Bark 2.3
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Bark 2.3
Armsmaster had come. He was standing impressively in the alley, having gotten off perhaps the coolest motorcycle I'd ever dreamed of seeing. He was impressive, to say the least, and the fact that he was there to listen to my idea meant a lot. I'd taken time to try to convince him that I had a good idea he needed to hear, but who knew whether he'd agree. If he didn't, I'd have to hold on, because there was no way I could do it alone, or even just with Rachel's help.
So I leaned against the wall, watching him, hoping my costume wasn't too lame. I'd met him before, but it was different now. Before I'd had something for him, some villains, now I needed something from him and the Protectorate. A lot of something, actually, considering how dangerous the E88 was. They had the numbers, they had the capes, but that only meant we needed to attack harder.
When the enemy bared their teeth, you went for their throat, I thought. Being weaker just meant you needed to bite harder and hit faster. At least, I thought so. I hadn't exactly put this into practice. It made sense, though. Call it a lesson from Rachel.
"So, you said you had a plan. Please tell it to me."
"I've been looking around, following members of the E88. Seeing where they go, and using that to create a map of sorts as to where they hang out, and where their capes change and base themselves from," I said.
"You have?" he asked, and there was something about his voice that I didn't like. There was an edge, and I found myself bristling already, as if I was going to be attacked.
"Yes. And I've located three areas they're coming from. If we just attack them, they might see it coming and scatter because they're afraid, but there's another way to do it."
I had spent a long time thinking about Rachel and how she could help, and I was thinking now that maybe it was a great thing that she'd convinced me to do this. I could totally make this work if I planned it right.
"Ra...Bi...Hellhound has agreed to work with me to make this plan a reality, because the Undersiders seem to have a real hatred of the E88, which is sort of understandable, really. Everyone should hate them," I said, nervously, "she's agreed to stick with me for the first stage. There's a store that serves as a front for drug dealing. I attack it with her, and they think that the Undersiders are raiding."
Armsmaster was watching me, and I babbled on.
"That means they'll come out in force, because they have the numbers to crush the Undersiders, and they've lost strong capes to them. Trap the Undersiders, beat them to heck, and then perhaps leave them for the police to capture after that. But if the Protectorate is watching the other two main hideouts, then they sally forth right into an ambush, you take all of them, and any others will have to choose whether to go after me, and the supposed Undersiders that aren't actually attacking, or go after you."
Now his frown was almost thoughtful. "This could work in theory. But you realize that you're telling us to trust you with a major part of the plan. If this falls through, or is just an excuse for an Undersider smash and grab, then that leaves us in deep." Armsmaster looked severe, and I knew he thought I was capable of it.
But why?
"I… understand that, but the worst case scenario is that we miss this opportunity. Eventually they might think to find a way around the bugs. Right now, though, despite what I've done, Armsmaster, I'm not well known. But that'll change, and it'll be harder to figure things out."
This might not be strictly true, but I wanted him to think so.
"Understood. I can pass on the request. When?"
"Friday night, if possible. Everyone would be out and about then, and that'd include me," I said. "So, are there any major problems with the plan? I can tell you where they are, but don't hit them too early."
"I can't promise that, I can only promise that we'll keep in contact with you," Armsmaster said.
"Well, then…" I trailed off, frowning, trying to figure out what I was going to do. It was a good thing he couldn't see the look on my face, because I was worried about this. If I gave him the information and he just charged in and tried it on his own, then… maybe he'd succeed, since he was a member of the Protectorate, but I felt skeptical. "Well, I can still do it."
"Good," Armsmaster said, as if there had been no doubt at all that I'd do as he said. "But there's something else I need to warn you about. The Undersiders are not as you seem to think. In fact, for instance, two of them are murderers, including Hellhound." He sounded a little wooden, and I had to imagine he'd planned this.
That didn't stop me from staring at him in shock. She'd… killed people? "Is that so?" I asked, trying to keep the tremble from my voice, despite the fear I felt. The fear that I'd opened myself yet again to someone who'd just turn out not to be worth it. I'd opened my heart to Emma, and she'd used it as a weapon against me, and now?
"Yes. Multiple people dead because of what she did," Armsmaster said, "on top of the assault and theft she's participated in. She's not the only one. All of them are dangerous, and all of them shouldn't be interacted with."
"It's just pragmatism. I don't have the support you have, and I know what you're going to say. But I'm not ready to join the Wards just yet," I said, "so don't bother asking. I understand they aren't good p-people, and I'll ask Bitch about this when I get a chance…"
I didn't want to. It was like a weight in my stomach. I was barely keeping it together, and I felt like I was back in the locker, trapped and surrounded by things that were driving me wild. I felt like I needed to run.
My words were coming more haltingly. "So, can we…"
"You still need to tell me where the locations are."
"I could just email it to you, if that's okay? I-I'll do so as. As soon as. I get home, yes," I said, trying to relax. My bugs were all swarming towards the area, as if I were about to get into a fight, but this was exactly the wrong instinct. I knew it, and yet a part of me just wanted to do it anyways. I kept the bugs back, out of sight, and slowly forced myself to make them spread back out to monitor the area.
I tried not to breath heavily, or reveal how dangerous my instincts had been.
"Very well," Armsmaster said, apparently unaware of what I'd done.
My hands were at my side, my posture defensive and my teeth bared, while he stood there with his halberd, not afraid of me, and not worried about anything I could do. And why should he be? He was a powerful hero, and I'd seen underwear with his face on it before. Action figures.
So on top of feeling frustrated and nervous, I was jealous as all hell.
"Anything else?" he added, after a long silence.
"No, Armsmaster," I said, "that about does it. We should keep in contact, so I'll also email a cell phone number as well."
"Very well," he said, "though we already have the number on file."
Oh, right. I'd called them, and they'd taken it down. Luckily, he couldn't see my blush, and it did do a little to calm me down. Embarrassment replaced anger, and I nodded. "Alright, well… see you later. I'll look into what you said."
"Good," he replied, and I stalked off, uncertain and nervous and sweating, feeling as if I were about to either do something great, or fuck up so badly that it'd be talked about for weeks, if not more.
He had agreed to the proposal, and yet somehow it seemed as if that wasn't as much of a victory as I thought it'd be. I didn't know why, it was just a feeling, just an instinct. How could I know to trust my instincts? I considered where I led me, and wasn't reassured.
********
Friday was the longest day ever. The trio should have been eager to get out of there, but they seemed to want to linger, make Friday the worst day of all. I was almost tripped again, and the rumors kept on getting worse. It was really inventive, the part where I was now into beastiality on camera for money because my Dad was so poor.
And by inventive, I mean so disgusting that I'd had to grit my teeth as hard as I could and just sit there, because I was just getting sick of it all the time. I'd thought that things were getting better, but instead, I kept on running through things.
She'd killed someone. Multiple someones. How? Why? Where? When? I wanted to look it up online, but I knew it'd be really hard to find anything. I could ask on the fan sites.
Yes, the fan sites. Believe it or not, villains often have fan sites if they aren't too odious. Uber and Leet had a site, the E88 in general had a site, there were tons of fans of Lung because of the dragon thing… not the Merchants, though, almost nobody online would admit to being their fan unless they were a gang-member themselves.
And Bitch had fans. Plural, even. I'm almost completely sure she knew nothing about the dozens and dozens of people online who thought she was incredibly cool and made up shit about her to make her seem like some sort of quiet, cocky badass rather than, you know, who she was.
