'll shoot and miss (on purpose or not) maybe Bakuda will not hurt him if she'll see that at least he listened her. I'm cheering for Undersiders all the way but my heart breaks for the frightened asians as well (back during the bank robbery, I wasn't afraid for hostages, knowing that Undersiders will not hurt them. I was seriously afraid for them only when Kid Win started shooting is canon like a maniac

. But now I'm very afraid, because Bakuda is not Undersiders and human life is nothing to her).

"I'll make it easy for you," Bakuda might have been trying to coo or sound reassuring, but mask didn't allow for that kind of inflection, "You don't even have to kill them. You can aim for a kneecap, an elbow, a shoulder. Okay? Wait a second."
She left the gun in the guy's hands and stepped away, pointing to one of her thugs, "Get the camera out and start rolling."
As ordered, he reached for the side of the jeep and retrieved a small handheld camcorder. He fumbled with it for a few seconds before holding it over his head to see past the crowd, looking through the flip-out panel on the side to make sure the camera was on target.
"Thank you for waiting, Park Jihoo," Bakuda turned her attention to the guy with the gun, "You can shoot
someone now."

The guy said something in Korean. It might have been a prayer, "Please. No."
"Really? They're bad people, if you're concerned about morals." Bakuda tilted her head to one side.
He blinked back tears, staring up at the sky. The gun fell from his hands to clatter to the pavement.
"That's a no. Shame. No use to me as a soldier." Bakuda kicked him in the stomach, hard enough to send him sprawling onto his back.
"No! No no no!" The guy looked up to her, "Please!"
Bakuda half-stepped, half skipped back a few feet. The people around them took that as their cue to get well away from him.
She didn't do anything, didn't say anything, didn't offer any tell or signal. There was a sound, like a vibrating cell phone on a table, and Park Jihoo liquefied into a soupy mess in the span of a second.
Dead. He'd died, just like that.

OH NO.....She killed poor Park. This fucking terrorist bitch killed an innocent man only because he refused to follow her order, because he didn't want to hurt people who'll NEVER be half as bad as Bakuda. RIP Park, you're a good guy! I think she planted a bomb inside his body and she used a remote control to activate it and liquefy him. This is the only explanation about this weird execution I can think about. God....

It was hard to hear over the screaming, the wailing, the outraged shouts. As the crowd scrambled to back away from the scene, all trying to hide behind one another, one of the thugs fired a gun straight up into the air. Everyone stopped. After the shrieks of surprise, there was the briefest pause, long enough for one sound to bring everyone to a stunned silence.
It sounded like the noise you make when you rake up dry leaves, but louder, artificial in a way that sounded like it was played over an archaic answering machine. All eyes turned to Bakuda. She was doubled over, her hands around her middle.
Laughing. The sound was her laughing.
She slapped her leg as she stood, made a noise that might have been an intake of breath or a chuckle, but her mask didn't translate it into anything recognizable – only a hiss with barely any variation to it. She spun in a half circle as she crowed, "The six-eighteen! I forgot I even made that one! Perfect! Better than I thought!"
If her job was to terrify, she'd succeeded. With me, at least. I wanted to throw up, but I'd have to take off my mask to do it, and I was afraid that if I moved, I'd get shot. The fear of the guns was enough to override my welling nausea, but the end result was that I was shaking. Not just trembling, but full body shakes that had me struggling to keep upright.

"That was pretty cool."
With those words, Regent managed to get as many wide eyed looks than Bakuda had with her laugh. He got one from me. It wasn't just what he said. It was how calm he sounded.
"I know, right?" Bakuda turned around to face him, cocked her head to one side, "I modeled it off Tesla's work in vibrations. He theorized that if you could get the right frequency, you could shatter the Earth it-"
"No offense," Regent said, "Well, I'll rephrase: I don't really care about offending you. Don't shoot me though. I just want to stop you there and say I don't care about the science stuff and all the technobabble about how you did it. It's boring. I'm just saying it's kind of neat to see what a person looks like when dissolved down like that. Gross, creepy, fucked up, but it's neat."

Everyone panicked- as normal in their situation- and Skitter feels both afraid and shocked by the horrible execution that was just committed in front of her eyes. This is the first murder that she assisted at and she reacted like anyone (who isn't a murderer themselves or used to see crimes all the time) would have reacted. Perfectly understandable. Regent pretends that he's fascinated by Bakuda's "fun" (or maybe he's honest if he's a sociopath but I think that most of the time he's just playing with her), trying to attract her attention and maybe appear as being by her side, despite her seeing him an enemy. I like his game. Good luck, Regent, because this bitch is very smart and she might realize what you're doing.

"Yes," Bakuda exulted in the attention, "Like the answer to a question you didn't know you were asking!"
"How'd you do it? You stuck bombs in these civilians to get them to work for you?"
"Everyone," Bakuda answered, almost delirious on the high of her successful 'experiment' and Regent's attention. She half skipped, half spun through the crowd and leaned against one of her thugs, patting his cheek, "Even my most loyal. Bitch of a thing to do. Not the actual procedure of sticking the things inside their heads. After the first twenty, I could do the surgeries with my eyes closed. Literally. I actually did a few that way."

She pouted, "But having to tranquilize the first dozen or so and do the surgeries on them before they woke up, so I'd have the manpower to round up everyone else? One after the other? Really tedious once the novelty wears off."
"I'd be too lazy to do that, even if I had your powers," Regent said, "Can I approach the body? Get a better look?"
Her mood changed in a flash, and she angrily jabbed a finger in his direction. "No. Don't think I don't know you're trying something. I'm a fucking genius, get it? I can think twelve moves ahead before you've even decided on your first. It's why you're standing there and I…" she hoisted herself up so she was sitting on the side of the Jeep, "Am sitting here."
"Chill the fuck out," Regent replied, "I was just asking."
I could see from Tattletale's expression that she was having the same thoughts I was. Give the lunatic bomber a little respect. I quietly voiced what Tattletale couldn't.
"Tone it down a notch, Regent," I whispered.
"Whaaattever," Bakuda drew out the word, "Skinny boy just lost any goodwill he'd earned for appreciating my art. Or at least being able to fake it convincingly." She tapped the guy with the camera on the shoulder, "You still filming?"
The man gave a short nod. As I looked at him, I saw beads of sweat running down his face, even though it was a cool evening. It seemed her thugs were pretty spooked, too.

