Wish [OUTDATED]

[Viri]

"It's okay. I got the answer, myself."

I looked away.

I looked up. My eyes were wet.

So many stars. The universe so vast.

We're s- so very small, in the end.

The first bullet hit me from behind, where my mask offered no coverage, and I slowly toppled. The second hit me before I could fall, before there could be any pain.

---

The first thing I felt was a massive burst of pain in my head. I clutched my head with my hands and curled my body up; my skin hurt like it was being bitten by a thousand insects, and I writhed in pain and fell to the floor. My mouth was dry and I tasted bile at the back of my throat, and dry heaved a couple of times from the dizziness and nausea. The pain was timeless -- hours of agony squeezed into moments -- but once it receded my recent memories came rushing back.

I was…in a forest? And there was a person talking at...or with me? I stood up and they…shot me. In the back of the head.

Twice.

I gasped, my head still throbbing, and touched the back of my head, trying to find a wound, a scar, stitches or something.

But there wasn't anything there. Just the familiar softness of my black curly hair, the same as my mother had. I clutched my head again, trying to remember what happened before that, but my memories were fragmented, odd in such a way that it felt like I was remembering the memories of someone else. Scenes I didn't understand flowed through my mind, alien and disconnecting, like I was watching a recording of someone else's life, burnt and frayed like a roll of discarded film.

I licked my lips, dry and chapped, and slowly got up into a sitting position, and tried to parse through my memories a second time.

I remembered how the end of the world started: in the ruins of Los Angeles, the city's landscape morphed and distorted by Bohu's attack on it. Jack Slash whispered something to Scion, causing him to go on a rampage and cause untold destruction across not only Earth Bet, but also several other alternative earths. We tried to fight back, we failed, and all our petty differences and infighting got in the way of actually providing a united front against him. I lost my arm while we were in the bowls of Cauldron's base, and Lung had to cauterise it.

It was then that I realised that I was clutching my head with both hands. My left hand, and the missing right one too. I moved my arm to take a look at it, as my limbs no longer ached and itched, but my limbs still felt unresponsive and limp, like I had fallen asleep on them. My body felt completely alien, but yet familiar to me; some part of my brain, despite the pain and nausea I was feeling, knew that something was wrong. My arms and legs felt shorter than I was used to, my skin didn't have the scars or signs of injury accumulated over the years as a cape. But my curly black hair fell in front of my eyes, meaning that whatever body this was, someone must've have made it to be similar to my own.

Discarding that train of thought, I continued searching my memories. After we came back from the abandoned Cauldron base, I made Panacea and Riley do….something to my brain?

Everything after that was still fragmented and disjointed, like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing. There were brief flashes of things I could understand, like having a one-sided conversation with Glaistig Uaine, as I couldn't talk, for some reason. I remember interacting with Dragon.

Oh. It was good to know that she didn't fully die from Saint's kill switch. I hope she doesn't hate me, for what I did.

I made a mental note to go punch Saint at some point.

Dragon was the best of us, and one of the few heroes I liked, genuinely. The hug she gave me after my announcement of becoming Weaver… it stayed with me, for a long time.

I kept sorting through, and I remembered...gathering? Controlling? Every single parahuman I could use to fight Scion with.

Did I mind control everyone, forcing them to fight, heal, create, using them like they were an extension of myself, like my insects?

I briefly shuddered, and curled into myself. That would be something I would do. Controlling them like a puppet on strings, while they were completely helpless, unable to do anything themselves, all to force everyone to work together to defeat Scion?

Yeah. That sounds like something I would do.

As guilt pooled at the bottom of my stomach, I continued searching my memories, but everything else were impressions, or too fragmented and confusing.

I remember the feeling of taunting Scion with the death of his other half.. I used someone to heal a writhing mass of limbs and body parts, returning it to a human form. I remembered that I had some people behind me, with me, that I refused to control. They felt too important to me, to remind me of….something. Something important, intrinsic, like an anchor for my self-hood.

Who-who were they again? Why can't I remember their faces?

The pit of guilt and self-loathing that was pooling in my stomach widened.

Would they hate me too, for what I did?

But before my thoughts could continue to spiral, there were a series of knocks on the door, interrupting my stupor and reminding me that I had completely forgotten to examine my surroundings.

That was a fucking stupid thing to do. Waking up in an unfamiliar place with damaged memories, with my right arm healed, and with no idea how I got here, or who brought me here – the first thing I should have done was figure out how to escape the trap.

I glanced around the room, unfamiliar to me, but something in the back of my mind felt safe, being in here. It was a fairly nondescript bedroom, with a single bed that had tangled sheets and blankets hanging limply off the side. There was a bedside table next to it that I somehow managed to not hit my head on, with an alarm clock, a pair of glasses, and a photo frame sitting on top of it.

Oh, right. I can't see much because I need my glasses. Whoever brought me here was nice enough to supply me with a pair. I reached upwards as I pulled myself into a sitting position, and fumbled as I grabbed the glasses, my right arm still feeling heavy and numb, like it wasn't quite my own.

As I put them on, I glanced around the room for a second time, everything snapping into focus. The room was relatively clean, with only a few clothes strewn about, a computer desk situated in the corner, and a small, very old looking, pc and monitor on it. The room felt faintly familiar, in some way, that tugged at the back of my brain.

There was only a moment to look around though, before another series of knocks landed on the door, louder than last time. Adrenaline filled my veins as my heartbeat quickened, my muscles tensed, as I glanced around for an escape or a potential weapon. I was about to reach out to my insects, to give me sight, information, before a voice said something from behind the door.

"Taylor, are you alright? I heard you yell out." The voice said with concern, before I realised that it was very familiar to me.

"D-Dad?" I croaked. My mouth was dry like it was full of sand – my throat sore and raw like I've been screaming.

I didn't realise he survived Scion's attack on Brockton Bay. I felt tears well up in my eyes. What did he think of me now? Was he scared of me, this monster that took away his daughter?

He gently opened the bedroom door, walked in, and closed it behind him. The first thing I noticed about him was that his green eyes, the ones I got from him, didn't look at me with the mix of fear, anger, and hopelessness that I was used to seeing on him. My father was wearing a loose pair of pyjama shorts, and a familiar blue bathrobe that Mom got him for his birthday once.

As he looked at me, his face softened, with a look of hesitance and concern on his face. He then walked to where I was sitting up in front of the bedside table, and leaned down and put the back of his hand on my forehead, moving my hair out of my face.

"Well, it doesn't seem like you have much of a fever," he said, as he moved to a crouching position, and moving his hand off my forehead, "But I can call up the school to tell them that you aren't coming tomorrow, and maybe schedule a doctor's appointment, if you want?"

"School?" I murmured, as I broke eye contact with him and looked at the floor.

My dad looked at me, his frown deepening.

"It's Sunday, sweetie, and tomorrow is Monday, which means you have school tomorrow?"

Things were slowly coming together. This was my room, at my dad's house, at Brockton Bay. I had my arm back, and there were no scars or stitches at the back of my head.

I swallowed, and looked back at my dad, who was looking more and more concerned with each passing second.

"W-What's the date today?"

His eyes narrowed at that, and he leaned back down to check my temperature again.

"It's the 10th of April, sweetie. I might have to drive you to the hospital if you managed to forget the date." He said, attempting to add some mirth to his voice to cover up his panic.

April 10th. That was a date forever burned into my memory, like a roll of decaying film. That was the day I first went out as a cape, in a stupid attempt in running away from my shitty school and home life. I remember the angry look on Lung's face as I fought him, the vulpine grin on Tattletale afterwards, the suspicious look on Armsmaster. It was the flap of a butterfly's wing, the start of many events that cascaded into becoming that thing and defeating Scion.

Which was three years ago, but now it's the present, with everything I did now a possibility, not a certainty.

Fuck.

"Taylor?" My dad whispered, as he put his hand on my shoulder in reassurance.

"I-I'm fine. It was a bad dream, I think. Not sick with anything."

Dad looked at me with suspicion at that, but didn't say anything as he stood back up. He walked back to my bedroom's doorway, before turning around and speaking again.

"Well, my offer still stands, if you aren't feeling better. I'll be around the house if you need anything though, ok?"

I could stay quiet about everything. He might not believe everything, or maybe he'll sign me up to the Wards (That still had Shadow Stalker, I shuddered) out of a misplaced attempt at keeping me safe. Or maybe he'll forbid me from doing anything, not accepting that I was a different person, like he originally did?

But I had to be better. I didn't want to make the same mistakes as I did before. I didn't want to become an uncaring, ruthless crime lord like Skitter was, or a distant, unfeeling 'hero' that was only a means to an end like Weaver was, who pushed away everyone who ever cared about her.

Or whatever that thing I became, at the end.

I wanted to be better, to not cross so many lines, to not hurt the few people who cared about me, to trust other people, and not try and carry everything myself.

Which meant I had to start with the most difficult person first.

I swallowed, my throat raw and parched.

"Dad, there's some things I need to talk to you about, could you stick around, please?"

For a second he blankly looked at me, as if he was taken by surprise by my question. But then he smiled and nodded.

"Of course sweetie, I can cook us some breakfast while you go on your morning run, if you want?"

I gave him a small smile as he left, and stood up and sighed, and looked out of the window at the city that was just waking up. Brockton Bay was a city that one could ever describe as a shithole. It was infested with human-traffickers, a drug epidemic, and neo-nazis, with an over-worked, short staffed Protectorate, which in turn was controlled by the PRT, an organisation that could only ever see things in black and white, and ran with such little oversight someone like Coil was able to gain power through it.

But despite that, the people that lived here carried on, day by day, second by second. They survived Marquis, the Teeth, and Allfather.

And then they survived Bakuda's bombing, Leviathan, the Slaughterhouse Nine, Echidna.

Me.

It was an ugly looking city, to be honest. The difference between the rich, wealthy suburbs with their two story mini mansions and well kept flora, and the slowly dying working class suburbs that were being taken over by gangs, that had little or none investment to keep things from falling into ruin.

But it was my city, and for the first time since mom passed away, it felt like home.

And in this moment, it was breathtakingly beautiful, with the orange, yellows and blues of the rising sun mixed with the fading night sky, with some stars still visible, twinkling faintly.

I glanced at the framed photo of my mother on my bedside table and looked back at the city.

I closed my eyes, pulled on that familiar feeling at the front of my head, my sensors expanded as my power came back to me, letting me feel the warmth of the morning sun through my insects. I took a deep breath, and opened thousands of tiny eyes, all seeing the same city in thousands of different ways.

It felt like I was forgiven, somehow.

---

The air was crisp, and the rising sun was only just starting to warm everything up as we were still in the middle of spring. My morning jog took me through a city so different than it was in the past, before all the destruction happened. The discord between my memory and reality was jarring; enough that I stumbled for the third time since I started.

I gritted my teeth, forced to slow my jog into a walk. I hated this younger body of mine – everything about it felt wrong in a way that only compared to the monstrous form Lab Rat's tinkertech drug turned me into at the oil rig. Despite technically being my own body, I felt so…out of place in it, with the shorter stride and lack of upper body strength.

Which also meant needing to relearn how to fight with it, as well as having to do more workouts that weren't just running every morning. I unclenched my jaw, and changed my walk back into a proper jog, and continued my wandering thoughts.

There was so much to think about; so many angles to consider. So much to do, and decide, and only a few hours to start.

As always, my power was feeding me information on everything that was happening around me, still its six city block radius that it was before Panacea and Riley changed my corona pollentia. It felt good to use it, like it was stretching after a good night's sleep, eager to get back into things.

There's a small park that I sometimes went through during my morning runs that was near the Boardwalk, close enough that it received the funding to properly maintain it, compared to the other public parks in Brockton. There were a lot of people around, despite how early in the morning it was, a combination of the richer citizens from the southern part of town and the tourists who stayed in the nearby motels of the Boardwalk. All within my range, there were other people on their morning runs, walking their dogs, or meeting up for breakfast and coffee, enjoying the warmer weather of early Spring.

As I reached the Boardwalk, I changed my jog to a slow walk, fitting into the crowds of walkers going about their days as businesses were starting to open. It was an odd feeling, being here. The Boardwalk was my territory after Leviathan hit, and it was…..nostalgic, in a way.

I was intimately familiar with the layout of the Boardwalk, with the small office building that was my main base, the storm drain that was a secret entrance. It was here that I first started my actual efforts into trying to improve things, into being a certain kind of hero, as well as where I fought Mannequin, the first of many enemies fought with the odds stacked against me.

I don't know how I'm going to fucking do it, but I am going to make you regret that.

If there ever was a pivotal moment for Skitter, it would be that fight, for better or worse. It was how I built myself up as her; always escalating, never compromising, fighting unwinnable odds. It was easier to be the bigger monster than a person.

With a shake of my head, dispelling my thoughts, I reached my first destination: a tech store. As much as dad would still disapprove of me having one, I really needed a phone, and a cheap pre-paid one would do nicely. Instead of hoping that Lisa would work her magic, I needed some way to contact her after meeting the Undersiders, , and Armsmaster too. The next destination was a little cafe called the Hummingbird.

I walked in, ordered a large black tea and a cinnamon doughnut, sat down at one of the booths at the back of the cafe, grabbed out my notepad and pen, and started thinking. What I should do, what I should plan for, but more importantly, who I wanted to be. I didn't want to be Skitter, with her iron will, black chitin, intimidation and paranoia. Well, maybe some of her intimidation, her ruthlessness, but only when really needed, like against the Slaughterhouse Nine, but not when interacting with my friends, or regular civilians.

I didn't want to be Weaver, either, as she was born out of the naive hope of a younger me, and was only used as a means to prevent the end of the world. She was a hero, yes, but was constrained by the PRT, with its incompetent directors and its obsession with PR.

The barista gave me my tea. I sipped a little of it, and ate a couple of bites of my doughnut. I looked out of the window that was next to me, and considered.

So, what did I really want to achieve? Who did I want to be, outside of the labels and systems of Hero and Villain?

Well, I needed to unlearn my bad habits of pushing my physical tics and expressions onto my swarm. It was useful as an intimidation tactic, and for messing with thinker powers, but I ended up using it too much. It was easier to focus on my swarm; use it as a tool to compartmentalise my emotions, shoving them somewhere and not having to deal with the regret, guilt or self-hatred. I needed to turn down my other habits of escalation and paranoia, especially with any of my friends or allies. I wanted to be someone worth following, not out of necessity or intimidation, but out of actual trust and loyalty.

Well, defeating Scion without sacrificing my humanity was the biggest thing, but there was no way I could plan for any of that right now. Making the city better and safer was the other thing, but that involved a series of smaller problems, both easy and difficult. The gangs were surprisingly the easiest thing, as they all collapsed without much on my part, other than taking down Lung later tonight. The Empire collapsed with their civilian identities being outed and Kaiser's death at the hands of the Endbringer. The Merchants were wiped out in a night by the Slaughterhouse Nine. Noelle, Leviathan, and the S9 were things I couldn't plan around either, so I moved on.

Which led to the biggest problem: Coil, and by extension, his civilian identity, Thomas Calvert. I needed to take him down, and I couldn't do that if I joined the Wards or Protectorate, which meant I had to do it as a villain. Trying to be an independent or rogue would only give me a target on my back. Which then meant I had to join the Undersiders and be forced to go along with what he wants, and knowing him, he would engineer events to make me look worse in the eyes of the public.

I needed to be a cape that looked and acted with experience, like I was a hero that was doing illegal things for an unseen goal. Which wasn't really a lie, but the PRT would eventually link me to my civilian identity, and realise I must have triggered back in January.

I adjusted my position, took another drink of my tea and finished my doughnut.

Joining the Undersiders was always something I planned on doing, anyway. I wasn't exactly a good friend to them, and I knew deep down they really weren't friends with each other, only together as a team out of their own circumstance.

Starting out as an experienced cape would also give me more credence with the public, as I wanted to look like I was reigning in the Undersiders' villainous tendencies, like Lisa whispering someone's darkest secrets with a sadistic grin, Alec and Aisha's penchant for fucking around at the wrong time, and Rachel being Rachel. And Brian…..

I could trust him with not taking things too far. But he had his own problems, like doing whatever he needed to do to satisfy Coil, being a little overprotective of Aisha, and his complete lack of principles.

With another sigh escaping my lips, I rested my head on the cafe's window, looking at the clear blue morning sky. I knew I still loved him; but our relationship in my original timeline was a complete disaster, and as much as I wanted to be with him again, I had to treat him as a teammate and a friend this time around.

All of them were in shit situations and had nowhere else to turn to. It was logical that Coil sought them out in particular, with his carrot and stick routine that would give them just enough to feel like they're getting somewhere, but not enough so that they would be able to leave him.

Lisa was recruited at gunpoint after escaping from her parents who only cared about her because of her thinker ability, and would only be able to escape Coil, and his threats of becoming his little pet thinker, with his death. She was too valuable to him to lose.

Brian wanted to gain legal custody of Aisha, to rescue her from their drug addicted mother. Which would still force the both of them to work for him, and even if Brian managed to get custody of Aisha, that would just turn the both of them into leverage for Coil to manipulate.

Rachel was brought up in an uncaring, broken system, lashed out, and had to carry that weight with her, when all she ever wanted was to be left alone with her dogs. She has difficulty with bonding with other people, and for Coil, he would use her until she became enough of a liability that he could just discard when it was convenient for him. His position in the PRT would make it so easy to send her to the Birdcage.

Alec was raised by fucking Heartbreaker and had his capacity to feel his emotions sandblasted off, and was recruited only to avoid being arrested or bring found by his shitstain of a father. Alec was easy to please from Coil's point of view, and if Alec got any ideas about leaving, or doing anything that would go against Coil, well, Heartbreaker was only a phone call away.

I made another quick mental note to properly befriend Alec this time, and to also personally kill Heartbreaker.

All of them were dealt a bad hand, and I truly believed that all of them had the chance to become better people, all they needed was someone to guide them. The PRT would either force them back to their parents, in Lisa's case, or force them to join the Wards with the threat of prison for Alec and Rachel. Brian wouldn't be able to do anything about his sister. Coil would use all of them until they broke or became too detrimental to his plans, always dangling that carrot, but never giving them it. They were all stuck between a rock and a hard place, with nowhere left to go or run.

So it had to be me that helped them, to give them the chance to be better people that no one else has given them. It was the least I could do to make up what I did to them the first time around. They didn't have to be heroes, they just needed to be better people.

I finished my now cold tea, thanked the barista as I left, and started jogging back home.

---

Hey, thanks for reading! I finished Worm a couple of months ago, and I couldn't get this fic idea out of my head, so I decided to start doing some creative writing for the first time. Since this is a project I've started to practice writing, I'm aiming for this is be more like an actual webnovel style than fanfiction. I've written the first five chapters, which will be released once a week, and any advice or feedback will be welcome as I am looking for some betas to help edit or fact check my work.

EDIT: I now have someone to beta my work (Thank you, redironwolf!) so I have reuploaded this chapter!

 

[Viri]

I held the now lukewarm mug of black tea while staring out of the window near the dining table, having finished eating the breakfast Dad cooked up, while I waited for him to finish his own. He had changed while I was out running, now in a pair of jeans and a plain blue polo shirt. As we sat there in silence, I attempted to get my nerves under control while keeping a neutral look on my face, trying to not become that still, expressionless statue that I have a habit of becoming.

I had faced countless capes, made the Slaughterhouse Nine run with their tails between their legs, fought multiple endbringers and killed a god. But yet, this conversation with my dad was the most terrified I've ever been. The insects in the walls of the house, in our yard, and beyond were moving and buzzing irrationally as I tried desperately to show my expressions.

And I fucking hated it.

I knew logically that this wasn't going to go that badly, but I was still terrified that he would look at me like he did in the previous timeline, as if in one moment his innocent little girl was there and in the next she was replaced by a monster wearing her skin.

I could handle him being scared for me. Scared for my well-being as I constantly plunged into danger, again and again.

But I couldn't handle him being scared of me.

Not for a second time.

I didn't want him to try and pretend that I was the same, to try and go back to the way things were, and not care about what I wanted to do. I remembered those moments, being in that cell with him and Tagg, and how he took his side rather than mine.

Oe of the things a small part of me hated about him; he never wanted to try and understand my point of view, of why or how I did things. He was always avoiding bringing up anything cape related when we talked, despite it being a huge part of who I was.

So with another deep breath to calm myself, I did what I usually did when I had a small amount of downtime.

I gathered all the Black Widows that were close enough to my home, and sent them down to the basement to make more silk. I knew my suit was ready and had enough, but making more couldn't hurt. Having extra had always proved useful.

While that was happening my attention touched on everything in my range. There seemed to be a meth lab being set up a couple of streets down – a few Black Widows bit the drug runner while he was passed out on his couch. I didn't want them to suspect a cape was attacking them, at least not yet, so I needed it to be passed off as an unfortunate happenstance. He immediately woke up, realised what was happening and attempted to get the spiders off him. Satisfying.

There was a man a couple of houses away that was saying goodbye to his wife while his mistress hid in a cupboard. As the wife was about to leave I sent a couple of silverfish and small, non-poisonous spiders to crawl on the hiding woman, making her cry out and stumble out of the cupboard she was hiding in, in a vain attempt at swatting the bugs off her. She cried out loudly enough for the wife to hear; she stormed back into the house to investigate as her husband stood frozen in the doorway.

A small amount of justice, but I'll take what I can get. I hope that poor woman will find someone better.

My dad got up from the table, picked up his used plate and walked over to place it in the sink, meaning it was time to reveal everything to him. Not including anything to do with Cauldron, though. I didn't want to draw the ire of the boogeyman.

My dad sat down opposite to me, put his hands in his lap, and nervously smiled at me.

"So, what was it that you wanted to talk to me about, Taylor?" He asked while trying very hard to not fidget in his seat.

It reassured me a little, to see that he was as nervous as I was.

I took another deep breath. I had to rip off the band-aid.

"Dad, I'm a cape."

He blinked owlishly at me.

"I mean, uh, that I have powers now. It's not a very cool or interesting power, though."

He continued blankly staring at me for a second before his nervous smile changed into a small, genuine one, one that I rarely saw from him after mum died.

"Well, now you can be like a hero like the ones you loved so much when you were younger! What kind of power do you have?" He replied, genuinely excited to see what I could do.

I tried to not wince at the 'H' word, and instead of explaining it to him, I walked over to the nearby window and opened it. The butterflies I've been gathering into the room, and I positioned them in various places.One of them landed on the top of his head, while the one he was tracking with his eyes landed on his nose, making him go briefly crossed-eyed. I couldn't help but smile at that, and willed some of them to land on the dining table that he was sitting at.

I closed the window and sat back down on my chair, and looked back at my dad, who was looking around the room with amazement, and made another mental note to use this trick again at some point. There was potential for me to be able to use my swarm for more whimsical things.

Clapping my hands together called his attention back to me, although it seemed to startle him a bit, as he turned his head sharply, refocusing away from the butterflies colouring the room.

"I can precisely control every insect and arachnid within a certain range of me." I explained, willing a butterfly to sit on my index finger.

"This means I can sense everything that happens within my range, but hearing and seeing is a little harder because bug sense doesn't translate well to human senses." His face didn't show an obvious reaction, but at least he wasn't afraid of me. "It also depends on which bugs, or how many I have."

"Interesting…." He murmured, looking closely at the butterfly I had willed onto his finger, "How far away can you sense them? How precisely can you control them?"

I pointed in the direction of the house with the cheating husband.

"Over in that direction, a couple of houses down the road, a cheating husband was attempting to hide his mistress in a cupboard while he said goodbye to his wife, who was just about to leave. I scared the mistress enough with some bugs to make her yell loud enough for the wife to hear."

I pointed in a completely different direction.
"A couple of streets over there, someone is trying to set up a meth lab, and a couple of houses down from there is a single mother, given the absence of a partner, fussing over her son who's scraped his knee while riding his bike. A street next to ours had a recently married couple moving into a vacant home, since their house has nothing in it except for a lot of cardboard boxes." I explained, all while pointing out the different directions.

There were so many mundane, normal things around me as the city and its people woke up and got ready for work, ate breakfast, recovered from a hangover, or any other of the hundreds of things that I could sense happening in my range. All of these people had their own thoughts, motivations, histories, and all of them impacted each other in tiny, insignificant ways. A barista handing someone their coffee, people sitting next to each other on the bus, a garbage collector grabbing someone's rubbish.

We were so small, in the end. Not unlike a hive of bees or a colony of ants.

So utterly inconsequential compared to the planet they lived on, or the stars they gazed up at and wondered about. None of these people would be remembered after a couple of generations, but they're here. There's evidence in the air, in the water, in the soil, in the significant and insignificant ways they had impacted each other.

But I didn't feel like a scientist looking down on an ant, or a god looking down on a human, in this moment. I felt like an ant witnessing every part of its colony, and understanding its role both in the colony and in the wider ecosystem.

It was hard to not feel humbled in this moment, witnessing the mundane, quieter parts of other people's lives. A single moment here, in this space and this time, was utterly unique and would not, could not be repeated again, all the way until the end of the universe and all the stars died out.

That didn't feel inconsequential. Not to me.

I let the odd moment of peace wash over me, and continued speaking.

"So essentially, my current range is a radius of six city blocks, or just over a third of a mile."

My dad's eyes boggled at this, but he quickly smiled again and let out a low whistle, as he leaned over the table, clearly interested in seeing what else I could do.

It was nice, seeing him be so interested in my power this time.

"And for my next trick," I deliberately deadpanned, while snapping my fingers like a stereotypical magician. I then formed a bug-copy of myself next to him, and tapped him on the shoulder, startling him again.

"I am also able to form copies of myself, as well as talk through them. This lets me do some minor tricks, like writing words to communicate, or enveloping myself in my swarm, making me much harder to track. Oh, and I also have better reflexes if I have enough bugs around me, as insects have a faster reaction time than humans." The bug-clone buzzed.

He looked a little freaked out by this, so I made the bug-me bow before dispersing it.

"I keep forgetting that it's kind of freaky for other people. To me, my insects just feel like an extension of myself." I said, adjusting my glasses and giving him a sheepish smile.

Dad turned back to me, looking rather proud of tricks, even if he did look a little freaked out from it.

"This is one hell of power, Taylor. I'm sure the Wards or the PRT would love to have you join them!" He said, obviously thinking that I would want to follow in the footsteps of my childhood heroes.

Heroes that were just as human and fallible as any of us. I wondered what he would think of Alexandria pretending to kill my friends, or Eidolon's involvement with Cauldron.

Or Armsmaster almost getting me killed and breaking the Endbringer truce.

Well, now for the hard part.

"Well, it's a little complicated for me to join the Wards." I sighed, "And there's a lot of things I need to say in order to explain that, so let me say everything first, please."

From the shift in the tone of my voice, he could tell that this was something important, so he reached out and held my hand, gently squeezing it.

"I'll let you explain everything ok? And no matter what happens and what you're planning on doing I'll always love you, Little Owl." He said, softly.

I squeezed his hand back. No more running away.

I looked him directly in the eyes.

"I'm from three years in the future."

"You're what."

I bit my tongue to hold back another sigh. I knew this wasn't going to be easy.

But I had to do it.

"So today, which was three years ago for me, I went out as a cape for the first time, fought Lung, the leader of Azn Bad Boys, won, somehow, and met the Undersiders for the first time, which would led me to joining them because I hated school because Emma bullied me to the point of nearly dying and having my trigger event, but I also ended up keeping you in the dark because I was scared of you finding out I joined a villain group."

"Taylor?"

I took a deep breath.

"This would lead me to robbing a bank and fighting the Wards, the secret boss of our team revealing himself and also finding out that the bank mission was a diversion so he could kidnap a child who was one of the strongest precogs I've ever known, Leviathan then hit, I claimed the boardwalk as my territory, and then the fucking Slaughterhouse Nine show up, which would lead to the world ending but don't worry about that now, we fought them, they left."

"Taylor!"

I took another deep breath, as my lungs felt they were burning, and my mouth felt dry.

"Then the city almost got condemned, Coil faked his death but it turns out he was pretty high up in the PRT, he tried very, very hard to kill me but I shot and killed him instead, and then a monster from coil's basement ran loose, she was stopped, but all of the PRT's secrets were revealed, and suddenly I was ruling the entire city as a crime lord but then my identity got outed and still hadn't told you anything at that point and you were so disappointed and hurt and I hated myse- "

"TAYLOR!"

Suddenly my dad was right next to me, with his hand on my shoulder, gently pushing me. I touched my face with my hand, and I realised I was crying.
Wh-when did that happen?

Breath.

After a couple more deep breaths I stood up and hugged my dad as hard as I could.

Smell.

Four scents; my dad's familiar cologne, the mix of egg, slightly burnt bacon, and toast we had for breakfast. The faint smell of tea coming from my empty mug.

Listen.

I could hear the rumbling of cars going past our house, two dogs barking at each other in the distance, and the whistling and chirping of some nearby birds.

When I finally calmed myself down, I dropped my arms down from the hug and stepped back a bit, seeing that my dad had a handkerchief in his hand, his shoulder damp from my tears. I nodded, and grabbed it and started to clean my face of the tears and snot.

"Why don't you go to the bathroom and clean your face up, and then you can explain everything, ok?" He suggested. "And, before you say anything, I believe you."

I had to choke down another sob before giving him another tight hug.

"I love you, Dad."

"I love you too, Little Owl." He said, as he hugged me back. "But you aren't a little owl now, with all the…" He joked, as he gestured to the butterflies surrounding us, still in the same place I last willed them to be. I quickly gathered them up and opened up the window, letting them outside before dispersing them.

I turned back to him, and saw him deep in thought, mulling over what he wanted to say. I smiled and nodded at him, and left the room to go and clean my face up.

After doing that and blowing my nose again, I looked at my reflection for the first time since waking up three years in the past. It was odd, seeing my younger version's face. I still had the piercing green eyes, the slightly too wide mouth for my face, my long curly black hair.

I thought about what just happened.

It….was a nice feeling, I suppose. For the longest time my life was dictated by the absence of trust, to really let down my walls. I've been betrayed and the betrayer too many times in my life, and in reflection many of my mistakes were my paranoia and mistrust. A little part of myself hissed at me for opening up, and tried to tell me of all the awful things that could happen now.

But it was nice. It was nice to talk to my dad without fear of him finding out about my identity as a villain, or like the times we spoke after I became Weaver, too full of regret and hurt to have a proper conversation.

I found myself feeling excited at the chance to talk about things. Although there were a lot of things I did wrong, there were a lot of things I could confidently say I did right. There were things I could do better.

Through my bugs I saw that my dad had filled two glasses of water, moved to the lounge room, and was currently pacing back and forth. I left the bathroom, and as I entered the room he motioned for me to sit next to him. He wrapped me in a one armed hug as I sat down next to him.