I say dozens and dozens, but I suppose it might have been more than that. Either way, if I asked I had no idea what I'd get. And asking her? I couldn't imagine a quicker way to sink our friendship, if it still existed.
It did, I told myself, but at the same time, I was supposed to be a hero. And Armsmaster coming out and telling me that felt like a signal. A sign that if I stuck with her they might start questioning whether or not I was a hero. They might trap me into being a villain and then lock me up and throw away the key.
The idea of prison made my hands shake when I thought about it, the idea of being locked up, controlled, by a bunch of assholes who judged me for things I hadn't done, who sat there in control of everything and yet…
I spent as much time as I could just avoiding everyone and everything that Friday at school, going to the bathroom at least once a class to just sit on the toilet and use my bugs to make sure they didn't sneak in to dump anything on me or attack me. It didn't help that my stomach was starting to cramp a little.
I hadn't exactly been paying attention to that kind of thing lately, and so it had snuck up on me. It wasn't too bad, but it still made it annoying.
So all in all, I was miserable and just passing the time, but eventually it did pass.
Then came the next obstacle: Dad.
********
Of course, one way around the obstacle was to not confront it at all. I left a note to Dad that I was going to eat dinner with Rachel, after I made something for him to heat up, and then I got working on something that he could microwave. I wanted to spend some time with Rachel, see if I could work my way up to actually talking to her about what she did, and if not, at least plan things for when I briefly went back home and 'went to bed'.
So I cooked as fast as I could, not exactly paying much attention to the taste, and then hurried out of there. I didn't bring my costume, since I'd be coming back now, but I made sure to hide it really well.
Dad didn't trust me, and I was worried that if he got involved he'd discover something. I hadn't thought about what it'd lead to, about what it'd mean that he knew I was a hero, except I was sure that he wouldn't trust it. He was nervous and finally getting involved after so long of drifting away, and wasn't it my luck that when he was getting involved, it was to doubt me?
But then again, if Armsmaster was right, it could be that Dad was right as well. Either way, I showed up with a backpack of games and books, and I didn't really want to think about any of that.
*******
Rachel greeted me like normal, of course she did. Unsmiling, but there was something about how she stood and a dozen other factors that I couldn't really register consciously, that told me when she was in a good mood. It was a bit of a cut-rat replacement for just smiling, but I was glad I'd been able to figure it out.
Each time I figured something out about her like that, it felt like a triumph in a way that I knew was probably a little weird. But then, I was the one attracted to her, and she was apparently attracted to me, so perhaps being a little weird was just typical.
"So, are you ready for tonight?" I asked.
Rachel shrugged, as if she hadn't been worrying about it at all.
"How many dogs are you going to bring? Since we're going to be a bit off, you could spend the time to build them up," I said, "I think I know of somewhere where you can bulk them up where nobody can see you."
"Three. More is a waste, and they're not fully trained yet," Rachel said. "Soon."
More is a waste. Of course. Her power exhausted her if she used it too much, too fast. Even with slowly bulking them up, three dogs was a lot to do, and adding more wouldn't necessarily do much unless she was pushing herself, or making each of them only a little stronger.
"So, I was thinking," I said. "Not that I'm going to tell you your job."
"Good." Rachel said, firmly, "Yes?"
"Maybe you should bulk one or two up to full size, while keeping one of them smaller, in case we need to work in tight quarters. It's a business, after all. A hardware business, in fact, that's the front." I frowned, wondering why they'd chosen that specifically. It was far less prominent than a lot of other options, and when I thought 'drug front' I didn't think hardware, and so maybe that was the point.
The dogs were barking, eager to see me, and so I mused about it. It made more sense when I thought about the kinds of things people brought and bought. People drove in vans, to buy boxes of tools. Both of which could hide a lot if you wanted to move it, and that's what its purpose was. There was some drug buying here, yes, but most of the people buying were dealers, or members of the E88 who wanted a good deal. People bought, or were given a package, and then they moved it.
I'd looked this stuff up online, to be sure I had the basics of it, but it was all this big pyramid scheme, really. The people smuggling this stuff up and making it took the biggest cut, then the middle-men like the E88 or Merchants at the top took a large cut, and then the dealers at the bottom made a pretty penny, yes, but not more than that.
And even within that, there were dealers who were big or small, contracting to smaller-time people who stood on street corners selling shit.
Nobody knew where the E88 got their drugs, just that they always had a lot of them.
"Sure. That works," she said as she opened the door.
I was almost bowled down by dogs. "Oh, hey! Hey, Milk! Calm down a little, Bullet...aww, good to see you too buddy," I said, "and Angelica, nice to...ew, not my lips." I shifted a little, rubbing their ears and noses and bellies, trying to remember what dogs liked what.
Milk, for instance, loved belly rubs, but ear scratches were boring, while Bullet loved being rubbed up and down on her side.
It was all the little details, just like you were supposed to learn for interacting with people, but, in the case of Rachel and to a lesser extent me, you didn't completely learn. I hadn't really had to stretch my social muscles for a long time, until I met Rachel. And even then, from the way Lisa had failed to get to her, typical social skills might even be counterproductive, in a way, if you couldn't learn to switch off of the parts of them that didn't work.
So I played with the dogs while Rachel watched, and I wondered again what she saw. She looked at me and wanted to… well, have sex with me. I wasn't entirely sure what she wanted, but--
Slut.
But I didn't want to ask. I didn't want to get involved with any of that, not when I still wasn't sure what I was supposed to do about this silly, out of place crush.
So we just hung out. Keeping a secret like that was tough, and more than that, it made me feel as if I were always on the verge of blurting it out. I wasn't bad at keeping secrets, but I hadn't liked it. I still didn't like it, and yet I found, more and more, that the secrets I was keeping were piling up like a heap of shit, and sooner or later I'd have to shovel it, whether I wanted to or not.
"So," I finally said, once we were settled on a pallet next to each other. Suddenly all of her closeness felt different in a way I wasn't sure about, but I still snuggled up next to her anyways. My face was red, but hopefully she just thought it was because I was awkward, rather than that I was…
Anyways.
"So."
"You want to watch out for me, I get that," I said, "but it still seems a little odd."
"Nah. You're cool," she said with a shrug.
"I doubt you've spent a lot of time doing heroing, though. I mean, that's what you're doing, really. Acting like a hero."
Rachel shrugged, "Hero? Villain? What do I care?"
"So if things had gone differently, would you be a hero?"
"How the fuck would I know?" she asked, but she didn't sound that angry. Just dismissive.
"So, what did you do? I mean, once you were on the run?" I asked. "I mean, how did you wind up in a gang?"
Rachel frowned, looking over at me. "It just happened. Not a big deal."
'How did you murder the people?' I didn't ask. I wanted to, though.
"Do you want to start a new book next time we meet? I'm not sure what to do, but there has to be one somewhere."
Rachel hesitated for just a moment, "Yes."
"You enjoying the book I lent you?"
"It's still lame," she said, "all sappy."
A puppy all alone on Christmas, saving people by luck and general goodwill. It wasn't particularly realistic, but I'd seen her reading it.
"If you want to read more serious things, I could help you."
"Help me?" she asked, and this time I realized I'd hit a nerve.
"I mean, you helped me figure out how to care for dogs, right? So if you wanted to learn a little more about that. You trade things you know and we work together," I argued, "cover each other's weak points, and we can do so much more together."