"sighs" I'm starting to hate to be right ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Bakuda is aware of Regent's game and finished it before he was able to turn it into his favor. Regent, you're not very good at messing with people by talking (you didn't even fooled me). Too bad Tattletale isn't allowed to talk. Also Bakuda implanted bombs into people confirmed. She must have a remote control somewhere. If someone would take it away from her...I think even the poor asians would be grateful to that person. Maybe this is what Regent tried to do.

"Good," Bakuda rubbed her pink-gloved hands together, "We'll edit out the talky parts later, then we put it on the web and send copies to local news stations. What do you think?"
The camera-guy answered in an accented voice, "Good plan, Bakuda."
She clapped her hands together. Then she pointed into the crowd "Alright! So, you… yeah you, the girl in the yellow shirt and jeans. If I told you to, would you pick up the gun and shoot someone?"
It took me a second to spot the girl, at the far end of the crowd. She looked at Bakuda with a stricken expression and managed to answer, "The gun m-melted too, Ma'am."
"You call me Bakuda. You know that. Nothing fancy. If the gun was still there, would you shoot? Or if I told someone to give you a gun?"
"I-I think I maybe could," her eyes flickered to the puddle that had been Park Jihoo.
"Which concludes my demonstration," Bakuda addressed our group, "Fear! It's why Lung went out of his way to recruit me. I always understood deep down inside, that fear was a powerful tool. He just phrased it so well. True fear is a blend of certainty and the unpredictable. My people know that if they cross me, I only have to think about it to make the bombs in their heads go kablooie. Boom. They know that if I die, every single bomb I've made goes off. Not just the ones I jammed into their heads. Every single fucking one. And I've made a lot. Certainties."

Lisa reached out and grabbed my hand, clenched it tight.
"As for unpredictability?" Bakuda kicked her legs against the side of the jeep like a grade schooler sitting on a chair, "I like to mix up my arsenal, so you never know what you're going to get. But you've also got to keep your people wondering, right? Keep them on their toes? Case in point: Shazam!"
The word coincided with the start of a very real explosion that was closely followed by something like thunder, but Lisa was already pulling on my arm, pulling me away.
I saw a glimpse of chaos, of screaming people running from the place the explosion had happened in the midst of Bakuda's own group. The fleeing people were obstructing the view of the people with guns.
Regent stuck his arm out, swept it outward, sending ten or so people stumbling into one another, turning the crowd into a disordered mob. I heard the too-loud roar of guns being fired, saw Regent grab the shoulder of a limp left arm, couldn't be sure the two were connected.
Finally, there was Bakuda, still sitting on the side of the jeep. She was either shouting something or laughing. She was letting us slip from her grasp, her people were on the verge of killing one another in mindless panic, and she'd just killed at least one of her own people on a whim. From what we'd just seen of her, I was willing to bet she was laughing as it all happened.
Almost without my noticing, night had fallen, and as if to invite us deeper into the maze, the light poles flickered and turned on above us. With Grue covering our retreat in a curtain of darkness, we ran.

Fuck, she doesn't have a remote control. Now I understand better....I think she rather have a microchip implanted inside her brain that she uses to trigger the bombs. If someone will kill her before removing the microchip, all bombs will go....BOOM. Fucking awesome plan, she did in a way that will assure her she'll survive no matter what. And now she creates CHAOS, exploding bombs with the "power of her mind", thus allowing the Undersiders to escape for moment. So, Bakuda's own super-craziness "saved" them! I said mistake at the beginning, but its just pure, uncontrollable craziness.

BOMBS....BOMBS EVERYWHERE....Have a good night, my dears. At least I can sleep well knowing that Undersiders are safe for moment

. Its great to read an already finished story and not having to wait while a huge cliffhanger is eating you alive

.

ExNihilo · Mar 16, 2018

I must say, that title is kinda a lie by this point, isn't it? You're going pretty fast.

blackarrow · Mar 16, 2018

AmbarGriss said:
Is that a good time to reveal that Bakuda is also on my list of favorites with Tattletale and Panacea?

Oh, that's ok, hope you don't mind if I would like Bakuda to be at least seriously injured (because for now her death means disaster for everyone, unless its just a bluff from her ) but she really pisses me off soooo much...and I don't like her as a character (she's pretty good as a villain, but as a person, she's a MONSTER, at least from my POV and those asians/Undersiders' POV). I feel somehow bad for being so harsh with characters that I don't like/I hate, knowing that there are people who like them (I often wonder myself if I don't make people mad with what I'm saying). But...well, I'm just honest with my feelings and I can't express myself otherwise. Sorry again

.

blackarrow · Mar 16, 2018

Leila Hann said:
Bakuda is...definitely the best Joker-analogue in this story.

Why, thank you. It happens that I'm a big fan of Batman universe and I know quite a lot about Joker so I'm able to recognize a character who's close enough to his personality.

Btw, my favorite Joker impersonations were Heath Ledger (RIP) and Jack Nicholson.

blackarrow · Mar 16, 2018

HeWhoAdds said:
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one in the fandom who actually kinda liked the other one.

In their first appearance, anyway.

What? There another Worm character similar with Joker? Cool, more characters for me to RAGE at (but they're very interesting anyway

). Please, tell me just only two things about this character (I'm pretty curious and my friend will never tell me anything I'm asking her): they'll appear in the next Arcs/chapters or much later? They're more or less crazy than Bakuda? (because Bakuda is a new Level Up in matters of craziness)? Thanks a bunch.

Leila Hann · Mar 16, 2018

blackarrow said:
What? There another Worm character similar with Joker? Cool, more characters for me to RAGE at (but they're very interesting anyway ). Please, tell me just only two things about this character (I'm pretty curious and my friend will never tell me anything I'm asking her): they'll appear in the next Arcs/chapters or much later? They're more or less crazy than Bakuda? (because Bakuda is a new Level Up in matters of craziness)? Thanks a bunch.