"So, how are you feeling now– good to continue talking, Little Moth?" He said.

I looked at him and raised an eyebrow. He gave me a hesitant smile in response. I always loved that nickname mum had for me, but that was for a different Taylor.

"I really like that nickname, I think. Little Owl was Mum's thing." I murmured. "But I like the idea of you having your own nickname for me."

He looked at me, eyes a little watery, before he looked away to compose himself.

"Little Moth it is, then." He said. "There weren't a lot of bug names that didn't sound like I was patronising you, or didn't sound too off."

I took that as an opportunity to start.

"So a lot of what I'm going to say is going to take a lot of time to explain. But I'll start two years ago, when I came back from summer camp and started high school." I explained, as I adjusted myself before continuing.

"Emma, during that time, befriended another girl called Sophia, and to this day I have no idea what happened to her or what Sophia did, but she filled Emma's head with some nonsense philosophy about preys and predators, or something. And because of that my best friend of ten years turned on me and bullied me relentlessly for two years."

I could feel my dad tensing from that, but didn't say anything. I continued talking.

"Emma turned the entire school against me, making people either join in with her or making them apathetic. Anyone that tried to help me were ostracised until they stopped helping, and the facility just turned a blind eye towards everything that happened. I should still have a book in my bedroom that I used to catalogue everything that they did to me."

"They were the ones that pushed you into the locker back in January." He whispered in horror.

"That was my trigger event, yes."

He looked at me again, with confusion written on his face.

"People don't wake up with powers one day. The only way to have powers to begin with is having a Corona Pollentia, and even then that means you only have the potential. In order to get powers you need to break; only at your absolute lowest you'll trigger. The locker was mine."

"Why isn't it more commonly known, then?" He asked.

"It's to stop people from deliberately trying to make themselves trigger, because trigger events don't work that way. That's also why a lot of capes are like that, you have to be broken in such a way that you can't fix or come back from. It's why so many of us, regardless of them being a hero or villain, are so violent."

"This was my fault." He said quietly. "I left you alone, and you had to deal with all this by yourself. I didn't protect you."

My heart shattered. There were a lot of things my dad did wrong, but they weren't out of malice, only his depression and a misguided attempt at knowing better for me.

I wrapped him in another tight hug.

"There were a lot of things we both did wrong. I didn't say anything, you didn't ask. We were both reeling from mum's passing to help each other." I whispered. "But I forgive you. For everything. Because despite everything you're still my dad, and still I love you."

"I love you too, Taylor." He said, as he kissed my forehead.

We stayed hugging for a few minutes before letting go.

"So the reason why everything that happened to me is because Sophia, the girl I mentioned, is a Ward. Specifically Shadow Stalker. The principal and the PRT agent had enough reason to cover everything up, because the school got extra funding for it, and they didn't want any of the information to get out because it would be a PR nightmare for the PRT. Why bother putting your neck on the line for a random kid, when you can just turn the other way for it?" I shrugged. I was rather indifferent to it now.

"Jesus kiddo, that's…fucked up."

"It was another reason why I didn't tell you anything, I was scared that you would sign me up to the Wards if you found out."

"Well, I don't know anything about being a cape," He said, sheepishly. "I could see why you would think that. But, continue. I want to know how you became a villain."

I took a couple of gulps of water, and started talking again.

"On this day, three years ago for me, I went out as a cape for the first time. I just wanted an escape from school, and from here. So I waited until night and put on my suit and left."

"You have a suit already? How did you make it?"

"I made it from a combination of black widow silk and chitin, all dyed black. The mask was also chitin, but with yellow, high-end swimming goggles with a pair of my prescription glasses taped behind it. I hid all of it in the coal chute in the basement because I knew you wouldn't find it, because of mum's stuff."

He blinked owlishly at me for a moment, and for a single second he had a deeply regretful and mournful look on his face that changed to a forced smile.

"Oh right, insect control. Still getting around to that, as I was wondering for a second how you managed to get that much silk. But I would love to see how it looks, though. But only after you finish explaining things to me, even if I won't understand everything." He said, clearing avoiding the thing I said about mum's stuff. I didn't bring it up either, but there were so many other things to talk about first.

"So, I joined the Undersiders originally because I wanted to gain intel on them and give it to Armsmaster, because he gave me his number after I fought Lung. But I didn't take into account that I became friends with them. The first group of genuine friends I had in years, and they were all unrepentant villains.

"And, after that, there were a lot of important things that happened within a couple of months. We robbed a bank, fought Bakuda, an ABB cape, the Empire started a rampage because their civilian identities got outed,"

"Wait, wait." My dad interrupted, "Wouldn't that be a good thing?"

I shaked my head at him. "In cape culture, there's a term known as the 'Unwritten Rules', one of which is that if you know the identity of a cape, regardless of whether they're a hero or villain, you don't tell anyone. This is a rule born not out of morality, but practicality: if a villain outs a hero, then the hero's family and loved ones can be targeted by their enemies, and then the heroes can do whatever they want in retaliation. If a villain is outed though, then they can act far more destructively because they have nothing left to lose."

He slowly nodded in response.

"So it's a survival mechanism for everyone," I explained, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice, "Nobody wants their loved ones to be in danger, or their civilian life to be ruined."

He looked at me strangely, until he connected the dots.

"You've been outed yourself, haven't you?" He whispered, in horror.

"I'll get to that, as there's more background information to explain," I bluntly replied, continuing what I was saying, "Purity, for instance, had her baby taken by CPS, and we had to find and take her baby back so she didn't kill us, or level the entire city.

"Then, before the Empire capes could continue their destruction, Leviathan hit the city. A lot of people died, a lot of infrastructure damage, the normal things that happen with Endbringer attacks He was beaten back, and somehow the death toll for capes and civilians both were the lowest in a while, if I'm remembering right. Oh, and Kaiser died, which split the Empire into two different gangs, the Chosen and the Pure."

My dad responded with my nonchalant retelling of my first Endbringer fight with a painful look on his face, unsure of how to respond to that. I gave him a flat stare in response.

"I've been in about…." I said, counting the attacks I've been in with my fingers, "Nine attacks so far, which would've been higher if I could've fought the Simurgh."

Dad was still looking horrified, and then rubbed his face, sighed, and stood up from the coach and left the room. I drank some of my own water as I waited for him to come back. I saw through my bugs that my dad went to the kitchen to grab some of his whisky, filled up a shot glass and drank it.

"You know I was able to see everything that just happened, right?" I said, as he returned and sat back down on the couch. He looked horrified, and a little guilty at that, but I gave him another side hug.

"Sorry. I keep forgetting how insane a lot of cape stuff is for regular people, as well as your fifteen year old daughter saying that she fought multiple Endbringers by choice."

"It's fine, Taylor," he mumbled, returning my side hug, "I just need to get used to this…..new, older, you. And going by what you've said about the other Danny, I don't want to make the same mistakes with you as he did."

I was going to object to that, but he kissed me on my forehead before I could say anything.

"You're a different person now, and I can't treat you like you're the same girl I knew a couple of days ago. And I know that I can't really stop you from doing what you want, or being able to do what I should've been doing: protecting you."

"You can't protect me," I mumbled into his shoulder, "But you can protect me in a different way. You can protect me from myself."

He raised his eyebrow in confusion at me. I detached myself from our hug and drank the rest of my water before continuing.

"I have a lot of bad habits that I'm trying to break. I was given a second chance to do everything right this time, and I don't want to waste it. So, just having you here, knowing that I don't have to hide anything, and that you trust me to be able to protect myself is enough."

"But how would that protect you…from you?"

"I'm too used to escalating, crossing lines, and not compromising with people who disagree with me. I need someone that can help ground me from all the cape stuff. Something like that. It's hard to put into words."

He slowly nodded at what I said, and gave me another gentle smile, pulling me close into another hug.

"Of course I can do that, Taylor."

"So, back to what I was saying, I need to explain what my first major goal is: taking down the 'boss' of the Undersiders, Coil. He's got a particularly annoying thinker ability that lets him create multiple parallel timelines that only he is aware of. So, for example, he can be doing all of his villain stuff in one, and doing all of his regular civilian stuff in the other, and at any point, or if he dies, the 'timeline' collapses. Which means he can do whatever he wants in a disposable timeline in order to gain information.

"But the other hard part of dealing with him is that his civilian identity is really high up in the PRT, which means he has a ton of connections he can use, and makes it impossible to take him down if I join the Wards."

"Which means you have to do it from the villain side, which means joining the Undersiders and having to do what he wants." I nodded, as my dad was already starting to pick up on things.

"The other difficult thing is that in several days from now, regardless if I join the Undersiders, they will attack the Central Bank, as a diversion to kidnap Dinah Allcott, an extremely powerful precog, who Coil uses in order to get what he wants. He drugs her with some very powerful tinkertech stuff. Dinah is also the niece of the mayor, which Coil blackmailed him with."

"And there's not much you can do, because if you try to stop her from being kidnapped, he can just collapse the timeline, and then you'll become his target." He murmured.

"The only true way to take him down is with overwhelming firepower, or slowly moving pieces around to corner him into a situation that no matter what he does, he loses. I can't show my hand, because he won't know that I already know everything he's planning, which makes him predictable."

"So what's his plan, then? Why go to all this effort?" He said, leaning back into the coach, hand on his chin in deep thought.

"For all that effort, the only thing he wants is simple: he wants to rule this city, because he's a power hungry idiot that's also a massive control freak. He believes he deserves it, or something idiotic like that.

"And to do that, in my original timeline, he faked the death of his cape persona, got the current director fired so he could be in charge of the Protectorate, had the mayor in his pocket and wanted to use the Undersiders to control the villain side, as we were the only gang left in the city at that point."

"I think I have an idea." Dad replied, his face still in thought, "If you tune down the villainous parts of your gang, and publicly take him down by revealing everything, you can potentially get the public to side with you."

I stopped, and actually thought about that.

"And if you explained everything Coil had done, as a group of teenagers being forced to be villains for their own reasons, took down a villain that infiltrated the heroes so thoroughly that they didn't even know he was one?" He said, giving me a smile like he solved a particularly hard crossword puzzle.

"And, let's say that this particular group of young villains actually made a difference after an Endbringer attack, and hypothetically, that the Dockworkers Association struck a deal with?" He continued, swirling the shot glass in his hand.

"But I thought the rule was that the Union didn't make deals with the gangs?" I replied.

"Well, if my own daughter was the leader of said gang, who also convinced the other leader…it could be possible."

"The public would side with us. They love a good redemption or underdog story," I finished. "This…is good. It's promising. I'll have to go over this with Lisa, later."

I gave it more thought. It would be difficult to convince the citizens that we meant well. Dad patted my back, interrupting my thoughts.

"Well, I think that's enough planning for the time being, so why don't you show me your suit, and we can discuss how to make you less scary, ok?"

I smiled, got up and went to the basement to go grab my suit. I willed a nearby fly to land on his hand. I needed him to get used to knowing that I can sense things through my bugs, in case of an emergency, anyway.

---

I stared at the yellow eyed, black mask that I held in my hands. It only occurred to me how creepy it was. I only knew before because of how other people reacted to it, but to me it was just a mask. A creepy mask that I used to my advantage, sure, and other people told me it was, but I never saw it as such, not before now, at least.

It's no wonder why Armsmaster thought I was a villain, back then.

I sighed, and put the mask on, and did another quick look around in my range. Most people were at home relaxing, doing some last minute chores before the start of the work week. The now ex-wife of the cheating husband seemed to have thrown out a bunch of what I assume to be his stuff out on the front lawn. She was crying while she was sitting on her bed. I willed a butterfly to land on her knee as an apology.

Other than that though, there wasn't anything else to note. The drug runner was sitting upright on his couch, calling someone while trying to give himself first-aid. I'd wanted to do worse to him, but I couldn't do that yet.

After our talk in the lounge room, I went to get changed into my suit in my bedroom. Dad was outside, waiting for me to finish changing, and so we could figure out any new cape names. I had also brought out all of my dyes, so that we could try and make my current armour less horrifying. With one final look into the mirror, I got up and motioned Dad to open my bedroom door with my bugs. He looked shocked when he saw me, but his expression quickly changed to pride as he let out a low whistle.

"That's one hell of a costume Taylor, especially if you made all of it by yourself."

"Yeah, it's not exactly heroic looking, isn't it?" I groaned, as I sat back down on my bed and took off my mask. "Fifteen year old me, with such a shitty school life, decided to go out wearing this, and had thought people would assume that I was a hero, a good guy."

My dad grimaced as he sat down next to me. I caught him looking fearful, and a little guilty as I said that. He grasped my hand again in reassurance.

"But if it makes you feel any better, I don't mind it, this time around. I had the chance to be a hero, and it…"

"Didn't work out well?"

"...In a way. Weaver was just a means to an end. She wasn't really…me. I didn't choose how the suit looked, or how I was able to act in combat. The PR department made me use butterflies exclusively, once."

He actually snorted at that.

"Well, let's get to coming up with something different, then. Something that you would like, that's not too villainous looking..."

---

"Monarch?"

"Taken"

"Beetle, maybe?"

"Too lame." I groaned. I was sitting in front of my computer, looking at Parahumans Online, trying to shift through its database to find names that weren't taken, while my dad was sitting on my bed, notepad and pen in hand, writing down ideas.

"Queen?"

"Taken."

"Plague?"

"Too villainous sounding."

My dad hummed in response, and repeatedly tapped the pen he was holding against his cheek in deep thought. We had been at this for a while, but none of the ideas we came up with stuck. Dad got up at some point, muttering something about an idea he had, while I continued looking for any ideas on PHO's database.

Dad was currently in his bedroom, and was on his knees and seemed to be grabbing out a box from underneath his bed. After he searched around for a bit, he found what I assumed to be what he was looking for: a thick, hardcover book that was dusty enough that I wasn't able to see the title. With a satisfied hum, he got up and went to the kitchen and grabbed a damp dish cloth and headed back to my bedroom.

"This book was one of your mother's favourites back in College," he said, as he sat back down on my bed and started wiping the dust off it. "And perhaps this can help us with coming up with a new name for you."

I got up from my chair and walked over to read the title properly:

MYTHOLOGY AND METAPHOR: AN ANALYSIS OF MYTHOLOGY IN MODERN CULTURE

"Your mother wasn't exactly a 'cape geek', but the one thing she always loved was talking about how things in the past still impacted the present, and how those things changed over time," he said, eyes full of nostalgia and longing, "and of course, this applied to the heroes and villains at the time, as it was still popular for them to name themselves after gods or goddesses."

"And it eventually died off since most people who did ended up being forgettable, or were lame enough to be laughed at outright. Most capes couldn't live up to whatever god they named themselves after." I replied, as he nodded in response, and started flipping through the pages.

Now that I think about it, there wasn't a lot of people who even did, off the top of my head. All-Father was technically based on Odin from Norse mythology, Alexandria based her name on the Library of Alexandria, which was a real place rather than mythological.

"Aha!" Dad exclaimed, and pointed to the page that he was looking for. I sat down next to him, looked at the page in question, and gave him a confused look.

"Khepri?"

He smiled at me, with a glint of anticipation in his eyes, and started reading the passage.

"Khepri is a god in Egyption Mythology that represents the morning sun, and by extension, the creation or renewal of life. He is usually depicted as a man with a scarab beetle for a face. The reason why the scarab beetle was seen as a representation of the morning sun was because it was thought that he made a new sun every morning, and moved it across the sky like a dung beetle.

"As of time of writing, Khepri hasn't been seen much in modern culture, both in fictional media and in the cape scene. This is possibly due to the relative obscurity of Egyption Mythology, compared to the Greek, Roman, or Norse pantheons."

That…could work. It wasn't too heroic to look out of place as a villain, but it wasn't too villainous, either. I would have to change the colour of my armour, and it might look a bit odd for the near future, until I would have the time to remake it.

"Sounds like we have ourselves a winner then, huh?" Dad said, seeing me seriously consider it. I nodded in response.

It was a good start.

 

[Viri]

Apologise for the hiatus, everyone! I was on holiday for the two weeks, but now that I'm back chapters will (hopefully!) go back to weekly updates!

---

I stared at my reflection, taking note of how my suit had changed. When I looked at her I didn't see Skitter, with her fully black costume, piercing yellow eyes and clawed fingertips. Standing before me was someone different, someone new.

The new costume, which was still my original Skitter suit that I made before becoming a cape, had a couple of modifications that Dad and I made after our talk. The first and biggest one was that the armour plating and mask had been dyed gold rather than black, giving the outfit an overall more regal look. The yellow lenses were swapped out for a pair of light blue ones, to make the new look overall less intimidating.

My time as Weaver, complicated as it was, did teach me something that I disregarded when I was Skitter: the importance of PR and costume design, ironically.

If I wanted things to go better, I needed to change how I acted around the general public, and the heroes of the PRT ENE. Getting them to trust me after Coil has been dealt will be a lot easier if I didn't look like I was going to eat their eyes out with insects.

Well, it didn't help that I actually did do that once.

With a shake of my head, I looked over to my alarm clock.

11:45 PM. Enough time to meet up with the Undersiders in case something went wrong.

Time to leave. I double checked my utility items, which contained my pepper spray, disposable phone, a couple of epipens, and a police baton that Dad and I picked up when we went out for supplies to change the costume. Satisfied, I headed downstairs and saw that he was waiting for me near the back door.

"So, time to go?" He said, fidgeting nervously. I gave him a quick hug, as he was probably still uncomfortable with me going out and fighting. After a minute or two I disentangled myself and stepped back and looked back at him.

"I know you're scared for me, but Lung isn't too scary," I said, shrugging my shoulders, "At the end of the day he's just a thug."

"A very dangerous thug who can turn into a fire dragon."

I couldn't help but chuckle a bit. Lung was dangerous, for sure, but compared to Coil, to Jack Slash, to the Endbringers? He was nothing.

I put on my mask and started walking out through the back door, before turning back and looking at Dad.

"Besides, I'm much scarier than him." I buzzed, using the bugs that I started gathering outside.

My dad's smile changed from a grimacing half-smile to a genuinely confident one.

"Give him hell, Taylor."

With one last nod, I shut the back door and started making my way to the Docks.

---

Brockton Bay was a city that was defined by its disparity; between the working class made of dockworkers and the rich upper class that profited off them, between the different gangs that ruled the poorer parts of the city and the heroes that attempted to keep the peace.

The difference between the ABB, ruled by Lung and forcibly recruited young Asian men into joining and sold off the women into prostitution, the drug running Merchants that only cared about the present and nothing about tomorrow; and finally the Empire Eighty-Eight, the largest in territory, influence and capes, the actual goddamn Neo-Nazis that held the city by the throat.

Well, if things go similarly to how they went before, the major gangs would dissolve in a couple of months anyway. Lung held the ABB together by himself, and his Birdcage sentence would ruin the ABB. The Empire capes having their identities outed by Coil would force the PRT to get help from other areas, or even the Triumvirate, if things got messy enough. Kaiser's death was the only thing I couldn't directly plan on, since he died from Leviathan and Armsmaster's betrayal of the Truce. On the other hand, the Merchants got wiped out by the Slaughterhouse Nine the first time around, but they were small-fry compared to the other gangs.

I made another note to come up with a proper plan to kill, or at least incapacitate Bakuda before she bombs the city. Much of the problems that Brockton faced was the constant large scale fights and disasters that hit the city in such a short amount of time, so stopping her from bombing the city would be a priority.

As I moved to the Docks, I reached out with my bugs for any useful information. If I was going to go all out this time, I needed to make a statement that I wasn't someone to mess with, and fucking with the ABB's various drug dens and hideouts would be a good place to start before meeting up with Lung again.

The first place I noticed that was also nearest to me was a three story building that had a locally owned takeaway shop on the ground floor, with a lot of graffiti and the ABB symbol, marking this as their territory. The shop looked like one of those typical food shops that operated in an industrial suburb, the ones that look really grimy and rundown but were really popular with the locals and generally operated for decades.

The store was either a front for money laundering or threatened with paying the ABB 'protection' money, I guessed. It had a suspicious lack of insects, so it was probably well run.

The other two stories were what I was really paying attention to, though, as they were crawling with far too many insects that should normally exist in a small building like this one, which gave contrast to the well kept ground floor.

The second story had several apartments that were filled with people partying, with people weaving in and out of them, which would make sense if the ABB owned the entire building. The third floor is where the leader was, as there were far less people there and far more of the floorspace was dedicated to the usual stuff gangs had. Drugs, chemistry setups used to make said drugs, a lot of bundled cash, and an 'office' where a man was sitting down behind a desk, with two thugs standing behind him. He seemed to be talking in Mandarin to a very nervous man who was standing in front of the desk.

I debated internally over what I could do here. I could swarm the entire building, scattering the partygoers and the gang members, potentially letting the PRT clean up afterwards. I could do something more stealthy, like ruining the very valuable slabs of cocaine and chemistry labs.

Decisions, decisions.

I decided to go for the shock and awe approach, and flooded the two floors with insects, causing the rather crowded party floor to completely panic, targeting any of the obvious gang members with bees and hornets. The leader upstairs seemed to have enough presence of mind to stay calm, and he attempted to ring someone on his phone, but I repeatedly stung his hand, making him drop it. With the complete chaos of the party floor starting to reach into the top floor, as people were shoving each other to leave the building and accidentally going up a floor then going down one, I prepared some spiders that were on the ceiling to make silk.

Most people don't tend to look up, especially in a situation like this. To confuse the gang members even more, I managed to use some of the heavier bugs in my swarm to flick the various light switches, plunging both floors into darkness. After a few more minutes, I managed to create enough silk to cover some of the gang members and the leader, who was writhing on the floor from my repeated stings.

Satisfied with my takedowns, I opened my phone and started ringing the PRT hotline as people started streaming out of the single door that led outside, and formed a smaller swarm to cover my head and mask.

"Hello, this is the PRT E-N-E hotline. How can I help you?" Said a tired, feminine voice from my phone. Someone doing the graveyard shift, most likely.

"This is Khepri. I am a new cape in town, and I have taken down an ABB hideout on 23rd street, with five ABB gang members that are incapacitated and are waiting for pickup." I replied, talking through my swarm. Hopefully that was still understandable through the cheap phone's microphone.

"I…see. I'll let someone know so we can send out a dispatch. Thank you…Khepri, was it?"

"Yes, that's correct."

After a brief pause, the responder started talking again. Writing down my name, or making a new log for me, judging from that pause.

"Alright, thank you for your assistance Khepri, have a good night."

"You too." I responded, and hung up the call. I normally wouldn't be so polite, as the needless pleasantries were a waste of time personally, but they would use this recording to analyse me later. And, just as Glenn taught me:

First times were essential to the image of a cape, regardless if they're a hero or villain.

I spent a couple of moments watching the chaos that I created, and continued on, sticking to the alleys and unlit areas of the Docks, and after a few more minutes of walking though I found my targets: Lung, and the Undersiders.

They were all on a nearby rooftop, attempting to avoid Lung who was on the ground with a couple of his goons. Bitch had two dogs with her, Judas and Brutus, judging from their size and looks, but it was always a bit difficult to tell her dogs apart when they were powered up by her. Tattletale had her arms crossed and was pacing, attempting to form a plan with Grue, who was crouching down, trying to look down onto the street below. Regent was casually leaning against the stairwell entrance, haphazardly twirling his staff.

God, I missed them. But I could reminisce later, I needed to make my entrance.

I moved closer to where Lung was, hiding behind a building close enough I could make visual contact with him, and started the first part of my plan. I needed to inject enough venom into him to effectively cancel his healing, avoid him for long enough for Armsmaster to show up and tranq him.

With a deep breath, I started by willing some moths to land on the right hands of the Undersiders, as I didn't want to spook them into running off and tip off Lung that I was here. Tattletale immediately stood still, her power already giving her the details, her head looking everywhere to find me. I formed a swarm-clone on the opposite side of the roof they were on, and formed it slowly enough to not scare them. Grue stood up, darkness wisping off him, Bitch's dogs started growling, Regent was startled and moved closer to his teammates.

Clone-me simply put a finger to its head, where its lips would be if it had them, and did a shushing motion and pointed behind them to where Lung was, as where they were standing they weren't able to see him.

With a deep breath, I willed my expressions onto my swarm, becoming a still, emotionless statue and began my assault.

I made a few fire ants attach themselves to Lung's goons and stung all of them simultaneously, making them cry out all at once. Lung snapped his head, attempted to see his new assailant, and yelled something to his subordinates. Using that as a distraction, I gathered everything that was capable of injecting venom, using bees and wasps to carry widows and recluses, and covered Lung in several inches of insects. Anything that had run out of venom, or had its stinger or fangs ripped off were quickly replaced with more insects, never letting up the assault.

I also bit his dick a couple of times with some black recluses, for old time's sake.

After a moment more, I willed the swarm to back off from him, just before he exploded, allowing me to save a good chunk of my more valuable bugs. I lucked out the first time I fought him, as the sheer amount of venom in his veins prevented him from healing from anything else, which led to the tranq Armsmaster hit him with actually putting him to sleep.

But this time I was better prepared, and much more experienced.

As Lung was still dealing with my swarm, I climbed the stairwell of the abandoned building I was hiding behind until I was on the roof, and walked to the corner and stood right on the edge, and looked down on Lung. My assault on him was still continuing, as he was starting to properly transform, covering himself head to toe in fire. The Undersiders were a couple of buildings adjacent from me, and were all looking at me. I glanced at them for a moment, before looking back down at Lung.

I heard a familiar motorcycle making its way here just entering my range from the south side. My tip-off about the hideout must've made him arrive earlier than he originally did, so now all I needed to do was distract Lung long enough for Armsmaster to be close enough to tranquilise him.

Lung finally looked up and saw me, and made eye contact with me. I raised my right hand and snapped my fingers, and willed every insect I had in my range to drown most of the street in an unholy cacophony of buzzing and skittering.

The Undersiders, watching from afar, all visibly finched from that.

Lung exploded a couple of more times, but that did very little against the sheer amount of insects I had at my disposal. Although I wasn't able to inject him with more venom into him now, since he was at the point that his skin started to glow, and any bug that was close enough caught fire. Not being able to hurt him was somewhat of an upside actually, as his ability to transform was based on how much damage he was taking, or how much danger he was in.

His enhanced hearing was countered by the sheer noise that my swarm was generating, making it difficult to hear me, let alone see me.

So, with little information to work with, Lung started heading towards the fire escape on the opposite building I was on, but the amount of venom that I injected him with was starting to take its toll on him, as his movement was starting to get more and more sluggish. He was going to try and jump up the fire escapes to reach me, which was right where I wanted him. With a groan, Lung crouched down and jumped upwards, but only managed to make it to the first story fire escape. I parted the flood of insects between us, giving me a clear shot at him.
He noticed this and saw me staring down at him. With burning hatred in his eyes, he screamed, his human voice slowly morphing into something more inhuman.

I grabbed the canister of pepper spray I had on my back, flicked the safety off, and threw it directly at him, making contact with his head before it exploded from the heat. He properly roared this time, voice fully transitioning to something that actually sounded monstrous.

The sheer heat he was emitting, even from two stories below me, drove me back a step. Lung, with his head damaged from the explosion, lost his grip on the railing he was hanging onto, and fell back onto the ground, still screaming. The damage done from the pepper spray and the venom would be enough to incapacitate him.

Armsmaster was much closer now, as he probably heard Lung's screams, and gathered some bugs to form an arrow on his hand. At first he shook them off, but then he realised that the bugs were pointing somewhere, and sped up his motorcycle. I dispersed my swarm, sending them back to their alleyways full of trash and forgotten, dusty hallways.

I created another clone behind the Undersiders, as they were looking on from a taller building. I made a throat clearing sound through my bugs to get their attention.

"Armsmaster is going to be here soon, and if you want to talk with me, you'll need to hide from him until he leaves." I said.

"Holy shit. Who the fuck are you, and how did you take down fucking Lung?" Regent said with some genuine amazement, which was rare from him.

"Regent!" Grue quietly hissed, disguising his voice with his darkness.

"Relax, she's not going to do anything to us." Tattletale said, her posture relaxing a bit. "If she genuinely wanted to hurt us she would've done it already. The spooky, sentient biblical plague just wants to talk to us."

I nodded with my clone.

"Wait, that thing's a she? Also, can we adopt her?" Regent said, as he pointed his sceptre at me.

"Regent!" Grue loudly hissed at him.

Bitch was just staring directly at me. From anyone else, she looked like she was trying to threaten or intimidate, but I knew her well enough that there was a hint of respect coming from her. I was able to hear Armsmaster's motorbike with my human body, I realised he was just at the end of the street, heading towards where I was, so I headed down the fire escape.

"Armsmaster is just down the street. You need to hide, now." I said, pointing with my clone.

They all nodded, and started to climb onto the dogs, and I waved at them before dissolving the clone. As Armsmaster slowed down, I formed another clone near him. He looked at it, and tilted his head in thought, before I started speaking.

"Over in that alley, Lung is incapacitated from a head injury and enough venom in his veins to kill several people. Tranq him before he recovers from that."

He only grunted at that, and he grabbed one of his tinker-tech guns from his bike, and loaded it with a couple of tranquiliser darts. He then ran to the alley as I dissolved the clone. Lung was still trying to get up, but the venom in his veins were properly kicking in, and attempted to roll over to look at Armsmaster and myself, but he got shot with a couple of darts to his back, and promptly went limp, the effects of his transformation receding. I jumped onto the railing and sat on it and looked at him as Armsmaster checked his vitals.

"You must be Khepri, the caller we got for the ABB hideout near here?" The tinker said.

I nodded. He glanced at Lung before looking back at me.

"How on earth did you do this?"

"Injected him with enough venom to counteract his healing, as his power prioritises what injury is the most lethal, which allowed me to incapacitate him with a can of pepper spray, which exploded from the heat he was emitting." I said, using a dense cloud of insects that hovered above my head, "You might want to get him to Panacea, though. I don't know how much venom his power can heal off before he actually dies."

He was still staring at me, his body tense. My stillness, lack of physical tics or expressions must be messing with his lie detection system.

"Are you a new cape? I don't know of any insect controllers that are local to the east coast." He said, still eying me warily, hands stretching out like he was prepared to fight.

I shrugged, before replying.

"This is my first night going out as a cape, so I was patrolling around when I overheard Lung talking about wanting to 'go and kill some kids', so I had to intervene."

He was still eyeing me suspiciously, but crouched down and started to weld some steel around Lung. A cage then, but I didn't understand how that would contain him. I waited a bit for him to start talking again, but he stayed silent as he started constructing the steel cage, so I took this as my chance to leave.

I jumped down, rolled so I wouldn't hurt my feet, and started walking out of the alley.