I turned, trying to convince her, and I did see that she was listening. I reached out and grabbed her hand, even though that made my face go even more red. I felt warm, very, very warm. "So, what do you say? Worst case scenario, you change your mind and that's fine, too."
"Okay," she said.
Just okay.
But it was enough.
*******
We waited until it was almost dark out. I say we, by which I mean me. I had to go to link up with Dad, and then I had to try something I hadn't before. The window. I'd usually waited until it was night time to get out, and there was no tree to conveniently leap down to, but it was only the second story, and I made sure to yawn and tell Dad night. It was slightly earlier than usual, but that just meant eight o'clock. Then, once I was sure he was distracted and listening to the television, I opened the window and peered out into the late evening, just before night.
For the first time, home felt like a sort of prison.
I made sure my backpack was on well, and then looked down, frowning. Okay, so, I really should have better options than this, but I needed to be in position before nine, if we were going to have time to get her dogs powered up and wait for just the right moment to strike. Too late, and we'd be hitting a mostly abandoned place. Heck, the peak activity was actually in the later afternoon, but some people came a little late, didn't get started so 'early' as the afternoon.
Drug dealers, what could you do?
So I was going to have to be very careful. I was also sure that a giant dog, for instance, could certainly break my fall, but Dad would be too likely to notice that.
Or would he?
Maybe another time, I thought, as I began to lower myself down, hanging onto the edge of the window, and then looking down. Huh. That was a little far, but if I remembered right…
I kicked my leg slightly, and it caught on a part of the outside wall that was a little worn down. Like a chunk of it had been taken down. That put me...slightly lower. I took a breath, and let go with one hand and tried to lower myself down, grabbing for the handhold. My fingers gripped worn in fake wood, and I let my other foot go. Now I was dangling half a story from the ground, or so. Anywhere else I could go to make it faster?
No. Just drop down.I did so, as gently as I could, which was to say I hit the ground on my knees and immediately regretted it. But nothing felt broken, and I stood up, glad I was wearing jeans that I wasn't going to use any more.
Then I jogged off, making sure to stay out of the way of where he might look if he went to the kitchen to get something. Dad would be asleep by the time I got back, and so on I jogged.
This wasn't the sort of neighborhood where people snitched at others sneaking out of the house, so I didn't think anyone would say anything. Not unless I did it too often.
So I jogged along, and about a block later, Rachel was waiting near an alley. She wasn't in costume yet either, and I held up a hand. "Hey," I said, for lack of anything better to say. "Got out alright."
"Good," she said, gesturing into the alley.
Oh, right. The costumes, I thought, feeling a little nervous. Of course, Bitch's costume just involved putting things on. It wasn't hard for her when it was just a jacket and a mask. It was a little less involved than my own costume.
I had put on a tank top and some bicycle shorts, both black, underneath what I was wearing, so at least I wasn't going to undress in front of the girl I had a stupid crush on. I didn't know what I'd do if I'd had to do that, and the very thought made me self-conscious.
So I changed as quickly as I could out of my upper clothes, feeling like I was back at gym. But this was worse, and my mind strayed a little bit, to wondering how the heck she looked at me and saw anything at all. But soon enough, I was pulling on the black bodysuit and the armor. I bet that when summer hit, all of this would be a little warm, or at least, the top and shorts would be, since all of my armor could breathe a lot.
If she wasn't a villain and potentially a murderer, I could even make some armor for her. I wasn't sure of an idea yet, but the idea of making something that would keep her safe felt a little too…
Domestic, I guess? Considering the plan was to get over the silly crush, especially since Rachel didn't seem interested in dinner at a fancy restaurant, a movie, and flowers. Whatever normal romance was, she wasn't looking for that, wasn't looking for romance at all, and I should care that she wasn't.
After all, if some guy just wanted to have sex with me, I'd judge them for that, wouldn't I? I'd say they were being shallow, or that I wanted something deeper, and--
"Taylor, you ready?"
"Oh, yeah, sorry," I said, glad that my costume hid my blush as I stood up and finished pulling on the bottom half of the suit. I'd been standing there, looking down at my shoes, and pondering my situation.
Head in the game. Head in the game, Taylor, you'll have plenty of time later to worry about useless things.
*******
Rachel stood in the lee of the building, powering up her dogs. I stood with her, my eyes closed. It was just an idea I had had. If my control of bugs was a sixth senses, then perhaps by not moving and closing my eyes I could focus on what I was seeing and hearing through them. Of course, in a fight I'd need to do both at the same time, but it did seem to be working.
There were about two-dozen people in there, five of them women, probably, from the sound of their voices.
Two seemed familiar, and I mentally tagged them as 'Othala?' and 'Valkyrie #2?' The other three girls didn't seem familiar, and neither did the guys. That didn't necessarily mean anything, but I did know that if there were two capes there, then there might be more.
The building had a big unloading bay in the back, that trucks could just drive into if they had a large order. That was where the drugs came and went, leaving the front entrance and the hardware store itself open for just one more hour.
There was a man at the front, slumped over the cash register, watching about five people up front. One or two of them might have even been real shoppers. That, plus the fact that Bitch was a villain, meant that we were going to go around the back. Go around the back, and start out with a loud bark.
My instinct was to sneak in, attack them from hiding, but we needed to be obvious.
Angelica was being made into this huge monstrosity, while Brutus was merely about chest-height, and Judas had merely been made into an exceptionally tough dog. We were going to ride on Angelica, who didn't look like any angel, in order to really make the best impression possible.
I looked out, the sun having just set a few dozen minutes ago, and thus I saw very little.
What I did know was that they didn't know we were coming. They were too spread out, and none of them were hiding in, say, the truck that was out back. That'd be a perfect place to hide if you wanted to ambush the ambushers. They still didn't associate every bug with a potential spy, and hopefully they'd fall behind if I kept on getting better at tracking what they were doing and saying.
I could sort of hear everything people were saying, it was just hard for the bug senses to turn them into words. That meant that I was picking up a lot of noise, and instead of complaining, I tried to note down tone, any accents, that sort of thing. So I could say that the guy in the basement yawned, and then said something sharp to the second guy in the basement.
What was said? Ask me again in a few weeks or more of practice.
Either way, I got on Angelica, trying not to grin. This felt like it could be big, very big. Angelica should be able to just bust down the door, honestly. She had plates on her shoulders, and it wouldn't be hard. Once through, she could soak be a distraction while we got going. The mission was simple, and I gathered more bugs in the basement, the better to overwhelm the two down there.
Then the bugs would all crawl up the stairs. I couldn't have some of them slip under the door, so I'd have to open it for my bugs, and then I'd have a huge swarm, all of whom were currently hiding in the shadows, being far more quiet than even normal bugs would be.
"Alright, you ready Bitch?"
"Yes."
"Let's kick ass," I said. Cocky, I know.
"Yep. Angelica, go. Judas. Follow. Brutus. Follow."
And then off we went.
Riding a dog wasn't easy. There wasn't a saddle, and I clung tight onto the dog as we bounded across a back street, and leapt over a curb, slamming down on the ground right next to a car that was driving away.
There was a startled shout from the driver as Angelica and the other two dogs bounded past.
At the same time, down in the basement, the bored conversation turned into screams as I just buried them in bugs. It was remarkable how many bugs could make themselves down into a small, dark room, one by one, and once the people were down, covered in spider bites, they crawled all over the table. It felt like a box of some kind, like a briefcase, though I had no idea why it was down there rather than somewhere else.
