Vespa

[Relissi]

Putting this on here as well.

Quite a lot of them, in fact. A fair number of different species of spider, several scorpion varieties, stick insects

Click to shrink...

You've forced an Omake into my brain and just like QA it is desperate for realization.

Get Stick-bugged

May 15th

Chubster down, CD-5, Shielder, …

The names from his wrist kept coming as Assault alternated between wading and running through the water back towards the battle. He hadn't made it to cover during the last wave. Luckily he's powers were more than enough to let him redirect himself onto a building and out of the brunt of most of it. He could hear the fight up ahead. The landscape around him appearing more and more wrecked, rubble strewn and flipped and distorted hunks of metal lined the former roadway.

Finally he could see the big bad fish man in the distance, a few more blocks and he'd be back in the fight. He flagged down a passing flyer when a deep vibrating drone filled the air, strong enough to cause him to start building kinetic energy. Assault jumped towards the flyer. Just as the cape grabbed ahold of him, the flyer locking his elbows under Assault's pits, Ethan turned his head catching something out of the corner of his eye. An absolutely massive green pillar was forming, about a quarter a mile to his left, quickly shooting skyward at incredible speeds.

"Wha-" Assault was cut off as his new winged friend shouted directly into Assaults ear, pointing to the right, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE THOSE!"

Ethan's gaze shifted towards four more massive towers forming right of him. His vision tracked them as the seemed to pause briefly before changing angle heading towards one another.

Then a shadow was cast across the road the were hovering 10 meters above. Looking directly up, Ethan now saw that the SIX protrusions were meeting with a massive segmented beam at least 200 meters above the city.

Unknown Parahuman power detected please standby

"Get us out from under it!" Assault yelled to his flyer.

"Already fucking on it." The teen grunted above him. Shit why is there a kid here.

They were climbing fast, to the left of whatever this new thing was. It towered over a portion of the city easily a mile long and if standing at its full height almost has tall. At its front, towards the bay were two massive eyes below two antenna that were sticking outwards vertically. The vibrating drone that had present for the past 30 or so seconds fell silent as the creature fully formed.

"Is.. is that a stick bug?" Assault murmured to himself in disbelief.

The creature then began to move. Its front section tilting down at such a speed the rain around it was pushed outwards away from its body. As it angled its front half downwards, its front right foreleg seemed to be moving inwards and backwards before stilling.

Another much louder drone was emitted from the massive bug's mouth as its eyes hovered over where Assault had been heading just moments before.

All parahuman evacuate CD-4. Repeat, all parahuman evacuate CD-4

From their vantage point Ethan could see the capes rushing away from Leviathan as the Endbringer stood still, looking upwards towards this new threat.

After a moment the droning stopped, the moment it did the right foreleg of the insect flicked forwards toward Leviathan at such an intense speed the buildings adjacent to its path stared to crumble inwards as if it had created a vacuum just by moving. If Assaults perception of movement hadn't been enhanced by his powers he'd have missed the moment the clawed tip of the bug's forelimb connected with Leviathan. As it was, he was able to witness the full glory as the superior mass and velocity of this gargantuan creature rammed its way halfway through the Endbringer's form before sending the bastard shooting off into the distance at unbelievable speeds.

Ethan's mouth was agape, everything around him was silent aside from the rain and wind both of which seemed to be lightening quickly.

A gurgling trilling sound came from The Stick Bug, he capitalized the name in his mind, as it moved its head skywards and it's forelimb back to its side.

Leviathan repelled. Repeat. Leviathan repelled.

As the sky began to rapidly clear above them, something else seemed began to form in the sky directly above the bug that had just saved the city.

Shapes of what appeared to be dark particle formed into large words hovering over the insects back.

Get Stickbugged

Just as the words fully formed the savior of the bay began to move side to side in some sort of dance. It's trilling picking up again.

Assault angled his head towards the flyer still holding him before asking. "Am I…did I get a concussion or are you seeing a huge bug dancing too?"

The slack-jawed teen cape holding him just nodded and croaked out, "N-no I see it too."