"Wait." Armsmaster said, standing back up and grabbing his phone before facing me again, "Before you leave, let me get some details from you."

"Name, and if you want to take credit for Lung's capture." He stated, waiting for me to reply.

"Khepri, and I'll take credit for his capture."

He nodded and jotted it down on his phone.

"Do you want to join the Protectorate, or if you're young enough, the Wards?"

"No, I have…personal reasons as to why I don't want to join."

"So you want to be an independent?"

I shrugged.

"Well, that's too bad. Since you managed to take down Lung by yourself, I'd think you would do really well if you joined." He said, walking towards me, "But if you have any questions, here's my personal number."

I grabbed my disposable prepaid phone and entered his number. I don't know how useful having it would be, as I don't plan on betraying my team this time.

With a final nod, I walked out of the alley and left Armsmaster to deal with Lung. With a quick search with my bugs, I found the Undersiders were on a rooftop of an abandoned, three story tall apartment building a couple of streets over, so I started heading there. While I was walking, I listened in to their conversation, relaxing my muscles and taking a couple of deep breaths. I didn't want to threaten them, and I needed Tattletale to pick up on everything that I showed. Being expressionless would mess with her own ability, and I really didn't want her to be suspicious of me.

As I moved towards their location, I reflected on the fight I just had. It was a nice comparison to see how much I actually changed from that lonely girl I was back then, who was so desperate to leave her school and home life, that she went out with an incomplete costume, no fighting skills to speak of, and fought one of the strongest capes in the city. I would have to commend her for fighting him, all because she genuinely thought he was going to kill some children.

But a normal teenager, even by cape standards, wouldn't do something like that. And it struck me, there and then, how much my life at Winslow and my non-existent home life shaped me into becoming Skitter. The ruthlessness, the paranoia, the sheer mistrust I had for everyone else, including my own teammates.

It was sad, in a particular way that I've never felt before. It felt like when I first understood what an endbringer attack truly entailed, or when I learnt about the various wars that happened before Scion first appeared. It felt like I was sad for someone else, someone that I couldn't help or do anything about, even if that sad, lonely girl was me from three years ago. It almost felt like the memories I had of my time after mom's death and before I fully committed to being a cape was someone else's, like I was viewing them like an aged photobook.

Perhaps it was just a sign of how much I've changed, that these memories felt so alien to me now, just like how different my fight with Lung was. But before I could continue my reflection, the Undersiders started talking to each other, giving me something to distract myself with.

"Tattletale, what were you able to gather?" Grue said, his voice returning to normal.

"Very little, other than she doesn't want to harm us and only wants to talk, and that she's an experienced cape, somehow." She said, her head tilted in thought, "I think she has some minor thinker power, as I was getting a lot of bad reads from her when she was standing on that building over there."

"C'mon Grue, there's no need to be so suspicious! Even if she wanted us dead, it would be a really metal way to go out, being eaten alive by a swarm of sentient bugs!" Regent joked.

"She's not a sentient swarm of bugs you idiot, she's a Master, and a powerful one at that, given how many insects she was able to control." Tattletale said.

Grue let out a heavy sigh and sat down on an air conditioning unit.

"So we have a completely unknown cape that single handedly took down fucking Lung with only insects and a can of peppy spray, despite him being a pyrokinetic, and not one of you is concerned? What if she's able to get information through them?"

There was a tense silence before Tattletale let out another equally heavy sigh, and sat down next to Grue.

"She's been listening in to our conversation since the start. We've never left her range, and I've only realised that now."

Grue groaned and held his head in his hands, while Regent let out a whistle.

I couldn't help but let out a quiet giggle, as I headed up the stairwell leading to the roof.

God, I missed them.

"How big is her range, then?" Regent asked.

Good timing, as I just reached the top of the stairs, and opened the door to the roof.

"My radius is about six city blocks, which makes my full range twelve blocks in diameter." I said, walking through the door and closing it.

I looked at my future teammates and took stock of their reactions. Bitch was sitting down with her dogs, looking out at the city before us, disinterested in the conversation.

Regent was sitting down on the edge of the roof, looking at me over his shoulder, his body facing the edge, before spinning to face me properly.

Tattletale was already facing the doorway, expecting me to come though it, and grinned in that trademarked vulpine way.

Out of all of the Undersiders, I missed her the most, I think. Even more than Brian.

Grue also moved to face me, his body no longer tense but he seemed to still be on his guard.

"Well, if it isn't our heroic saviour, who not only beat Lung by herself, but also saved us the trouble of encountering Armsmaster!" Tattletale said. I knew her well enough to tell that she was genuinely excited to talk, and wasn't forcing that cheer.

"Some introductions: I'm Tattle-"

"I know who you all are." I cut her off, "You're the Undersiders, a new group that has only committed some minor robberies, and stole from the Ruby Dreams Casino back in March, I think."

She faltered a bit at that, not expecting me to cut her off. She quickly went back to a smile that I knew that was forced, as her thinker ability was definitely giving her some mixed information.

"And before you do anything," I said, as I shifted my weight from side to side. I needed to do this honestly, and not push my emotions onto my swarm. "This is my first time going out as a cape, and I did some research before going out."

"There's no way you're a new cape!" Regent accused, pointing the butt end of his sceptre at me, "You took out Lung by yourself! And you just said that your range was six blocks!"

I glanced back to Tattletale, seeing that she was still looking at me, judging if I was trustworthy or not. Thankfully she relaxed a bit and gave me another smirk.

Good. I needed her to trust me.

"Nah, she's telling the truth." She said, while turning to the rest of the group. "She's trustworthy. Just has a couple of secrets, like we all do."

I let out a breath I didn't realise I was holding in and moved to sit down on another air con unit, opposite the one Tattletale and Grue were sitting on.

"Oh, and my cape name is Khepri, by the way." I quickly added, forgetting that I haven't properly introduced myself yet.

"So then, newbie, what's your story? What makes you want to join our little group of misfits?" She continued, raising her arms and gesturing at the others.

"She wants to join us?" Grue quietly whispered to his teammate, not realising I could still pick up what he was saying. Tattletale held her hand up to him, and gestured for me to continue talking.

"Because the city that I live in is a shithole that's infested with nazis and human traffickers." I replied, bluntly, "And, for personal reasons, I can't trust the PRT or Protectorate to do their jobs right for once, so might as well try and do it myself."

Tattletale tilted her head in thought, still looking at me with those piercing green eyes of hers, while Grue merely nodded his head, his shadows idly curling around his motorbike jacket. Regent just looked bored, as he rested his chin on the butt of his sceptre, and Bitch was disinterested in the conversation entirely, quietly attending to her two dogs.

"Does that mean you meeting us wasn't coincidental, then?" Grue asked, crossing his arms.

Shit. I didn't want him or Tattletale to think I was connected to Coil. But, before I could reply to him, Tattletale interjected.

"No, it really was coincidental on her part. But judging from how she knows about us, Lung, and Armsmaster, she's done quite a lot of research before going out as a cape," She said, still blankly staring at me as her power gave her more information about me. "And…she must've triggered some time ago, a couple of months at the most, given how long it would've taken to make that suit of hers."

"Wait, how the fuck did you make your own suit?" Regent blurted out, lifting his chin up.

"Black Widow silk, mixed with chitin and insect exoskeletons. The silk is water-proof, strong enough that that it can't be cut with any regular blades, and although the panels aren't exactly bulletproof, its enough to protect me in a pinch," I explained, "And if you let me join, I'll remake all of your costumes with silk, but it'll take some time to gather that much of it."

Regent gave a low whistle in response, while Tattletale looked at me with more interest, eyes gleaming with fascination, and Grue leaned forward ever so slightly. Bitch even started paying attention, staring at me from the corner of her eyes, still facing her dogs.

"Holy shit, that so fucking cool." He said, with interest gleaming in his eyes from behind his mask.

Well, as much as someone like him can look interested, I suppose.

"Well, I vote for the scary bug girl to join us!" Regent exclaimed, raising one of his hands directly up.

Grue just looked away from Regent back to Tattletale, shrugged his shoulders, and raised his hand. The thinker gave him a lopsided grin, and turned to me and raised her hand too. Bitch just glared at me, grunted, and went back to fussing over her dogs.

She would probably be pissed at me joining, since that would mean less money for her, which meant less money to spend on her dogs. I'll have to come up with something to get her to trust me later. I didn't want a repeat of being mauled by her dogs again.

"So, with that out of the way, how much do you know about us, or our powers?" The blonde asked.

"Not much, honestly," I lied, shrugging my shoulders, "You guys are low-threat thieves, with your only public heist being back in March. As for your powers, I'm guessing that you have some sort of thinker ability that gives you information, Grue is able to make gas-like darkness, Bitch is able to make her dogs big, and Regent I have no idea since there wasn't anything about him online and I haven't seen how he uses his power."

"...Huh. How did you manage to figure all that out?" Tattle said, pausing for a bit, "Wait, I can answer that. You watched us fight Lung, combined with what you already know and some simple deductive reasoning."

I nodded. "That's basically it, really."

"Great, so that means I don't have to explain much. As you said, my power gives me superpowered deductive reasoning. I can look at someone, and more or less understand them from what they're wearing, body language, that sort of thing. For instance, I can tell that your suit has gone through some recent changes, judging from the colour and dye of your armour plates.

"Grue is able to make a cloud of darkness that muffles sound and blocks any light if you're in it. Downside is that is that it applies to anyone, including teammates. Bitch is able to turn canines into a bigger, meaner form." She explained quickly. She must have gathered that I already knew all of this, but is only saying it so I don't look suspicious in front of the others.

"Don't hurt my dogs, or I'll hurt you." Bitch added, continuing to glare at me, while Tattletale grimaced.

"What are their names?" I responded.

"Brutus and Judas." She grunted, turning away again. I forgot how prickly Rachel was when I first met her, distrusting everyone except herself and her dogs. Hopefully she'll trust me faster this time, since I'm not going to betray her like I did.

I couldn't hurt her like that again. I just couldn't.

"Also, she doesn't master them, she hand trains them to follow her commands," Tattletale continued, interrupting my thoughts, "And it takes some time for her to fully power up her dogs. Regent, since you don't know, can briefly control someone's nervous system, like making them trip over, drop something, that sort of thing."

I stood up, and before I could explain what my power does, there were police and ambulance sirens that could be heard from a couple of streets over. The others all looked over to where the sounds were coming from, and the friendly atmosphere disappeared.

"Shit. Do you think they're here for us?" Regent said, looking at Tattletale and Grue both.

"I think we might need to cut this short," Grue replied, his darkness seeping out from his helmet, "Sorry, Khepri, but would you mind com-"

"They're not here for us, or for the damage Lung did. They don't even know we're here, I think," I said, cutting him off, "Since none of the cars are heading near us, and I assume they're dealing with the ABB hideout that I dealt with before running into you guys."
They all looked at me with an odd look of confusion, exasperation, and a little bit of awe at what I said. I shrinked back at their gazes, and rubbed my right arm.

"With a little bit of déjà vu, I have to ask: How the fuck did you do that?" Regent asked, for the second time this night.

As I recalled how I took down the hideout, I looked at my new (old?) teammates to see their reactions. Tattletale was grinning maniacally, while Grue seemed to be undecided between being impressed or fearful. Regent just looked impressed, looking back and forth between the police lights in the distance and me. Bitch was still glaring at me, looking like she was about to start a fight, but there seemed to be a hint of respect coming from her.

"So…you got any more tricks up your sleeve, Khepri?" Tattletale asked, breaking the silence.

"Oh, um, I can make these sort of clones of myself, as well as be able to talk through them, as you've seen," I stated, "And I'm able to see and hear through them, but that depends on how many I have around."

"Well, after all that, I can now say that you'll fit right in with us," She said, giving me that familiar vulpine grin of hers, as she raised her hand towards me.

"Welcome to the Undersiders, Khepri."

 

[Viri]

I breathed in the aroma coming from my freshly brewed mug of Earl Grey, looked out of the front window, and enjoyed the early Monday sights as the city slowly woke up. My hair was still damp after the shower I had after my morning run, and I had managed to say goodbye to Dad just as he was leaving for work.

He seemed to be in a better mood after I came back home and retold the events of last night to him, of how I took down an ABB base and Lung, as well as my reunion with the Undersiders.

He was probably happy knowing that I wasn't injured.

Last night went well, I reflected, as I took another sip of my tea. With Lung captured, the ABB would already be starting to fray and fall apart, as Bakuda and Oni Lee didn't have the same brand of terror that Lung inspired. The Empire, and potentially the Merchants, would start hitting ABB territories once the news and the general public.

Which meant that Bakuda needed to be stopped before she blew up most of the city.

But my plans for her could wait, as I was currently waiting for Lisa to arrive so I could explain everything to her.

My attention was currently occupied with the normal routine I did with my swarm. I gathered every Black Widow within range, moving them into the basement and increasing my production of silk. Now that I was officially an Undersider, I wanted to make proper suits for my teammates, both as a token of trust and because spider silk was far better than any regular fabric, and only beaten by high end artificial materials and tinkertech made stuff, both of which were far too costly at this stage.

There wasn't much else going on in my current range, which was…..nice. It was nice simply being able to relax a bit and not have to worry or pay attention about every single thing happening, at every single minor, regular injustice that happens in this city.

While I waited for Lisa, I changed my thoughts to how I got here, as well as what happened to my passenger. Since I still had my six block range, as well as the other tricks I've learnt, this must have meant that it came back with me, somehow.

Was I still being manipulated by it, then? Was I doomed to become that thing at the end of the world, desperately trying to hold onto my humanity?

I couldn't handle becoming like that, not again. Not even if it meant stopping Scion.

I sighed, and put down my mug on the coffee table, and closed my eyes.

"Passenger?" I whispered.

Nothing.

I curled my hands into fists in frustration.

"Agent? Shard? Queen Administrator?" I whispered again.

Nothing happened immediately, but after a few seconds I could feel a sense of….pride, a mix of relief and comfort, brewing in my chest. It was like curling next to a warm fireplace during winter. It was like what I felt when the Undersiders believed me that I didn't betray them, when Coil used some tinkertech machine that controlled insects to make it seem like I did.

I knew that these were my emotions, and that I was feeling them.

But they weren't mine.

"So that's how you can do it," I said, thinking out loud, "You're…not human, so you can't communicate in a human way, which means you have to use my own emotions to communicate."

The flame had changed, into something more gentler, as if it was a gesture to continue.

"But you couldn't communicate like this before, because you didn't understand how humans work," I thought outloud, "Until we...fused? And we both got sent back to the past, because if it was just my memories I wouldn't have the same range as I did."

The feeling in my chest changed to giddiness, or anticipation?

I started smiling at that. It was still my own emotions, even if it was being used by an alien brain parasite.

"Passenger-"

The feeling went cold still. It didn't disappear, but morphed into something else, like cold ash, devoid of any heat.

"Ok, not passenger, then," I quickly said, licking my chapped lips, "So you don't like being called that, so I can assume you don't like being called an agent or shard then."

The flame returned, though not as strong as it was, which meant I was going in the right direction.

"So it must be Queen Administrator then, which is either your name, or title."

The flame inside me roared, and I felt a mix of pride, recognition, excitement wash over me, before it settled into something smaller, more subdued.

"...You don't want to be treated as a thing, an object, then."

The feeling didn't change, and I felt….understanding? Happiness?

God, trying to interpret these emotions was tiring.

But before I could continue my one-sided conversation, someone new entered my range walking towards my house. Someone I recognised, despite the limited senses of nearby bugs.

Lisa.

I felt that flame disappear, returning my emotions to myself. Queen Administrator must have taken that as its queue to finish our conversation, if you could even call it that.

Drinking the rest of my now lukewarm tea, I got up and put my mug into the sink and started brewing up some coffee for Lisa. As I was doing that, I willed a nearby butterfly to land on her shoulder to direct her to my house. She startled a bit, probably still not used to my bugs.

After a few minutes of waiting, I finished brewing a fresh cup of coffee with cream and sugar for her just as she knocked on the door.

"Coming!" I yelled out, carrying the coffee with me to open the front door.

Lisa was wearing a form fitting t-shirt with some Aleph band on it, only half tucked into a pair of regular blue jeans. She wore a thin, dark grey hoodie that was unzipped, perfect for the slightly chilly mornings of spring. Her dyed blond hair was a little dishevelled, framing her freckled face and piercing green eyes.

She looked tired. But not like the world weariness that permanently marked her face when I returned from being a Ward, the weariness that only left her face during the brief moments of respite we had together.

It had hurt seeing Lisa like that. I think she missed me a lot more than she let on. The younger Lisa that I was looking at just looked…regularly tired, the tired you got when you stay up too late and woke up too early.

"Lisa, you're here! I brewed you some coffee for you." I said, handing the mug to her.

She eyed me suspiciously, most likely because of her power trying to fill in the gaps as to how I knew her preferred type of coffee. She eventually took it off my hands, deducing that it wasn't poisoned, and drank a couple of large gulps before walking inside. I closed the door and followed her in.

"Thanks for that, I bought one on my way here but stumbled and dropped it." She mumbled, sitting down at the dinner table. I sat down opposite to her.

The look of suspicion never left her eyes, though, despite her faux nonchalance.

"So," she said, waving the mug at me, "How the fuck did you know how I liked my coffee, and," she paused, taking another couple of gulps before slamming her fist onto the table.

"Who the fuck are you, why do you know the Undersiders, and why do you know how my power works?" She yelled while glaring at me, her blond bangs falling onto her face.

Shit.

I didn't expect her to be this angry. She must think I'm a spy for Coil, or something.

"I'm from three years in the future." I blurted out, my composure breaking.

"What."

---

"So, let me repeat this so I understand everything," Lisa said, rubbing her temples in an attempt to nurse her thinker headache, "You, three years ago, fought Lung on your first night out as a cape, joined us so you spy on us for the Protectorate, but Armsmaster shrugged you off, thinking you were a villain."

"Mmhm." I replied, drinking another cup of tea while the kettle boiled so I could make Lisa another cup of coffee. I managed to scrounge up some over the counter painkillers for her, but they won't help much for her thinker headache.

"Right, so after we met up after last night, you joined the gang, we robbed a bank, we fought Bakuda. She then blew up parts of the city, there was a brief truce with all the villains in town to deal with her. Then the Empire cape's identities got outed, but a fucking Endbringer showed up, wrecked the town, killed Kaiser, which led to the Empire splitting and the Undersiders being able to take territory. Armsmaster, being a prick, betrayed the truce for a stupid shot at killing Leviathian."

"Yep." I said in reply, putting emphasis on the p.

"But you found out that fucking Shadow Stalker, the same Ward who had tried to kill Brian a couple of times, was Spohia Hess, who along with your childhood friend, bullied you for years to the point of causing your trigger event, and Armsmaster told the gang about what you were planning, but you still stuck with us because you couldn't go anywhere else."

"At that point I was still wanting to be a hero, so it was either betray the only friends I had, again, and join the Wards or continue as a villain and try to do good anyways." I murmured.

She looked at me, rubbed her eyes, and continued talking.

"And then the Slaughterhouse Nine showed up, which started a chain of events that would lead to the end of the world, of which is because Scion goes crazy and not only kills billions here, but also across several other parallel Earths."

I nodded at her analysis, as I got up and poured her another cup of coffee.

"So, after the S9 left, Coil tried to take over the city, but we managed to corner and kill him, letting us essentially rule the city instead. But Coil's monster that was in his basement gets out that creates evil clones of people, which cloned the Triumvirate, letting all of the PRT's secrets out, that you can't tell me because they have a spooky bogeyman that'll kill us both if you say anything?"

I nodded again, handing her coffee. She thanked me under her breath, before continuing.

"So, in order to prevent the world from ending, a precog, who is the niece of the mayor who was kidnapped by Coil, told you to cut ties from the Undersiders and join the Protectorate. But the Director wouldn't budge, leading to Alexandria to pressure you to surrender and get sent to the Birdcage, but you somehow you managed to kill her, one of the strongest capes on the planet and who is fucking nigh invulnerable."

I took another sip of my tea, and turned to her and shrugged.

"Despite her invincibility, her brain still needs oxygen, which requires her lungs to be able to breathe air. Although her lungs are invulnerable like the rest of her body, they can still be blocked from absorbing oxygen," I said, staring out in the distance, remembering that night that I surrendered to the PRT.

"She can't breathe if her lungs are full of spiders."

Lisa stared at me for a second, face inscrutable, before bursting into a fit of giggles, which led to her full on belly-laughing as she fell off her chair and onto the floor, desperately clutching her stomach.

I couldn't help but give a small chuckle alongside her, getting up from my chair and walking around the table.

Her laughs slowly quietened as I reached out my hand to help her up. Lisa grinned at me, face flushed and her eyes watery, her blond hair covering her face. She brushed some of her hair off her face and tucked it behind her ear before tightly grabbing my hand, letting me pull her up.

We returned to our places at the table and sat down, as Lisa drank more of her coffee.

"And, correct me if I'm wrong, that the entire reason why we have parahumans to begin with
is because these alien supercomputers connect to our brains and drive us to conflict."
She asked, looking upwards and slouching. "And all because they like obtaining information, because they're all parts of Scion himself?"

"Mhm, and he had some sort of…equal, or lover, or whatever his species equivalent is, who died." I replied.

"Riiiiight," Lisa said, rubbing her face and looking at me, "And you managed to beat him by having an impromptu brain surgery that made you fuse with your shard, letting you directly control every parahuman across every version of Earth, which let you to bully Scion into giving up with the death of his wife since his human avatar couldn't deal with human feelings?"

"That's basically the gist. After that I got shot in the back of the head by someone and woke up several years in the past, on the very day that I first went out as a cape." I replied.

My closest friend and ally, whom I trusted with my life and more, responded to this with loudly groaning and dropping her head on the dinner table.

"So, after all that life changing information that will probably get me killed for knowing," She said, her voice a little muffled, "What's our relationship? Our connection? Were we coworkers, teammates, friends, whatever?"

"What's your power telling you?"

Lisa moved her head so she could look at me, body still half lying on the table, and squinted, muttering some things I couldn't pick up to herself.

"That we were….close. Best friends maybe? It's really hard to get a read off you because my power is giving me so much contradictory information, because this should be the first time I met you, but your body language and how you're talking to me is telling me the exact opposite."

I stared out of the window in thought. This was a loaded question with a complicated answer, heavy, with a particular type of weight not unlike holding a gun with its safety off.

What was I to Lisa? I knew what she was to me; she was my closest friend, my confidant, my trusted teammate.

An anchor, some part of my brain reminded me.

But what did she see in me? What made her stick with me, even after my betrayals? She saw me at my worst, and yet, still chose to trust me. Was I a friend, a boss, a person to believe in, a reason to get back up and continue going, to continue fighting for?

Did I even deserve her, despite how I pushed her and the other Undersiders away?

How much did I hurt her, when I surrendered to the PRT and became Weaver?

Was she still somewhere out there, blaming herself for my death?

Do I even deserve this Lisa, who I was inevitably manipulating for my own goals? Was I just projecting the future-past Lisa I knew with her younger counterpart?

"I-I can't say for sure what the other Lisa thought of me," I whispered, my voice hitching, "But I can tell you what she was to me: My best friend, who stuck with me till the very end, who I hurt and betrayed so many times, and I wouldn't have gotten anywhere without her."

I suppose in the end, I became what she'd feared the most.

Someone she cared about who fell off the edge, just like Rex did.

I brought my knees to my chest and hugged them, and looked directly into the younger Lisa's eyes, who still had the same shade of brilliant green.

"...and I didn't deserve her. I didn't deserve her loyalty, and I never told her how much she meant to me." I said, attempting to make myself smaller, hugging myself tighter.

"I'm sorry for dragging you into this mess, I-I didn't really think of how you would feel about all this. You can leave, if you want. I don't want you to feel like you're forced or have an obligation to help me."

Lisa looked at me, her face softening in a way I rarely saw on her counterpart, got up from her chair, and moved towards mine.

She unfurled my arms, pulled me to stand, and slowly enveloped me in a firm, comforting hug. She gently pushed the back of my head to her shoulder, and started stroking the back of my head. I quietly came apart in her arms, and cried into her shoulder.

After a couple of minutes my sobs quietened, she stepped back from a hug, and held my hand, leading me to the couch, and sat me down. Lisa then walked back into the kitchen, grabbed a box of tissues and filled a glass of water, and came back and sat down next to me, giving me a side hug.

It felt good, being taken care of like this.

I wondered if the other Lisa wanted to do something like this. Maybe I was never vulnerable enough to let her.

After I drank some water and cleaned my face, Lisa resumed talking.

"Well, you probably already know what happened to me, right?" She said, looking at me with the corner of her eye. I nodded in response, and waited for her to continue talking.
"After what happened to my brother, I vowed to never let something like that happen to anyone that I knew."

"And you told me that I reminded you of him. A sad, lonely girl that was teetering on the edge, just as your brother was." I croaked, voice a little sore from crying, "Or your counterpart did, rather."

She gently smiled at me, and poked my nose.

"You keep talking as if she and I are completely different people, Taylor. And no, you aren't manipulating me into helping you. And yes, I am going to help you, out of my own free will, if my future self is anything to go by."

I blinked owlishly at her, taken by surprise to what she said. Lisa took this as a chance to continue talking.

"So here I am, a girl who ran away from home, who was recruited at gunpoint by a shithead crime lord, forced to pull together a team of dysfunctional idiots who don't like each other, and we have to fucking fight Lung, one of the most dangerous capes in the city, because our base is in his territory, and who do I find?" She said, standing up from the couch and pointed at me.

"A super scary bug lady that single-handedly took down Lung with only insects and pepper spray, by herself, and one first things my power let me know when I saw you directly was that you were relieved we weren't hurt by Lung," She exclaimed, smirking at me with that vulpine grin of hers, "And every interaction since has only reinforced that. Despite your weird time-travel shit, it's been telling me nothing but how earnest you are."

I blushed into response to her statement, and tried to curl into myself to avoid the embarrassment.

She sat back down, and she turned to me with a serious look on her face.

I already knew what she was going to say, so I reached over with my hand and intertwined my fingers with hers.

"Lisa, I promise you this: I will free you, and the other Undersiders, from Coil, and I don't care if I have to burn down the city to do it." I said, looking directly into her eyes, with a quiet resolve in my voice, "We did it once, and we can do it again."

She blushed in response to what I said, with a shocked look on her face. I hoped that her power would be able to pick up everything that I subconsciously meant, of how much she means to me, how much the Undersiders mean to me.

"Well," she said, still blushing as she smiled at me, "I can understand why future-past Lisa was so loyal to you."

I gave her a small smile back.

"Do you trust me?"

"Of course." She said immediately, with no hesitation.

I let go of her hand, and we started discussing plans.

---

An hour or two later, we finished our various plans and contingencies. We had moved over to the lounge room, with pieces of paper, notepads and several mugs strewn all over the coffee table. I showed Lisa my current silk production setup, showing her how I used my power to force the spiders to vastly increase their silk production, as I was able to feed them with other insects to fuel them. After that, she went back to the lounge room to clean the mess up, as I went upstairs to my room to grab my thick book that detailed everything that the Trio did to me, and put it in my backpack and carried it downstairs.

"So, do you want to help me blackmail Winslow's principle into transferring me to Arcadia, before we meet up with the others?" I began saying, as I sat down next to the blonde

She stared at me, glanced at the backpack, and looked back to me, her mouth forming that all-so familiar vulpine grin that I loved.

"Why, Taylor, I never thought you'd ask."

We packed up after that, hiding all of our plans and notebooks in my room, and I locked up the house and separated my black widows, spacing them out, as Winslow wasn't within range of my house and I didn't want all of them to eat each other.

Lisa and I walked over to the bus stop that was nearby, sat down on the bench and waited.

"So what's your plan with Arcadia?" Lisa asked, while looking at her phone, "If you really wanted to, you could take the G.E.D like I did, or study online like Brian does."

I hummed non committedly, thinking of what to say.

"I want to maintain some semblance of a civilian life, both because my dad would be concerned if I dropped out entirely, despite the time-travel stuff I've told him." I said, while I checked my watch.

10:30 am. Only five-ish minutes until the bus was supposed to arrive.

"And it might give me the opportunity to gain intel on the Wards and the Dallon sisters that attend there. Maybe it'll let me convince them to help us further down the line if I befriend them."

She looked at me, one eyebrow raised. I sighed in response.

"It's also because I want to experience high school that isn't tainted by the Trio."

"Who knew that the super scary bug girl was such a nerd." She teased, already falling into familiar banter. I looked away and adjusted my glasses.

Familiar to me, at least.

With some more back and forth, the bus showed up, ten minutes late. Lisa and I climbed on, and she took the window seat while I sat next to her, taking the aisle seat. The bus was completely empty, as this wasn't a popular route and most people would be at school or work at this time of day.

The bus lurched forward. I checked my watch again.

10:45. By the time we would arrive, it would be during the midday period, which was good timing, all things considered. The Trio would all have different classes, and nowhere near the reception at the front of the school where the principal's office would be.

Lisa stared at me, before quietly whispering.

"It's really creepy when you do that."

"Do what?"

"I can tell when you're focusing on the bugs around you, as you go really, really still. Most people would think you're just in deep thought and not responding to the things that happen around you."

I could only shrug at that. I didn't need to move because I knew everything that was happening in my range. The citizens of Brockton Bay haven't invested heavily in insecticides yet, something I knew I had to use to my full advantage before I got too infamous.

"Well, even though it's a bit creepy, it's reassuring to know that I can trust you to watch out for everything. I was getting sick of having to constantly be vigilant in this shithole that's infested with nazis." The thinker said quietly, glancing at me before turning to look out of the window.

"It's a side effect of how my power works, I think." I replied, "It treats my swarm as an extension of myself, like how an arm or leg is. So it lets me mess with anything that revolves around analysing body language, like a lie detector, since I can shove all my expressions and reactions to my insects."

She nodded in response, and we sat in comfortable silence as the bus made its way to the stop near Winslow. We got off, and started walking. The school was already in my range, so I started searching out everything I needed to know.

"Give me a rundown on your plan, the principle, anyone relevant. I might be able to get something before we start." Lisa said, grabbing out a little notepad and pen from her purse.

"The principal wants to keep getting funding from the PRT. Anyone that's from the PRT and knows about what's happened probably wants to keep their job. There must be some amount of collusion to keep what happened to me quiet, I think. Emma's dad is a lawyer, which means she's able to threaten them with lawsuits if she needs to. Sophia is Shadow Stalker, and is one 'strike' away from being sent to juvie. I'm already in the PRT's database as they investigated me to see if I triggered, but they couldn't find out anything since I was unresponsive for a week straight."