I also didn't have time to think about that as we reached the door and Angelica pushed her whole weight against it.
It cracked, and then shattered, falling down just in time for a pistol shot to slam harmlessly into her hide, as the dogs started barking, just to alert everyone.
Might-be-Othala was moving, headed towards the girl I thought might be Valkyrie #2, which meant that she was thinking about providing a boost. But I couldn't stop her, not with a few flies, and we leapt off the back of the dog. I landed, glancing around with my own eyes. There were a lot of crates, a giant back area that was probably filled with hidden stashes, and at the moment, gang-bangers.
Shots were fired in our general direction, but none of them were good shots, and I gathered insects behind me, in the parking lot, ready to lash out with them.
"Judas," Bitch said, "Attack."
She was pointing, firmly, at a white girl with heavy tattoos wielding what looked like a shotgun. The blast fired, and it was close enough that my ears ached from it, but it missed Judas, who tackled her, tearing at her arm.
"Don't kill anyone," I muttered, as bugs began to pour out between Angelica's legs, coming from behind. The dog looked a little startled, and even snapped at a few, but Bitch rested her hand in Angelica's shoulder, and she calmed down a little bit.
Things were going well, so well that I was wondering when it would go wrong. Then it did.
The blast slammed into Angelica's knee, almost knocking her over, and I turned, desperately, to see who it was.
Not someone I'd seen before, though it was someone I'd tagged. He was holding a rather large gun, which looked like the kind of thing you took to hunt elephants, and it had almost knocked Angelica down. His costume was probably offensive as all hell, if the Hugo Boss stylings of it meant what I thought it did, and the fact that it was all in black, on top of a mask painted red that still showed his grim, thin mouth, made him look as if he was about to tell the Emperor that the rebels had blown up the base on the Endor moon.
Krieg didn't react as I sent as many flying bugs as I could at him. When they got near him, they suddenly couldn't breath, and seemed to be moving oddly. He swiped at them, and the ones he hit seemed to be thrown halfway back to me, as if he was racketing them away. He was moving slowly, reloading, and then there, behind him, was Othala for the tag.
The bugs gathered up, and a spider leapt at her to punish her for it, but Krieg ignored it, it wouldn't bring her down, and he had other targets.
His movements were deliberate, as if this were more an assassination than a fight, and Brutus hurtled forward at him when Bitch whistled.
He was still reloading, so Brutus should be able to…
Teeth sunk into flesh, or should have. Instead, nothing happened, and Krieg finished reloading and aimed down.
I slammed a fly into his eye, and he didn't even blink, but did turn the gun upwards as the dog retreated.
I went for the floor, and the shot roared past me. I could barely hear anything after that, and I had to guess he was invincible. Judas as chasing down after Othala, who was working her way around the boxes, trying to get up front, and Brutus was retreating, while Angelica whined and growled at Krieg.
And Valkyrie #2 was still waiting in the wings, probably wanting us to over-extend. I needed to make something happen,and soon, I thought, staring at that gun.
They say that guns look bigger when they're pointed at you, and as far as I could tell, either that was true or that was the kind of gun that only the chosen king could lift.
He stepped forward, as if nothing in the world could hurt him, and it couldn't. Still, I covered him with bugs, letting them fly right in front of his eyes, as he ran at me.
I couldn't breathe as soon as he got close, as if all of the air was thinner, and I gasped, stepping back as Angelica bit fruitlessly at him.
I had never been hit before. My Dad was not a violent man, and even if he was, he wouldn't have slammed me into the wall with a backhand. The hit itself wasn't that hard, but the wall was, and I all but flew into it, clipping a box on the way.
The spot where I hit the box was a constant, stabbing pain against the throbbing pain.
"I don't know who you are," Krieg said, his voice cold, "but you've crossed the Empire two times too many."
"Fuck," I groaned, my bugs crawling all over him, but unable to hurt him.
"Cockroach," he spat, aiming at me.
Rachel leapt onto him, screaming in fury, and he turned and tried to knock her aside. But she was grabbing onto him so hard that she just flopped, limp for a moment, and then kept on wailing on him.
And the gun was big enough that he couldn't aim at her from this close.
"Angelica!" I yelled, and to my surprise the dog whipped her head around. "Attack! Block!" I wish I'd known the commands, I thought, standing up, though it hurt so much to do so that I really just wanted to lie down for a week. God, how did capes deal with this kind of thing?
I pointed, and she went. There were gang members already lining up to take a shot, and Othala, screaming and flailing, had run into a woman who was now gaining in height. Growing taller and larger in general, though at least there was a limit if she was going to fit in this back room, which a ceiling clear height of maybe eleven or twelve feet, roughly.
But all three of them were still up, and I'd almost gotten killed. Oh god. Oh god.
Someone opened the basement door, and the bugs leapt right at him, bringing him down with a scream of high-pitched panic, as I stepped closer, but hid behind a crate. "Rachel!" I yelled, and didn't even have time to kick myself for using her name.
She… if she died. I don't know what.
Then I felt it. Suddenly one of my bees was able to sting him.
A large, blue-bottle fly went into each of his eyes as he winced, and they weren't done. Other bugs threw themselves suicidally into his throat. I wasn't going to kill him, that wasn't the idea, but more and more forced themselves down there as others stung at him.
Suddenly, all his composure was replaced by blind panic.
But if it wore off, that meant that Othala had use of her powers again, and so I tried to use the bugs to keep her occupied, all the while cursing under my breath as he finally shoved Rachel away, who got up.
Angelica was wreaking havoc, and Judas was busy, so she called out, "Brutus! Hurt!" And pointed right at Krieg. He kicked Brutus away, the dog sailing into a stack of boxes that spilled out screws, but he was going down, already starting to twitch feebly, barely able to breath with all of the bugs crawling around there.
I didn't think I'd be able to keep her from tagging in Valkyrie #2 unless I just knocked her out, so I had the bugs force themselves down her throat, wincing at the implications of what I was doing. She flailed, this way and that, but I kept it up, until she started to go limp, and then they began to crawl out of her as the Valkyrie charged forward.
Fenja? Menja? It didn't matter, because she was out of costume, actually. Othala's costume seemed as if it had been thrown on, and I suppose the girl hadn't had time to put on armor. So she was growing large with jeans and a T-shirt, and suddenly the situation was changing. Two of them were down, and there was still Angelica to deal with.
I wasn't sure if we were going to win, but I was pretty sure we weren't going to die.
Which was good. I didn't want to die in as much pain as I was low, stepping forward, my back aching so hard I needed to lie down.
I had to hope that we'd drawn the right attention.
I kept the bugs up on Krieg. We needed both him and Othala down for good, and then it'd just be us versus a giantess.
But we had three super dogs, and I felt oddly confident, as long as I could ignored how I'd been batted around. I moved towards Rachel as quickly as I could, trying to bunch up as Angelica head-butted the nine foot tall giant into a wall.
Fenja roared, lashing out with the sword she had remembered to bring, but the dog was already dodging back, having seen it coming. The bigger the dog, the slower they were, but Angelica wasn't that big, and she had the right instincts for a fight.
And sometimes, that's what mattered most.
Rachel grabbed onto me and pulled me back as Fenja (I was just going to pick one of the names and stick to it) grabbed a crate of nails and threw it in our direction.
We barely dodged, as the nails exploded from the box on impact.