They're still a ways off. Different type of crazy, hard to say if more or less.

hellgodsrus · Mar 17, 2018

They also aren't a Joker analogue, not really, and nor is Bakuda. Also as fun as Bakuda is, the second one is far better despite the fandom's opinions, and some small issues with their portrayal.

Assembler · Mar 17, 2018

ExNihilo said:
Breaker: Alters Physics. Think Vista.

Actually, Vista isn't a Breaker. Breakers enter a different form in which they react differently to physics and potentially get additional powers. Shadow Stalker and Purity are Breakers, Vista is just a Shaker.

ExNihilo · Mar 17, 2018

Assembler said:
Actually, Vista isn't a Breaker. Breakers enter a different form in which they react differently to physics and potentially get additional powers. Shadow Stalker and Purity are Breakers, Vista is just a Shaker.

Fair enough. Boundaries can be very confusing at times.

AmbarGriss · Mar 17, 2018

ExNihilo said:
Fair enough. Boundaries can be very confusing at times.

This entire system is confusing.

ExNihilo · Mar 17, 2018

AmbarGriss said:
This entire system is confusing.

To be fair, realistic in its confusion. Bureaucracies do that, and I'm sure [redacted] wasn't helping. But it can be a useful tool.

blackarrow · Mar 17, 2018

Hi, everyone and welcome to a new piece of this Shell of an Arc 4.09 | Worm Before I'll start, I'd like to talk for a while about this female Joxer, alias Bakuda. Believe me or not, she's the most enjoyable evil villain (I consider evil villains the villains who are not Undersiders, ok?) so far. She have exactly the qualities I demand from a villain to find them enjoyable: over the top crazy, funny (in a macabre sense of word), very smart and inventive, unpredictable and unrestrained in her evilness. Never boring. Let's see if the other 5 villains I've meet so far have the same assets:
Lung was pretty boring, smart but without Bakuda's inventivity, not funny at all, predictable (the only unpredictable moment of his fight with Skitter was if Oni Lee would have appeared to help him), unrestrained in his evilness but not so exciting like Bakuda. I don't like him as a villain so far.
Max: pretty interesting as a manipulator, very smart but not very inventive, predictable, unrestrained in his evilness, an apparent sane man but very fucked up emotionally, not funny at all (pretty infuriating, if I have to say), an abusive husband and father (villains who are abusive parents/spouses or child abusers in general are a BIG NO to me, I'll never ever enjoy them, no matter how charming they're in their every day lives). I don't like at all this jerk of a nazi, not even as an evil villain. Besides if you take away his powers, he reminds me so much of real life people who share his ideologies and ways to control others and have them as their mercy. He's so very realistic it hurts. Realistic assholes kind of creeps me out more than, lets say, people like Bakuda (while there are also real life terrorists, you'll never meet one who acts exactly like Bakuda but you'll meet a lot of people like Max).
Kayden: a smart, strong but kind of submissive villain, predictable enough (I was sure that she'll return back to Max), not very evil (more like a victim of her own way of thinking than an actually remorseless bitch), interesting enough to read about, very serious and even apathetic and a good mother overall. I like her but not quite enjoyable as an evil villain.
Uber and Leet...Oh, no, I don't want to say anything about these pathetic losers...ewwww, they don't deserve a single word from me

.
So, the conclusion is...Bakuda is the most enjoyable evil villain so far but still I want her to be badly injured/ enough incapacitated in order to: pay for killing that poor innocent man Park and Undersiders to finally escape (I don't want her dead YET because I want to see with what super crazy things she'll come up later, especially if she'll be mad enough that Undersiders escaped. However I have a feeling that innocent people will be the ones who'll suffer the most

).

"Did you get shot?" I asked Regent, as the four of us dashed down the alleyway. No answer.
So I tried again, more specific, "Regent! Listen to me, did you get shot?"
He shook his head in a tight motion as he clutched his hand against his shoulder, "Not shot. Used my power too much, too fast, and it backfired. Left arm's cramping up, spasms. I can't move it. Don't worry about it."
"Backfired?" I asked.
"Don't worry about it!" his snarled response was all the more startling because it came from our normally placid and too-laid-back Alec. As if to compensate for the lashing out, he muttered an apology, "Fuck. Sorry. This hurts, but I'll deal. You guys focus on getting us out of this mess."

"Tattletale," I was still holding her hand, so I squeezed it to ensure I had her attention, "This would be a fantastic time to do your thing."
"Especially since you dropped the ball as far as letting us walk into that fucked up situation," Grue growled.
"Okay," Tattletale huffed with both the exertion of our run and her irritation, letting go of my hand to push her hair back from her face and put it behind her ears, "The big one: She's lying."
"About?" I asked.
"She's not the new leader of the ABB."
"What? Who is?" Grue asked.
"Your guess is as good as mine. She doesn't see herself as the one in charge, as much as she enjoys the role. She's pretending."

Aww, Skitter is starting to care for her teammates

. She's worried for Alec when he gets backfires because he used his power too much (so this is his weakness, ok). She'll end up loving them and refusing to betray them even if lady Piggot will be the one who'll beg her personally. That's so sweet. It looks like that Bakuda is not the temporary leader of ABB (so no third woman leader

). I think Lung is still leading everyone from Birdcage (Glory Girl said something about "no connections with the outside world" but maybe Lung was somehow able to connect to his people despite all limitations. Everything is possible when it comes to people like him).

The ground rumbled, and we looked behind us to see debris spraying out of the darkness Grue had used to cover our retreat.
It was only because we were watching the debris that we saw the rocket blast out of the darkness. We ducked, needlessly, as the missile arced 3 feet over our heads and continued down the alley, directly to the spot where a hologram-bomb sat.
We covered our heads as the rocket and bomb exploded, one just a second after the other. The first explosion didn't even ruffle our hair, though we were less than a hundred feet away. The second, explosion, though, ripped past us with the most intense cold I'd ever felt. Even through my costume, I could feel it.
When we opened our eyes, there was a spectacle in front of us. The second explosion had flash-frozen the first bomb mid-explosion, had probably been what absorbed the force of the blast. Smoke, debris and dust had been frozen into a tower of ice, easily as tall as a two story building, composed of spikes of ice and frost that radiated up and away from us. Most of it was lit up by the lightposts that were spaced evenly across the storage facility. It was already slowly falling apart – heavier pieces of debris were breaking through the ice that held them up, falling free and crashing through paper thin latticeworks of frost.