"Which is why you want to keep this hidden so they don't make a link between you and Khepri." She added, still writing down notes.

I nodded in response before continuing.

"Madison's a nobody though, she won't have much to blackmail material."

Lisa stopped walking, and looked at me with a mix of concern and subdued anger.

"I could ruin all of those bitch's lives in an hour. What they did to you was…" She said, her hands clenched into fists, "Was fucking awful, they almost killed you, so why would you just let them go?"

I looked at her for a second, resisting to shove my emotions onto my swarm. I fidgeted, thinking of what I wanted to say in response.

"It's because this was three years ago, and I've mov-"

"Don't lie to me. You haven't." She hissed at me,"You can't just...move on from something like that."

I sighed. I hated, hated this feeling, of having to be vulnerable and open myself up to someone. But I had to do it, again. First with Dad, and now with Lisa.

There wasn't anything that I could, or even wanted, to hide from her. But having to say it outloud, despite her already knowing why, was scary, in a very real, human way that I wasn't used to.

I didn't let myself act like a normal human for a long time, I suppose. I reduced everything I was to a series of defensive mechanisms to protect myself from the Trio that I never really unlearnt, or really even stopped and thought about.

I wrapped my arms around myself and looked at the ground.

"I-I know. There's a small, dark part of myself that wants to hurt them, to torment them in the same way that they did to me. I want to relish in it." I stammered, blinking away tears, "But I just want to move on from them, properly. I want to stop having to think about them, and hurting them is just going to hurt me more, in the end. I know that sort of petty revenge wouldn't make me feel any better."

Lisa's eyes softened from that, and she enveloped me in a tight hug.

"Ok, ok, ok," she said, "I won't do anything to hurt them, then."

I stepped back from the hug and figited.

"I'm trying to be better this time around. A better person, a better friend, a better daughter. I feel like if I took my anger out on them I'd be crossing a line, I think."

She smirked at me, and poked my nose, again.

"So, let's go blackmail this woman and go meet up with the gang, ok? Take it easy for the rest of the day?"

I nodded, taking a second to compose myself, before we started walking towards Winslow again.

I did a quick search of the school, finding Blackwell in her office; Emma was in English, Sophia was outside with the track team and Madison was in her Maths class.

"We're clear. She's in her office."

Lisa had a look of sadistic glee on her face. She was going to tear this woman apart and I couldn't say she didn't deserve it.

I forgot how much Lisa enjoyed tearing people down. Maybe she should reserve that to people who actually deserved it.

I didn't want another repeat of what she did to Amy, and what happened because of that.

We walked through the doors of the reception, and the receptionist at the desk must have recognised me as she was about to say something, but I bit her with a fire ant. She hissed in pain from that, letting us walk past to the door to the principal's office.

Lisa and I looked at each other and nodded, before I gave a couple of loud knocks on the door.

"Come in." Blackwill said, muffled through the door.

I walked in, and Lisa quietly closed the door and locked it. I pushed all of my expressions into my swarm.

This was a situation that needed Skitter's intimidation and ruthlessness.

Blackwell still had that awful bowl-cut she had, and her suit still looked like she was attending a funeral rather than normal office attire.

"Taylor Hebert? Why are you barging into my office?" Blackwell said, with all the presumed authority of a customer talking to a retail worker, "And who is this girl, I know she doesn't attend here."

We both ignored her, as I moved to sit down on the chair in front of Blackwell's desk, and Lisa walked over to the opposite wall, closed the blinds, and casually leaned against the nearby wall, grinning at her like a hungry fox looking at a particularly juicy rabbit.

"If you are going to ignore me, Miss Herbert, I will be forced to call your fa-"

I cut her off by slamming my book of evidence on her desk, knocking over her empty thermos on the floor. I leaned and sat back on the chair, and started her directly into her eyes.

"I know Sophia is a Ward."

She responded to this by spluttering, her attempt at intimidation dying as the look on her face morphed from anger to surprise, with a little bit of fear mixed in.

"I know that you deliberately covered everything that Madison Clements, Emma Barnes and Sophia Hess did to me." I said, leaning forward, arms resting on my thighs, hands joined together with my chin resting on them. "And, unless you want me to reveal everything that they did to me, transfer me to Arcadia. Immediately."

"You are not going to bully me into transfering you, Miss Hebert." Blackwell said, managing to regain some of her composure. "And unless you want a suspension, I suggest you apolo-"

"Well!" Lisa interjected, cutting her off by clapping her hands, "Let's say, just hypothetically, that Taylor here would publicly reveal everything; do you want to know how inconceivably and utterly fucked you would be?"

The principal only glared at her, but didn't say anything.

"So, not only would it be a complete PR shitshow for the PRT, but also would lead to some really nasty charges that, even if you hired the best lawyer in the world for, that you would automatically lose to." Lisa explained, while raising a single index finger in a shushing motion.

"And the PRT would come down on you, because imagine if one of the Wards, one of the good guys, almost killed another student, deliberately, and the school's faculty turned a blind eye to it?" She continued, clicking her tongue.

"Wouldn't be pretty. You'd get a decade in prison at least, life if you hired a fucking awful lawyer."

Lisa then moved from her spot near the wall, and walked past Blackwell's chair before standing next to her. She leaned down, close to her face.

"And don't get me started on your personal life. What if your darling husband and beautiful children would think of you, knowing that you directly covered this up? Would your husband look at you the same way, knowing that his wife was a monster?" The thinker loudly whispered into the woman's ear.

"Would your children grow up to resent you, to become estranged from you, because their mother directly covered up this level of bullying, for fucking government funding?"

Blackwell's eyes darted around the room, before locking eyes at me, attempting to regain some composure, some control over the situation. I grabbed my phone from my pocket, and highlighted Armsmaster's number, without breaking eye contact with her.

"I have Armsmaster's personal phone number. All I need to do is ring him and everything you have, everything you've built, will come crashing down."

"You're bluffing. There's no way an unimportant kid like you would have the personal number of a hero like him." She hissed accusingly at me.

I stood up from my chair, and leaned down across from her desk, my face coming close to hers.

"Try me."

Blackwell's face was flushed and covered in sweat, eyes glancing between Lisa and I, gritting her teeth.

"All right! Fine! I'll fucking call some people up! I'll get you transferred!" She hissed. Lisa and I looked at each other, and smiled.

I picked up a pen and wrote down my number, not caring how important whatever was on it.

"This is my mobile phone number, if you or someone from Arcadia wants to contact me. If you don't transfer me by next week, I'll reveal everything."

"Oh, and don't even think about telling anyone about what happened here, ok?" Lisa added.

Blackwell just nodded, her eyes full of genuine fear, understanding the implications of the threat.

I picked up my notebook and started walking out, as Lisa gave her a mock salute and wink when she followed behind me. As we walked out of the school, Lisa hung her arm over my shoulder, giving me a side hug.

"With that out of the way, let's go pick up some junk food, get to the hideout and relax and hang out for the rest of the day, ok?"

"What about the others? Would we have do the dramatic unmasking to each other?" I replied. I was drained enough that I didn't want to go through more introductions that I didn't need, even though I was still a stranger to the rest of them.

"Nah, don't worry about that. I've texted them about you already, so they'll be in civvies."

With a deep breath, I let my expressions return to me, and leaned into her hug. It wasn't fun, tearing Blackwell down like that, even if she deserved it.

Well, hopefully the rest of the day will go well.

---

Hello again! Just here to say thank you for all of the nice comments I've gotten so far, it's greatly motivating to me that so many people are enjoying it!

 

[Viri]

"So these 'shards' are responsible for our powers, then?" Lisa asked, as we were walking towards the Undersiders' hideout.

After we had our talk with Blackwell, Lisa and I went to a nearby supermarket to buy some snacks for the group. We got some soda, potato chips, candy, and packets of tea for myself.

It was a surprisingly mundane thing to do for me, just hanging out with friends, eating unhealthy food and watching bad Aleph movies. When I became a cape and fully stepped into my role as Skitter, I ended up disregarding a lot of normal things, justifying it was a waste of time. There was always something better I could be doing, always something to prepare for, and when I became Weaver it was planning to stop Jack from ending the world.

For what good that was, when the end of the world was inevitable anyway.

Maybe I should make some time to relax this time. I couldn't treat myself as a machine again, constantly planning, organising, fighting. But that might be a bit difficult, considering how good my multitasking skills were.

"Mhm. It's how breakers can still think despite not having a brain, or tinkers can make things they don't understand, or for masters to multi-task. It's also why the Manton Effect exists because shards don't want their hosts to be hurt from their own powers, so it gives someone like Lung immunity to his own heat, or fliers to be immune to windchill." I explained, as I hoisted one of the bags I was holding over my shoulder. Lisa wasn't carrying anything, as she dramatically complained of a 'sore back' and 'couldn't' carry anything, so she held a bottle of soda as we talked.

"And that's also why capes are so inclined to violence, because the shards want to gather information, and the best way to do that is with conflict?"

"Yep, but with one of the Entities being dead, things are different than they are supposed to be, I think." I said, stopping for a moment to hold out one of the bags to Lisa, "Can you just hold on to one of these? My arms are getting tired and we're close enough to the hideout that it's in my range."

She pouted in response.

I gave her an unimpressed look back.

She then gave me an exaggerated sigh, and took the bag I was holding with both hands.

We walked in comfortable silence as we walked, and I did a checkover. There were a lot of people mulling about, people looking or doing drugs, homeless people, things that were a common sight at the Docks. It was a section of the city that was defined by its urban decay, with semi-abandoned buildings that were rotting or collapsing but were still being used. Anything that was metal was coloured by the brown-red look of rust, grass and weeds were growing over footpaths and buildings, and everything was covered in graffiti. This also made it the best part of the city to do anything remotely illegal, as the Protectorate and the police didn't patrol this part of town.

It was like the Docks itself was the rotting corpse of a by-gone era and its own grave, with its abandoned buildings decaying like flesh and graffiti acting as an insincere epitaph.

However, on the second floor of the red-bricked factory that was originally Redmond Welding, Brian and Alec were waiting for us to arrive, but surprisingly Rachel was also present. The loft was still furnished, with a couple of couches and a TV that had some video game consoles plugged in, tables, bookshelves, everything it had the last time. It would be nice to have something like this later on provided it didn't get destroyed from the upcoming conflicts. Something like a designated hang out area for the team to decompress.

Alec and Brain were sitting on the couch, playing one of Alec's aleph games, but I couldn't tell what they were playing as my bugs couldn't see screens that well. Rachel was sitting down at the back wall, with her three dogs lying down near her. She had a comb in her hand and was currently combing through Angelica's fur. I formed a clone at the stairwell, behind the couches and far away from Rachel to not startle her. I made a 'clearing my throat' sound to get their attention. Brian and Alec both jumped at that, while Rachel glared at my clone and her dogs growled.

"Lisa and I will be here soon. We bought some snacks and drinks, too."

"I forgot you can fucking do that, christ." Alec wheezed, theatrically clutching his heart.

"Honestly, we're very happy you've joined our team Taylor, but maybe keep the creepiness for when we're fighting? I can't tell if your clones are worse during the day or at night." Brian asked.

My clone shrugged its shoulders.

"I can't exactly help being creepy when my power is insect control, unless I only use butterflies or something."

That actually got a small chuckle from him.

"If that's you being normal then, what are you like when you're trying to be scary?" Alec said.

I tilted my clone's head and manically laughed though it, continuing it as I dissolved it. Alec had started laughing after it finished, while Brian held up his hands in a 'what can you do' motion. Rachel's dogs started barking at me, with their master glaring at me even harder while pulling showing her teeth.

Lisa, however, was looking at me with suspicion, her eyes squinted.

"What are you doing? I can tell you're doing something, but not what."

"Hmmm." I replied, non committedly, "Just messing with our teammates."

"I just hope this doesn't end up with you being mauled by Rachel's dogs. Again." She sighed, grimacing as we walked up to the side door of the factory.

I opened it up, and let Lisa inside before entering myself and closing it. The factory was still as ruined as I remembered, with all the machinery and conveyor belts dismantled for parts, the windows covered in a thick layer of dust and grime, and absolutely covered in different kinds of bugs. As Lisa and I walked up the stairs to the loft, I gathered some spiders and willed them to attach themselves to my clothes so I could start producing silk in the background while I was here.

"We're back! And Taylor and I bought some snacks on the way here!" Lisa announced, as I waved to everyone, and walked to the nearby table and put the bags I was carrying on it. Brian grabbed the bag that Lisa was carrying and left it on the table as well, as Alec started looking through the stuff we brought.

"You're totally forgiven for scaring me." He said, grabbing a bag of chips and moving back to the couch, "How did you know my favourite flavour?"

"You can thank me for that." Lisa said, as she sat on the couch and drank out of her soda. Alec looked at her and gave her a thumbs up. I grabbed a packet of beef jerky and dog treats, and walked over to Rachel, who was still sitting down in the corner, still glaring at me. I handed both of them to her, and after glancing at the snacks and to me, she snatched them out of my hand and ripped open the jerky with her mouth, but didn't open the treats. I then walked back to the table and grabbed a bottle of iced tea and sat down on the couches with everyone else.

"So, what were you and Taylor doing earlier?" Brian said, eating some lolly snakes as he looked at Lisa.

"We had a chat about what we're doing, what she wants, the Unwritten Rules, you guys, stuff like that. Then we went to her school and blackmailed her principal into transferring her into Arcadia." She replied, as Brian looked at me with confusion.

"So you know everything about cape identities, trigger events, that sort of thing, that's good, but why did you need to blackmail her principal?" He said.

"I go to Winslow, or technically used to, if you're wondering." I explained, and Brian made an 'aha' sound and nodded in understanding. Winslow was notorious for being the worst school in the city for a reason.

We sat there in silence for a bit, eating the many snacks that we got before Alec started talking again.

"With the ice thoroughly broken," He said, gesturing at me, "Why not talk about yourself? I'm dying to know what's up with you, spooky bug girl. Why would someone like you join our delightful group of scoundrels?"

Before I properly answered him, I stood up, and willed the spiders that were on me and around to converge on the coffee table to start producing and threading silk as an example. Alec quickly snatched his packet of chips off the table. Brian looked a little horrified at the sight of spiders emerging from underneath my clothes and hair, but Lisa just looked amused. With that, I sat back down and started talking.

"Before any of you ask, I've already upped my silk production so I can get started on making your new suits from it."

Alec and Brian were leaning closer to the table, interested in seeing the process directly. I made one of the widows turn around and wave at Brian, before it turned back around to get back to work. After a few minutes of watching them, I willed them to the storage closet and gathered the small amount of silk that was there.

"So, getting back to introductions, the reason why I joined all of you is because of what happened to me at Winslow, which is also the reason why I didn't join the Wards." I said, as everyone in the room looked back to me, including Rachel.

"If you wanted to be a good guy you really should've joined us, y'know. We aren't exactly good people." Alec said. I shrugged in response, silently disagreeing in my head.

We sat in silence as I mulled over what I wanted to say, trying to keep down the feeling of wanting to push my emotions onto my swarm. Eventually I spoke up again.

"I had a childhood friend named Emma. We basically grew up as sisters, as our mums knew each other. She really helped me when my mother passed away a couple of years ago. And, when I was at a summer camp last year, she met another girl, who I dunno," I said, waving my hands, "Corrupted her, or something. As high school started, Emma and her new friend relentlessly bullied me. They spread rumours, broke or stole my stuff, got some boys to chase me."

I curled my hands into fists and dug my fingernails into my palms, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Lisa leaned over and forced her hand into mine, and gave me a reassuring smile.

"And I tried to go to the teachers, the faculty, the principal, and none of them did anything. The bullying got worse, like how they destroyed my mum's flute, and there was nothing I could do about it. My dad wasn't helpful either, since he was still reeling from my mum's death. Eventually it led to my trigger event, back in January.

"It was just the start of school, in the morning, and I'd found that my locker was filled with used pads and tampons, and someone shoved me inside it. After some amount of time, I was let out by the school's janitor and I spent a week in a psychiatric hospital, completely unresponsive from the sensory overload I was getting from my insects."

I looked at my teammates' reactions. Lisa grimaced, even though she already heard of the story, Alec looked genuinely disgusted, and Brian looked like he either wanted to punch something or wrap me in a tight hug. Rachel was still sitting on the floor away from us, but it was hard to tell if she was disinterested with what I was saying, as she chewed on her jerky.

"Please, please tell me that they were punished for it." Brain hissed out.

I let out a wheezed laugh.

"Absolutely nothing came out of it. No suspensions, no punishment, absolutely nothing. When the cops tried to investigate, the normal kids kept their mouths shut and they didn't bother asking any of the obvious gang members."

"Fucking hell." Alec added.

"Well, it gets worse. Do any of you know about Shadow Stalker?" I asked.

Brian went completely ridged against me, as Alec seemed to connect the dots and groaned, and Lisa started talking.

"Yeah, the psycho who shot Brian with lethal ammo for having the audacity for his darkness to mess with her's."

"She was behind your trigger, then?" Brian whispered, looking equally tired, horrified, and angry.

I nodded. He swore under his breath as he did some deep breaths to calm himself down.

"After my trigger event I saw her grabbing stuff from my locker using her power, and everything clicked. Why the teachers didn't do anything, why they were able to bully me so much with no repercussions. Because she's a fucking Ward.

"Which is why I joined up with you guys, because this is a shithole of a city thats filled with neo nazis and drug runners, and the PRT is so fucking bad at its job that a Ward can bully me to the point of causing me to have a trigger event. So, might as well take matters into my own hands and do what they're incapable of doing themselves."

"So that's your plan, then. You can't do it yourself, and you can't obviously join any of the other gangs, so you joined ours." He said, locking eyes with Lisa, "Will this cause any problems with our...benefactor?"

Lisa shook her head in response.

"Already chatted with the boss, and explained it to Taylor. He's got some plans for the city that I can't quite say yet, but he's accepted her joining our team."

Fucking Coil.

"It's why Lisa and I blackmailed Blackwell, Winslow's principal, because I don't want to make my dad worry, and it'll be a good cover for my identity." I said, sipping some of my iced tea.

"Because no one will expect a villain to attend the school where most of the Wards go to," Alec replied, grinning at me, "Smart. Might let you eavesdrop on them too, with your bugs."

I wrinkled my nose at what he said.

"That was a fucking awful pun, Alec."

He responded to what I said by outright cackling, while Brian and Lisa groaned at him. I waited until he stopped laughing to continue talking.

"As I was saying," I said, glaring at Alec who stuck his tongue out at me, "The reason why I didn't want to do anything about Shadow Stalker is because I'm already in the PRT's database, because they investigated what happened to me in January to see if I did trigger or not."

"But you did trigger?" Brain asked, confused.

"I was too catatonic to respond, so they dropped the investigation." I replied, "So, if they find out Shadow Stalker's civilian identity was responsible for my bullying, they could eventually link my civilian identity to my cape identity, and realise that I actually did trigger from it."

"So transferring to Arcadia is a better cover than dropping out, and staying at Winslow is the worst possible choice." Lisa added.

"You're gunna to fuck her up for it?" Rachel interrupted, talking for the first time since I got here, staring at me from across the room. From anyone else her statement could be considered a question, a threat, a challenge, from how blankly she said it.

But I knew her well enough to know what she was asking: If I wasn't going to cower away from someone who had hurt me without hurting them back for it. Rachel was the type of person to solve her problems in the most simple way she could, and most of the time that solution was violence.

"If I encounter her as a cape while she's Shadow Stalker, I'll definitely fuck her up in some way. She hates losing, but she also hates being embarrassed even more, and she'll definitely get embarrassed if she loses to someone she considered weaker than her." I responded, not losing eye contact with Rachel, "And she'll definitely hate losing to me, because she'll consider my power as weak.

"She's a psycho for sure, but she's also predictable, now that I can actually fight back against her. If we're both in our civilian identities though, I won't do anything unless she starts something."

Rachel seemed to have approved of this, by how she stopped looking at me and turned her attention back to her dogs. The others though, had some mixed reactions. Lisa was smirking at me, already understanding how I was interacting with Rachel. Alec was back to his usual aloof disinterest, eating the rest of his bag of chips. Brian looked at me with concern, though, his brows furled upwards.

"That……a bit concerning, Taylor. I know you and her have history, but she's dangerous, more than any other Ward. I know you're probably excited about taking down Lung, but don't let it get to your head. It would be a shame if our newest member got shipped to the Birdcage, ok?" He said, sheepishly.

I had to bite my tongue to not snort at that. It was cute seeing him be concerned for me.

"I promise I'm not going to do anything stupid during combat, Brian."

He relaxed at that, and got up to grab some soda.

"So what's up with your range being so big?" Alec said, his mouth full of chips, "Since you triggered back in January, and it's only been a couple of months since then? Seems really strong for someone as new as you."

I shrugged in response. I didn't want to say anything about who I really was to them yet, as I needed to gain their trust first. I needed to keep my secrets close to me, as if someone from the PRT or even Cauldron got wind of my knowledge of the future, it wouldn't end well for me.

"How did you bring down Lung anyway?" Brian added, continuing the conversation after my discomfort at Alec's question. "Wouldn't he be able to kill your insects with his fire, or heal off the venom with his healing?"

"Regeneration for Brutes like him works really well for physical injuries, but they're usually only resistant, but not immune to venom or poison. So I overloaded him with so much venom that his healing had to focus on keeping him alive, which meant that any physical injury he got didn't heal back if it wasn't life threatening. Which meant that a strong enough blow to his head would do enough damage to him to knock him out, which let Armsmaster tranq him.

"But I only realised that afterwards. When I was there it was just a combo of luck and good timing that allowed me to beat him." I explained, lying about the last part.

"And you're forgetting the best thing that she did to him," Lisa added, starting to giggle at me, "I found out through hacking the PRT database that Taylor nearly rotted his fucking dick off!"

"I didn't mean too! It was an accident, that's all!" I yelled, as Alec and Brian started to laugh along with Lisa, my face blushing with embarrassment. It was easier to pretend I did it by accident than to admit that I did it deliberately.

"H-How the fuck did you manage to do that? To fucking Lung?" Alec wheezed out.

"With some Brown Recluses." I mumbled.

"A-And get this, she gave him enough venom to almost kill him! They had to get Panacea in to heal him before he actually died!" Lisa said, letting out another bark of laughter.

"Oh my god, you are such a dork." Alec laughed out, exaggeratingly wiping his eye with his finger, "The scary bug girl who almost killed Lung is actually a huge dork who likes going to school."

"I don't like school, I like reading and learning," I defended, knowing full well I was opening myself up to more teasing, "I haven't had a chance to do much since my Dad and I are poor, and what happened at Winslow."

After a few minutes to get my joke of a team to settle down they all agreed (Alec especially) to put on a couple of their favourite earth aleph movies that Lisa somehow got her hands on. Rachel eventually left, wanting to get back to the rest of her dogs, and we got settled in, watching some awful aleph cape movie. Halfway through the first one, I left the loft and went outside to call my dad up about staying over with my friends, and after I hung up, Brian accidently spilled some of his drink on the coffee table.

I knew that he was going to go to the storage closet for cleaning spray and kitchen paper. I didn't intervene.

Through my bugs, I saw him open the door and switch on the light, grimacing, and turned around the corner to say something.

"Taylor, why is our storage closet full of spiders?"

"Because Lisa said I was getting the storage closet since there's no other rooms left." I responded, walking past him and grabbing a bottle of cleaning spray and paper for him, "And I can easily clean it up, so might as well use it for more silk production."

"As much as I like the idea of your silk, you should probably relax. You don't need to be doing something all of the time."

I shrugged, and handed him the cleaning supplies.

"I can't really turn my power off, so I might as well do something constructive in the background."

As I sat back down on the couch, and Brian started cleaning the mess, we got back to watching, which was some stupid childrens movie about a group of animated bugs. Alec definitely picked this one just to joke about me, I bet.

"Why are the grasshoppers the bad guys again?" I asked, with some annoyance in my voice. Nothing in the movie made sense, even if it was dramatised for children.

"Because the evil grasshoppers are taking the source of food from the ants, who are the ones that actually get it, and are threatening violence if they don't give it to them." Lisa replied in a bored voice, as she was scrolling through her phone rather than watch. I felt some sympathy for her, since her power would take out the fun of watching or reading anything.

"But grasshoppers don't work like that, they're a passive prey insect for other insects and animals! It doesn't make any sense, even if it's a kids movie!" I complained, pointing at the tv.

"You don't need to get so upset about it, it's just a kids movie y'know?" Brian added, giving me a teasing smile that made me blush a little.

"Oh, wonderful. We have another Rachel, so now we have to avoid insulting insects on top of dogs." Alec dramatically groaned out, "Oh, woe is me, I can't even taunt a hero by comparing them to insects now."

I curled deeper into the couch, and glared at him.

"If you continue like that, I'll get the biggest spider I can find and make it stay on your face as you sleep."

"Try me." He replied, giving me a smug grin.

So, I searched around for any suitable spiders. Unfortunately, tarantulas aren't native this far east, and so my only option was a particularly large Huntsman that thankfully was in the building next to us. I gave Alec one last look, and went back to watching the movie. He must have taken this as me backing down, since he gave me a triumphant smirk, and went back to snacking on his food.

Which was exactly what I wanted, as it made him let down his guard. As the spider made its way through the nearby window of the loft, I subtly nudged Brian, making him look at me. I gestured to the spider that was on top of the couch, right near Alec was sitting, and made it wave to him with its pedipalps. He looked back at me and grinned. Lisa was constantly looking from her phone to Alec, waiting for me without tipping off Alec.

As I made it move from the couch to the back of Alec's head, it took him a moment to realise what was happening and he instantly stiffened. Although he was trying to look nonchalant, still sipping his drink like nothing was happening, I could tell he was uncomfortable with it.

"I did tell you that you had to get comfortable with it if we're going to be teammates, didn't I?" I said sweetly to him, as the spider slowly made its way to his face. I didn't tend to use Huntsmans for anything specific, as they were a roaming spider, so they produced very little silk. But they were fast, a lot faster than most people would realise, so I mostly used them to transport more valuable bugs that were slower.

But, in this instance, I deliberately made it go as slowly as possible.

Lisa and Brian started to laugh as Alec valiantly tried to continue acting like nothing was happening, still trying to drink and eat. In response I moved to cover his mouth.

He looked at me then, with genuine surrender in his eyes. I held my ground as Lisa started cackling and Brian belly laughed. After a few moments of that, Lisa playfully slapped my arm. I rolled my eyes, and willed the Huntsman to move off Alec's head. He breathed in deeply and sighed, rubbing his face.

I pointed at it as I moved it to the window, and tried to make it do some sort of victory dance as my teammates watched. Lisa and Brian had another fit of laughter as Alec grimaced.

I joined in the laughter at that point, as Alec dramatically glared at the three of us. Before too long, he joined in by snickering.

Yeah. I really did miss them.

---

And that's the end of first arc. As always, thank you so much for reading!

 

[Viri]

"So what's your plan for today, Taylor?" My dad asked, eating his typical breakfast of fried eggs and bacon on toast. He was wearing his usual work outfit of formal jeans and a red button up shirt, with his bulky hi-vis jacket hanging on the back of his chair. Dad's position used to be that of an actual dockworker, before I was born. But he was so well liked by his other union members that he was elected to a managerial role, a move he once said was because he wanted the extra pay to help start a family.

For what good that was, when Leviathan first appeared a year after I was born, and the global shipping industry suffered as a result.

"Not much, I think. I'm going to go out to the mall and buy some things, then hang out with my friends afterwards. Arcadia might call about the transfer, and Coil might about the bank heist in a couple of days." I replied, waiting for my own eggs and bacon to cook.

He grunted in confirmation, his mouth full of food. He swallowed, glanced at his watch and stood up, putting on his jacket. He quickly walked over to where I was standing and gave me a quick hug.

"Well, I gotta go to work soon. Hope you have a good day, Taylor." He said, already moving towards the door. He stopped, hesitating for a second, before speaking again.

"Just be careful for me, ok?" He whispered, "I know you're a big girl now, and you're fully capable of looking after yourself, but just don't get too overconfident. I don't want to lose you because you underestimated someone, ok?"

I turned around and reciprocated his hug, catching him a little off guard.

"I promise, Dad."

After a moment, he stepped back, gave me a small smile and nod before he went off to work, and I went back to my own breakfast.

What he said struck something in me. For most of my time as Skitter, I was the one constantly being underestimated, and it's because of that that I managed to win against so many capes that should've beaten me. But this time around was different, , considering that I'd already done something that would make people take me more seriously this time.

He really did have a point, then. Cape fights were always messy in the way that only a single second could mean being alive or dead.

I quickly finished my breakfast, cleaned up the dishes, and got changed into some fresh clothes. I grabbed my wallet, the spare house keys, a new can of pepper spray and headed out, locking the house behind me.

---

I was currently leisurely walking towards Rachel's dog pound, fiddling with a new phone bought from the singular mall that Brockton Bay had. I had bought alongside it another disposable prepaid, some new clothes, a messenger bag, and assorted school supplies to replace the one that was ruined by Emma's cranberry juice.

Which was several years ago for me. Still something I hadn't gotten used to yet.

My plan, which was similar to how I acted at Winslow, was to fade in the background, to be forgettable. If I wanted to spy, or potentially befriend any of the Wards or the Dallon sisters, then I needed to look and act like a normal teenager. Having a cheap prepaid, a top of the line phone, or no phone at all, would look weird, or worse, look suspicious.

My new phone was a middle of the range smartphone that was right in the middle of modern hardware, something that wouldn't look out of place for someone of my socio-economic background.

I was still setting it up with important apps and looking through the customisation options as Rachel's territory, an abandoned construction site with a small, decaying crane that sat on top of it, entered my range. With a quick search, I found her sitting down, wearing a torn up pair of jeans, a singlet, and a light hoodie. She was in one of the rooms, fussing over some of the new dogs she must have rescued from hitting one of Hookwolf's dog arenas. A nearby fly landed on her hand to get her attention.

She took one look at it, waved it off, and went back to fussing. I gathered a small swarm and directed it to stay on the wall she was facing, hoping to not startle her. She noticed my swarm and glared at it, but didn't react otherwise.

"I can hear through my bugs, if you want to say something."

"Fuck off." She replied, "Don't want to deal with your mind games shit."

"Mind games?" I already knew why she acted the way she did, but it was important for her to explain it. Rachel hated anyone that flaunted their intelligence, thinking that they were smarter than her. She hated feeling like she was stupid.

But Rachel wasn't someone you could describe as stupid. She had a rough childhood, being at the mercy of America's foster care system, and her shard must've changed her thought process to help her understand dogs better at the cost of worsening her understanding of other people. From a stranger's perspective, she was violent, unpredictable and aggressive. A murderer that was fully capable and willing to kill again. One of the many things I regret was how I believed all of those rumours when I first joined the Undersiders, thinking she was dangerous enough to be locked up.