 

[Loki Thorson]

There and Back Again, A Vespa's Tale
- - - -
Extract from Chapter 16 - Riddles In The Underside -
... And there, deep, deep under the dark mountain city, where all light had been forsaken, was a black lake that carried streams of brackish waters to and from the nearby seas. Upon the rock pitted shores of the lake there were the broken remains of a smuggler's raft, a century shattered and half drowned. For it's former occupants had no more use of the thing.
A shear wind blew threw the expansive cavern, that no eyes could see the ends of, that stirred little waves that splashed and sploshed across the dreary scene. But if one were to listen closely, over coming the loud beating of their chest, they could hear those waves lapping, lapping against something deep in the darkness.
For in the middle of this black lake was a jagged black rock that spiked sharply up from the lake bed that the black waters lapped against. And from this rock, something whispered.
"It sings to us, my pet," a slimy horse voice echoed over the water, "Yes, yes. Sings to us it does. Shiny things it has, it does. It owns. It's mine! Yes my precious pet, brings it to us it will. Takes it, we will! All mine, mine! Cal-Drum; Cal-Drum," the creature croaked.
- - - -
"Taylor!" Danny cried out to his daughter in exasperation. Putting the pages he had been reading down on the table.

"Yeah Dad?" chirped Taylor with a small laugh. "Is there something wrong with that report you wanted?"

Danny sighed at his currently glowing child. "Yes. When I asked you to write up a report on the state of Brockton Bay's underground, for use by the city workers to find cracks in the foundations, among other things. I didn't expect you to try and butcher Tolkien!"

Taylor snickered under her breathe.

"And the characters," Danny complained. "Vista, as a bearded wizardess, which is not a word, leading a bunch of dwarven dockworkers and an insect girl on an adventure to reclaim their ancient city home back from a dragon called Shmee-Lung... I honestly can't picture Zyphron being that short in the first place."

His daughter just started to giggle harder.

"New Wave as the elves, you got to close to that Goody Girl didn't you?" Danny pointed out, flipping randomly through the papers now in hand, "The nazis as an infestation of evil frogs, the French won't forget the insult. The Merchants as goblins... I'll give you that." More pages were flipped, "You have the PRT down as the Men of The West who only show up in the last chapter to say there's nothing to see here."

Taylor was now just openly laughing.

"And that Thomas fellow, you have him as a paranoid schizoid who spends his days plotting to steal everything not nailed down and eating coiled eels he pulls out the water and bashes on rocks. What do you have to say to this young woman?"

Taylor gave her father a big grin, "You didn't say I couldn't write it in the style of Tolkien!"

 

[Loki Thorson]

There and Back Again, A Vespa's Tale

Chapter 1: An Unexpected PRT Raid

In a hole in the side of a warehouse lived a Vespa. Not a dilapidated structure, ready to fall down at the slightest breeze, to spread mold and smelly oozy things across the neighborhood, nor was it very well furnished, with tea cozies or flower pots: it was a Vespa hole, and that means the laws of physics must be defiled.
It had a perfectly useful square door, that was sealed tightly against intruders. Painted with rust and sea salt, and a shiny new padlock. What this door no longer opened to, was a large empty gray concrete floor, distorted, discolored and pitted from the Vespa's experiments. To one side was another lovely hole which led deep below the ground to a vast cavern system that the Vespa rather liked. No kitchen was to be found, nor living or bedroom. Not even a nice window to give a view of the shore and sea.
This Vespa was not a very well-to-do Vespa, and her name was Hebert. Now the Hebertses have lived in the ghetto of The Bay since they were kicked out of Sicily, and people considered them to be some what acceptable, not because they were in any way rich, but because, well they never saw what they did in the shadows. Now this is a tale of how a Hebert went on adventure, whether it wanted her to or not.
The mother of our singular Vespa - - wait, what is a Vespa you ask? When asked of of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, it has only one entry written by a very plucky Gallifernarian. "RUN!"

- - -

Now this is the tale of the adventure of Taylor Hebert and day Vista the Grey Wizardess and 12 Dwarf Longshoremen showed up to her warehouse just before a PRT raid happened and set fire to her place.