That same frost covered the ground and every wall that was facing the explosion site, as far as the eye could see. It covered us. Icicles so tiny and fine they were like eyelashes radiated from the parts of my costume that had been exposed. There were even twists and curls of ice where Grue's smoke had frozen.
"Everyone okay?" Grue asked. He was shielding Tattletale with his body, the ice sloughing off them in sheets as they stood. When he saw me looking, he explained, "Tattletale's costume exposes her skin, more than any of us. If she'd been totally exposed-"
"No," I answered, "No worries. Smart. But we should move."
We ran. All around us, tiny crystals of ice were drifting down, sparkling in the light.
Tattletale continued dishing the info on Bakuda, "Lie number two? She's fibbing about how she's detonating those bombs she has in her people's heads. She said she blows things up with a thought, but she's not wearing any external hardware on her head, and she's wouldn't have someone else do surgery on her. Too much of a control freak, too proud of her brain."
"But you don't know how she's blowing the bombs up?" I guessed.
"I know exactly how she's setting them off. Toe rings."
"Toe rings," Grue said, disbelief clear in his tone, even with his warped voice.
"She's got a ring around her big toe and the toe next to it. When she crosses one toe over the other, contacts on the outside of the rings meet and it sends the signal. She chooses the target with a system built into her goggles. It doesn't look like she's doing anything, which is probably the effect she's going for. Appearances."

Cloudy with a Chance of Ice Bombs!
Bakuda tries HARD to fuck Undersiders up with her ice bombs. Tattletale offers explanations about how Bakuda is blowing her bombs up. Using...toe rings. So, no microchip inside brain? UNEXPECTED. I guess that she crosses her toe over the ring around her big one as many times as its necessary for a certain bomb inside someone's head to explode. For example, Park had six eighteen as his bomb number. Bakuda crosses her toes 6 times first then 18 times second and the....BOOM. I think I got it. And I know how they can stop her. Skitter can make bugs crawl inside her boots and chew the toe rings. Maybe a short circuit or explosion will fuck her up.

"Good to know," Grue said, "But that doesn't help us right now. What are her weaknesses?"
There was the crash of an explosion behind us. The area briefly lit up, but it hadn't hit close enough to be worth worrying about.
"Narcissistic personality disorder. Megalomania. She's spent her whole life being smarter than everyone around her, even before she had powers. Constantly praised, coddled. But she rarely if ever heard a criticism, probably wasn't ever knocked down a peg, and that was a big factor in her ego swelling up to neurotic levels. Probably graduated high school years early. My bet is her trigger event was related to this. Passed over for a job or someone really bitched her out, and she didn't know how to deal."

I had something to add, "The first thing she did with her powers, only thing, before she came to Brockton Bay, was hold a University hostage. Maybe she got some bad marks, failed a class or was passed over for a teaching assistant position. Jarred her self image enough she snapped."
"Something we can use, people!" Grue growled.
"The personality disorder," Tattletale said, "Even a small victory on our end is going to get a big reaction from her. Ego-wise, she's got a glass jaw. Hard to say if a win for us would mean she goes manic and blows everything up, or if she'd just crumple, but I guarantee she wouldn't handle it well."
Grue nodded, started to speak, but stumbled. I did my best to stop him from falling over, but he probably weighed half again as much as I did. He got his balance, growled, and then spoke, "How do we win? Or how do we avoid losing? What's she got going on that we don't know about?"
"The goggles. She's seeing heat signatures. It's how she kept finding us. That ice is a blessing in disguise, since it's probably hiding us some. She must have a reason for using it. Um. Her guns are keyed to her fingerprints, so you couldn't pick up her grenade launcher and use it against her."
"What else?"
"That's all that's coming to mind right now. If you're going to come up with a plan, best do it fast. I think she's after us on the Jeep."

So, she's also an narcissistic megalomaniac who RAGED because she got a bad grade and became the super-terrorist she's now? Wow, I feel so "sorry" Bakuda, your "poor", "poor" victim. You suffered way too much during your life, you deserve to get revenge over this world that was so "unfair" to you...I'm imagining how PISSED OFF she'll be if she'll fail to kill Undersiders, I think her RAGE will be OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAND!!! in that moment. Its going to be fun to watch her

! Guys, why don't you try to destroy her toe-rings? This is her main weakness, I'm sure its going to work.

"Then we're splitting up," Grue grunted, "I fucked up my ankle by kicking in that door when the black hole hit. I fucked it up worse by running so much afterward. I'm going to see what I can do, staying here."
"What the fuck?" I breathed, "No."
"I'll buy you time. You guys go. Now!"
"No way," I said, but he was stopping, turning around. I tried to stop, too, but Tattletale took hold of my hand and dragged me after her. I shouted, "Grue! Don't be stupid!"
He didn't respond, turning to fire blasts of darkness at the lights nearest him, darkening the entire alley. Slowly, he walked in the opposite direction the rest of us were going, favoring one leg.
With a whistle and a resounding crack, another rocket slammed into the tower of ice. The entire thing toppled like a massive house of cards, with a sound of a hundred thousand windows breaking. Even with that cacophony, I heard the squeal of tires. I saw the blurred form of the Jeep approaching through the cloud of snow and frost that was rolling away from the collapsed tower.