Shoot. Shoot. Rachel reached Judas and began strengthening him up to Angelica's size, while I aimed bees straight at Fenja's eyes.
The eyes were the most vulnerable part of a body, and even if she was stronger and tougher the larger she was, her eyes would still be the most vulnerable part of her. And indeed, she dodged out of the way, swiping at the bees, which dodged around her hands as Angelica bit into her leg.
Judas was still growing, and as long as we kept her distracted, we were doing our job. But what about the rest of the men? Half of them were down by now, because I'd been distractedly covering them with bugs and biting and nibbling them to pieces, and Brutus was currently terrorizing the neo-nazis on our side of the back of this shop.
The fight was not nearly as chaotic as the one a week back, and so I tried to focus on what I could do. One of the bees finally stung Fenja in the eyes, and she screeched, and knocked down a wall, trying to escape.
It burst down, and she tried to retreat out into the night, clearly giving up this fight as lost, which was right about when Judas was large enough that she let him go with an, "Hurt!" and a pointed finger in the giantess' direction.
Angelica was still gnawing on her leg, her claws scratching up her other leg as if she were a cat and Fenja were a scratching post, and all in all, I didn't see much of a chance for her to escape. But once she stepped out, she began to grow in size, trying to shake off Angelica now that she was eleven feet tall.
But Judas tackled into her, and she half fell, catching a hand on the side of the building, which meant that Judas was able to bite into her sword arm. He didn't bite quite as deep, but there was still blood flowing, a lot of blood, and now that she was out in the open, we had her.
I advanced, dodging a bullet from a gang member still active. He had four bugs on him, so I felt it when he aimed, and moved out of the way almost before I had pondered this fact.
Brutus went straight after him with a whistle from Rachel, and we advanced closer to Fenja, as my bugs kept on going for her throat and eyes. I didn't know of any other easily targets, really. I guess her chest might hurt if I stung it, and there were other places I guessed, but I didn't want to go down there.
I was focused on taking her down. She needed to go down. They needed to stop this.
As I advanced towards the hole in the wall, I skidded on the nails and slammed my shoulder into one of the shelves, which toppled over. Whoops. Well, a hurt shoulder was nothing compared to the back, and so I slid forward and managed to right myself, glad that my mask hid my blushing face.
Fenja kept on fighting, but with two dogs and the bugs on her, she clearly needed to escape.
So why wasn't she?
When I stepped outside, I saw it. In the distance, there were flashing lights. The PRT were coming. And she wanted to know where they were going to fan out so she could break through.
But she wasn't getting that chance. Rachel whistled as we moved out onto the grass at the side of the building, which was freestanding, and then there was Brutus. She was going to bulk him up too, and she put her hand on his head as he began to grow. I kept watch over any of the goons inside, to make sure none of them were getting in the right angle to hit her. Once Brutus began to really grow, she crouched behind him, which was a smart move.
It was dark, and with a little cover, getting a good shot would be hard, and wouldn't really hurt Brutus, especially since her power healed her dogs.
The vans were drawing closer, and Fenja was no closer to finding a way out, considering the way her blood was tracking everywhere. We needed to finish her off, though.
I frowned, as she kept on retreating, but I couldn't think of anything. Yes, I could make a mass of bugs, and a normal person might trip on them, but she was too large for that, and too strong, she'd just squish them.
Too large. Well, if we had water, she might slip and fall and break her crown, but again, we didn't.
The van opened, and armed and armored PRT figures stepped out, alongside Miss Militia.
The American themed superhero and second-in-command kept her distance, aiming what seemed like a sniper rifle?
She fired, and a dart came out of it, slamming into one of the open wounds.
Ah. The better to bypass the hard skin, though with as little as it was, I doubted it'd take her out. If it was a tranq, I thought, it'd be designed to maybe take out a bear. She was considerably larger than a bear, which really would have made me feel a little self-conscious.
I couldn't imagine having her power. Every zit blown up, standing there for everyone to see. Powerful or not…
I was getting distracted, the pain sending my mind along weird alleyways to try not to focus on it. I was perhaps a little loopy, and I needed to sleep.
Fenja did slow a little, as another dart buried itself in one of her legs.
All of that blood couldn't be good, and I knew that she'd need serious medical attention if she escaped, or even if she didn't. And Othala was out and still unconscious in the store, with bugs there to fend off anyone who tried to get to her.
Fenja swayed, and swiped feebly at Judas, knocking him away just as Brutus charged in too, now taller than a person.
Then, like a tower falling, she collapsed with a loud thud.
And just like that, we won.
Woo.
My back hurt.
********
A/N: So, thanks to @NemoMarx.
Armsmaster had come. He was standing impressively in the alley, having gotten off perhaps the coolest motorcycle I'd ever dreamed of seeing. He was impressive, to say the least, and the fact that he was there to listen to my idea meant a lot. I'd taken time to try to convince him that I had a good idea he needed to hear, but who knew whether he'd agree. If he didn't, I'd have to hold on, because there was no way I could do it alone, or even just with Rachel's help.
So I leaned against the wall, watching him, hoping my costume wasn't too lame. I'd met him before, but it was different now. Before I'd had something for him, some villains, now I needed something from him and the Protectorate. A lot of something, actually, considering how dangerous the E88 was. They had the numbers, they had the capes, but that only meant we needed to attack harder.
When the enemy bared their teeth, you went for their throat, I thought. Being weaker just meant you needed to bite harder and hit faster. At least, I thought so. I hadn't exactly put this into practice. It made sense, though. Call it a lesson from Rachel.
"So, you said you had a plan. Please tell it to me."
"I've been looking around, following members of the E88. Seeing where they go, and using that to create a map of sorts as to where they hang out, and where their capes change and base themselves from," I said.
"You have?" he asked, and there was something about his voice that I didn't like. There was an edge, and I found myself bristling already, as if I was going to be attacked.
"Yes. And I've located three areas they're coming from. If we just attack them, they might see it coming and scatter because they're afraid, but there's another way to do it."
I had spent a long time thinking about Rachel and how she could help, and I was thinking now that maybe it was a great thing that she'd convinced me to do this. I could totally make this work if I planned it right.
"Ra...Bi...Hellhound has agreed to work with me to make this plan a reality, because the Undersiders seem to have a real hatred of the E88, which is sort of understandable, really. Everyone should hate them," I said, nervously, "she's agreed to stick with me for the first stage. There's a store that serves as a front for drug dealing. I attack it with her, and they think that the Undersiders are raiding."
Armsmaster was watching me, and I babbled on.
"That means they'll come out in force, because they have the numbers to crush the Undersiders, and they've lost strong capes to them. Trap the Undersiders, beat them to heck, and then perhaps leave them for the police to capture after that. But if the Protectorate is watching the other two main hideouts, then they sally forth right into an ambush, you take all of them, and any others will have to choose whether to go after me, and the supposed Undersiders that aren't actually attacking, or go after you."
Now his frown was almost thoughtful. "This could work in theory. But you realize that you're telling us to trust you with a major part of the plan. If this falls through, or is just an excuse for an Undersider smash and grab, then that leaves us in deep." Armsmaster looked severe, and I knew he thought I was capable of it.
But why?
"I… understand that, but the worst case scenario is that we miss this opportunity. Eventually they might think to find a way around the bugs. Right now, though, despite what I've done, Armsmaster, I'm not well known. But that'll change, and it'll be harder to figure things out."
This might not be strictly true, but I wanted him to think so.
"Understood. I can pass on the request. When?"