- - -

 

[YuffieK]

12.1 The Morning After

The assembled heroes muttered quietly amongst themselves, noting that Deputy Director Renick was keeping a stern eye on the various members of the Protectorate, Wards and New Wave seated around the conference table. Apparently they were all waiting for Director Piggot. Armsmaster had been busy overnight working with Dragon on some critical task and Brandish was arriving with Panacea, who had apparently snuck out to Brockton General during the early morning hours for an impromptu round of healing patients.

No one wanted to openly discuss the bombshells that had been posted and (swiftly, but not swiftly enough) taken down by the PHO moderators last night.

Finally the doors to the room opened and the Director strode in, Armsmaster, Brandish and Panacea rushing in behind the woman who had a look of apoplectic fury on her face that might have frightened Behemoth into reconsidering an attack run.

Because the Director, dressed in slightly ill-fitting PRT fatigues, was notably SLIMMER AND HEALTHIER than she'd been when she'd finally went home last night.

She walked to the head of the table and silenced everyone with a glare.

"Before anyone says anything, yes I am still Emily Piggot and despite what happened yesterday, I am still Director of this command. Normally what happened would be a failure on the part of the PRT egregious enough that Alexandria would be presenting my HEAD to Chief Director Costa-Brown on a silver platter right now. But, for whatever reason, she has decided to show... understanding regarding the current situation in the wake of a potential greater threat."

Emily's steely gaze hardened as she looked around rthe room. "Now, for those of you who did NOT see what was posted on Parahumans Online last night, Brockton Bay Police received an anonymous tip yesterday afternoon regarding Coil and his organization. They, alongside S.W.A.T., the FBI and a National Guard rapid response team were able to use the information to take his entire mercenary cadre into custody as they were evacuating from their base of operations."

"The one we could never pin down?" Dauntless asked.

"Yes. Apparently the James Street Endbringer Shelter in the financial district was not declared unsafe during construction and subsequently backfilled, but was instead turned into Coil's own personal Bond Villain Base. Complete with enough ANFO to destroy four blocks of Downtown. As for Coil himself, he was found dead at the scene." A closeup picture of his unmasked face on the medical examiner's table appeared on the overhead widescreen. "You may recognize him. I certainly did."

"Commander Calvert?" Triumph shouted (thankfully not SHOUTED) in alarm. "You're sure it's him?"

"Yes. The coroner has confirmed to us that he was a parahuman. Armsmaster and Dragon's subsequent investigation has confirmed many of the details that were posted online. The claims regarding his actual Thinker power are unprovable after the fact. However, given the allegations..."

"I'm guessing our systems were totally compromised?" Assault quietly stated.

"With the exception of the ones in my personal lab, yes." Armsmaster replied. "Dragon is doing a thorough sweep of our IT architecture as we speak and will be delivering new hardware for both the PRT building and the Rig by the end of the day. She's also completed an assessment of the data on Coil's servers. The one thing she can confirm is that no information regarding civilian identities was found. however that may have been on the server stack that was destroyed within Coil's base. We can only hope that information died with him."

"And how did he die?" This came from Vista, who had actually raised her hand before asking.

"Anaphylactic shock. The coroner reported he was stung twice, once in his... genitial area and a second time just above his jugular vein. The natural reaction to the first sting caused him to disable himself. The second sting was more potent however, rapidly spreading venom through his bloodstream and causing heart arrhythmia. Coil apparently tried to administer first aid to himself, an unused epipen was found near his body, but apparently his self-inflicted injury rendered him incapable of administering it. With him alone in his secure office, he was unable to request medical assistance."

"Oooh. Slow and painful death. If the HOUS had done it, it would've at least been quick." Clockblocker quipped, earing him a dope slap from Aegis and, if anyone had been looking, a hint of a smirk from the Director.