Grue didn't retreat as the Jeep barreled forward, didn't turn away. He bellowed at the top of his lungs, in his altered voice, "Come on!"
"Grue!" I shouted, but he didn't react. "Fuck!"
No bugs. Still too few. We'd been constantly moving, so my bugs hadn't had a place they could congregate, and this place was lousy for them anyways, in quality and quantity. How could I have been so goddamn stupid? I should always be prepared, and now I wasn't in a state to help a friend and teammate when he needed it most, because I'd assumed my bugs would be on hand.
There were only three people in the Jeep, with the person standing at the back being the very recognizable Bakuda, grenade launcher in hand. The thug in the passenger seat had a pistol in each hand, and the driver was steering with one hand, a gun in the other.
Grue didn't budge as the driver stepped on the gas. Was he playing chicken against a speeding car?
"Come on!" Grue shouted, again.
"Don't just watch!" Tattletale tugged on my arm, pulling me toward the corner, "We've gotta go now or there's no point!"
It was stupid, but I resisted, grabbing at the edge of the locker to ensure I could at least stay long enough to see what happened to Grue. See if maybe he would be okay.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, BRIA.....GRUE, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? YOU'RE GOING TO SACRIFICE YOURSELF TO STOP BAKUDA'S JEEP?!?

No, I don't want Grue to die, not one of my favorite character....to die so early....Guys, believe me, I'm starting to tear up, I don't want to think that Grue might die

. If i were in Skiterr's place, I think I'd do something very stupid like pulling off my mask, kneeling and just crying, without caring about anything around me anymore. That's the reason why I'd be the suckiest villain ever: I'm too emotive and easily impressed (actually my only assets as a villain would be a strategic thinking that I'm proud of

and enough cold blood, at least when I come to face truly evil, despicable villains- except mannequins/dolls. Other assets are next to zero

). I bet that Regent and Tattletale's reactions will be like:
Regent: Remind me, Tattletale, why did we recruited her in the first place?
Tattletale: Fuck if I know. Sometimes I don't understand my own decisions.
Me: Aaaaaah, aaaa-h- sob- sniff, sniff-

Those hopes were swiftly dashed. The car slammed into the darkness-wreathed figure with enough speed to assure me he wouldn't be walking away from an impact.
The tires squealed and the Jeep skidded in a half-turn as it veered to a halt. Bakuda pulled herself up to a standing position, holding on to the roll bar as she looked around, presumably for us.

"Come on!" Tattletale urged me in a strained whisper, "Let's go!"
I realized it before she did. "There's no damage to the car."
Tattletale's repeated yanking on my arm stopped as she paused to verify what I'd said. No broken window, no dents on the hood, no dents on the bumper.
A cloud of darkness bloomed from the shadows at the side of the alley and swallowed the Jeep and its three occupants.
Two seconds later, the Jeep came roaring out of the darkness, fishtailing as the wheels struggled to get a grip on the frost-slick pavement. The driver steered it towards us, while Bakuda loaded her grenade launcher, her focus on the cloud of darkness she'd just exited. The guy in the passenger seat… was gone.
Bakuda aimed the grenade launcher at the darkness.
"Fuck, Grue owes me one for this," Regent muttered. He let go of his shoulder, raised his hand toward the Jeep, and then flung it out to one side. As he did it, he screamed, his voice primal, raw.
The hand the driver had on the wheel moved much as Regent's did, swinging wildly to one side. The Jeep turned, skidded, and spun out, flinging Bakuda and the contents of a half dozen boxes of explosives onto the road of the alley. It collided with a locker, halfway smashing through a door in the process, and spiraled to a halt with a single airbag deployed, the driver limp behind it.

From AGONY to HAPPINESS in 3...2...1....GRUE SURVIVED. Regent saved his ass, despite the pain in his hand muscles. Regent, you're a HERO. I like you so much during this Arc, officially you're my third favorite Undersider: 1) Skitter, 2) Tattletale/Grue; 3) Regent; 4) Bitch.

Almost at the same moment the Jeep stopped, Regent started to collapse to the ground, unconscious. I grabbed him to stop him and eased him down so he didn't hit his head. I looked at Tattletale, "Backfire?"
"No, but close," Tattletale said, "After a backfire, he's got to rest his powers. It's like throwing a punch with a broken hand. He'll be sore and probably powerless for a little while, but he'll recover."
"Good," I said, staring out at the scene. The crashed car, the frost-covered street covered with grenades and canisters, Bakuda lying still in the midst of it all. Grue limped out of the cloud of darkness, the passenger's gun in his hand.
"Grue!" I called out. I ran to him, hugged him. My relief was so intense I wasn't even embarrassed about it.
"Heya," his voice echoed, "I'm alright. Only a feint. Hard to tell whether it's me or a blob of shadow shaped roughly like a person when the lights are out, yeah? Fooled her."
"Fooled me. Scared the fucking crap out of me," I answered, "You fucker."
"Nice to know you care," he laughed a little, patted me on the head like someone would a dog, "Come on. We should restrain the lunatic, get her out of here so we can drill her on what happened to Bitch and the money. Maybe get an idea of what's going on with the ABB."
I smiled behind my mask, "Sounds like a-"
I didn't get to finish. Everything went white, then every inch of me bloomed in a searing agony that dwarfed the worst pain I had ever felt.

Since we had trounced Über and Leet, it had been one close call after another. Being surrounded and charged by a mob, being held at gunpoint, escaping a miniature black hole, nearly being frozen in time like bugs in amber, innumerable explosions. We'd escaped each of the threats by the skin of our teeth, knowing all the while that all it would take was one well placed shot, and we were done, gone, out of commission.
All it had taken was one good shot.

YOU STUPID IDIOTS :rage:

. You hugged each other and smiled and laughed and were happy while Bakuda was getting ready to fuck with you even if she was lying injured on the street. You acted like cliche characters of horror movies (right after they let the killer behind them and met their lovers/friends, they started to hug/kiss them or tell them stories, without caring that the killer might catch up with them. Or they don't even bother to check the pulse of the incapacitated killer. Fucking annoying cliches). Now Bakuda used her grenades to give you GAME OVER. I'm thinking...how are you going to RESTART the game when it was never yours in the first place?

Later with another chapter, my dears. "LE SIGH" Fucking CLIFFHANGER...