But she wasn't any of those things, not really. When I finally regained her trust after Armsmaster revealed my intentions, I finally saw what so many others didn't. Rachel is extremely loyal and caring to those that she trusts, even if she has an odd way about it.

After I had killed Coil, when we were sitting in one of the vans, she'd sat down next to me and held my hand for the entire trip, knowing what it was like to kill another person. Her hand was larger than mine, covered in scars and calluses, but she held mine so gently that the memory is lucid to me, even now.

She's an anchor. A word that felt important to me, somehow.

"Theres no fuckin' reason for you to be here," she stated, scowling at my nearby swarm, "so fuck off."

"I want to be friends with you Rachel, and I want to help you out. That's all."

She tilted her head at that, but didn't say anything and went back to focusing on her dogs. Rather than talking again, I looked over her dogs, seeing if any of them had any parasites. There was a large, short-haired one with black fur on its back, sides and head, while its stomach, neck, legs and paws were a cream-white colour.

I could recognise that it had a large infestation of heartworms. The large mass of what looked like a pile of writhing flesh was familiar enough to recognise. The dog herself was lying down in the far corner, not participating in any of the regular chaos that happens when you have this many dogs in an enclosed area.

"Rachel, that large, black haired one that's lying down in the corner has a heartworm infection. I can't tell what breed she is."

She quickly snapped her head back at the swarm that was still on the nearby wall.

"You can tell?"

"Certain parasites count as 'insects' for me, somehow. There are a couple of ones that are infected, but that black haired one has the worst."

She stared at my swarm, something halfway between glaring and squinting. Rachel then grunted and stood up and walked over to where the dog was and squatted down, gently stroking her head as the dog whimpered. This continued for a couple of minutes, until she stood back up, walked over to the opposite wall, and started moving chains around in preparation of using her power on the infected dog.

"Wait, before you do that, I was at the mall earlier and I bought a bunch of medication for dogs. Fleas, heartworm, ticks, that sort of thing. I'll be there in five minutes, two if I run." I said, still talking through my swarm.

"I told you to fuck off. I don't want your help." She said, still preparing the area around her.

I started running, anyway.

"No. I am going to help you, regardless if you want it or not." I replied.

"If you fucking come here, I'll make you fucking regret it." She growled back, rearing her lips back like she was a snarling dog.

I stopped running and paused. Would she actually hurt me?

I was assuming this was part of Rachel's problem of interacting and understanding other people as a struggle for dominance, so if I kept up with her threats, never flinching or losing ground, she would back down.

But I had to remind myself that this was not the older Rachel I knew. This was a Rachel before she's had her chance to trust other people, to let down her guard for the first time in her life and not get punished in some way for it. From her perspective, I was a complete unknown; some new cape that managed to join her team, which meant less money for her and her dogs. Perhaps she already felt threatened by me, from how she saw me when I fought Lung two nights ago.

And with that realisation, I backed down.

"Alright, I won't go anywhere near your territory or your dogs, then. But at least let me drop off the medication I bought for you." I quietly said, hoping that my swarm would be able to convey the softer tone.

Rachel continued glaring at my swarm, but eventually turned her head away, glancing between the various dogs that were in the room with her. She closed her mouth, lips changing from a snarl into a frown as she mulled it over in her head.

I left her to her thoughts and continued running, and after a few minutes I had reached the half-built construction site. It was still as I remembered it; technically two stories tall, but more accurately one and a half, considering the state of the second floor. The decaying skeleton of the construction crane was still looming over the site itself, with the faded letters of J.F.C imprinted on the cabin. A now defunct construction company, probably.

The building was covered in creeping vines, grass, and weeds, all evidence of how long it was since it was abandoned by its owners, its investors, its workers. It made the building itself look peaceful, in a way. It looked like it continued standing out of pride, despite whatever events that led it to its current state.

As I reached the entrance to the site itself, I paused for a second to catch my breath, and walked over to the door as I started to talk to Rachel again. She seemed to forgo her plan to power up that infected dog, judging from how Rachel was sitting down next to her, gently stroking her head again.

"I'm just outside, in front of the door. Should I stay here or-"

"Just fucking come inside and give me the fucking medication." She grunted, not moving or looking at my swarm. I dispersed it, making sure all of the insects retreated to areas away from the dogs.

I opened the hatch and pushed the heavy, rusting door, silently cursing my lack of upper body strength which just made me more aware of how different my body still felt. If only younger me was smart enough to lift some weights as well as running.

Maybe I should organise some sort of routine with Brian.

After closing the door and the hatch, I walked over the second door and opened it enough to let me slip into the room, making sure not to let any of the dogs out. As I closed the door behind me, I was instantly flooded by the fifteen or so dogs that were there, all of them sniffing and licking my clothes and I had to keep myself steady to not get bowled over. It was a good thing I was wearing some old clothes that were usually for whenever Dad wanted me to help him with gardening or fixing his car.

I saw Rachel was still in the same position, sitting down in the corner, comforting the black-fured dog next to her. She stood up, with an irritated look on her face as she glared at me. She then walked over to me, and stopped a couple of feet away, and held out her hand.
I opened up my messenger bag and grabbed the various medications that I bought and handed it to her. Rachel then stared at the various packages, her brow furring, looking more and more pissed off by the second.

"All of them require the same things: one tablet per dog per month. One is for heartworm, one for fleas, and one for ticks. Bigger dogs require two," I said, as gently as I could. I didn't want her to get the impression that I was looking down on her for her illiteracy. "The green box with the dalmatian is for heartworm, the red box with the golden retriever is the one for fleas, and the yellow box with the bulldog is for ticks."

Rachel glanced at me, then glanced back at the green box, grumbled something under her breath, and shoved the other boxes into the pocket of her jacket. She walked over to the sick dog and squatted next to her and ripped open the box, feeding two tablets to her.

"What's her name?" I asked her, who was still looking intently at the dog in question.

"Maise. Some sort of bulldog kelpie mutt. Fuckin' shitty shelter, can't do their fuckin' jobs right." Rachel muttered, as she gently stroked Masie on her head.

I didn't want to ruin the moment, so I remained quiet. After a while, the anger in her eyes dissipated into something far softer, gentler. She then said something to me, still facing Maise, which for the first time since meeting the younger version of Rachel didn't have any irritation or aggressiveness in her voice.

"Why are you helping me?"

Instead of answering immediately, I walked over to where she was still crouched down, and held out my hand to her.

"It's the same answer as I said before, Rachel. I just want to be friends with you. That's all." I said, looking directly into her eyes. Rachel looked at my hand, and looked back at me.

She grabbed my hand, and I helped her up into a standing position. She gave me a single nod, and walked out of the room we were in into the main area. I followed directly behind her, and we both got to work.

---

I wiped the sweat off my forehead, leaned on the back wall, and took a few gulps of refreshing water from my bottle. It had been about two hours of Rachel and I doing the necessary work for her dogs; cleaning the various rooms that she kept them in, giving the dirtier ones a bath, as well as curing the heavily infected ones with Rachel's power.

I sat down with my back leaning against the wall when Maise, cured of any heartworms, trotted over to where I was sitting, and attempted to sit down on my lap despite her being far too large for it.

I didn't really have the heart to stop her.

When she finally managed to make herself comfortable, Rachel walked over and stood next to me, her hoodie wrapped around her waist, and leaned against the wall. I offered my water bottle to her, and she quickly snatched it from me, and drunk almost a third of it with several heavy gulps. She then sat down next to me, handing my water bottle back to me, and she had a conflicted look on her face.

"Thanks." She quietly muttered, staring intensely at the various canines in front of us, who seemed to get over the excitement of seeing a new person, and were all play-fighting, playing with dog toys or napping. Brutus, calmly and obediently, walked over to Rachel and sat next to her.

Before I could reply, my disposable work phone started ringing. I opened my bag up and flipped it open.

"A, pear."

"T, leaves. Where are you right now?" Lisa said.

"I'm currently at Rachel's, she's sitting next to me. Also, that was a terrible joke."

"Joke? What jo-" Lisa replied, pausing for a second. "Oh, right, tea leaves. Didn't even mean to make that. Anyway, good thing Rachel is with you: boss called. Come to the loft as soon as you can."

"We'll be there within half an hour." I replied, hanging up as I turned to Rachel, who was staring at me.

"That was Lisa, our boss wants us to do a job for him. We need to get to the loft."

She grunted in response, and started barking orders at Brutus, Judas and Angellica, who started herding the other dogs into the smaller rooms. Maise got up from my lap, stretched a bit, and gave my face one last lick before trotting over to where the other dogs were. I stood up, wiped the dog hair that got on to my jeans, and headed over to the metal door and waited for Rachel to finish. After a few minutes, she reappeared with Brutus, who had a leash attached to his collar. I held out my fist for him to sniff at, as Rachel opened the door and let us out.

I looked over everything that was in my range, making sure that we didn't run into any skinheads or ABB members on our way there. Thankfully, there wasn't much to report on, just the normal things you would see at the Docks. There was a gang member here and there, but they weren't close enough for us to run into them, but I kept an eye out just in case.

"You got a dog at home or something?" Rachel asked, as we walked along a long abandoned footpath that was half covered in grass and weeds.

"I had a friend, once. She absolutely loved dogs, wanted to be a vet when she was older. I learned a lot about them from her. How to interact with them, how to take proper care of them, that sort of stuff." I replied, coming up with a half truth on the spot.

Rachel only nodded in response, but didn't say anything. I hated, hated, having to lie to my teammates about anything, and especially to Rachel.

I just hoped she would forgive me when the time came for me to reveal the truth.

We walked on in comfortable silence, only broken by me occasionally mentioning something happening in my range and Rachel grunting in response. Eventually our hideout was in range of me, and I saw that the rest of the gang were already present. Lisa was currently sitting at the head of the dining table, looking at something on her laptop with a cup of coffee next to her, wearing a typical jeans and hoodie combo with her hair tied into a loose bun. Brian and Alec were playing something I couldn't recognise. The closet was cleaned out, with a very basic single bed and a set of drawers occupying it, and a large clump of silk was sitting on it. I started gathering the nearby black widows to move into my new room to continue making more of it, while I gathered a small swarm on the wall next to the tv.

"Rachel and I will be here soonish. What did the boss want us to do?"

"Wait, are you with Rachel right now?" Brian nervously asked, pausing the game he was playing with Alec.

"I went to the mall this morning to buy some stuff, and I bought some dog medication for her, and spent, like, two hours helping her out." I replied. Brian looked a little worried when I said that, and looked over to Lisa, who only shrugged her shoulders in response.

"Well, just be careful around her, she's a little-"

"Unstable? Angry if you even make eye contact or smile at her? Avoids us like the plague?" Alec muttered, cutting Brian off, who grimaced. "I'm surprised you aren't fucking mangled, to be honest."

"Alec!" Brian hissed, as Alec raised his hands up in a surrendering motion.

"Taylor just strolled over to her territory, and somehow Rachel just let her help? If it was any of us we would've walked out missing a limb!"

"Guys, please stop yelling." Lisa groaned, rubbing her temples.

Brian looked like he wanted to say something, but hesitated, and went back to looking at the tv as he rubbed his face. Alec just shrugged and picked up his controller to continue playing.

"What's happening?" Rachel asked, as we reached the abandoned factory that served as our base.

"The rest of the team are already there. Brian was concerned you would've hurt me or something."

She didn't say anything, but I could tell from how she curled her hands into fists that she was genuinely hurt by that. Maybe she was scared that I would believe him.

"Rachel."

She stopped walking and stared at me.

"Don't pay attention to what he says about you. I know you aren't like that."

She turned her head away from me, mumbling something as I opened the rusty door for her and Brutus, and closed it behind me. Alec and Brian must've heard us, as they turned off the game console and sat down on the table, sitting next to each other. Lisa opened up a folder she had, and placed them in the centre of the table.

As we reached the loft, Rachel commanded Brutus to sit next to the stairs, as I sat down next to Lisa, and Rachel roughly moved her chair a few feet from the table, and sat down, her arms crossed. The others all exchanged looks with each other, but didn't say anything. Lisa put on her usual grin, and stood up.

"So, as I said before, the boss called us up for a job and that job is…" She said, drumming her fingers on the table, "We're going to rob a bank, boys and girls!"

Alec grinned at that, and leaned forwards, looking more interested now. Brian furrowed his brow, and reached over to look at the various pieces of paper. Rachel just looked bored, as she grabbed out that packet of jerky I got her yesterday from her jacket pocket and started chewing on it.

"Give us more info, Lisa. Time, date, location. This might be really dangerous." Brian said, still looking at a printed out map. She raised her hand out to Brian, who handed it back to her.

"So here are the dets: the boss wants us to hit the Brockton Bay Central Bank, at 12 o'clock sharp on Thursday. He said he got insider info that the Protectorate members will be out of town at that time and he's willing to go the extra mile for us by getting us transport, equipment, that sort of thing." She explained, pointing at a map of the bank itself and the surrounding area.

"I don't like this. Banks don't keep a lot of cash on hand, and this is also the biggest bank in the city. We won't be able to get what's worth the risk."

"Well, lucky for us there's another thing the boss is giving us," She replied, pointing at Brian and winking, "He's willing to pay us to make up for the cash, up to thirty kay. So if we haul twenty-five, he'll give us an extra five. If we haul nothing, he pays the full thirty thou."

"That's insane," Brian replied, his eyes widening, "Why would he want to go that far for this?"

"It's a distraction." I murmured, as my teammates all looked at me. "He said the Protectorate members would be out of the city, and the bank just so happens to be close to Arcadia, where the Wards attend. And the Undersiders have a history of thieving and robberies, so it's not out of place for us to hit it."

"So whatever he wants to do, he needs the Wards to be distracted by us." Alec said, looking deep in thought for a moment, before clapping once and pointing at Lisa.

"Fuck it, I'm in. Let's do it."

"It's still risky. All for six thousand each, and we'll have to fight the Wards?" Brain asked.

"We can fuckin' take them. We're not fucking pussies." Rachel added. Lisa rolled her eyes at her and spoke again.

"Oh, it'll be way more than that, because that's just the bare minimum. If we somehow managed to get away with literally nothing. Besides, we have Taylor with us now, so we can definitely come up with some plans considering the utility she brings."

He still looked rather conflicted at that, glancing at Lisa and I, but he sighed before talking.

"Alright, fine. I'm in. What about you Rachel, Taylor?"

She glanced at me, before looking back at Brian and gave him a resolute nod. I breathed in deeply and looked at Brian.

"Yeah. I'm in. Let's get to planning."

---

"We're not taking hostages."

Brian shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Well, no one here wants to take hostages Taylor, but we're going to need to discourage the Wards from just storming the building." He responded.

"Well, we might not have to. With Taylor and her insects, we'll know everything inside the building. If we play it right, the PRT will only get contacted after the civves leave the building, giving enough time to get out before the Wards show up, or catching them off guard."

Lisa argued, looking over the bank's layout and pointing.

"Alright, alright, fine. We won't take hostages," he said, stretching in his seat, "But we can keep the option open, in case we really need to. Anyway, we need to move on to how we can take down the Wards. Lisa?"

Lisa grinned, and rotated her laptop around so we could see it. There was a document that she must've made, with photos of each Ward and a brief description next to them.

"So, first up we have the captain and leader: Aegis. Brute/Mover, able to fly, typical Alexandria package. His toughness works in an odd way; cutting his throat would be the same as cutting his arm. Destroy his heart and his other organs start pumping his blood instead."

"Same idea for most brutes, I think. Distract him with Rachel's dogs, and I can block his vision with my darkness as a backup." Brian replied.

I looked at the picture of the hero on Lisa's laptop. A red and grey helmet, reminiscent of a motorbike helmet without a visor, with his eyes completely exposed. Something about that stuck out to me.

"Actually, I don't think your darkness would do anything." I murmured.

Brian looked up from the various maps and notes strewn across the table and gestured for me to explain.

"His eyes are completely unblocked, something that's really weird for most cape helmets or masks. So his power must only kick in if his eyes are physically blocked, so we probably can't blind him with your darkness or my insects."

"That's a good point, actually. Our only choice to deal with him is with Rachel's dogs, then." He replied.

"Can I go all out then?" She replied, with a grin that had too many teeth to it.

"Just make sure you don't kill him, other than that, go wild. Lisa, the next one?"

"Browbeat. He's easy to explain, Brute/Striker. Has some sort of minor shield, and is also able to change himself due to his self biokinesis. Same thing with Aegis I reckon, occupy and distract. If it's needed we can sic another of Rachel's dogs on him."

We all nodded. I didn't personally know Aegis or Browbeat, not in the same way as the other Brockton Wards like Clockblocker or Vista, who I had fought alongside with against the Slaughterhouse Nine clones.

"Ok, the next up are the other heavy hitters, and the most dangerous in my opinion: Clockblocker and Vista. Clock is a pure striker, and if he touches you you get frozen in time, being unable to move or be interacted with. He can activate it almost instantly, and can activate it with any part of his body. Avoid being in physical range of him. Thoughts?"

"I can make him trip over or something, and hit him with my taser." Alec added. Lisa and Brian nodded in response. Despite how powerful his ability was, he wouldn't be able to stop my swarm, as his ability only worked with what he could touch.

"If I swarmed him, he would have to use his power on it, which would potentially stop him from doing anything as long as I'm in range." I added, remembering the trick I used on him from the first time around. They all nodded, and Brian gestured for Lisa to continue.

"Vista. Shaker. Able to fuck around with space, making areas stretch or compress, although it doesn't work on living beings. Able to make a building taller, a corridor shorter, stuff like that. Downside though is that it takes time for her to set it up, with the more space she's messing with the longer it takes." Lisa said, drinking the rest of her cold cup of coffee.

"She's scary in the same way Clockblocker is, but there's something that applies to all of the Wards I think," I said, eyes closed as I thought about the potential battle in my head, "And that's psychological impact. They're capes sure, but they're young. Having to fight an unknown cape, one that already has a reputation, that can control insects like I do?"

"All you have to do is cover them in bugs and laugh like a stereotypical movie villain and most of them would wet their pants." Alec added, grinning at me. I gave him a blank stare in return, to which he sniggered at.

"Our team specialises in one thing: hit and run tactics. Rachel's dogs can serve as distractions for heavy hitters, as well as our get away vehicles. Alec is able to force them to make a mistake, Brian obfuscates information and serves as area denial; enemy combatants wouldn't want to walk or fight through it as well as providing us cover. Lisa is able to get us much needed information, letting us change tactics in the moment far quicker because of it," I continued.

"While I can basically see everything that happens within six blocks, meaning that we can't get surprised by anything, as well as have a way to communicate that's not reliant on speaking, or technology. So that's how we'll have to fight: by distraction, forcing them to act on less information while we get more, and then run-" Before I could finish what I was saying, my phone started ringing.

"Lisa, can you continue while I take this call?" She nodded, and started talking about Gallant and Kid Win as I walked down the stairs and opened it.

"Hello?"

"Hello, this is Samantha Graham speaking, calling from Arcadia High School. Is this Taylor Hebert?" A feminine voice said, with a thick Boston accent.

Huh. That was quick. I was expecting later in the week, or potentially next week. Maybe I scared Blackwell a lot more than I realised.

"Uh, yeah, this is Taylor speaking."

"Wonderful! Now, we got a notice of a potential transfer from Principal Blackwell of Winslow High on Monday, due to bullying issues?"

"That's correct." I replied, trying to add some fake nervousness into my voice.

"Well, I do need to let you know that here at Arcadia we have a zero tolerance policy towards any bullying or harassment of any kind. While normally we don't take transfers at this time of the year, we would be able to make an exception for you, considering your circumstances," Graham said, voice full of pleasantries and understanding. Something about it annoyed me, although I couldn't say why.

"Although your current grades normally wouldn't allow you to transfer, we took a look at your records before you started at Winslow, and they definitely pass up to our standards!"

"Yeah, it's a b-bit hard to get good grades with the…"

"Say no more, Miss Hebert, I understand completely! So, with all that business talk out of the way, what time and day would you be able to come here with your father so we can talk further, give you some options, give you a tour of the school, that sort of thing?"

"We can both do it tomorrow, if that's possible. Also, I have a new phone with a new number, so could I give you that one instead?"

After giving her my new civilian number, and exchanging some pleasantries, I hung up with a sigh. Tomorrow would be the best time to do so, as I don't have anything planned. Thursday is the bank heist, and Friday would be dealing with Bakuda before she blows up half of the city.

I sighed, and sat down on the steps. To be perfectly honest, I really didn't want to do this mission. Not because of the theft, or fighting the Wards, but what this mission actually meant:

Dinah.

When Lisa and I went through our plans on Monday, we tried to come up with some solutions to stop her from getting kidnapped. We couldn't intervene directly, because we aren't supposed to know about his plans, so that means putting my Dad or Lisa in danger.

Dad was completely exposed, and at this point Coil would know most of my personal life. He could quite easily kidnap my dad for leverage against me, or even outright kill him.

Lisa, on the other hand, hasn't built up her own resources of money and mercenaries to be able to avoid becoming Coil's pet thinker. Failing that, Coil would still have her parents contact details, somewhere.

I couldn't go to the PRT, even if I gave them the information anonymously, as he has enough strings to pull that the information wouldn't make it anywhere or just be discarded. I couldn't tell any of the Wards or Protectorate members directly either, given how Armsmaster reacted in the first timeline.

It would be so, so, easy to just kill him.

But I couldn't. I promised myself, and I couldn't bear to look at my father and see the lights in his eyes dim or the slight curve of a frown after admitting to him that I've taken a life with my own hands.

I couldn't betray him simply because murder was more convenient. I couldn't break his heart like that, not for a second time.

So, Lisa and I settled for something that was flimsy at best: a note sent through convoluted means so it wouldn't be linked to us, that told Dinah about the specific time and place that Coil plans to kidnap her and some advice of how to use her power to avoid it.

I clenched my fists. Fucking Coil.

"Oi, we just finished planning and we're ordering some pizza to celebrate. You coming back up?" Lisa said, standing on top of the staircase, but she must've understood what I was thinking about, as her face softened and she walked down to where I was sitting.

She sat down next to me, and poked me on the cheek.

"Now what's going on in that brain of yours? She said, giving me a small, reassuring smile.

"You probably already know." I mumbled, clenching and unclenching my fists. Her smile dropped a bit as she squinted at me. Her face then softened again, and she wrapped in a side hug. I leaned into it.

"It's not your fault, Taylor. You aren't responsible for whatever Coil does, even if you already know what he's doing. You're not the one that's going to try and kidnap her, he is."

"I know, it's just," I mumbled into her shoulder, "I hate this feeling of powerlessness. Of not being able to do much of anything."

Lisa paused for a second, before replying.

"The note will definitely work, trust me." She reassured me, as she rolled her eyes, "The problem Dinah had the first time around was that she didn't know she was going to get kidnapped. Now that we have told her about it, she can use her power to avoid it.

And we'll get him, eventually. Then we'll tear down everything he built, and laugh at him as he realises that his entire world is collapsing around him. I promise."

---

The last bit with Lisa and Taylor talking about Dinah was a bit iffy, so I've edited it to be better! (So spoilers for the next couple of chapters: Dinah won't be getting kidnapped.)

 

[Viri]

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year everyone! Just making a note here at the start to say that the last part of the previous chapter about Dinah was iffy, so I've edited it. So no, Dinah will not be getting kidnapped.

---

"So what type of pizza do you want, Taylor?" Lisa asked, lying back on the middle couch, laptop sitting comfortably on her stomach.

I bent down and looked over her shoulder as she scrolled through the options, the website covered in pictures of perfect, almost fake looking pizzas that were probably glued together to make them look nicer.

"I'll go with something basic then, I suppose." I stood back up and sat down on the adjacent couch, "I'll let you decide for me. Just not anything spicy."

"Mhm. I think I'll have something that you'll like. What do the rest of you want?" She said, sitting up a bit with her elbows, looking around the room. Rachel had claimed the last couch, chewing on the last of her beef jerky, with Angelica sitting on her lap and the other two lying down beside her. Judas was fast asleep, and had his head leaning against her, softly barking at something in his dreams. Angelica was moving in a circle, trying to get into a comfortable position on Rachel's lap, but eventually plopped down. Brutus was wide awake, sitting right next to his master but not lying down, and I could see that he was eyeing the room, keeping vigilant against any potential threat.

"Anything with a lot of meat on it." Rachel bluntly said, tilting her head in thought.

"Yeah, you say that everytime we order anything." Lisa grumbled under her breath, quiet enough so Rachel couldn't hear.

I leaned over and flicked her shoulder.

"Be nice."

She rolled her eyes at me, and added another pizza to the order.

"I'm in the mood for something spicy. The Fire Breather, I think the name was?" Brian added, sitting down at the dinner table while tapping a pen against his temple, looking over the floorplan of the bank and the map of the surrounding area, occasionally jotting something down on a notepad.

Alec then emerged from his room, wearing a loose Kid Win t-shirt and shorts, carrying a couple of video game cases under his arm and a controller in the other. He shuffled over to the coffee table and awkwardly bent down to drop the cases on it, then walked over where Lisa was lying down, and gestured for her to move so he could sit down.

She maturely responded to that by sticking her tongue out and shifting to get more comfortable.

Alec, with the same amount of maturity, shrugged his shoulders and sat down right in the middle of the couch, right on Lisa's legs. She yelped in surprise, and started punching his arm as the boy cackled, which caused the sleeping dogs to wake up and look around, agitated at being woken. Rachel grunt angrily and glared at them, standing up and motioning for her dogs to follow her, and walked past the table towards the stairs.

"Rachel, are you going back to your shelter?" I asked, yelling over the squabbling children.

"I'm going for a fuckin' walk." She yelled back, shooting a brief glance my way before angrily walking down the stairs leading to the ground level.

I had to hold back a sigh. In the first go around I thought of Rachel like she was a rabid animal; how she seemed unstable when she attacked me with her dogs when I first joined up, or how she constantly antagonised me when we were planning for the bank heist.

Rachel isn't unstable, or rabid, or antagonistic. She's a simple, straightforward person that's slow to trust, and hates herself for messing up any interactions she has with other people. She loves the dogs she cares about so much she was willing to chase off potential members of the Undersiders just so she could have more money to look after them.

I remembered back to after we forced Coil into a corner, after I killed him, we were in a van heading back to his base to deal with the fallout. Rachel, without a word, held my hand during the entire ride. Even after everything that happened to us, our rough beginning, my plans to betray them revealed by Armsmaster, or the false betrayal at Coil's hands, she still trusted me enough to do something like that. It was strangely intimate, from a girl who never touched another person outside of the context of violence.

In a way, Rachel was the most human out of all of us. I hoped that the rest of the Undersiders would see that in her, too.

"Can you two knock it off, please?" Brian sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose in irritation. Lisa looked over from behind the couch at him, rolled her eyes and stood up, placing her laptop on the coffee table. Alec smirked at her, like a cat that knows it got away with something, and reclined back, resting his feet on the coffee table.

"Oh, don't look at me like that. You're helping me pick up the pizza." She said to him with a deadpan expression.

"Fuck off, I'm not. Get Taylor or Brian to, I wanna play my games." He whined, pushing a button on his controller that turned the console and tv on.

"Just fucking go with her, Alec. It won't take that long." Brian grunted, looking incredibly tired.

Alec gestured wildly between the tv, Lisa, and Brian, but eventually sagged his shoulders and walked back to his room, mumbling about grabbing some stuff. Lisa smirked, grabbed her purse and walked down the stairs towards the factory level.

Brian sighed, rubbed his eyes, and continued looking through the various papers in front of him. He was probably nervous about the mission, given that this was a big step up from how the gang operated before this point, and factoring that we would be fighting the Wards.

"You should probably take a break, I think." I said, walking over to the table to where he was sitting, "Trying to plan for every little contingency will only lead to getting more stressed out."

"Yeah, you're probably right," He replied, stretching his arms, "Sorry about that by the way, Alec and Lisa's bickering gets under my skin sometimes, on top of Rachel being…y'know, Rachel."

"What's wrong with Rachel?" I asked.

"She's complicated," He said, looking a little guilty at that, "She doesn't have a civilian identity, so everyone knows that she's Bitch, or Hellhound if you're a hero, and she's…difficult to work with. Rachel actually chased off one of our other potential members, who ended up joining Faultline's Crew."

"I don't think she's that complicated." I mumbled, walking over to the kitchen and preparing myself a mug of tea.

"How did you manage to do that earlier, anyway? Alec wasn't joking when he said that Rachel would've done something if any of us went near her shelter."

I closed my eyes, mulling over what I should say, as I waited for the brand new kettle that Lisa apparently bought for me earlier this morning to boil.

"You're aware of how powers fundamentally work, right?"

"Yeah, like the Manton Effect and power categories, that sort of stuff, but how does it tie to Rachel?" He asked, looking confused.

"Powers change people, always in a way that allows them to use their power more effectively. Some Breakers can still think despite not having a brain. Ones that control some sort of harmful element aren't hurt by it, like Lung and his fire. I was given vastly increased multi-tasking skills, because otherwise I would be catatonic most of the time, right?"

He nodded in understanding, and gestured to me to continue.

"So, Rachel's entire power revolves around canines, but her power doesn't master them, only makes them bigger, stronger-"

"Her power had to change how she socialises, so she can better train them," He finished, realising the point I was making. "So she understands dogs better than humans, then?"

I nodded, pouring the boiling water into my mug, leaving it on the bench to steep.

"Sort of. Her thought process was definitely changed when she triggered, but her rough upbringing probably didn't help either." I said, walking over to the table and sitting down.

Brian picked up his pen and jotted some things down on his notepad, and then looked at me.

"What else should I keep in mind about her, then?"

I listed off some tips to him as I finished preparing my mug of tea. It was one of the major problems I've had with myself and the choices I made, with the reflection I've been doing since I woke up last Sunday. Despite all we went through as a gang, I would hesitate to call the Undersiders a group of friends.

Especially when the person uniting them together left in the middle of the night, without as much as a goodbye. Rachel had her dogs and her gang, Lisa was preparing for the end, Brian was recovering from what Bonesaw did to him, and Aisha had her hands full with the Heartbroken.

Lily and Sabah only joined to pay for the medical treatment for the Dolltown residents, and weren't close with any of the other members, I think.

It was one of the many, many things I'd come to regret, in reflection. I can't handle everything like I did as Skitter, approaching people with words underlaid with threats. Lisa's description of me just after becoming that thing haunting me still.

You never learned to ask for help when you needed it.

Let's just say you make a decision by yourself, and then you use others to get help carrying it out. That's not really you asking for help, is it?