"Friday night, if possible. Everyone would be out and about then, and that'd include me," I said. "So, are there any major problems with the plan? I can tell you where they are, but don't hit them too early."
"I can't promise that, I can only promise that we'll keep in contact with you," Armsmaster said.
"Well, then…" I trailed off, frowning, trying to figure out what I was going to do. It was a good thing he couldn't see the look on my face, because I was worried about this. If I gave him the information and he just charged in and tried it on his own, then… maybe he'd succeed, since he was a member of the Protectorate, but I felt skeptical. "Well, I can still do it."
"Good," Armsmaster said, as if there had been no doubt at all that I'd do as he said. "But there's something else I need to warn you about. The Undersiders are not as you seem to think. In fact, for instance, two of them are murderers, including Hellhound." He sounded a little wooden, and I had to imagine he'd planned this.
That didn't stop me from staring at him in shock. She'd… killed people? "Is that so?" I asked, trying to keep the tremble from my voice, despite the fear I felt. The fear that I'd opened myself yet again to someone who'd just turn out not to be worth it. I'd opened my heart to Emma, and she'd used it as a weapon against me, and now?
"Yes. Multiple people dead because of what she did," Armsmaster said, "on top of the assault and theft she's participated in. She's not the only one. All of them are dangerous, and all of them shouldn't be interacted with."
"It's just pragmatism. I don't have the support you have, and I know what you're going to say. But I'm not ready to join the Wards just yet," I said, "so don't bother asking. I understand they aren't good p-people, and I'll ask Bitch about this when I get a chance…"
I didn't want to. It was like a weight in my stomach. I was barely keeping it together, and I felt like I was back in the locker, trapped and surrounded by things that were driving me wild. I felt like I needed to run.
My words were coming more haltingly. "So, can we…"
"You still need to tell me where the locations are."
"I could just email it to you, if that's okay? I-I'll do so as. As soon as. I get home, yes," I said, trying to relax. My bugs were all swarming towards the area, as if I were about to get into a fight, but this was exactly the wrong instinct. I knew it, and yet a part of me just wanted to do it anyways. I kept the bugs back, out of sight, and slowly forced myself to make them spread back out to monitor the area.
I tried not to breath heavily, or reveal how dangerous my instincts had been.
"Very well," Armsmaster said, apparently unaware of what I'd done.
My hands were at my side, my posture defensive and my teeth bared, while he stood there with his halberd, not afraid of me, and not worried about anything I could do. And why should he be? He was a powerful hero, and I'd seen underwear with his face on it before. Action figures.
So on top of feeling frustrated and nervous, I was jealous as all hell.
"Anything else?" he added, after a long silence.
"No, Armsmaster," I said, "that about does it. We should keep in contact, so I'll also email a cell phone number as well."
"Very well," he said, "though we already have the number on file."
Oh, right. I'd called them, and they'd taken it down. Luckily, he couldn't see my blush, and it did do a little to calm me down. Embarrassment replaced anger, and I nodded. "Alright, well… see you later. I'll look into what you said."
"Good," he replied, and I stalked off, uncertain and nervous and sweating, feeling as if I were about to either do something great, or fuck up so badly that it'd be talked about for weeks, if not more.
He had agreed to the proposal, and yet somehow it seemed as if that wasn't as much of a victory as I thought it'd be. I didn't know why, it was just a feeling, just an instinct. How could I know to trust my instincts? I considered where I led me, and wasn't reassured.
********
Friday was the longest day ever. The trio should have been eager to get out of there, but they seemed to want to linger, make Friday the worst day of all. I was almost tripped again, and the rumors kept on getting worse. It was really inventive, the part where I was now into beastiality on camera for money because my Dad was so poor.
And by inventive, I mean so disgusting that I'd had to grit my teeth as hard as I could and just sit there, because I was just getting sick of it all the time. I'd thought that things were getting better, but instead, I kept on running through things.
She'd killed someone. Multiple someones. How? Why? Where? When? I wanted to look it up online, but I knew it'd be really hard to find anything. I could ask on the fan sites.
Yes, the fan sites. Believe it or not, villains often have fan sites if they aren't too odious. Uber and Leet had a site, the E88 in general had a site, there were tons of fans of Lung because of the dragon thing… not the Merchants, though, almost nobody online would admit to being their fan unless they were a gang-member themselves.
And Bitch had fans. Plural, even. I'm almost completely sure she knew nothing about the dozens and dozens of people online who thought she was incredibly cool and made up shit about her to make her seem like some sort of quiet, cocky badass rather than, you know, who she was.
I say dozens and dozens, but I suppose it might have been more than that. Either way, if I asked I had no idea what I'd get. And asking her? I couldn't imagine a quicker way to sink our friendship, if it still existed.
It did, I told myself, but at the same time, I was supposed to be a hero. And Armsmaster coming out and telling me that felt like a signal. A sign that if I stuck with her they might start questioning whether or not I was a hero. They might trap me into being a villain and then lock me up and throw away the key.
The idea of prison made my hands shake when I thought about it, the idea of being locked up, controlled, by a bunch of assholes who judged me for things I hadn't done, who sat there in control of everything and yet…
I spent as much time as I could just avoiding everyone and everything that Friday at school, going to the bathroom at least once a class to just sit on the toilet and use my bugs to make sure they didn't sneak in to dump anything on me or attack me. It didn't help that my stomach was starting to cramp a little.
I hadn't exactly been paying attention to that kind of thing lately, and so it had snuck up on me. It wasn't too bad, but it still made it annoying.
So all in all, I was miserable and just passing the time, but eventually it did pass.
Then came the next obstacle: Dad.
********
Of course, one way around the obstacle was to not confront it at all. I left a note to Dad that I was going to eat dinner with Rachel, after I made something for him to heat up, and then I got working on something that he could microwave. I wanted to spend some time with Rachel, see if I could work my way up to actually talking to her about what she did, and if not, at least plan things for when I briefly went back home and 'went to bed'.
So I cooked as fast as I could, not exactly paying much attention to the taste, and then hurried out of there. I didn't bring my costume, since I'd be coming back now, but I made sure to hide it really well.
Dad didn't trust me, and I was worried that if he got involved he'd discover something. I hadn't thought about what it'd lead to, about what it'd mean that he knew I was a hero, except I was sure that he wouldn't trust it. He was nervous and finally getting involved after so long of drifting away, and wasn't it my luck that when he was getting involved, it was to doubt me?
But then again, if Armsmaster was right, it could be that Dad was right as well. Either way, I showed up with a backpack of games and books, and I didn't really want to think about any of that.
*******
Rachel greeted me like normal, of course she did. Unsmiling, but there was something about how she stood and a dozen other factors that I couldn't really register consciously, that told me when she was in a good mood. It was a bit of a cut-rat replacement for just smiling, but I was glad I'd been able to figure it out.
Each time I figured something out about her like that, it felt like a triumph in a way that I knew was probably a little weird. But then, I was the one attracted to her, and she was apparently attracted to me, so perhaps being a little weird was just typical.
"So, are you ready for tonight?" I asked.
Rachel shrugged, as if she hadn't been worrying about it at all.
"How many dogs are you going to bring? Since we're going to be a bit off, you could spend the time to build them up," I said, "I think I know of somewhere where you can bulk them up where nobody can see you."
"Three. More is a waste, and they're not fully trained yet," Rachel said. "Soon."