AmbarGriss · Mar 17, 2018

On the good side, cliffhangers are not that big of a deal when we already have the next chapter awaiting

Assembler · Mar 17, 2018

blackarrow said:
Uber and Leet...Oh, no, I don't want to say anything about these pathetic losers...ewwww, they don't deserve a single word from me.

You want a WoG about just how much their powers suck?

blackarrow · Mar 17, 2018

Alright, back to our shenanigans. Last time, GAME OVER for my adorable dumb Undersiders. I'm not sure how badly they're injured, but I know that isn't too good for them either. The good thing is that Bakuda is alone now, ABB members scattered away and the two people in her jeep are either unconscious or dead. The bad thing is...I'm not sure how good are Undersiders to fight her now. I'm still thinking that either Bitch or Purity should make their appearance, "SIGHS" I would be ok even with Kaiser as long as Bakuda will have her ass kicked and my stupid "children" will survive

. So, more Shells to discover in 4.10 | Worm

I came to the gradual realization I could open my eyes, as though it was something I had forgotten how to do. I tried it and regretted my decision instantly. One of my eyes wasn't seeing anything, even when open, and the other was out of focus, with images failing to make sense even when I could make something out. As I screwed my eyes shut, even the pink glow of light passing through my eyelids was like fireworks exploding in my retinas.
When I tried to piece together what had just happened, my thoughts moved like molasses.
"If you little fucks had any sense, you'd know that getting the upper hand on me, just for a moment? It's something you should be fucking terrified of," a voice hissed. It took me a few seconds to place the voice, way longer than it should have. Bakuda.
I was beginning to hurt. Like papercuts, but blown up to two hundred times the size, and each of those papercuts was one of my muscles. My skin was prickling with stings that were gradually feeling more and more like a burn. My joints throbbed as though every single joint had been torn out of its individual socket and people were banging the still-alive ends of them against the pavement in a grim rhythm.

I opened my good eye again and tried unsuccessfully to focus. Three crimson ribbons… no. I was seeing triple. One crimson ribbon was extending along the side of my mask, dropping from the edge where the mask covered my nose, dropping in a straight line to touch the ground. Where it made contact with pavement, there was a steadily growing puddle. I realized I was bleeding. A lot.
"Leaving me lying there with a grenade launcher in my hand and ammunition all over the fucking street was asking for it. Fuck, just the hugging and being all relieved, as if you had actually beaten me? You were begging to be shot."
I wasn't going out like this. Not without a fight. I could barely move, though, let alone take action. My desire to do something was almost more excruciating than the pain that throbbed and thrummed through my entire body. What could I do? My mind wasn't working as agonizingly slowly as it had been a moment before, but my thoughts were still bogged down and broken up. Stuff I should have known without thinking about it was vague, uncertain, disjointed. Too many thoughts were orphaned, disconnected from everything else. I would have hit something in my frustration if I'd been able to move without everything hurting. I settled for clenching my fists.
School. Trouble at school? Me? The trio? No. Why was I thinking about school? What had I been thinking about before I got frustrated? Wanting to fight back somehow. Bakuda, school, fighting back. I almost groaned in frustration as I tried to connect the individual ideas, and simply couldn't complete the thought. I only wound up huffing out a breath, wincing at the pain that caused.

Ok, Bakuda seems alright and pretty RIGHT about how incredible idiotic and cliche Undersiders acted before she blew them up (with all my love for them, I don't shy away from criticizing them when I feel like they deserve

), Skitter is not very alright, while alive she's in a lot of pain (Wildbow describes so good the pain that someone- even with the steel resistance of Skitter- was feeling that I can almost feel the same pain like its mine...SCARY!) and she's bleeding a lot. This is a very dire situation for her. If only she could concentrate enough to use bugs to crawl inside Bakuda's boots, where the toe-rings are....

"Oh? The ineffectual little girl with the bug costume is awake," Bakuda's whirring voice announced to the night air.
Grue said something, a short distance away, I couldn't make it out.
Bakuda replied with an absent, "Shush, don't worry. I'll get to you in a moment."
I heard something, and saw a pair of pink boots appear in front of my face, the image swimming and drifting lazily.
"Bad day?" she bent over me, "Good. See, one of my new minions is on staff at the Protectorate Headquarters. A guard where Lung is imprisoned, understand? Wasn't in a position to free him, but she got the full story from him. I know you were the little freak that led to him getting sent there. So you get special treatment tonight. You get to watch what I do to your friends. I'll start with the boy in black, then move on to your unconscious buddies over there. Glued them down just to be safe. Once your friends are as good as dead, I give you to Oni Lee. He was a very good boy when it came to the change of regime, and he's been bugging me to give him something to play with. What do you say to that?"

I was only half listening. Like a mantra, I was mentally reciting the same thing, over and over. Bakuda, school, fight back.
"Bakuda, school," I mumbled. Hearing how reedy and thin my own voice sounded was more terrifying than anything else that had come to my attention in the past few minutes.
"What? Does the bug girl want to say something?" She bent down and grabbed the armor that hung over my chest. With a jerk, she hauled me into a half-sitting position. Being tugged around like that was torture, but the pain helped sharpen my thoughts into a semblance of clarity.
"School. Bakuda failed," I answered her, my voice only marginally stronger than it had been on my last attempt. The black-red lenses of her goggles bored into me as I composed my thoughts to speak again, trying to sound more coherent. "Smart as you think you are, failing like that? What was it? Second place? Not even second?" I managed something approximating a chuckle.
She let go of me and stepped away as if I was on fire. As my head hit the pavement, I very nearly blacked out. Had to fight not to. Embrace the pain. Keeps you awake.
A short distance from me, Grue's voice echoed. I could only make out the first word. "She's" or "Cheese". He laughed. It spooked me that I couldn't understand him, that I couldn't figure out why I couldn't understand him. I wasn't hearing as well as I should, I knew that. But that wasn't all of it. What else?
The distortion.