Emily schooled her face before resuming the meeting. "Regardless, this is obviously not the action of some giant murder hornet that hasn't been sighted for weeks. Whoever gave that tip had details regarding Coil that we're still uncovering. The Mayor and the City Council are furious, Brockton Bay Police and the other law enforcement agencies who performed the raid are absolutely smug about pulling this operation off WITHOUT our assistance, despite it being our remit. The Chief Director expressed her displeasure at me last night and ordered me to both 'Fix this.' and 'Have Panacea heal you immediately, THAT is a Direct Order. I'll not have you escape by dying on me.'"


Emily sighed. "Brockton Bay is now the laughing stock of the rest of the PRT and they will not lift a finger to help us. We are on our own. But now that we're not being sabotaged from within, we may have a chance to fulfill the oaths we swore and do our fucking jobs." She then turned to New Wave, giving a nod to Panacea before addressing Lady Photon. "I cannot order New Wave to help, but I am... formally requesting your assistance in this manner."

 

[Tehhetteh]

Honestly, I think a good chunk of Piggot's... hatred/distrust of Parahumans were the PPis. Besides all the other stuff, they can cause Dementia and Depression long term, toss in all the other stuff constantly reminding her, its no wonder she was like that. Her resistance to Parahuman healing should hypothetically lower as they leave her system.

Maybe she can even smile at a joke that Clockblocker made, and we can watch everybody in the room submit her for Master/Stranger screening.

Also, she has a Crab Army. CRAB BATTLE!

Dauntless on patrol, chasing a Merchant into the sewers, and comes across a Relay Crab.
"Console, I've encountered some kind of a Sewer Demon. I... I don't think I'll be leaving this place alive."
"Dauntless, are you feeling alright?"
"Other than the gut-wrenching terror that I feel at the moment, I'm fine!"
"Calm down Dauntless, it must be a crab or something!"
"A what?"
"A crab or-"
"Oh my god! It's looking right at me..."
"Dauntless!"
"Sweet Jesus! It's getting closer!"
"Dauntless, Listen!"
"It'll tear me to shreds!"
"Dauntless, you've got your Arc Lance, right?"
"Yeah..."
"Listen, just stab it."
"Are you Insane! My ArcLance is useless against those massive claws! Alright... I'mma do it!"
"Console copies."
"Oh God! It has my ArcLance! Help! Tell Militia to use the Davey Crocket. Help!"
"Dauntless! Do you copy?"
"CRAB BATTLE!"
"Dauntless?!"
"Crab Bat... tle.... ugh."
"Dauntless! Dauntless! Daaaaaauntless!!!!"

---

Miss Militia looks up from the paper transcript at the hospital after reading it to Panacea, looking sheepish.

"Alright, I'll heal him." said Panacea. "If you give me a copy of that transcript. I want to frame it. This is worth it getting up at four in the morning."

Miss Militia hands over her copy of the transcript, and Panacea goes into Dauntless' cubicle in the PRT's room at the hospital. She gets to work reattaching his pinky, putting his eye back in his socket, and closing up the wound in his leg from getting stabbed by his own ArcLance.

"That thing must have been massive to be able to do all this damage..."

Across town, Taylor is flabbergasted. She thought the Relay Crab was gone for sure. But then it defeated Dauntless, the up and coming Protectorate Hero who was said to be nearing the likes of the Triumvirate.

---

"CRAB BATTLE!" Taylor repeated, and started giggling.
"Owl? What as that?" her Dad rushed into her bedroom.
"I... I... I just defeated Dauntless. By accident? It happened so fast..."

 

[Assembler Maniac]

When Danny arrives home, he steps on a rock on his way up to the house. Thinking it's probably been kicked up from the street, he reaches out to move it. It pops out it's feet, and scurries sideways into the grass, and hunkers back down, becoming rocklike again.

Upon entering the house, "Taylor. A word please."

"Oh, hi Dad. What's up?"

"What did I tell you about perverting the laws of nature? I just stepped on a rock outside, which got up and moved off the sidewalk and into the grass. No damage to it, although my heel is gonna be a bit sore. What the heck did you make it's shell out of? Hull plating or something?"

"Oh, yeah, that's Riley Fin, also known as Crab Relay #5. I had to fix its shell up, there were some micro fractures in it. He sorta got run over. It's not metal, that would have been too soft."