This makes me feel really sorry for your dad, because I'm starting to get a sense of what you put him through.

"Taylor?" A voice asked, interrupting my reminisce.

Brian was staring at me, smiling concernedly at me, waving his hand in front of my face.

"Ah, sorry. I was just thinking about some stuff from the past." I said sheepishly, rubbing my right arm, my face flushing in embarrassment. Brian looked uncomfortable, as if he didn't know how to properly respond.

"If it's ok for me to ask, what were you remembering?" He asked, giving me a hesitant smile.

I took a sip of my lukewarm tea, and stared out of the nearby window, not focusing on anything in particular.

"I had a group of friends, and I wasn't a particularly good friend back. That's all."

He looked conflicted, looking down at the table in thought, and let out a sigh.

"...Would you like a hug? 'cause it looks like you really need one." He said, softly.

"Huh?"

'Ah, well, I didn't want to make you uncomfortable, and I'm not good at reassuring people," He rambled, looking incredibly embarrassed as he rubbed the back of his head, "But if you don't want to, that's fine-"

"Brian, Brian, it's ok," I laughed out, "I would like a hug, thank you."

He stopped talking at that, stared at me for a moment, and then laughed alongside me. He gave me another smile, and stood up from the table and walked over to me, and opened his arms. I quickly stood up and returned his hug, causing him to be pushed back a bit. His hugs were always comforting to me, strong arms gently holding me, the musky smell of the cologne he always wore.

I wondered how much I really hurt him, when I left to join the Wards. I hope that he's happy with Cozen, settling down in that cabin, in the future past that may not even exist now. He deserves someone better than me.

"...Sorry." I mumbled into his shoulder. He gave out a chuckle as we separated.

"Well, it's my job as leader to look after my teammates, after all." He said, giving me a teasing smile.

"Yeah. Thanks, I, uh, really needed it, Brian."

"Good to hear it, Taylor. Oh, right, since we're waiting for the others to come back, do you want to try sparring?" He asked, changing the subject now that the atmosphere was lighter. "Lisa mentioned that you took some self-defence classes, so I'd thought I could give you some pointers."

"Oh, yeah, I did. But I'm a bit rusty, since I ended up dropping it." I quickly lied, put on the spot by one of Lisa's own white lies about me.

"That's already way better than the others honestly, trying to teach Lisa or Alec to fight is like pulling teeth, I swear to god." He chuckled, as we both started shifting the furniture around to make space.

"Why did you drop the classes, by the way?" He asked.

"Well, it started to get too expensive, since my Dad works for the Dockworkers Association, but also because knowing how to fight didn't really help with the bullies at Winslow." I replied, shrugging.

"It was more emotional stuff than physical, then?"

"Kinda. At most I got bruises and cuts. This one time, they sent some idiot boys to chase me, so I started running instead because I figured there wasn't much I could do in an actual fight. But since I'm a cape now, I'm going to need to learn how to fight properly."

"That's a good habit to have. We can't always rely on our powers, so knowing how to fight without them can help prevent you from being caught off guard." He explained, seemingly proud of the fact I was willing to learn, grabbing a pair of focus mitts and handing me some boxing tape that I started wrapping around my hands.

We both got into position, a few feet away from each other. I took off my hoodie and tied it around my waist, and pulled my hair into a ponytail using a spare hair tie that I had.

"I'll let you be aggressive so I can see how much you know, ok?" He asked, adopting a boxer stance. "No powers, light hits, above the belt?"

I nodded, and relaxed all of my muscles before doing the same, standing on the balls of my feet. With a deep breath, I started with a barrage of light jabs, occasionally stumbling when Brian shifted one of the mitts into a new position. After a few minutes of repeated exercises I could feel the muscles in my arms starting to ache, and for the second time today I cursed my younger self for not doing any weight training.

I continued until I felt my arms were going to drop off, and dropped onto the couch, breathing in huge gulps of air. Brian handed me a glass of cold water, and I quickly snatched it out of his hands and greedily drank it until I was satisfied. He chuckled at that, as he walked over to his gym bag and grabbed out some more gym gear.

"If you're up for more, we can try doing some actual sparring," He asked, handing me a pair of boxing gloves, "I want to test your dodging and blocking."

"Can I cheat?" I mumbled, as I put them on.

"What do you mean?"

"Since I can see or hear everything my insects do, it means I can react much faster than most." I explained, as I stood up to face him.

"Because they generally have faster reaction times than humans." Brian finished, chewing on his lip in thought that desperately made me want to kiss it.

I quickly shoved that thought away. I couldn't get distracted.

"...Yeah, you can try it. I want to see how much of a difference it makes." He decided.

I nodded to him, my muscles aching too much to bother talking. With another deep breath, I gathered a swarm and willed it to cling to my clothes.

I raised the gloves to cover my face, and gave Brian another nod.

Brian started by giving me a clearly telegraphed right hook, something I easily dodged by leaning the left side, but he followed it up with a much quicker left hook, which I countered by blocking. This continued for a while, a lot longer than the punching exercises I did before because purely dodging and blocking took a lot less energy.

"Try fighting back now. Light hits, no hitting below the belt or the face." He said, his face starting to sweat from the exertion.

I grunted in response, and went on the offensive. Despite the ache I had from before, I hit a good rhythm of punching, dodging and blocking. Brian kept up to my pace as well, playing defensively when I was aggressive and vice-versa. We did this for a while, until I accidentally misjudged the length of my arm, which caused me to stumble forwards and fall over.
I closed my eyes and braced myself in preparation for hitting the ground, but Brian managed to quickly step forward and hold my shoulders, preventing me from falling over.

I tilted my head up and looked at him. Brian was giving me a full on grin now, panting slightly from the sparring.

"You good there, Taylor?" He asked me, half laughing half panting.

"I'm, uh, good. Not hurt, I mean." I stammered out, and I repositioned my feet so I could stand up, as Brian let go of shoulders.

"I can definitely say that you've got the technique down," He said, as he bent down and grabbed a towel from his bag, and wiped his face with it, "You just need to build the muscle,
although you might not be anything close to me or Rachel, but your insects can make up for that."

"So what kinda stuff do you recommend me do, then?" I asked, as I walked over to the kitchen and poured us both a glass of water.

"I'll write up some daily exercises you can do, and also stuff you should eat more of to help build up muscle," He said, drinking in between talking, "Anyway, you can have first dibs on shower, I need to move the couches before the others come back."

I downed the glass I had, the cold water soothing my parched mouth, and gave Brian a weak nod, too exhausted from the spar to talk, and headed towards the shower.

---

"Get fucked!"

I looked over from my spot at the table, several half full pizza boxes in front of me, to where Alec and Brian were playing some game. It had two characters standing on opposite sides of the screen, and from what I could gather from watching you had to kick or punch the other until someone dies. Probably.

Alec had an incredibly smug look on his face, and judging from how he just yelled out, it was a safe assumption that he'd just won against Brian.

I wasn't particularly interested in video games, so I went back to idly browsing my civilian phone, the new tank top and jeans that I had bought earlier this morning feeling great after the work I did with Rachel and the spar with Brian.

Lisa was sitting at the head of the table, still looking at things on her laptop, a plate with a half-eaten slice next to her. Rachel had come back just before the other two did and reclaimed the same couch she was on before, her pizza box sitting on her lap. Her dogs had been given a slice each, and were content to fall asleep on their master.

"I have an incredibly stupid idea." Alec said out loud, exaggerating a look of deep thought.
"All of your ideas are stupid." Brian responded, reaching forwards and grabbing another slice of his pizza.

Alec stuck his tongue out at him, and then turned his head to look at me.

"Hey dork, you wanna play some games with us?"

I opened my phone and checked the time. 3:24 PM. I would have to leave soon to catch the bus.

"I can't, sorry. I have somewhere I need to be, and after that I need to be home when Dad gets back from work." I replied.

Alec's usual smirk faulted, but only ever so slightly.

"But I'm interested in trying it out, at some point."

His smirk changed into a grin, and he gave me a mock salute.

"Cool. Obviously it won't be the type of games Brian and me play, but there's some games I think you'll enjoy."

"As long as it's not that fucking party game you made us play that one time." Lisa groaned, "I don't think I could handle doing that again."

"Nah, I'm thinking something single-player and casual, like Pokemon."

"That's a good idea, actually. I take back what I said about you and bad ideas." Brian added, and the conversation quickly devolved into Brian and Alec talking about acronyms and video game terminology that I didn't have the reference to understand as I gathered my belongings.

After that, I said my goodbyes to my friends, and a wave to Rachel, who waved back to me.

---

With the sun setting, drowning the city in hues of orange and red, the bus ride was quiet, but not uncomfortable given that I was the only occupant other than the driver himself. The route was unpopular, started at the bus terminal at Downtown and went through the western outskirts of the city, so it wasn't surprising.

The old bus creaked as it ran into a pothole, and I clutched the bouquet of sunflowers I was holding a little bit tighter.

"Ah. Sorry 'bout that miss. The roads don't get properly maintained this far out, so there's quite a lot of potholes 'round."

I looked over to the bus driver, who was staring at me from his rear-view mirror. He was old, old enough that he seemed to be past retirement age, with his grey, wispy hair combed sideways.

"It's ok. I'm used to how awful Brockton's roads are."

He chuckled at that, but didn't say anything. The sombre, melancholic mood returned, as I absently waited for my destination, looking out at the city in front of me. It was a similar feeling to when I first woke up last Sunday.

My thoughts wandered aimlessly, from future plans to my teammates to attending Arcadia, until the old bus had stopped at my destination. I got up, my legs stiff from sitting down for so long, and before I got off, the bus driver spoke up.

"Who are you here for, miss? If you don't mind me askin', of course."

"My mother. She passed away a couple of years ago. Car accident. I haven't visited her in a while."

The driver had given me a soft, knowing smile.

"Ah, my condolences for your loss. I lost my own Ma when I was 'bout your age, I think."

"Thank you. I'm sorry for your loss, too."

The driver nodded in reply, his eyes carrying a weight behind them, like I had seen in so many others after an Endbringer attack or any other disaster.

Mourning, and remembrance.

Just as I started walking off, he spoke up again.

"It gets easier, y'know."

I turned back around and faced him, still clutching the bouquet.

"It never quite goes away, that pain of losin' someone. But it gets easier." He said, as he rolled up his right sleeve, revealing a tattoo of words written in cursive on his arm.

To my darling sunshine.

"She died of pneumonia. I wasn't exactly a good kid at the time, and she and I had some disagreements 'bout certain things at the time. I regret not sayin' certain things to her before she went."

He rolled his sleeve back up and looked at me again, his eyes a little misty.

"But it gets easier. If this old man can give a youngster like you some unwanted advice, I would say this: Keep going. Keep moving forward, even if it's by a single step."

"Tha-thank you. I'll keep it in mind." I choked out, clutching the bouquet tightly.

The driver smiled at me, and gave me a mock salute before closing the bus door and driving away, leaving me standing there just in front of Brockton Bay's cemetery.

The graveyard itself was on the outskirts of the city, perched on a hill tall enough that you could easily see Brockton in its entirety. When capes had started being a thing, city designers started moving the cemeteries further away from highly populated areas so they wouldn't get caught in the chaos of a fight between capes. No one wanted them to be desecrated, hero or villain.

I walked through the gates, spotting some other people visiting the graves of their lost ones, a light breeze rustling the leaves of the surrounding oak trees, the light of the setting sun shining through the branches. Step by step, I had reached a particular grave on the far edge, right next to a grey brick wall. I was completely alone, anyone else was too far away to hear me.

Annette Rose Hebert

1969-2008

She taught something precious to each of us.

"Hey, mum. I brought you some of your favourite flowers." I whispered, gently placing the bouquet on the ground. Sunflowers were her favourite type of flower according to faint childhood memories.

It was when I was very young, and I was at Emma's house, in her backyard. For whatever reason, I had picked one from Aunt Zoe's well maintained garden and gave it to her when she came to pick me up. After she scolded me for taking it, she'd mentioned it was her favourite.

I think she ended up turning it into a bookmark at some point.

"For a long time, I wondered what would've happened if you didn't die. Emma wouldn't have bullied me like she did. Dad wouldn't have fallen apart like he did. Maybe I would've stayed the same as I was before."

My younger years felt so far away. I was so, so different back then, when I still had mum and Emma in my life. I wondered what a Taylor Hebert would've been like if she wasn't crushed by loss and betrayal.

"And now, I wonder what your reactions would've been to the things I've done. Would have you been proud of me, trying to do what I thought was right? Or maybe you would be scared of me, like Dad was?"

I looked back down at my mother's grave, letting out a few stray tears.

"I have to admit to you that I have no idea who I want to be. I called myself Khepri because it felt like it had some small connection to you, and the symbolism of a new morning, a beginning, a second chance. I promised I would be a better person, to not cross so many lines, so at the end of it all I can say that what I did was worth it.

"It's easier to say that I want to be better, but the better question is that I don't know how to. How can I be a better person when facing down the likes of the Empire, or Coil, or even Scion? How can I convince the heroes that I mean well despite being a villain?"

I let out another sigh, and I wiped my face down with some tissues.

"Maybe I'm just rambling to myself. Putting my thoughts out there. Anyway, regardless if I deserved this chance or not, I'm going to make the most out of it. For you and Dad. For my friends. For everyone. Without turning myself into a monster."

I felt that unfamiliar feeling stirring within my chest when my passenger was trying to communicate. It didn't feel like a flame though. It felt more like watching the pouring rain, something more melancholic.

It was calming, though. Like a tight hug from a loved one.

When my tears had dried up, I felt surprisingly refreshed. The flame had returned, and for once I knew exactly what type of feeling it was.

Resolve.

"Thank you." I quietly whispered.

Day by day. Second by second.

 

[Viri]

I leaned my head against the window of the car, not focusing on what we were driving past, thoughts drifting towards what was going to happen tomorrow.

"You alright there?"

I glanced over to look at my dad, who was looking at me with a hesitant smile while he was waiting for the red light to change.

"I'm fine. Just having to deal with what's going to happen on Thursday."

"The bank heist that you mentioned?"

I nodded.

"And it's not because of the actual heist, that's just some petty thievery and roughing up the Wards a bit, it's…"

"The girl you were talking about. The pre-cog?" He said, finishing my sentence. I gave him another weak nod and went back to staring out of the window. I wasn't in the mood to talk much. He leaned over to me a bit, and patted my hand with his.

"I can't say that I understand everything about you're doing, or what you're feeling about it, but I just want to let you know that I'm proud of you, and I know that she would be, too." He said, looking forwards as the light had changed to green.

That comment distracted me from my thoughts and I snapped my head to look at him. Dad never mentioned Mum in regular conversations.

"Do you think so?" I asked, quietly.

"Your mother would be so proud of you, despite anything you did last the first time around, or when you were a villain, or at any other point in your life."

"But I've killed people, Dad," I said, trying to stop my eyes from welling up, "I ate a person's eyes with my insects. I almost killed a hero at his own home, in front of his family. I killed Alexandria."

"But you did a lot of good too, Taylor. Just because it's easier to focus on the bad things doesn't mean the good things you did do didn't happen." He said, lifting his glasses up and wiping his eyes, "I know you're a good person. You wouldn't be worrying about it if you weren't."

I looked back outside of the window and took a couple of deep breaths.

"Dad?"

"Yes, Little Moth?"

"...Thank you."

He gave me another glance from the corner of his eye, and smiled.

"Anytime, sweetie."

---

Arcadia was basically everything Winslow was not. It was four stories tall, separated into two smaller buildings, with the north one being longer than the south one. The windows were dotted with tiny hexagons that reflected the light in odd ways. Some sort of way for students to see out while preventing people from looking in, or a way to reinforce the glass.

In the middle of the two wings were intersecting, two story hallways that were a convenient way to get from one side of the school to another, with lavishly maintained gardens and sitting areas surrounding it. The eastern side had the sporting area, consisting of a gym that connected to the south block, and a running track that had a field inside of it for football or soccer.

I sort of hated it, honestly. I was a villain, and this was a school where the Wards attended. I came from a poor, working class background and this was the school where the richest people in the city sent their children to.

"Huh. Didn't think that it was this nice." My dad mentioned, as we both stood in front of the south building, where the foyer and reception area was. I hummed in agreement.

"Not even my college was as nice as this, back when I was younger," He muttered, "Anyway, we should probably get going. Don't want to be late for the appointment."

We both walked through the automatic doors that led to the receptionist, blasted by the cool air. They also had actual air conditioning, too. The foyer area looked like it was actually designed by someone, as it looked more like the entrance to a modern art museum than a school. Dad walked over to the counter while I sat down on one of the nearby seats. I took the chance to look over the school with my insects, careful not to give them any commands, as I didn't want any of the Wards or Dallons to get suspicious.

It was basically as I imagined it. State of the art computers, nice, clean hallways. A cafeteria that looked like it served actual food than the slop they gave us at Winslow. An auditorium that was built specifically for theatre and plays.

Dad rang a bell that was sitting on the counter, and a short, middle-aged woman with dark skin wearing typical office wear, with a blazer that had Arcadia's logo on it, came over to the counter and started talking to him. They exchanged pleasantries, he mentioned our appointment with the principal, and the receptionist talked into an intercom, and said it wouldn't be too long.

I wasn't really focusing on that, as I was still looking around the school, which was harder than expected. It seemed the faculty actually hired exterminators, so there was a lack of cockroaches, flies and spiders for me to use. It didn't actually matter, but I couldn't help but be paranoid from what happened when I was here the last time.

"Taylor?" My dad murmured, as he sat down next to me.

"I'm fine, just some…bad memories, from what happened when I was last here."

He concentrated for a second, trying to remember what I told him about Arcadia, when he realised and frowned.

"That was…when you were outed, right?"

I nodded.

"It was one of the worst moments in my life." I whispered. Dad licked his lips, and gave me a gentle smile.

"I hope you have a better time here, then." He responded. We went back into a comfortable silence as I looked over the school again, but I wasn't able to see or hear much without directly controlling anything.

I looked at Graham's office, who pushed a button on her intercom and said something I couldn't understand since there was only one measly fly to see and hear with.

"Oh! Mr. Hebert and Miss Hebert," The receptionist said with a smile, "Mrs. Graham is available for you now. Her office is just at the end, right side."

We both got up, and made our way to the office, and Dad opened the door for me as we both got inside, and he closed the door behind him. This office was unremarkable when compared to the rest of the school. Graham seemed to be much more organised and neater than Blackwell, with two containers marked 'completed' and 'incomplete' sitting on her desk. She had two computer screens that were connected to a laptop sitting on the corner of the desk, and a photo frame sitting on a set of filing cabinets behind her. Graham herself seemed to be in her early to late thirties, but looked like she took good care of herself, enough that someone could mistake her for being in her twenties. She had thin black hair that reached her shoulders, and was also wearing typical office wear, wearing the same blazer with the school's logo.

"Ah, Mr. and Miss Hebert! Come in, come in, I've been expecting you," She said, in a grating, fake retail voice, while Dad shook her hand and I sat down on one of the chairs, "Now, before we get into business, what do you think of Arcadia so far?"

"It's, uh, a lot different from Winslow, I suppose?" I responded, fidgeting in my chair.

"Good, good! Now, before we finalise anything, I need to ask about what you personally want out of Arcadia? What classes you're interested in, what electives, what you want after you finish high school, that sort of stuff."

It took me all the effort I had not to slip into my cape mentality, to not force my expressions into the nearby insects. I was here as Taylor Hebert, the girl who wants a new start after a bullying problem, and not as Khepri, Skitter, or Weaver.

Not to say that they weren't me, just different parts of me.

"Well, I took some time this week to think about what I want, what I want to do, and, uh, would it be possible for me to only have to be at school for two or three days a week and do everything else online," I said, and gave Graham a nervous smile, "as I'm not quite ready to go back to full time, with everything that happened at..."

She gave me a reassuring smile.

"Of course, that would definitely be something we can do, as you can attend more days here later down the line when you get more comfortable with school again, and you do have a computer or laptop you can use?"

"I have a pc at home, but I'm going to look for a cheap laptop later today."

"Fantastic! So, what kind of classes are you thinking of doing, Taylor?" She said, grabbing a piece of paper from a nearby drawer.

I looked at the long list that Graham gave me, which had all the classes I would be able to take. Maths had several classes based on difficulty, or application, like one for trade students, one for basic, everyday use of mathematics, and several others that were aimed for potential STEM students. English had a much broader range, divided into general topics, like classic literature, creative writing and modern literature.

The electives were interesting, though. Arcadia had a lot more classes to choose from, and they were more varied. Theatre had two classes, for the actors and the stagehands. Sports had the most out of all of them, having soccer, the track team, football, and dancing. I already looked at this list before, thanks to Lisa obtaining a copy of it for me. I leaned over the desk and grabbed a pen from Graham's pen holder, and ticked the classes I wanted.

"So, the classes you want to do is Classic Lit, Second Tier Maths, Introduction to Art, Introduction to Fashion, and Animal Biology?" She asked, looking at the piece of paper in front of her.

I nodded.

"Wonderful! Now, with all that out of the way, you should be able to start next Monday, if everything goes well," Graham said, opening another drawer and pulling out a paper folder and handing it to me, "And here's all of the information that you need, like a map of the school, clothing policy, as well as information for anything regarding mental health, since we do have several well trained counsellors here in case you need them."

I gave her another small smile, as I slipped the folder into my bag, and stood up alongside my dad.

"Well, if that's everything, I need to head back to work, do you want a lift home?" He said, as we both started to walk towards the door. I shook my head.

"I'm meeting up with Lisa after this, and we'll both be going to the mall that's nearby to buy some stuff I need." I replied.

"Wait, before you go Taylor, I was going to ask if you could stick around for a tour of the school?" the principal said, standing up and saying something into her intercom, "I just want to make you understand that whatever happened at Winslow is far behind you now, so why not get a personal tour of the school grounds by Arcadia's very own superheroes?"

I stiffened at that, and before I could object there was a knock on the door. Dad moved over closer to me, and gave me a small smile, as Graham yelled out.

"Come in! Door's open!"

With a click, the door opened, revealing the figure of Victoria Dallon, who then let her sister Amy in. Her platinum blonde hair was braided and hung over her left shoulder, and she was wearing an unzipped hoodie with a faded New Wave logo on the front, a long skirt that reached past her knees that was decorated with skyscrapers. A little different to the Victoria I'd expect, but maybe she was more normal in a civilian setting.

Amy looked like she didn't want to be here, and she looked just as I remembered her as. Shorter than me by a good couple of inches, with brown curly hair, and she was wearing a white, unzipped hoodie that looked similar to her Panacea coat, with a t-shirt underneath that looked like an album for an Earth Aleph band.

After Victoria let Amy in, and closed the door behind her, she turned and looked at me as she met my eyes, she gave me a laid back smile. Amy, on the other hand, just looked incredibly disinterested at the current situation.

"Good, you're both here. Now this is the girl I talked about with you yesterday Victoria, so I make sure you both give her a warm welcome to Arcadia, alright?" Graham said to her, and then looked at me and gave me a smile.

"Well, looks like everythings finished here," Dad said, as he passed by the Dallons and walked to the door, "I'll see you at home, ok?"

"Yeah, I'll see you later, Dad." I responded, as Victoria held the door open for him, and as he walked out of the building to his car, she gestured to me to follow her. Amy rolled her eyes, and grumpily walked out, hands shoved into the pockets of her hoodie as I followed her to the foyer.

"Oh yeah, I didn't catch your name." Victoria mentioned as she closed the door behind us and walked alongside me, "Mrs. Graham only mentioned a new transfer that was having problems as Winslow."

"Taylor Hebert." I responded.

"Taylor Herbert?" Amy asked, as she settled to my right side, making me walk in between the two of them. Victoria had grabbed her phone from her pocket, and was typing something on it.

"No, hee-bert, not her-bert"

"That's a weird last name."

"Amy, please be nicer to the new girl," Victoria said, giving Amy a grimace, then turning to me apologetically, "Sorry about her, she's still a little cranky from last Sunday. Or early Monday morning, technically."

Amy blushed a little, grumbled something under her breath and folded her arms, like she was cringing into herself.

"What happened on Sunday?" I asked.

"You don't know? It was like, all over the news!" Amy accused, quickly turning her head and looking at me. I raised my hands up defensively at her.

"Amy, relax, Taylor's probably not interested in cape stuff. Anyway, long story short, some new cape managed to take down Lung to the point of nearly killing him, requiring me to fly her to the PRT building to heal him."

"Lung is…" I murmured, holding my chin in a thinking motion, "the leader of the Azn Bad Boys? The one that can turn into a dragon?"

"Yup, that's him. The cape in question…" The blonde said, with a slight pause, "...Khepri, I think their name was. They're a master, able to control insects, and were somehow able to inject enough venom into him to kill several normal people, and was able to take him down because of it. Despite the logic that fire beats bug, too."

"Fuckin' dumbass made me get up at two in the morning on a school night to save fuckin' Lung, of all people." Amy added, mumbling.

"Anyhoo, what classes did you pick, Taylor? You might even get a class with me or Amy." Victoria asked, changing the subject.

"Uh, Classic Lit, Second Tier Mathematics, Animal Biology, Intro to Art and Intro to Fashion. But I don't know about which times and what teachers yet. Mrs. Graham said I'll get my timesheet when I start on Monday." I responded, as we stopped in the middle of the foyer.

"Huh, interesting. You might get Art with Amy, and Classic Lit with me. Anyway, this is the south building, known as the South Block, the classes here are the Science classes on the first floor, and the rest has the English, Humanities, and Maths classes. Most of them that aren't the Science classes get shuffled around every year, since you only need a desk for those classes." She said, gesturing with her hands, "and, if you follow me, I can show you where the cafeteria and gym is."

I followed her as she started walking off, and we settled back into the same position, with me in the middle of the two sisters. The conversation started to die off, so I started talking in order to avoid the awkward silence.

"So what's that thing on your shirt, Amy?" I asked, hoping to get some common ground with her. She mumbled something that I couldn't pick up, so I gestured for her to repeat herself.

"I said, it's something from a band I like."

"What kind of band is it?" I replied. She raised her eyebrows at that, looking like she either wanted to pity me or yell at me, but grumbled and looked away in thought.

"Just. Some random thing I found while browsing the internet, I said. It's called MetalFace, and, uh, they're heavy metal, so you probably won't like it."

I nodded in response. I never really got into music, but maybe I'll give more things a listen to this time.

"I'm not really into music, but I'll try them out at some point. What else are you interested in, Amy?"

"Uh, books. Reading, mostly fictional stuff, or amateur stuff that people make online." She said, looking more and more uncomfortable at talking about herself.

"I was originally into reading, because my mum was an English university professor, but I fell out of it because of the stuff at Winslow. I'd be open to looking at anything you'd recommend."

"Uh, sure? Maybe later though."

Victoria was looking between us as we talked, looking a little unsure, and then smiled when Amy said yes.

Arcadia's cafeteria was something more typical, despite the lavishness of the rest of the school. A kitchen, with a buffet style section for kids with appropriate sneeze guards, a drinks fridge sat to the side, the same type you would see in malls and shops. The floorspace had chairs and tables that actually looked comfortable, unlike the metal seats they had at Winslow.

It was also a centre of sorts, with several doors leading outside, and two sets of stairs leading to the upper floors. Some students lingered here, quietly chatting or playing some sort of handheld video game console that I've seen Alec use.

It was also where I got outed, originally. Trying desperately to find a way out, before being cornered in this very cafeteria by Dragon and Defiant. It was not how I acted, there and then, that I'd regretted. Using the teenagers that actually supported me, in order to simply walk out was one of the few moments I was proud of as a villain. I managed to do enough good that they risked themselves to help me.

But with so many of the other things I did as my time as Skitter, it was about the small, minor choices that led up to that. Maybe if I played a little nicer with the PRT, maybe if I acted a little bit more like a person, what happened here might have never occurred.

"Hey, you all good, Taylor?"

Victoria looked at me concernedly, and had taken a step closer to me, while Amy awkwardly fidgeted off to the side.

"Ah, sorry. Just lost in thought. What were you saying, Victoria?"

"Nothing much, honestly. It's just a typical high school cafeteria. I'm assuming it'll be a lot better than whatever they served at Winslow, right?"

I nodded. I prepared my own food at home both because the food they served was awful, and to avoid the Trio. It was easier to eat my lunch in some unused corner of the school.

"Also since they serve actual food here, you have to pay for it, but it's only like, ten bucks for a full meal, plus drink." Amy added.

I did some maths in my head. I could pay for it, with the money I got from being an Undersider, but with what Dad was bringing in, I wouldn't be able to afford it.

"...My dad works for the Dockworkers Association. We don't have that kind of money."

She looked sheepish at that, mumbled an apology, while Victoria looked like she was in thought.

"Well, in case you don't have any money and need to eat, you can ask me. I'd be happy to shout you a meal or two."

"Why?"

"Because you had a rough time at Winslow, and I definitely don't want that to happen to you again at Arcadia." She replied.

It was a knee jerk reaction for me to be suspicious of her – my mind already came up with several questions to why, like 'does she know I'm Khepri somehow' or 'why is she being nice to me, what's her goal' – but I shoved that feeling aside. Victoria was fundamentally a hero, given she was raised by them, so it would make sense for someone like her to befriend the bullied transfer student.

Her sister looked at her with confusion for a second, but just shrugged. Victoria started walking away, gesturing for me to follow, continuing the tour towards the gym and track field. Once we were out of the cafeteria, Amy spoke up.

"So, what kinda stuff are you interested in, Taylor?"

Shit. I can't mention anything cape related as pre-trigger Taylor Hebert wasn't into capes, but the current me was only into it. I didn't have an answer because I didn't have any interests after I started high school, where I was preoccupied with surviving the Trio, and after that was surviving the constant bombardment of threats and trying to stop the end of the world.

"Uh, not much, I wasn't able to explore anything with what happened at Winslow." I said, turning away in embarrassment, "But I'm open to trying stuff now, since I'm no longer there."

Amy looked at me awkwardly, like she was trying to bite down a scathing remark, but didn't know what to say in a situation like this. Her sister, for a second, looked at me suspiciously, but then gave me another grin.

"Well, good thing we met then, since we can help you," She said, awkwardly patting Amy on the back, "Right, Amy? You can recommend some bands or authors you like, for instance."

Amy gave her an odd look, but her sister whispered something in her ear, which made Amy awkwardly smile at me, her face flushed with embarrassment.

"Yeah. Sure. We can go look at some bookstores or something." She said, all the while cringing into herself.

"I'd love to, Amy." I responded as earnestly as I could. Which wasn't a lie, as I did want to hang out with her, and I did want to learn about it, even if it was motivated impurely.