CRAP, the other Undersiders are unconscious and glued by asphalt. Not good, not good at all. Bakuda, you damn megalomaniac bitch, you want to give Skitter, after you finish with her teammates, to your male Harley Quinn, in order to "play" with her? I'm not sure what kind of relationship those murderfuckers have besides being Lung's demented lieutenants, but I kind of ship them as a reverse gender couple of Joker and Harley Quinn. I bet that Bakuda abuses Oni Lee at any given moment, calling her abuse "love" and he's suffering from Stockholm syndrome, returning back in her arms after every piece of her "love". Fucking nuts and toxic people. Also, I noticed that Lung is not in Birdcage yet but imprisoned in Protectorate Headquarters and ABB have a "man" there. Also, Bakuda and Oni Lee know the whole story about Skitter kicking Lung's ass with the help of the Swarm. Good pieces of information.

The explosion or explosions had damaged my hearing, maybe, and I couldn't make out his words with the effect his power had on his voice. Just figuring that out, knowing I could figure it out, made me feel a hundred times better.
"You think so?" Bakuda hissed at Grue. Her words were easier to make out, since her mask was reconstructing them so they were perfectly enunciated and monotone, even if it obscured it behind whirs and hisses.
She kicked me in the face with one of those pink boots. Having to move my head hurt more than almost having my teeth kicked in. She grabbed at my costume and dragged me several feet. Being moved cranked all the other hurt up a notch. On a scale of one to ten, it was a good solid nine point five. Nothing I could do could make it hurt more, so I found the strength and willpower to reach up and grab at her wrists, for all the good it did. She let me go and then shoved me to turn me on my side. The movement made me want to throw up.
Seeing Grue helped ground me, as I fought the nausea and panted tiny breaths at the pain. He was bound in a half-sitting position against a locker with what looked like lengths of sticky gold ribbon. Where was Tattletale?
"Let's see how smart you two are after I give tall, dark and mysterious his treat," Bakuda threatened, "Let's see… here. Here's a real gem. Two-twenty-seven. Now sit still. If you even think about using your power, I'll just shove it down the bug brat's throat instead, set it off. Not like you're in a position to stop me from getting the job done, even if I'm deaf and blind."

She removed her pink gloves and threw them aside. Then she withdrew a set of what looked like long, narrow scissors from her sleeve. Except they were blunt, not sharp. Like pliers, almost. They clicked as she closed them on the tip of what looked like an inch-long metal pill.
"No need for surgery, since this isn't going to be long term. What I'm going to do is slide this up your nostril and into your nasal cavity." She reached into the darkness that was leaking from all around him and fumbled around his face. "Just need to get your mask… helmet… off. There."
If Grue's mask was off, it was hard to tell. His head was just a roughly human-shaped blur of shadow.
She reached into that layer of darkness with one hand and pushed the capsule into the center of it all with the other. "And in it goes… slowly, don't want to activate it prematurely, and the effects will only be really cool if it's deep. See, my two-twenty-seven was something of a happy accident. I'd taken readings of little Vista's powers, thought maybe I could make a space distortion grenade. Purely by accident, I cracked the Manton effect. Or at least, whatever I'd done when I put the grenade together, it bypassed the Manton effect. You idiots know what that is?"
She stopped and cracked her knuckles, leaving the scissor-like tool sticking straight out of Grue's face. "It's that little rule that keeps pyrokinetics from boiling your blood, that limits most powers from affecting people's bodies. Or, depending on what theory you're going by, it's the rule that says your power either works only on organic, living things, or it works on everything else.

Tattletale is NOT there? Wow, that's excellent, she can do something to stop Bakuda before she'll finish doing her little experiment on Grue. FUCK, WHAT SHE'S GOING TO DO TO GRUE? Let me get this clear: so she created a capsule-bomb, fucking with Manton effect and using Vista's powers as her source of inspiration. She pulled the capsule bomb inside Grue's head and when she'll activate it, his head will fucking EXPLODE. It will grow up so big and change its shape that will explode...Holy shit...You know what? Fuck Bakuda. I want someone to KILL her in the most horrible and disgusting way. I want her impaled in Kaiser's metal pikes, begging him for mercy and having him laughing in her face and calling her a "stupid and useless asian cunt". Cause she's not fun anymore. She's a sadistic crazy bitch who's trying to kill my favorite characters "is suddenly (well, actually ALWAYS) very protective towards Grue".

"So think about it. A spatial distortion effect that only works on living material. I set this thing off, and all living matter within three feet of the capsule is reshaped, warped, shrunk, blown up, stretched, bent. It doesn't actually kill you. That's the second most amazing thing about it, besides the Manton bypass. Everything still connects to everything else. Totally nonlethal, but it'll make you wish you were dead every second of the rest of your miserable fucking existence."
Don't just lie there and watch, I thought. Do something!
"Just click, whoosh, you're ugly enough to put the elephant man to shame. Wind up with a head four times the normal size, bumps like tumors all over, every feature and part the wrong shape, wrong size. Reshapes the brain, too, but that's usually just some mild to moderate brain damage, since I've got it calibrated to focus on the external features." She laughed. It was that dry, repetitive, inhuman sound. When she spoke again, she enunciated each word separately. "Irreversible. And. Fucking. Hilarious."
I reached for my bugs, but I couldn't draw my thoughts together enough to give them any complex commands. I just called them to me. That still left me to help Grue.
My utility sheath. Slowly, as much due to my need to be discreet as to my inability to move very quickly without incredible pain, I moved my hand behind my back, reminded myself of what was there.
Pepper spray – no go. It would burn her skin, but the goggles and mask would keep most of her face safe. She was scraped and bloody, so maybe I could spray her body… it wouldn't be fun on her wounds, but would that save us?
Pen and paper. Cell phone. Change. No, no and no.
Baton. I didn't have the strength to swing it, or the leverage or room I needed to extend it.
Epipens. Not much use, and I didn't trust my strength or coordination as far as being able to both inject her and depress the syringe.