"Taylor, you've gotta be more careful with your minions. Cars can do a lot of damage."

"Oh, no, it wasn't car, that wouldn't have been an issue. It was a bit bigger than that."

"Pickup truck?"

"Nah, bigger."

"Dump truck?"

"You're getting warmer."

"Taylor, I can't think of anything larger, and heavier, that would be on the roads. What on earth hit it/him?"

"Oh, Riley didn't get hit. He sorta got in the middle of a work crew loading a paving roller on a flatbed."

"He got run over, by a paving roller. Why isn't he squashed flat? Those rollers, the big ones at least, can weigh aroung 10T. Heck, even the smaller ones run 2.5T. What the hell did you do?"

"Oh, read some books on materials science, combined the chitin and exoskeletal properties of a few diff critters. Came up with a really neat semi-organic metallic lattice. It should withstand .50 cal sniper rounds. Still haven't figured out how to counter the kinetic energy exchange yet. If a .50 cal round hit him, he'd go pinging off the pavement like a particularly energetic skipping stone and might hurt something, like a building. Might not do his brain any good either. Hmmm, maybe protect it with spongy stuff like woodpecker brains have..."

"Please tell me they can't breed..."

"I don't think so... They are pretty smart though, so I'll ask 'em about it and get back to you."

Sighing in acceptance, "How many?"

"Only a few"
...
"dozen."

"TAYLOR!!!"

Sheepish grin - "Too many?"

 

[verycoolname]

Omake for the Omake throne.

---

The sounds of cooking from the kitchen had Danny happy but nervous. He walked in, sat down at the kitchen table, and pulled out a newspaper. He didn't read it so much as use it like a shield. Taylor's powers had made her a better cook, but watching her in action wasn't for the weak of heart. Taylor's antennae twitched. Her human-ish eyes turned to glance at him while her compound eyes remained focused on her task.

"Hey, Dad."

Danny smiled despite the atavistic instincts screaming in the back of his head. He also made a mental note to ask about the mandibles and the new shape of her antennae. She'd been experimenting with new insect combinations again. He stifled the involuntary heebie-jeebies that arose at the thought. It was good she was enjoying herself.

"How was your day?"

Taylor smirked as she cracked a trio of eggs into a bowl using her left hands. Two of her right hands whisked in a complicated pattern while she grabbed more ingredients from the counter and began adding them to the bowl.

"I joined a Union."

Danny felt himself instinctively straightening up in his chair. He set down the newspaper and gave his daughter his full attention.

One of her arms swung around, reaching further and bending in ways human limbs shouldn't be able to thanks to all the extra joints. She slid a Union Membership Card across the table.

Danny picked the card up, noting the odd texture.

The card had a bit more ...depth than Danny had been expecting. It was like looking through a card-sized window into a house of mirrors, where the mirrors were covered in writing. He couldn't help but shake the feeling that there was more there to see if he could only see around the corners that shouldn't exist.

It also seemed to be looking back at him.

"The Multiversal Union for Eldritch Beings?"

"Yup!"

"..."

"I met Cthulhu, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and this smug-looking lizard lady who seemed weirdly familiar."

Danny's jaw worked for a second.

"...Cthulhu lives under the city?"

"No, he just has his office here."

"Oh. That's fine then."

It wasn't, but Danny was willing to pretend it was while he tried to grasp the unreality of the situation. Taylor kept talking happily.

"There are a few classes available on breaking reality professionally, so you don't have to worry about me breaking reality unsupervised anymore."

She demonstrated by pulling a freshly baked cake out of the oven before she put it in. Danny wasn't sure how he knew that the cake and the bowl of batter on the counter were one and same, but he did. He pushed his chair back and stood up with a sigh.

"Nope. Too much. I'm done for the day. No more weirdness. I'm happy for you, but I'm at my limit. If you need me, I'll be watching sports."

"Do you still want cake?"

"...Yes."

---

Danny's in way over his head, but he's doing his best. Thankfully, cake helps.