More is a waste. Of course. Her power exhausted her if she used it too much, too fast. Even with slowly bulking them up, three dogs was a lot to do, and adding more wouldn't necessarily do much unless she was pushing herself, or making each of them only a little stronger.
"So, I was thinking," I said. "Not that I'm going to tell you your job."
"Good." Rachel said, firmly, "Yes?"
"Maybe you should bulk one or two up to full size, while keeping one of them smaller, in case we need to work in tight quarters. It's a business, after all. A hardware business, in fact, that's the front." I frowned, wondering why they'd chosen that specifically. It was far less prominent than a lot of other options, and when I thought 'drug front' I didn't think hardware, and so maybe that was the point.
The dogs were barking, eager to see me, and so I mused about it. It made more sense when I thought about the kinds of things people brought and bought. People drove in vans, to buy boxes of tools. Both of which could hide a lot if you wanted to move it, and that's what its purpose was. There was some drug buying here, yes, but most of the people buying were dealers, or members of the E88 who wanted a good deal. People bought, or were given a package, and then they moved it.
I'd looked this stuff up online, to be sure I had the basics of it, but it was all this big pyramid scheme, really. The people smuggling this stuff up and making it took the biggest cut, then the middle-men like the E88 or Merchants at the top took a large cut, and then the dealers at the bottom made a pretty penny, yes, but not more than that.
And even within that, there were dealers who were big or small, contracting to smaller-time people who stood on street corners selling shit.
Nobody knew where the E88 got their drugs, just that they always had a lot of them.
"Sure. That works," she said as she opened the door.
I was almost bowled down by dogs. "Oh, hey! Hey, Milk! Calm down a little, Bullet...aww, good to see you too buddy," I said, "and Angelica, nice to...ew, not my lips." I shifted a little, rubbing their ears and noses and bellies, trying to remember what dogs liked what.
Milk, for instance, loved belly rubs, but ear scratches were boring, while Bullet loved being rubbed up and down on her side.
It was all the little details, just like you were supposed to learn for interacting with people, but, in the case of Rachel and to a lesser extent me, you didn't completely learn. I hadn't really had to stretch my social muscles for a long time, until I met Rachel. And even then, from the way Lisa had failed to get to her, typical social skills might even be counterproductive, in a way, if you couldn't learn to switch off of the parts of them that didn't work.
So I played with the dogs while Rachel watched, and I wondered again what she saw. She looked at me and wanted to… well, have sex with me. I wasn't entirely sure what she wanted, but--
Slut.
But I didn't want to ask. I didn't want to get involved with any of that, not when I still wasn't sure what I was supposed to do about this silly, out of place crush.
So we just hung out. Keeping a secret like that was tough, and more than that, it made me feel as if I were always on the verge of blurting it out. I wasn't bad at keeping secrets, but I hadn't liked it. I still didn't like it, and yet I found, more and more, that the secrets I was keeping were piling up like a heap of shit, and sooner or later I'd have to shovel it, whether I wanted to or not.
"So," I finally said, once we were settled on a pallet next to each other. Suddenly all of her closeness felt different in a way I wasn't sure about, but I still snuggled up next to her anyways. My face was red, but hopefully she just thought it was because I was awkward, rather than that I was…
Anyways.
"So."
"You want to watch out for me, I get that," I said, "but it still seems a little odd."
"Nah. You're cool," she said with a shrug.
"I doubt you've spent a lot of time doing heroing, though. I mean, that's what you're doing, really. Acting like a hero."
Rachel shrugged, "Hero? Villain? What do I care?"
"So if things had gone differently, would you be a hero?"
"How the fuck would I know?" she asked, but she didn't sound that angry. Just dismissive.
"So, what did you do? I mean, once you were on the run?" I asked. "I mean, how did you wind up in a gang?"
Rachel frowned, looking over at me. "It just happened. Not a big deal."
'How did you murder the people?' I didn't ask. I wanted to, though.
"Do you want to start a new book next time we meet? I'm not sure what to do, but there has to be one somewhere."
Rachel hesitated for just a moment, "Yes."
"You enjoying the book I lent you?"
"It's still lame," she said, "all sappy."
A puppy all alone on Christmas, saving people by luck and general goodwill. It wasn't particularly realistic, but I'd seen her reading it.
"If you want to read more serious things, I could help you."
"Help me?" she asked, and this time I realized I'd hit a nerve.
"I mean, you helped me figure out how to care for dogs, right? So if you wanted to learn a little more about that. You trade things you know and we work together," I argued, "cover each other's weak points, and we can do so much more together."
I turned, trying to convince her, and I did see that she was listening. I reached out and grabbed her hand, even though that made my face go even more red. I felt warm, very, very warm. "So, what do you say? Worst case scenario, you change your mind and that's fine, too."
"Okay," she said.
Just okay.
But it was enough.
*******
We waited until it was almost dark out. I say we, by which I mean me. I had to go to link up with Dad, and then I had to try something I hadn't before. The window. I'd usually waited until it was night time to get out, and there was no tree to conveniently leap down to, but it was only the second story, and I made sure to yawn and tell Dad night. It was slightly earlier than usual, but that just meant eight o'clock. Then, once I was sure he was distracted and listening to the television, I opened the window and peered out into the late evening, just before night.
For the first time, home felt like a sort of prison.
I made sure my backpack was on well, and then looked down, frowning. Okay, so, I really should have better options than this, but I needed to be in position before nine, if we were going to have time to get her dogs powered up and wait for just the right moment to strike. Too late, and we'd be hitting a mostly abandoned place. Heck, the peak activity was actually in the later afternoon, but some people came a little late, didn't get started so 'early' as the afternoon.
Drug dealers, what could you do?
So I was going to have to be very careful. I was also sure that a giant dog, for instance, could certainly break my fall, but Dad would be too likely to notice that.
Or would he?
Maybe another time, I thought, as I began to lower myself down, hanging onto the edge of the window, and then looking down. Huh. That was a little far, but if I remembered right…
I kicked my leg slightly, and it caught on a part of the outside wall that was a little worn down. Like a chunk of it had been taken down. That put me...slightly lower. I took a breath, and let go with one hand and tried to lower myself down, grabbing for the handhold. My fingers gripped worn in fake wood, and I let my other foot go. Now I was dangling half a story from the ground, or so. Anywhere else I could go to make it faster?
No. Just drop down.I did so, as gently as I could, which was to say I hit the ground on my knees and immediately regretted it. But nothing felt broken, and I stood up, glad I was wearing jeans that I wasn't going to use any more.
Then I jogged off, making sure to stay out of the way of where he might look if he went to the kitchen to get something. Dad would be asleep by the time I got back, and so on I jogged.
This wasn't the sort of neighborhood where people snitched at others sneaking out of the house, so I didn't think anyone would say anything. Not unless I did it too often.
So I jogged along, and about a block later, Rachel was waiting near an alley. She wasn't in costume yet either, and I held up a hand. "Hey," I said, for lack of anything better to say. "Got out alright."
"Good," she said, gesturing into the alley.
Oh, right. The costumes, I thought, feeling a little nervous. Of course, Bitch's costume just involved putting things on. It wasn't hard for her when it was just a jacket and a mask. It was a little less involved than my own costume.
I had put on a tank top and some bicycle shorts, both black, underneath what I was wearing, so at least I wasn't going to undress in front of the girl I had a stupid crush on. I didn't know what I'd do if I'd had to do that, and the very thought made me self-conscious.