Wow...what? She wants to torture Grue by making his head looking like a puzzle of tumors and bumps? Maaaaaaaaaaan, this is worse than death, also she's very disrespectful towards the memory of Joseph Merrick, the elephant man she's talking about. That person was one of the most kindest and sensible human beings who ever existed (for people who doesn't know his story, please take a look upon it or watch the biographic movie; you're not going to regret it) and you, damn annoying devilish Bakuda, you have no RIGHT to talk shit about him. You'll never be not even a quarter as awesome as that man was.
Skitter, you have a military knife, if I remember correctly; try to use your knife and stab her with it in her toe-rings. Stab her with all your strength left. Cut off her entire foot if you can. DO SOMETHING!

That was it for the contents of my utility compartment. I let my hand go limp and dangle behind my back as I braced myself to move it, and my fingers brushed against something.
The knife sheath at the small of my back. I'd strapped it in at the lowest point it could be on my back, while being both covered by my armor and easy to reach.
Knife worked.
There was a faint click as Bakuda adjusted the scissor-plier things and removed them from Grue's nose. They weren't gripping the capsule anymore.
"This should be a show," she gloated, standing up straight before I could figure out where to stab or cut. Didn't want to kill, but had to stop her. For Grue.
My hand was still behind my back, gripping the knife handle with the blade pointing out the bottom of my hand. I shifted my position a fraction so my angle was better.
"Hey, bug girl. What are you up to, there? Flopping around like a fish on dry land? Pay attention, it's going to look really cool when parts of his face start bulging out of that little blotch of shadow."
I tried to formulate a response, some reply that would add sting to what I was about to do, but a wave of weakness swept over me. Darkness began to creep in around the edges of my vision, again. I straightened my legs in an attempt to cause myself more pain, force myself to alertness again, and it failed to push the darkness back. Was Grue using his power? I looked at him. Nothing. I was just blacking out.

I couldn't pass out now.
Toe Rings.
With no witty reply, no quip or even an angry yell, I brought the knife down on the end of her foot. Two thoughts struck me simultaneously.
I'd hit something hard. Was her foot or boot armored?
Had I even gotten the right foot? Tattletale had never said which one had the toe rings. Or if both did.
As a wave of blackness swept in front of my vision and faded just as quickly, leaving me only dimly aware of her screams. The nausea was welling again, and just like it was with my consciousness slipping away, the need to puke building. I was going to throw up, but I could choke if I did it with my mask on. If I wound up on my back, I could even suffocate.
Grue was saying something. Couldn't make out his words. Sounded urgent.
The woman was screaming in my ear. A litany of curses, threats, horrible things she was going to do to me. Unconsciousness called to me, seductive, safe, painless, free of threats.

Well, I can understand Skitter, I wouldn't want to kill someone either. But I'd do that to protect the people I care for even if I'll feel like shit afterwards. You have to save Grue and Regent, even if you'll have to kill her (and if her toe-rings will be destroyed then her death will not trigger the explosions anymore). And YES, the military knife! Skitter stabbed a bitch in her foot. The bitch screamed in agony. Skitter is losing her consciousness. Grue and Regent are safe for moment. I hope that Tattletale will either immobilize or injure Bakuda even more.

If it was even unconsciousness. The chilling idea that I could be dying dawned on me, gave me the briefest moment of clarity. I focused hard on the jumble of distorted images and sounds, where I was, what people were saying and screaming at me.
The woman was rolling on the ground next to me. As she kicked her leg, a spatter of blood marred the one lens of my mask that I could see through. What was the woman's name again? Bakuda. The very tip of the knife was still lodged in the pavement where her foot had been. That was the hard thing I'd hit: pavement, not armor. There was a lot of blood. Hers. A bit of her boot, pink and crimson. Two smaller toes with painted nails, pink and crimson, in the midst of the mess of blood.

I tried and failed to pull the knife free, though it was only embedded a quarter-inch deep in the ground. The effort that left me gasping for breath with big lungfuls of air. Each breath made me feel like I'd inhaled barbed wire and hot irons were pressing against my sides. I was praying the urge to vomit would go away, knowing it wouldn't.
Grue. What was he saying? I could barely understand Bakuda with her robotic enunciation. Understanding Grue was a dozen times harder. Like another language.
Live knee vuh yife? Knife? The knife. He needed it.
I let myself fall onto my front, face toward the ground, so I wouldn't choke. The knife-holding hand stayed put, but my arm bent at a bad angle, eliciting a stab of pain. My wrist and elbow awkwardly twisted, strained to return to a natural position. I resisted the urge to let go, kept my grip on the knife handle.
The ground gave before I did, and the knife came free. My arm straightened, stretching out in front of me, the knife gripped in my black gloved hand. I looked up from the knife to see a blurry image of Grue struggling under his bonds, the last thing I saw before darkness and merciful lack of consciousness claimed me.

I'm crying again! But this time with HAPPINESS! My girl did it! She saved herself, saved her teammates, saved probably hundreds of innocent lives and managed to mutilate Bakuda. I'm so proud of her, Skitter, body of steel, mind of steel. The girl who have two honest and strong friends: Inhumane Pain Resistance and Swarm. I swear, this story is a CAROUSEL OF EMOTIONS AND FEELINGS. Both my Heaven and my Hell. Love it so much. For everything!

Good night, awesome people, have a pleasant sleep!

blackarrow · Mar 17, 2018

Assembler said:
You want a WoG about just how much their powers suck?

Yes, please.

AmbarGriss · Mar 17, 2018

blackarrow said:
Yes, please.

Oh, this will be funny.

hellgodsrus · Mar 18, 2018

Please don't post those WoGs - I'm 90% sure they contain some pretty fucking major spoilers.

Nagon · Mar 18, 2018

hellgodsrus said:
Please don't post those WoGs - I'm 90% sure they contain some pretty fucking major spoilers.

I agree.

Even there are not direct spoilers for the story in a WoG, it influences the picture one has of the world.
This might lessen the fresh view of Worm this has.

And the fresh view, enthusiasm and speculation is what makes this my favorite Lets read.

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

Totally not four rats in a trench coat

Totally not four rats in a trench coat

SPACE!

Actual Real Game Dev!

Rocking the life

SPACE!

Totally not four rats in a trench coat

SPACE!

Totally not four rats in a trench coat

Rocking the life

Totally not four rats in a trench coat

Actual Real Game Dev!