Skitter argued that befriending Amy was the best course, considering the strength of her biokinesis, and that becoming a friend would be able to lead her away from breaking apart like she did when she was 'chosen' by Bonesaw. And if I was able to become close enough, I could convince her to join the Undersiders, which would solve several other issues further down the line.

Weaver, however, argued that she just needed a friend. A proper one, from how the only person she's close to is Victoria.

"What things are you into, Victoria?" I asked, to help keep the conversation going. From her relationship with Amy, I'd eventually need to befriend Victoria, too.

"Oh, I'm a huge cape geek, especially when it comes to powers. How they work, how they interact, that sort of thing." She replied, looking genuinely interested in talking about the topic.

"I'm not into the hero and power stuff. Never really interested me. I had an Alexandria poster when I was a kid, but that was only because everyone else was into it."

Victoria nodded at that, but Amy hummed and spoke again.

"Is that why you're acting so… normal, I guess? Because when people interact with us, well, more Vicky than I, they get really starstruck. Like, 'oh, it's Glory Girl, can I have your autograph or take a photo with you'."

"A lot of people do that to you too, Amy." Victoria countered.

"Yeah, but what I do isn't flashy or heroic or even interesting, and it's always just people thanking me for healing them, or people acting 'starstruck' in order to ask me to heal them or something."

Victoria looked unsure about how to respond to that. I thought about what Amy said. She's a powerful biokinetic, and is almost able to make anything that's biologically possible, but is restrained to repeated healing people, like forcing an artist to use the same colours for every painting. And given that she's from a family of heroes, and she's the only one restricted to the backlines…

"Maybe because what you do feels less like being a hero and more like a day job, I think? Like, going out and beating up villains feels heroic, but simply touching someone's hand and curing every physical problem they have sounds a lot more boring, mundane?"

Amy looked at me, and for the first time she didn't look angry, tired, or guilty. Like for the first time in her life someone understood her.

"Yeah, it's like that." She said, quietly.

Victoria had an odd look on her face, as she glanced between Amy and I.

"Anyway, to answer your earlier question, I think it's just that most people forgot that heroes are people, too. Like, even someone like Alexandria or Eidolon are still human at the end of the day, right?"

"That makes sense, yeah. People make mistakes, or do dumb things, regardless of how powerful they are." Victoria responded, looking excited to talk about the topic.

"So I'm not interested in talking to Panacea or Glory Girl, other people can geek out over them, but I am interested in talking to Amy and Victoria Dallon."

"That's a good mindset, honestly. Anyway, here we are: the gym and the track field," Victoria stated, as we finally walked outside, right in the middle between the two buildings and field. "The gym is self-explanatory: it's used for a variety of stuff, like rock climbing, basketball, and for anything during winter when it gets too cold. The track is obviously used for races, and the inside field is used for either football or soccer."

The track itself was coloured with a red, orange-y look, like it was made from hardened clay, softer than concrete but harder than just grass and soil, with white markings for the lanes and starting point. Over on the other side had an impressive looking seating area, and a shed was tucked away beside it, most likely used for storing equipment. The gym, over to our right side, looked modern and sleek.

"Do you do any sports, Taylor? Vicky here used to play basketball, but, uh, dropped it for personal reasons." Amy asked.

"I do run in the morning, but that's only because it's for exercise, not anything sport related. Besides, I'll only be here for a couple of days rather than for five."

"Wait, why are you here for a couple of days?"

"It's, uh, because I'm not ready to go back to five days, with everything that happened at Winslow," I lied, "So I'm doing them online. Besides, I want to look into the options that I have, and I think that being here full-time would ruin that."

"Eh, fair enough. I don't have much of a choice when I finish high school." She said, tiredly.

She'd probably be thinking that she would be healing for the rest of her life, never doing anything interesting. Victoria twirled her braid absentmindedly, looking away in thought.

"Y'know, I don't think that's true Amy." She said, "Once you turn eighteen, they can't force you to be a hero or go heal at hospitals."

Amy snapped her head to her sister and gave her another indecipherable look. It looked like she wanted to say something, but glanced at me, and continued looking forward.

"Anyway, here's the North Block," Victoria said, gesturing with her hands, "the first floor contains all of the vocational classes, wood tech, metal tech, construction, home ec, that sort of stuff. On the other side is the auditorium, where anything got to do with theatre or acting is. The other floors contain classes for computer sciences, engineering, et cetera."

It was then that I saw something odd, through some nearby insects. Behind me, on the top floor of the other building, in the school's library was a boy I didn't recognise. I couldn't make out some of his details. Tall, but not as tall as Brian, with short hair and was wearing some expensive clothing from the looks of it.

The odd thing though, was that this boy was staring down at Victoria, Amy and I. I turned to look at him, and he waved at our group. Victoria waved back, and Amy mumbled something under breath again, glancing between the two. The boy pointed downwards, and then got up from his seat and disappeared.

"Ah, that's Dean. He's a close friend of mine." Victoria said.

Dean Stansfield. Heir to one of the richest families in town. I think dad complained about the Stansfields a couple of times, about how they've made it harder for the union to do anything.

"Aren't you two dating?" Amy asked, looking confused.

"Uh, we're both decided to take a break from that." She replied, looking uncomfortable at her sister's question.

"I swear to god, if he did any-"

"No, no, god no Amy! He didn't cheat on me or anything, we just mutually decided to take a break because we're both busy with other things, like me going to university and him with his family."

I took a step back away from them, and Victoria looked at me, her face flush with embarrassment. Amy looked away, glaring at the ground.

"Anyway, I think we should finish this here since the next period is starting soon," Victoria said, changing the subject, "So, before you head off Taylor, give me you phone so I can add me and Amy's phone numbers-"

"Vicky! You can't just do that-"

"Yeah, I will because you need friends who aren't me and Taylor seems cool. Alright?"

Amy's face was flushed with embarrassment, eyes darting between Vicky and I, and relinquished her phone to her sister, then covered her face with one hand, holding her phone in the other, and sort of half screamed, half groaned.

"Vicky, it's not because of that, it's because you're embarrassing me."

"I'm your sister, I'm meant to be embarrassing."

I got my phone out of my pocket and unlocked it, handing it to Victoria, who then added her and her sister's number to it.

"Huh. You have like, no one registered on your phone. Not even your parents. What gives?" Amy asked, who was looking at my phone over her sister's shoulder.

"...Because I don't have any friends, and also because my dad doesn't have a mobile phone of his own." I replied, giving Amy an angry look. I did have friends in the other Undersiders, or at least Lisa at this point, but I wouldn't register any of them in my civilian phone.

"...Oh, right, shit. Uh, my bad?" She said, doing an awful job at apologising.

"You used to not have any friends, because now you have me and Amy!" Victoria added, giving her sister a capital 'L' look, and handed my phone back to me.

"Well, that seems to be everything," Victoria said, agreeing with me, "So, do you need to be shown how to get back to the foyer?"

"No, I'm good. I'll see you two at some point next week, though?" I said.

"Yeah! Of course! But Ames and I really need to get back to class, so see you 'round Taylor!" Vicky said, hurrying off to the south block.

"Don't take it personally. Her next class is on parahuman studies, and it's Vicky's favourite subject." Amy said, turning to face me again, and gave me a small, tired smile, "So I'll see next week, then?"

"Yeah. I'm looking forward to attending here."

She gave me a final nod, and walked off to the north block, and I was left standing awkwardly by myself, so I headed back to the foyer, passing many of the students that were on their spare periods to the car park where Lisa was waiting for me in one of the drop-off zones.

She was wearing a white tank top and black jeans, hair done up in a messy bun, and wearing a pair of cheap sunglasses. I walked over and opened up the passenger door and sat down, taking off my bag and putting it at my feet, and did up my seatbelt.

"So, what's the school where all the rich twats send their twat children to like?" Lisa asked, as she pulled out of the drop off zone and headed out of the school's car park.

"Fucking weird, honestly." I replied. Lisa arched an eyebrow.

"I got a tour of the school grounds from Victoria and Amy Dallon, and also got both of their numbers."

She cackled at that, and I explained to her about what happened.

"This is really good, honestly. Speeds up your plan to befriend Amy, so she won't be a fucking idiot and ruin her sister and lock herself in Birdcage." Lisa said, looking deep in thought while she waited for a red light, "What's better is that Glory Hole herself seems to want the same thing, given that Amy doesn't have any friends of her own."

"And if Amy is at the-"

"And if Amy is at the bank, I can't do the thing I did the first time around and give her a mental breakdown, you've already told me."

I playfully rolled my eyes at her, and stared out of the window as Lisa drove towards the nearby mall. It was good, even without the cape stuff related to it; starting at a new school, making new friends, some things that would be exciting for an average teenager.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that something was off, but I couldn't tell what.

 

[Viri]

I idly twirled my combat knife, staring out at the city, rain dripping down the van's windows, thinking over some contingencies for the mission that we were about to do. After my tour of Arcadia yesterday, I met up with Lisa and we bought some more utility items. I bought a combat knife, a new can of pepper spray, while Lisa bought a handheld taser.

Because of the rainy weather, we were currently in bumper to bumper traffic, but glancing over at the van's clock, we had more than enough time to reach the bank.

"I'm still a little freaked out by them. I have no idea how future Lisa got used to them." She stated, looking towards the back of the van and grimacing. She was wearing her typical cape outfit: a black and purple bodysuit that had a stylised eye on the chest, and a domino mask that covered up most of her freckles. The black made her bright green eyes even more distinct.

"You'll have too. If it helps, just think of them as an extension of myself. They won't do anything unless I tell them to." I replied, still looking out of the window.

The team was split into two vans, with Tattletale and I in one, and Grue, Regent, Bitch and her dogs in the other. I had gathered as many insects I could that would be able to fit in the van without being inconspicuous.

She hummed non-committedly at that, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, irritated at the slow moving traffic.

"You nervous?" I asked.

"Sort of. Despite all the planning we've done, it's still a cape fight. I know we don't have much to fear with you being here, but…"

I gave her a quick glance, studying the expression on her face. The Lisa I knew always looked confident, mischievous, with that vulpine grin of hers. Rarely, though, she would this serious expression, eyes staring blankly, her face masked by a well practised neutrality. She used that whenever we were dealing with someone with incomplete information, or someone too dangerous to piss off, like the meeting Cauldron set up about the fourth endbringer that appeared after we felled Behemoth.

But this expression, coming from a more inexperienced Lisa, one that hadn't learned how to properly mask herself, was none of those; her fingers drumming over the steering wheel, eyes constantly glancing to the clock, showed me a Lisa I rarely, or never saw. It made me reflect back to the first time I did this, chatting with her about cops and robbers as I tried to hide my true plans from her.

"I wonder if the other Lisa was feeling just as nervous." I muttered. She gave me a questioning glance.

"When I did this the first time, she and I were in the same van like we are now, and we had a talk about how the cape scene works, saying it was something like a big game of cops and robbers." I said nostalgically, looking out of the van's window.

"If she was feeling anything like what I'm feeling now, I think she was trying to put out a front."

"To reassure me, I think. I was a completely new cape at the time, and was completely out of my depth, still trying to be a hero, an undercover one at that."

"And here we are, but with our roles reversed," Lisa said, with a hint of irritation in her voice, "You're the one trying to reassure me."

I leaned over to her side and flicked her on her shoulder. She jumped a bit at that, and rubbed at it while glaring at me from the corner of her eye.

"You don't have to try so hard to be her, y'know," I said quietly, giving her a small smile, "so don't get irritated at yourself for not reaching that impossible bar. Don't try to be like her, just be whatever Lisa you want to be."

She looked at me blankly, as I assumed her power worked to deconstruct and analyse my body language, my expressions. She then gave me a wicked grin and playfully punched my arm.

"You are far too good at reading me, Taylor Hebert."

I gave her a smirk in response, playfully rolling my eyes.

"We can talk about this later. Besides, we have a bank to steal from and kiddie heroes to beat up."

I gave her a nod, and closed my eyes, focusing on my swarm, making sure I was ready for when the bank entered my range. And, after a few quiet minutes, I could feel the various spiders, cockroaches and ants that were inside the walls of the bank. I wasn't able to get any information of the outside using my insects because of the rain, but we were close enough I was able to see it with my eyes. It was still the same, six stories tall and looking like a castle, covered in stone masonry. Gargoyles decorated the corners, iron bars ran vertically across every window, making the entire building look ominous in the current weather.

I touched the communication earpiece.

"This is Khepri. Tattletale and I are within range of the target. Currently looking over the area."

This was a city, of course, so there was no way to completely get rid of all insects in a building, no matter how rich the occupants or owners were. The bank itself was six stories tall. The first story was for the public, with an open area with attendants. Further towards the back was the safe itself, reinforced by six inches of steel on all sides that was completely air-tight when shut to the point of having no insects in it. The other floors had a variety of offices, bathrooms, and break rooms. There weren't a lot of civilians here, and combined with the workers and attendants, who were most likely out for lunch, meant there were only twenty people all up.

"What can you see, Khepri?" Grue asked through his earpiece.

"There are eight civilians in the foyer with four attendants, and eight workers with a single security guard spread across the other floors. Currently blocking all of the outside cameras that show the parking lot and back entrance."

"Does the security guard suspect anything?"

"No, he's currently talking to a female office worker in the breakroom. From what I can gather, most of the other workers are currently out on lunch break."

"Good. Say something if anything comes up." He said, as Lisa and I turned into the parking area that was behind the bank itself, passing the two stone horses that stood besides the front entrance, the second van not too far away from us. Tattletale put on her mask as I did the same, and she gave me a nod as we both opened the doors and got out, rain pouring down and dampening my hair. I walked over to the side and pulled open the sliding door, letting out my swarm and directing them to spread out everywhere, giving me a good idea of the area around the bank. I gathered the rest of them to stick to me, covering the parts in between my armour plates, face and hair. I looked over my range again, and spoke into my earpiece.

"Security guard is finishing his conversation with the office worker. I've stung the back of his neck with a wasp, and now both of them are heading towards a nearby first aid kit. No one else suspects anything."

"Alright. The rest of us are currently pulling into the lot, and we'll get started." Grue said, as his van pulled in, and he did a half-turn, blocking the entrance. Regent and Grue got out of the front seats, and the sliding door opened, revealing Bitch, who was holding a crowbar, with Brutus, Judas, and Angellica.

Regent was wearing his typical outfit, his androgynous mask that only revealed his eyes and mouth, and his loose white shirt that hid a mesh vest behind it. He twirled his sceptre, but held up his palm to the sky, and quickly moved to the side of the bank, which had enough covering to stop the rain from hitting him.

Brian had put on his motorbike helmet, unaffected by the current weather, completely dressed from head to toe in black, his darkness curling around him, much like what I do with my swarm.

Bitch was wearing the same jacket she wore a couple of days ago when I visited her, the dark maroon coloured one with a fur collar that was also starting to dampen from the rain, her cheap, plastic bulldog mask not doing much to prevent her face getting wet.
Her dogs were only slightly bigger, only showing the brief change that her power gave them, with all three of them only showing a small amount of bone and raw flesh.

We gathered close to the back door, as Tattletale began inputting the code to open it without triggering the alarm, talking about the how and why of it, and as soon as she did, I instantly covered all of the cameras with insects, fully blocking them.

"Khepri, update?" Grue asked, his darkness muffling his voice.

"I've stung a couple more people, and they're making their way to the third floor breakroom, where the first aid kit is. They're complaining of a potential wasp nest. All clear from here to the foyer."

He nodded, and we formed a line, with Bitch and him at the front, Regent and Tattletale in the middle, and myself at the back. We walked through the empty office hallways, confident that we haven't even been seen yet, as any of the workers that were here were in the upstairs breakroom, nursing the wasp stings that I gave them, completely unaware.

Just before we reached the foyer, I covered all of the emergency buttons with insects, surprising the various attendants, who looked on in fear as we made our entrance. I flooded the ceiling and walls of the foyer with my swarm, gathering any spare insects I could. The foyer itself was well decorated compared to the offices, with a marble floor that was clean enough to have reflections, various seats that were placed against the walls, which had various ads for banks loans and insurance.

The customers that were there all stood in fear as we entered, excluding one Amy Dallon, who just glared at us. She was standing in front of one of the counters, the same hoodie she wore yesterday damp from the rain. Grue moved over the entrance, staring at them as he walked past, and used his power on the front entrance, blocking it. Bitch followed him, glaring at any civilian who attempted to make eye contact with her, and stood in the corner, her dogs obediently sitting near her.

I stood next to Regent, as Tattletale entered the code for the employee area, and formed a swarm on each floor near any of the employees, scaring some of them who were oblivious to the situation.

"Do not worry, we are not here to take you hostage. I will lead all of you towards the back entrance, and once you exit the building you will be free. We will not harm you." I spoke, making my swarm voice sound more calm and reassuring than threatening.

The customers in the foyer looked at each other in confusion, but all of them raised their hands and started walking towards the back entrance, just as Tattletale opened the door and held the door open for the attendants that were there, letting us in when the last of them left.
As the customers passed us, following the arrows that I made on the walls, Amy had her hood up and was trying to blend in with the others as much as she could. The employees on the upper floors were doing the same, but the guard tried to discreetly enter the security office, so I gave him another sting with the wasp I planted on him, which made him finally realise what situation he was in, so he power walked to catch up with the others.

Tattletale started to work on the computers, getting any information related to the safe that was towards the back of the room, being assisted by Regent. Grue was still standing at the entrance, back facing us while he used his power to cover the entrance while not covering himself so he could still speak, and Bitch slowly used her power on her dogs. After a few minutes, Tattletale had her eureka moment, and laughed as she walked towards the back of the room, towards the massive safe that took up almost a quarter of the entire floor, as Regent and I followed.

"I knew it was a good idea to not take them hostage." I said, moving to help Tattletale and Regent with the giant steel wheel of the safe.

"And why is that, o' sentient plague of a teammate?" Regent asked, leaning against the door as Tattletale started inputting the code to open it.

"One of those civilians was Amy Dallon." I mentioned, talking into my earpiece.

Grue swore under his breath.

"Alright, fuck, keep an eye out for Glory Girl whenever she gets here. We can handle the Wards, but we can't handle her on top of the Wards." He said, his darkness amplifying his irritation.

Tattletale finished with the code, and gave the both of us a thumbs up, and then began to spin it, from left to right and back again, until something heavy shifted from behind it, and the door shifted slightly. I gave a signal to Bitch, who issued a command to Angelica and Judas, and walked over to us with Brutus, still touching his neck, slowly giving him more and more of her power. With the four of us, we hauled open the metal door, and then Tattletale walked over to one of the computers, sitting down on the nearby chair and spinning it as she rapidly started typing on it.

As we entered the safe, Regent and I began filling bags with any of the nearby cash while Bitch started securing Brutus with harnesses and belts for them. With a grunt, satisfied at her work, Bitch started helping us, using her crowbar to open more of the drawers. We had three large bags for the money, and a single bag for important papers, mortgages, insurance forms, deeds and the like.

While we were doing this, I looked over at the civilians, who were now walking away from the bank, not caring about the rain. Most of them were calling or talking on their phones, but Amy stayed behind, crouching down with her back against the nearby wall, desperately typing something on her phone.

"Khepri, update on the surrounding area?" Grue asked through his earpiece.

"The civilians are all walking away, the street has started being emptied out, so the PRT has been contacted, but there's something odd…"

"Which is?"

"Amy Dallon looks upset, and is still hanging around the back entrance. She's trying to call her sister I'm assuming, but it seems as if she isn't picking up."

Tattletale quickly looked over her shoulder, staring at me from where she was sitting, her power trying to fill in the gaps.

"Ok, that's good for us. Means we probably won't have to deal with her. You finished with the cash?" Grue yelled out from near the entrance, his darkness blocking the entrance to the bank.

"Almost done here. Get ready to leave." I responded, gathering the last bits of cash and handing the bag to Rachel, who secured it Brutus. The rottweiler had grown, now the size of a horse, with spikes of bone and patches of flesh growing semi-randomly across his body. I walked closer to him, his bloodshot eye staring at me, and gave the side of his neck a few pats. Bitch, who finished giving the bags one last check-up, walked over to me, and gave him a pat in the same place.

"He's a good boy, isn't he." I said, looking at his master, who gave me a grin with too many teeth in it.

"The fucking best. Now let's get the fuck out." She responded, giving a whistle to Brutus, who started moving out of the safe and back to the foyer with Bitch. I followed, and Regent walked alongside me, stretching his arms.

"Ohhh, I'm going to be so sore tomorrow." He said, in a high-pitched voice, while tilting his head at me, waggling his eyebrows from behind his mask.

"If you speak to me like that again, I am going to beat you over the head with your own sceptre." I responded, not even using my actual voice for it.

He cackled at that, and jaunted off to join the others. I rolled my eyes, and walked over to Tattletale, who was still typing away at the computer, the main screen having all sorts of different programs and tabs open, while the other had the security cameras on, only showing the outside ones that I unblocked.

"Are you almost done here?" I whispered, leaning down to her ear. She grunted, still furiously typing on the keyboard, the main screen filled with things I couldn't understand. After a moment, she slammed the last key, stood up, grinning as she winked at me.

"All done here. Now let's leave before the white hats get here." She said, saunting off to join the others in the foyer as I followed her. The others were already preparing to leave, as Bitch hoisted herself up on top of Brutus, and Brian was helping Regent get on top of Angelica.

"You two done here?" Grue asked, still maintaining the cloud of darkness that covered the entrance.

"Yeah,Tattletale and I are done, now we just need to stick to what we plann-" I said, cutting myself off as I realised that Amy stopped looking at her phone, and was instead looking up, and was saying something that I couldn't hear over the pouring rain.

"Shit. Amy is talking to someone above her, and I can't see anything since it's raining. It's either Kid Win on his hoverboard or Aegis."

Regent shrugged his shoulders, dismounted Angelica and activated the taser in his sceptre, as Bitch did the same with Brutus, bared her teeth in a snarl as she looked around. Grue looked at the front entrance, and then back to me.

"I can see the rest of them outside. Khep, can you give us any more information?"

I nodded, and looked over my range. Aegis finally landed on the ground, still talking to Panacea, donned in his red and silver coloured armour and helmet, and a shield emblem printed on his back. I discreetly landed a fly on Aegis' back, attempting to try and listen into their conversation.

"------cea, —----that you're —-- hurt. —----- about the situation?"

"-----. —-----'cause mum—--------, and —------ Undersiders —-----, —--------bug —--------- leave."

"-----, —----------- hostages? —-----Khepri's —-----?"

"----, —----------. —------,- —---- calling —------- she —- picking up —------."

Aegis responded to this by tapping the side of his helmet with his hand.

"Panacea is talking to Aegis about us. He knows that I'm here now, and Glory Girl isn't coming." I said to my team, and searched around my range for anything else

In front of the bank were the rest of the Wards. Directly in front of us, and slightly to the left stood Browbeat, his spandex outfit looking completely out of place in the gloom of the pouring rain, his fists raised in a fighting stance. To his right was Gallant, the fake tinker who wore a set of power armour, themed to be a modern day knight, to fool the public into thinking he was one.

Clockblocker stood directly behind the two, wearing his pure white bodysuit, with interlocking body plates that were adorned with animated clocks. Kid Win was hovering a couple of feet off the ground, directly to our left near Browbeat. He was wearing his red and gold body armour and visor, feet firmly locked into his hoverboard, aiming his twin tinkertech pistols at the entrance of the bank. However, there was someone missing that I was unable to find.

"Browbeat, Gallant, Clockblocker and Kid Win are outside, but I can't find Vista anywhere."

"Fucking dammit." Grue swore, glancing outside of the entrance, "Kepri, keep looking around for her. Tattletale, any suggestions?"

"Outside of Khepri and Regent, we don't have much of a way to threaten someone at range. Even then, it's iffy. Khep needs her insects and Regent needs line of sight." She muttered, before her eyes widened and she sprinted back to the computer she was using, and tapped the keyboard a couple of times.

"She's on top of the four story tall office building, to our left. Aegis must've dropped her there."

I immediately formed a swarm inside the adjacent building, and willed them to gather at the top floor near any air vents that led to the roof. I discreetly moved a single fly to go through, allowing me to see Vista, her back turned to where my fly was, wearing her green and white costume, with added skirt and body armour covering her chest and limbs. She was saying something into her helmet.

It was almost nostalgic, being here. For the first time in a long time, this was an uncomplicated fight between two groups of capes, a silly game of cops and robbers. It wasn't about the fate of the world, and lives weren't on the line.

"Found her, exactly where Tattletale said she was. She's setting up the street to favour her team."

"Because it's raining, which means you have less control over your swarm, and she's too far away for Regent to mess with." The thinker said, rejoining us at the front.
"I think we need to gun it. Bitch, can you distract Browbeat, and Aegis when he joi-" Grue said, glancing between our teammates and outside.

"Grue, wait a moment." I interjected.

"It's gotta be quick, Khepri, we can't stay here for too long, not with Vista setting this up." He said, looking at me from behind his helmet.

"I've been gathering every insect in my range since we got here. I have a plan, if you can let me take over." I said walking closer to the entrance, and stood next to him. He glanced at Tattletale, who gave him a quick nod, and looked back at me, and gave me the go ahead.

"Right, so here is how we're going to do it: I'm going to cover all of you in my swarm-"

"Wait, you were actually serious about what you said?" Regent said, looking like he didn't want a repeat of last time.

"If she says it's needed, it's probably a good idea to let her," Tattletale added, "Besides, we do need to get used to it, since she is our teammate."

He shrugged his shoulders, and half smiled, half grimaced from behind his mask at me. Grue gave me a quick pat on my shoulder, and nodded at me, as did Bitch and Tattletale.

"On my count, we'll all burst out of here. I'll flood the street as much as I can. Bitch, target Browbeat and Gallant, but switch to Aegis when he joins. I'll handle Vista and Clock-"

"How are you going to do that?" Grue asked.

"Sting and bite him enough that he has to freeze himself. Distract Vista, got enough bugs hiding near her to do it." I replied, "Regent, back up Grue and Bitch. Try focusing on Browbeat and Gallant if they aren't fighting the dogs."

He tilted his head, giving me the impression he was grinning from behind his mask, and gave me a mock salute.

"Grue, go on the offensive. Disorientate, distract, do whatever you can. Tattletale, stay here and get as much intel as you can. I'll make a signal in case you get targeted."

"Sounds like a plan, then." Our leader nodded, happy at my assessment, "Get into positions. We'll start on Khepri's mark."

I gathered all of the insects in the building to cover my teammates, and we got into our positions. Bitch stood in front of us with her dogs, Regent to my left, and Grue to my right. Tattletale hurried over the side with her back to the wall, head turned to see outside. With a pull of my power, I moved the rest of the insects hiding in the surrounding area to be in position to flood the street, making them hide in dumpsters, in the sewers underneath us, in unused cars that were parked on the street. I raised my hand, putting up three fingers.

"Three."

Grue changed into a running stance, rolling his shoulders in preparation. Regent flicked his sceptre, turning the taser on, and bounced from one foot to the other. Bitch sneered, and barked something at her dogs that made them start growling, revealing the massive sets of teeth they all had, and their heads lowered closer to the ground, patches of fur that were close to their tails standing tall. I grabbed the police baton that was hanging from my belt, and flicked it to extend it.

"Two."

The Wards started to look more and more nervous, talking into their communicators, while glancing at each other and the entrance of the bank. Aegis was still with Panacea, most likely thinking that we might leave by the back entrance, or take her as hostage potentially. The Wards looked even more nervous as I amplified the chittering and buzzing of my insects, loud enough that it was audible in the pouring rain.

"One."

With that, I flooded the street as much as I could despite the rain, forced to rely on the land based insects instead of the flying ones, making my swarm seem like an actual flood. I covered most of the street in front of the bank in a layer of insects, only a couple of inches tall.

A moment later, we all burst from the darkness, as I amplified the screeching and chittering of my swarm.

"Judas, Angelica, Hurt! Brutus, Guard!" Bitch howled over the pouring rain, pointing at Browbeat and Gallant.

Judas sprinted towards his target, jaws snapping wildly at Browbeat, who had enough presence of mind to dodge to the side, narrowly avoiding the canine. He then counterattacked with a forceful punch to Judas' side, but only hit his shoulder, which did little to deter him.

Angelica did the same with Gallant, but his suit was too heavy, too clunky to avoid anything. She simply picked him up with her jaws, and threw him across the street into a nearby cafe. With a howl, she ran towards it to continue her assault.

"Gallant!" Clocked yelled out, starting to run towards the two in hopes of being able to save him from Angelica, and I swarmed him with insects, but the rain made it difficult to fully cover him. Just before he could reach the café, he tripped over, allowing me to tear, bite and sting at him until he said something into his communicator and froze himself.

"You're welcome for that, Kheps!" Regent shouted over to me. I was about to say something back when something flew into the nearby cafe, and a second later Angelica was thrown out and landed on her side, limbs flailing. Grue covered me in his darkness, just as I dodge out of the way of one of Gallant's blasts.

"Bitch, Aegis is here, over near the café!" Tattletale yelled out from the bank's foyer.

"On it!" She yelled back, and turned to face Aegis, who had emerged with Gallant, his armour covered in scratches and bite marks, "Brutus, Judas, Angelica! Hurt!"

Aegis and Gallant were standing in front of the now ruined café, and the three dogs, now all the size of a small car, their bodies mostly covered in bone, scales and bleeding muscle had started circling the two; Angellica to the left, Judas to the right and Brutus in the middle with his master. The two heroes stepped back a couple of steps, Aegis putting himself in front of Gallant, who was holding two spheres of energy in his hands, elbows bent in preparation to throw them.

Bitch then pointed at them, yelling out another command, and her dogs started their attack, Angellica targeting Gallant and the other two targeting Aegis. Gallant flung one of his orbs at Bitch, who dodged by rolling on the ground, only to be hit by the second. She stayed half kneeling, and I could feel her fists clenching from my swarm. Her dogs, without the aid of their master to give them commands, had started wildly attacking the two heroes. Judas had flung himself at them, only to be caught by Aegis and thrown to the side. Gallant had still positioned himself defensively, and looked like he was preparing to hit Bitch again.

But he hadn't used his power on the dogs, though.

"Bitch! Use your dogs as a shield! His emotion blasts only affect humans!"

She wildly shook her head, her auburn hair drenched from the rain, and stood back up, ordering the nearest dog to guard her. I was confident she would be able to handle the two heroes, so I turned my attention elsewhere.

"Grue, go help Regent. Bitch can handle Gallant and Aegis for the time being." I said, still in the quiet of his darkness, the chaos of the fight still happening around me, like the stillness of being in the eye of a storm.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and then the darkness dissipated as Grue had started running over to Regent, who was doing a good job with facing Browbeat and Kid Win by himself, with assistance from Tattletale and I; using his power so Kid couldn't use his two pistols effectively, always making his arms jerk away just before he tried to fire. Regent had managed to ward off Browbeat with his sceptre, and from the looks of it he'd already managed to hit him a couple of times.

Regent was now bent over, hand leaning on his knee while the other hung limply, still holding onto his sceptre, panting heavily from exertion. Browbeat stepped forwards to grab him, arms raised forwards, but Grue had got there just in time to cover them both in his darkness, yanking Regent away. From what I could sense from my swarm, Grue had started boxing him, easily avoiding the flailing from Browbeat.

I looked upwards and saw that Kid Win on his hoverboard had aimed his two pistols at me. I prepared myself to dodge, but the two sparks had travelled far faster than I anticipated, hitting me squarely on the chest, scorching my chitin breastplate. I covered myself in my swarm to protect me from further fire, and retreated back into the bank's foyer. I leaned against the wall next to the entrance, but on the opposite side to Tattletale, and reattached my baton to my belt. I pressed down on my chest, and felt a faint warmth from where I was hit.

"Having fun out there?" She asked.

"Vista's manipulating the space above my swarm. I'm going to try and deal with her. Tell the others to fight defensively."

"God, you can at least try and banter with me, Khep. I'm standing here and giving advice to our teammates, and I can't even gloat to one of the heroes!"

I stared at her.

"You're an idiot."

She laughed at that, and repeated what I said into her earpiece as I focused on Vista, who was still in the same place before the fight started. The youngest Ward was looking over the battlefield with one hand on her ear, saying something to her teammates, her blonde hair damp from the rain and her skirt fluttering in the wind. She was crouching, with one hand holding the edge, far too close to the edge for my liking. I wanted to distract her from using her power on the street below her, not force her to fall off.

My swarm emerged from the air duct, hissing and chittering, as I tried to form it into a clone, but the rain made it appear semi-liquid rather than solid. She turned around at the noise behind her, and yelped out in surprise.

"It's Khepri! They know I'm here!" She yelled out, her hand pressing the side of her helmet as she stood up. She gave my swarm a scowl, and made a single step backwards as my swarm approached.

"Listen, please. I know we're fighting each other, but I need you to step forward a bit." I asked as softly as I could, while still audible in the rain.

"Fuck you! You're a fucking villain!" She screamed back at me, using her power to force my swarm back. I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from yelling at her, as I checked over her teammates. Aegis and Gallant were still busy fighting with Bitch and her dogs, as Browbeat and Kid Win were with Grue and Regent. Clockblocker was still frozen, covered in my insects.

"Yes, I know I'm a villain, but I really need you to step forward, because you're very, very close to falling off the edge." I repeated again, still trying to convey some softness in my swarm.

"But, why would you care? Wouldn't you want me to fall off?" Vista yelled back at me.

"Because if you fell off now, there's a likely chance you can die from this height, and maybe I don't want you to fucking die?" I hissed in irritation.

"Wha-" She replied, with genuine confusion in her voice, moving ever so slightly to face my clone, but causing her to slip on the wet concrete.

Shit.

"Tattletale, tell the others keep them distracted!" I yelled out to her, as I started running out of the bank and onto the street. I could see her nod at that through the single fly I had on her hand, and she started talking into her earpiece.

Vista realised what was about to happen, and tried waving her arms to regain her balance. She even tried doing something with her power, but that wasn't quick enough to save her as she lost her balance and fell, her back facing the ground. As quick as I could, I covered her back in some of the nearby insects, hoping it would be enough to slow her descent or break her fall. I raced over to the nearby alley, ignoring the chaos around me, and raised out my arms, trying to catch her.

The bugs I had on her did slow her down, if only slightly. As she fell into my arms, I felt my left forearm snap, which caused me to drop her to the ground, and I heard several of her bones crunch from the impact.

"Fucking goddammit." I hissed, clutching my arm. She must've fallen at a slight enough angle that the force went to my left arm first.

I started searching around the alley, hoping to find something to tie to my forearm as I formed a swarm near Amy, who was still anxiously tapping at her phone.

"Panacea. I need your help. Please."

She yelled in surprise at my swarm, dropping her phone. Her head turned to face me, her eyes glaring at me as she bent down and picked it up.

"What? Are you going to take me hostage or something?" She accused me.

"Listen. Vista fell off the office building next to here. I managed to break most of her fall, but part of her spine broke. I can direc-"

She snorted at that, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, sure. This was definitely not your fault, and this is definitely not a trap or anything."

"Yes, it was a mistake on my part. I didn't want her to fucking fall off, and if she doesn't get help now she might actually die, so fucking get over here." I hissed.

She looked a little sheepish at that, frowning and looking away as she rubbed the back of her head.

"Uh, you really are telling the truth, then? That this isn't a trap?" She asked, looking back at my swarm.

"Yes, this isn't a trap. She's just in the alley right next to you, and I'll make sure the fighting doesn't come anywhere near her or you." I said, forming it into an arrow. Panacea still looked unsure, but sighed and gestured to my arrow.

"Alright, lead the way then." She said, following the arrows that I made out of the bank's parking and onto the street, letting her avoid the fighting that was going on, and into the alleyway Vista and I were in.

While that was happening, I was rummaging around the nearby trash, using my insects to find anything useful. I managed to find a thin piece of wood, and used the larger species of ants to chew through it, splitting it into two. I leaned against the office building's wall, and held the two pieces to my broken forearm, and used the spiders I had on me to stick it to together, allowing me to start creating a makeshift sling out of silk, just as Panacea entered the alleyway.

"Oh, you really weren't kidding, huh." She remarked, as she walked over to where Vista was lying on the ground and crouched down. Panacea then took off the unconscious girl's glove, and touched her hand.

"How is she?"

"She's broken her spine in several places, but she doesn't have enough fat on her for me to heal it."

I willed some insects to cover the healer's hand, causing her to hiss and flail her hand around.

"Use some of my insects. Turn them into biomass and use it to heal her." I said, talking through the insects covering my body.

Panacea stopped flailing her hand, and stared at me for a second. She then shrugged, absorbed the insects into her hand, and I felt them die and disappear from my control. I started weaving some threads that hung from my neck to my forearm, spiders robotically working together to make it.

"What happened to you?" Panacea asked, glancing from looking down at Vista, "And why aren't you, y'know, attacking or threatening me?"

"Broke my arm breaking Vista's fall. I'm not doing anything because I'm already injured, she's unconscious, and you're a non-combatant."

She still looked uncomfortable, but stayed silent as she concentrated on healing Vista. I looked up at the building in front of me, the roof of the bank and office building protecting us from most of the pouring rain.

"It's always a bad idea to fight somewhere you can't easily escape."

"...Why are you telling me that? Also, what?" Panacea asked, looking confused.

"I wasn't. I'm talking to those who are going to be rewatching this later."

"What are you talking about?"

"Wards and Protectorate members have cameras incorporated into their costumes, most of the time. For planning and training purposes. Easier to figure out someone's power from a recording, or to see how a situation went wrong. So, Aegis, if you're listening in, that was a fucking stupid decision putting a teammate in a situation like that. And for the Protectorate members…."

I thought back to my own experience as a Ward, and my understanding of the local heroes.

"Armsmaster or Miss Militia, I'm assuming. Don't be too hard on Vista for this. It's not her fault she was put on that rooftop, and it wasn't her fault that a villain had to save her."

Panacea looked extremely uncomfortable at what I said and was about to say something in response, but Vista murmured something and tried sitting up.

"Wha-What happened?"

"You fell off a building and broke most of your spine. Stay still, I'm still healing it." Panacea grunted in response.

"Wait, Panacea? What are you doing here? Is the fight over already?"

"I was here because mum wanted me to do something at the bank for her when the Undersiders started robbing it. Vicky didn't pick up her phone, so that's why I'm here." The healer replied, mumbling the last part.

"Ah, well, thanks for saving me, then." Vista mumbled back, which Panacea snorted at.

"You should probably thank him for it, he's the one who saved you from dying and told me about it."

Vista shot up to a sitting position, and glanced over to where I was, still leaning against the wall. I gave her a wave with my right hand, causing her to recoil further.

"Before you ask, no, I didn't intend for you to fall off. And I'm not going to attack you or Panacea, since she's a non-combatant and you're injured."

"You-you saved me," Vista breathed out, "W-Why? Why did you bother saving me?"

I shrugged my shoulders in response.

"Because it was the right thing to do. That's all."

I stood up from my leaning position, my silk sling complete, and moved so I was in the middle of the alleyway.

Vista looked like she wanted to say something, still sitting upright next to Panacea, just as the rest of her team wandered into the alley. Aegis looked like he went through hell and back, his red and silver armour covered in gashes and bite marks, completely unconcerned about his wounds. Browbeat had a minor amount of the same wounds, his awful spandex suit half-ripped, but his limbs were shaking and jittering. The brute's arm was being carried by Gallant, who had also suffered the same fate as Aegis, but without any physical wounds that I could see, his tinkertech power armour taking the brunt of Bitch's dogs. Kid Win looked the least unharmed, but was missing one of his pistols and hoverboard. Clockblocker was still frozen, in the same place where he fell over.

The rain was still pouring down as Aegis turned to me, and I turned myself back into an expressionless statue again.

"Your new 'teammates' decided to ditch you and run with the money." He said, completely unflinchingly, "So, we need to decide what to do about you."

 

[Viri]

The rain was still pouring down, and I was trapped. A sheer brick wall behind me and several Wards in front of me. Two brutes, one of which was essentially invulnerable, a tinker, a blaster, and potentially a shaker.

And I only had a can of pepper spray, a police baton, a combat knife, my swarm and a broken left forearm.

Not the worst odds I've been up against.

"Vista, can you explain to me what happened here?" Aegis asked, turning his head to face her, voice projecting authority.

Vista gritted her teeth and clenched her fists and sat up, leaning against the brick wall dividing the alleyway and the bank's car park. Panacea hissed something at her, and was still holding onto the other girl's wrist.

"Because I fell off the roof you decided to stick me on, even after I objected to that, and that asshole," She bitterly responded, pointing at me, "saved me from dying, and got Panacea to heal my broken spine."

"Well, uh, that seems to be the case, then. You have my apologies for putting you in such an unsafe position, Vista." The captain coughed out, trying and failing to keep up the authoritative bravado, and I could see that he seemed to be blushing, judging the small amount of skin around his eyes.

"Why did you save her, anyway? You could've used Vista falling off as a distraction to leave, but you didn't." Gallant asked me, as he repositioned Browbeat's arm, trying to sidestep the tense atmosphere between his teammate and captain.

I stayed silent for a couple of moments, thinking about how to respond. Skitter argued to stay uncompromisingly silent; to force them into making a mistake that I could capitalise on, to make them fear and respect me. Weaver argued the opposite, that there was a possibility that I could leave without having to resort to any of Skitter's tactics. I did save one of their teammates, so I could convince them to let me leave, potentially.

After a few more moments, I settled for trying out Weaver's approach. I needed to show that Khepri was reasonable, and that she could compromise; something I couldn't do if I went with the Skitter approach.

But I still had the latter option available as a last resort.

"Because the rest of you were too distracted by my team, and I was the only one in a position to save her."

"How do we know you didn't deliberately make her fall?" Aegis replied, stepping forward towards me, and I internally rolled my eyes at him.

"Yeah, sure, I made her fall just so I could get my arm broken and have my back to a literal wall."

Aegis' eyes narrowed, glaring at me, while his teammates behind him glanced at each other.

"Let Clockblocker unfreeze himself and then surrender. You're five against one with your back to the literal wall, and you new 'teammates' left you behind in favour of running off with the money. Do you really want to crawl back to people like them? How would you know they wouldn't do it again?"

"Uh, Aegis?" Kid Win nervously asked, and his teammates all turned to face him, "Maybe you should stop channelling your inner Armsmaster? Because I don't think going for the hardball approach is going to work on him."

"Or her. Or them. Well, technically the official PRT guidelines state to use gender neutral language for any cape that has an unconfirmed or ambiguous gender." Gallant added.

"Oh my god, you are such a nerd, Gallant. No wonder why you get along with my sister." Panacea muttered under her breath.

"That's a good point. Hey, creepy bug person, what's your gender?" Browbeat asked me.

As much as I wanted to try and keep my civilian and cape personalities apart so people couldn't link Taylor Hebert, the normal high school girl who had a bullying problem, to Khepri, the weirdly experienced, mysterious new villain in Brockton's cape scene. But I didn't want people to think of me as a guy, though. Something about that rubbed me the wrong way.

"Female."

There was a brief pause.

"Holy shit, you're a girl?" Panacea replied, her face genuinely bewildered.

"Enough!" Aegis yelled to his teammates, and then turned back to face me, "Listen, if you do surrender here, I'm pretty sure there's a good chance that you can sign up to the Protectorate or the Wards instead of going to jail. You beat Lung, you didn't take hostages, and you saved Vista, all very good things! So there's an extremely good chance you can avoid any jail time if you just surrender."

I felt someone re-enter my range, approaching at a high speed. It was time to wrap this up, and quickly. I unsheathed my knife and pointed it at Aegis.

"No."

"But your teammates-"

"Who said my teammates left me behind?"

All of them tensed up from that, finally realising the implication, as I unsheathed my combat knife from my utility belt. Browbeat took his arm off of Gallant's shoulder and adopted a martial stance, while Gallant had summoned another two spheres of energy. Kid had upholstered his two pistols, but kept them facing the ground. Panacea and Vista, who were both still sitting on the ground, looked afraid and pissed off, respectively.

"So you saving Vista really was a distraction for the other Undersiders to leave with the money, then. Which means that you deliberately planned for her to fall off." Aegis accused me, his eyes rage and misplaced justice.

"Aegis, you massive idiot, it wasn't Khepri's fault I fell off," Vista hissed, "She asked me to step away from the edge because she didn't want me to fall, and I was so surprised that I slipped, which might I remind you that it was your idea to put me there in the first place!"

Aegis hesitated, but then went back to glaring at me. Why was he being so forceful here? Was he embarrassed that I saved Vista, or because he was the one to put her there, or both?

"Regardless, you have two choices here: you can either fight me and lose, or just let me leave."

"But how would we lose? You've literally got your back to the wall here!" Browbeat responded, taking a few steps forward so he was next to Aegis.

"Because that fight just then, with the other Undersiders? That was me fighting nicely."

"You weren't playing 'nice' with Clockblocker." Aegis accused.

"…Because my team didn't have any other way to deal with him safely. I wouldn't have done something like that if I had an alternative, so you can give him my apologies for it later."

"What's it like when you don't fight 'nicely', then?"

"Well, you all probably heard what happened to Lung, right?" I replied, pointing my knife at Panacea, "Just ask her. She had to be flown in by her sister to heal him after he tried to fight me and failed."

"Um, he had enough venom in his veins to kill several people at once. His regeneration was barely keeping him alive when I got to him." She said, raising her hands in surrender, "And, uh, if it comes down to a fight, I'd appreciate it if you didn't hurt me. Non-combatant, right?"

"I don't want any part of this either. Don't get me wrong, I still hate you, but you did sort of go out of your way to save me, and I'm not going to bother trying when I know we aren't going to win." Vista added.

I gave the two of them a single nod, and turned my head to the other Wards.

"That goes for the rest of you, too. If you don't fight me and just let me go, I won't do anything."

The other Wards looked confused, glancing at each other, silently communicating something to each other. Kid Win eventually shuffled forwards and whispered something to Aegis.

"Whatever you choose to do, we'll back you up on it. Either fighting her or letting her go."

He turned his head, glancing at his teammate, and nodded once before he went back to glaring at me.

"You know, I really hate villains like you," he remarked, tilting his head upwards, still glaring at me, "The ones that are so self-assured that they can win any fight, run from any situation, that they'll never be caught, and act like they still have morals or decency. You can say that you're sorry for Clockblocker, or that you had it in your heart to save Vista, but if you were actually a good person, you wouldn't be a villain."

Oh my god, he was actually monologuing at me. I reached into my swarm and saw that a certain person was only a block away and was rapidly approaching.

"Time's up. I have places to be."

"Alright, if you wanna do it the hard way-" Aegis replied, moving into a fighting stance, but was cut off from the insects I've been amassing since I got into the alley, and since the office building shielded the alley from most of the rain, I was able to form a proper swarm.

The sheer density made it difficult for any of the Wards to see more than a more than an arms length away in front of them, and with that many eyes, I could see everything impossibly clearly; every bead of sweat, every nick and cut, anything as slight as a twitch of a finger.

I dodged to the side, avoiding Aegis' tackle, causing him to crash face first into the brick wall behind me. I unsheathed my knife from my belt, and as I moved to my first target, I quickly glanced at the two girls huddled together on the ground, and parted my swarm just enough that they could see me. They both snapped their heads to me, and I gave them another single nod, hoping that they would understand I wasn't going to hurt them.

Browbeat was trying to wade through my swarm like one would through deep water, trying to find where I was, his telekinetic shield prevented most of my bugs from biting and stinging him. I formed a clone near him, using bees, hornets and wasps to mimic the gold of my armour. He tried to punch it, exposing his back to me. I slashed him twice, enough for him to cry out in pain.

Gallant at this point had already let go of his teammate, trying to keep his composure in the face of the screeching and buzzing. He was glancing around, trying to yell out to his teammates, but was unable to get a response. I formed another fake clone, just in between Browbeat and himself, making him fire his emotion blasts at his teammate, mistaking him for me. He started sobbing in response, as he sat down and curled up, confirming another suspicion; That Gallant's ability to see emotion was based on line of sight, and my swarm was thick enough to block it.

Gallant then tried walking towards his teammate, completely oblivious that I was standing near him, exposing what I was looking for. I'd been around Defiant and Dragon enough to get a good grasp on how most things made by tinkers work; things powered by a battery of some kind have systems and mechanisms that activate if the power source gets tamped with, to prevent the user from being blown up.

Gallant's power armour was pretty crude, probably not made by Armsmaster. Kid Win probably made it, then, if the PRT didn't source it on the cheap from some other tinker.

The battery of the power armour was located on the back, which was exposed due to the damage done by Angelica. It was too easy to slash some of the wires, making his power armour shut down. He stumbled, still trying to reach his teammates, and promptly fell over, too heavy to move it under his own power.

Kid Win, as soon as I flooded the alley, looked like he'd wanted to bolt, but remained completely frozen in place, undecided between trying to help or running. I grasped my knife, curling my hand around it into a fist, and punched his exposed jaw, and kicked him, making him drop to the ground like the rest of his teammates.

I walked out of the alley to where Bitch was, waiting on top of Judas. Her short, auburn hair drenched from the rain, missing her plastic bulldog mask. I dissolved my swarm, and looked back at Aegis, horrified at how his other teammates were all on the ground, and the two girls who were still huddled together.

And they saw me, standing right outside of the alley, with fear and awe on their faces.

"The fuck happened to you?" Bitch asked.

"Long story, I'll explain everything when we're back at the base. Broke my arm, though." I replied, holding out my good arm towards her.

She glanced at my sling, and she whistled at Judas, making him squat down. She tightly grasped my hand with hers, leaning down to put her other hand under my arm and picked me up, and I used some of the spikes jutting out from Judas' flank as a step. I sat behind her, my one good arm wrapped around her waist, as she whistled something which caused Judas to go into a full sprint, leading us back to the loft.

"That was really fucking stupid of you. They're going to tear you a new one once we get back." She stated.

"Is everyone ok, though?" I asked, mumbling into her shoulder.

"Ok. Some cuts and bruises. Nothing big."

"Good. I can handle being scolded if everyone got out ok. How are the dogs?"

Rachel turned her head slightly, looking at me from the corner of her eye, and then went back to looking forwards again.

"They're a little roughed up. They can handle it, though. Made sure of that."

I closed my eyes, my body too exhausted from the fight to keep them open. Another dissonance between my younger and older bodies.

"That's good, too. They're a part of the team."

She'd just grunted in response, and we fell into a comfortable silence as Judas made his way to the Loft. I quickly fell into a light sleep, the exhaustion catching up to me.

---

"Wake up. We're here."

I urged my eyes open, realising that I fell into a deeper sleep than I intended to, and attempted to rub my eyes but my mask was in the way.

Rachel had ordered Judas to lean down closer to the ground, and she was staring at me from the corner of her eye. Not a glare, though.

I sat up straight, and Rachel dismounted. She then reached out her hand, helping me get off without hurting myself. She kept her hand on Judas though, slowly taking away the bone, scale and muscle. I gave him a pat on the head, and turned around to see my other teammates.

I could see that the rest of the team was waiting for us at the top of the stairs, already changed into casuals. Brian looked irritated, but softened slightly once he saw my sling. Lisa was uncharacteristically antsy, while Alec gave me a wave, sporting his usual smirk.

I waved back with my good arm.

"Took you fucking long enough. Now can you explain what the hell happened?" He yelled out.

"I'll explain further once I'm changed and showered, ok?" I replied, making my way up the stairs, grasping the stair rails for support, Rachel following behind me with a regular sized Judas next to her.

"No. We need to understand what happened." Brian tried to inject authority into his tone. "You ask us to leave you behind, and you come back with a broken arm?"

I waved my good arm at him, too tired to reply back. I knew he wasn't actually mad at me, just concerned.

Hopefully he wouldn't get suspicious, though. Although I was trying to hide the contradictions about myself, given that I was supposed to be a fresh cape but fought Lung, and came back from facing several Wards by myself unscathed.

Lisa already knew the truth about me, Alec probably thought something was up but didn't care to do anything about it, and Rachel wouldn't given her hatred of anything complicated, straightforward and simple as she is.

I hobbled my way to sit on the middle couch where it was covered in towels, and Lisa was kind enough to have gotten me a glass of cold water. I took my mask off and placed it on the coffee table, and immediately sculled half of it, only realising now how parched I really was.

Rachel sat down on the couch on the right side, her dogs already powered down to regular size, and Lisa handed me my glasses and sat down next to me. With my sight restored, I could see that Alec had laid down on the left couch, while Brian stood in front of the tv instead of sitting down, arms crossed, still looking upset with me.

"Alright, you said it was broken, so lemme take a look at it." She said, and I started unfurling my sling, hissing out in pain as I moved my arm. The chitin plate was still wet and covered in grime, but still intact. She lightly pressed down at different places along my forearm, humming in thought occasionally.

"My power is telling me that there's a chance it's fractured rather than broken, but I'll take another look at it once you get your costume off."

I gave her a weak nod, and she gave me a gentle smile and patted my hand, careful enough to not touch my forearm. I glanced around the room, and saw that they were all staring at me, so I leaned into the couch, closed my eyes, and started speaking.

"The worst places you can fight in is somewhere you can't easily escape from. Like the rooftop of a building if you don't have a mover ability, like flight or teleportation."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Brian asked.

"Because as soon as I realised that Vista was on that rooftop, there was a chance she could've fallen off it, especially because it was raining. She could've used her space manipulation to save herself, but I kept an eye on her, just in case."

"When I tried to stop her from manipulating the space around the street, I told her to get away from the edge and she must've been so surprised that she slipped and started falling. I got there in time to break her fall, but she fell at an angle, hitting my left forearm first, which broke it, of course. Managed to find a straight piece of wood that I split into two to create a makeshift sling."

"But why did you need us to run off like that, then?" Alec piped up, staring at me.

"For several reasons. One, because Panacea was still hanging around at the back entrance, and I needed her to come over and heal Vista. She wouldn't have trusted me if any of you were around, or if the fight got too close to the alleyway. Two, I needed time to make a sling and gather another swarm. Three, I needed something to make the Wards not immediately fight me, so making them think you left me behind in favour of running off with the money was the only option."

"I know it was a good thing, what you did, but she's a…" Brian asked, his question trailing off.

"And four, because a Ward dying or getting that seriously injured would put us on the shit list of the heroes and public," I opened my eyes and looked at our leader again, whose expression had softened a bit more, and was no longer folding his arms.

"How did you manage to beat them, then?" He asked.

"They were already weakened. Morale was bad because of what happened to Vista and Aegis' bad call to put her on the rooftop to begin with. Clockblocker was still frozen. Chatted with them for a bit, gave them a warning about fighting me, brought up what I did to Lung. It was really only Aegis who was committed to fighting me, the rest of the Wards were too unsure or conflicted."

Brian looked really conflicted at that, but sighed and sat down next to me.

"Remember what I said a couple of days ago? On Monday?" He asked, turning his head to me.

"To not do anything stupid in fights?" I mumbled. He nodded his head.

"Like, I get it. You've just joined a team, you wanna impress them. But please, please, promise me you won't do something so stupidly reckless again?"

"I promise." I lied, mumbling. He looked satisfied, and awkwardly patted my shoulder's armour plate, wiping his hand on his pants when he realised my costume was still wet from the rain.

"Well, with the heavy stuff out of the way, we can actually celebrate, lady and gents!" Lisa excitedly said, clapping her hands together, "Because after counting what we got, we managed to steal fourty fucking thousand!"

Alec had yelled out, getting up from his sitting position, and held out his hand to Brian for a hi-five. Brian did so, and turned to me and pumped his fist; I weakly cheered out and raised my arms out. I looked over to Rachel who had a feral grin on her face, her dogs alert from the noise the others were making. Lisa gave me a wink and pointed behind her.

"Taylor, you can go and have a shower and get changed. Then we can go out and get food together, ok?"

I nodded in reply. There was something she needed to talk to me about, and to me alone.

---

I stared at the reflection of myself, my skin still slightly warm from my shower. Still the same puppy-dog brown eyes, long black curly hair, the mouth slightly too wide for my face, the A-cup chest and distinct lack of curves.

It was still me, even if I was a couple of inches shorter, or the lack of scars that I'd accumulated over time.

There was a neat pile of clothes sitting on the basin, alongside my makeshift sling. The two pieces of wood were still bound to my broken forearm with silk. It still hurt, but pain was something I was used to at this point. The new clothes were sneakily bought by Lisa yesterday, when we went shopping together after my tour of Arcadia. She claimed that they were all in my size, and would 'accentuate my physique', and she was thorough enough to take all the price tags off.

The clothes included a padded sports bra, a pair of comfortable looking underwear, a loose, white coloured tank top that seemed to end at my midriff, and a pair of black cargo pants that had a silver chain hanging from the left pocket to the back.

I had my doubts that I looked good in these clothes, but I trusted Lisa enough that she wouldn't pick anything that would look awful on me, and when I began changing into them I reflected on the fight at the bank.

It was a lot better than I was originally expecting, honestly. We didn't need to resort to taking hostages, which was going to be important for getting the heroes and general public to trust us as a team further down the line, especially after Leviathan. Lisa didn't subject Amy to a mental breakdown, which was another step in my plan to try and befriend her. The thing with Vista would hopefully show that Khepri wasn't a big evil villain, and was someone who could be reasoned with, at least compared to Skitter.

And judging from Lisa's reaction, I'm assuming Dinah didn't get kidnapped either. Which then meant we can help her avoid another attempted kidnapping, and potentially be able to ally with her at a later point.

I finished getting changed and stared back into the mirror again. The pants gave me the look of having hips, and the crop top clung to my torso in such a way that showed off my toned stomach and arms, and the padding wasn't obvious. The sling didn't really help, but that was something temporary.

I did look good in these clothes. Maybe I should ask Lisa for some makeup advice at a later point.

I saw Lisa waiting for me just outside of the bathroom, typing something on her phone while she leaned against the wall. With a little spring in my step, I opened the door, and she looked up and gave me a massive grin.

"I told you that you would look good in them."

"Yeah, I do. Thank you for picking them out for me, Lisa." I said, as I resisted the urge to itch my right arm. "Although I don't know much about fashion, but maybe we could go clothes shopping together?"

"Of course I'd want to do that. We're friends, aren't we?" She replied, with some genuine affection in her voice, "Anyway, we gotta go and get your arm looked at, and there's some stuff that we need to discuss."

I nodded, and we both walked into the main area of the loft. Alec was doing his usual thing of playing video games, and Brian was lying down on the couch, looking at something on his phone.

"Alright, Taylor and I are heading out. We'll be back in an hour or two." Lisa stated to the others.

"Why will you be so long?" Brian asked, looking up from his phone.

"Because there's a doctor that's connected to the boss, and he can help get her arm healed up. After that we'll get some food to celebrate. Something fancy, I'm thinking." Lisa replied, picking up her handbag.

"Why can't we go to a restaurant or something, then?" Alec asked, still focusing on his video game. He seemed to be running around shooting at people, and I couldn't tell what game it was.

"Because then Rachel would have to be left out. And if she gets left out, then I'm not coming." I replied. Rachel had left during my shower, taking her dogs with her. Must be checking her territory or on a walk.

Alec hummed in response, but didn't say anything.

After Lisa and I said our goodbyes, we walked down the stairs and out of the decaying building, far away enough that the two boys couldn't overhear us.

"So, what was it that you really wanted to talk to me about?" I asked, as we both got into Lisa's car, the same one she had when she picked me up at Arcadia. It was one of the smaller models, built for driving in a city, with only two seats and a boot, and was covered in scratches and marks.

"Oh, you have no fucking clue. First of all, we're going to get your arm fixed. You probably know the dude already, from your future vision."

I hummed in response as she turned the car on and started driving.

"Two, we'll need to talk to the team about Bakuda. Her bombing started tomorrow in the previous timeline, so if we want to stop her we'll have to hit her hard and fast before she does."

"And-"

"And I've already done some research on her, and came up with some explanations to pitch it to our team, don't worry about that." She said, cutting me off.

"You seem excited about something." I said, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Oh, that'll be the last thing. The third thing: what you did at the bank? Already making waves online. The PRT couldn't cover up the fact they had fucked up and you were the one to save Vista. I'm so going to hack them for that video of you and show it to the others."

"Get to the point, I know it's about Dinah." I replied. Judging from Lisa's excitement, it was a safe assumption that she didn't get kidnapped.

"Ok, ok, hear this: I talked to the boss about it, and boy was he fucking pissed about it. For whatever reason, he wasn't able to kidnap her, and he doesn't suspect us of being involved with it at all. Thinks that whatever happened was a coincidence. A coincidence he couldn't have controlled or planned for."

"Which meant the note worked?"

She shook her head and gave me a so-so gesture.

"Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. Here's the other thing: she was at her school when we were robbing the bank. Which meant someone stopped him from kidnapping Dinah. Someone who was there, at least from his perspective, because of coincidence, and someone he couldn't deal with mercenaries alone."

I turned to her, realising what she was implying.

"Taylor. Who wasn't at the bank, but was there in the first timeline?"

Victoria Dallon.

"She's like me." I whispered.

---

Well, there's a reason I tagged this as a Ward fic.