So I changed as quickly as I could out of my upper clothes, feeling like I was back at gym. But this was worse, and my mind strayed a little bit, to wondering how the heck she looked at me and saw anything at all. But soon enough, I was pulling on the black bodysuit and the armor. I bet that when summer hit, all of this would be a little warm, or at least, the top and shorts would be, since all of my armor could breathe a lot.
If she wasn't a villain and potentially a murderer, I could even make some armor for her. I wasn't sure of an idea yet, but the idea of making something that would keep her safe felt a little too…
Domestic, I guess? Considering the plan was to get over the silly crush, especially since Rachel didn't seem interested in dinner at a fancy restaurant, a movie, and flowers. Whatever normal romance was, she wasn't looking for that, wasn't looking for romance at all, and I should care that she wasn't.
After all, if some guy just wanted to have sex with me, I'd judge them for that, wouldn't I? I'd say they were being shallow, or that I wanted something deeper, and--
"Taylor, you ready?"
"Oh, yeah, sorry," I said, glad that my costume hid my blush as I stood up and finished pulling on the bottom half of the suit. I'd been standing there, looking down at my shoes, and pondering my situation.
Head in the game. Head in the game, Taylor, you'll have plenty of time later to worry about useless things.
*******
Rachel stood in the lee of the building, powering up her dogs. I stood with her, my eyes closed. It was just an idea I had had. If my control of bugs was a sixth senses, then perhaps by not moving and closing my eyes I could focus on what I was seeing and hearing through them. Of course, in a fight I'd need to do both at the same time, but it did seem to be working.
There were about two-dozen people in there, five of them women, probably, from the sound of their voices.
Two seemed familiar, and I mentally tagged them as 'Othala?' and 'Valkyrie #2?' The other three girls didn't seem familiar, and neither did the guys. That didn't necessarily mean anything, but I did know that if there were two capes there, then there might be more.
The building had a big unloading bay in the back, that trucks could just drive into if they had a large order. That was where the drugs came and went, leaving the front entrance and the hardware store itself open for just one more hour.
There was a man at the front, slumped over the cash register, watching about five people up front. One or two of them might have even been real shoppers. That, plus the fact that Bitch was a villain, meant that we were going to go around the back. Go around the back, and start out with a loud bark.
My instinct was to sneak in, attack them from hiding, but we needed to be obvious.
Angelica was being made into this huge monstrosity, while Brutus was merely about chest-height, and Judas had merely been made into an exceptionally tough dog. We were going to ride on Angelica, who didn't look like any angel, in order to really make the best impression possible.
I looked out, the sun having just set a few dozen minutes ago, and thus I saw very little.
What I did know was that they didn't know we were coming. They were too spread out, and none of them were hiding in, say, the truck that was out back. That'd be a perfect place to hide if you wanted to ambush the ambushers. They still didn't associate every bug with a potential spy, and hopefully they'd fall behind if I kept on getting better at tracking what they were doing and saying.
I could sort of hear everything people were saying, it was just hard for the bug senses to turn them into words. That meant that I was picking up a lot of noise, and instead of complaining, I tried to note down tone, any accents, that sort of thing. So I could say that the guy in the basement yawned, and then said something sharp to the second guy in the basement.
What was said? Ask me again in a few weeks or more of practice.
Either way, I got on Angelica, trying not to grin. This felt like it could be big, very big. Angelica should be able to just bust down the door, honestly. She had plates on her shoulders, and it wouldn't be hard. Once through, she could soak be a distraction while we got going. The mission was simple, and I gathered more bugs in the basement, the better to overwhelm the two down there.
Then the bugs would all crawl up the stairs. I couldn't have some of them slip under the door, so I'd have to open it for my bugs, and then I'd have a huge swarm, all of whom were currently hiding in the shadows, being far more quiet than even normal bugs would be.
"Alright, you ready Bitch?"
"Yes."
"Let's kick ass," I said. Cocky, I know.
"Yep. Angelica, go. Judas. Follow. Brutus. Follow."
And then off we went.
Riding a dog wasn't easy. There wasn't a saddle, and I clung tight onto the dog as we bounded across a back street, and leapt over a curb, slamming down on the ground right next to a car that was driving away.
There was a startled shout from the driver as Angelica and the other two dogs bounded past.
At the same time, down in the basement, the bored conversation turned into screams as I just buried them in bugs. It was remarkable how many bugs could make themselves down into a small, dark room, one by one, and once the people were down, covered in spider bites, they crawled all over the table. It felt like a box of some kind, like a briefcase, though I had no idea why it was down there rather than somewhere else.
I also didn't have time to think about that as we reached the door and Angelica pushed her whole weight against it.
It cracked, and then shattered, falling down just in time for a pistol shot to slam harmlessly into her hide, as the dogs started barking, just to alert everyone.
Might-be-Othala was moving, headed towards the girl I thought might be Valkyrie #2, which meant that she was thinking about providing a boost. But I couldn't stop her, not with a few flies, and we leapt off the back of the dog. I landed, glancing around with my own eyes. There were a lot of crates, a giant back area that was probably filled with hidden stashes, and at the moment, gang-bangers.
Shots were fired in our general direction, but none of them were good shots, and I gathered insects behind me, in the parking lot, ready to lash out with them.
"Judas," Bitch said, "Attack."
She was pointing, firmly, at a white girl with heavy tattoos wielding what looked like a shotgun. The blast fired, and it was close enough that my ears ached from it, but it missed Judas, who tackled her, tearing at her arm.
"Don't kill anyone," I muttered, as bugs began to pour out between Angelica's legs, coming from behind. The dog looked a little startled, and even snapped at a few, but Bitch rested her hand in Angelica's shoulder, and she calmed down a little bit.
Things were going well, so well that I was wondering when it would go wrong. Then it did.
The blast slammed into Angelica's knee, almost knocking her over, and I turned, desperately, to see who it was.
Not someone I'd seen before, though it was someone I'd tagged. He was holding a rather large gun, which looked like the kind of thing you took to hunt elephants, and it had almost knocked Angelica down. His costume was probably offensive as all hell, if the Hugo Boss stylings of it meant what I thought it did, and the fact that it was all in black, on top of a mask painted red that still showed his grim, thin mouth, made him look as if he was about to tell the Emperor that the rebels had blown up the base on the Endor moon.
Krieg didn't react as I sent as many flying bugs as I could at him. When they got near him, they suddenly couldn't breath, and seemed to be moving oddly. He swiped at them, and the ones he hit seemed to be thrown halfway back to me, as if he was racketing them away. He was moving slowly, reloading, and then there, behind him, was Othala for the tag.
The bugs gathered up, and a spider leapt at her to punish her for it, but Krieg ignored it, it wouldn't bring her down, and he had other targets.
His movements were deliberate, as if this were more an assassination than a fight, and Brutus hurtled forward at him when Bitch whistled.
He was still reloading, so Brutus should be able to…
Teeth sunk into flesh, or should have. Instead, nothing happened, and Krieg finished reloading and aimed down.
I slammed a fly into his eye, and he didn't even blink, but did turn the gun upwards as the dog retreated.
I went for the floor, and the shot roared past me. I could barely hear anything after that, and I had to guess he was invincible. Judas as chasing down after Othala, who was working her way around the boxes, trying to get up front, and Brutus was retreating, while Angelica whined and growled at Krieg.
And Valkyrie #2 was still waiting in the wings, probably wanting us to over-extend. I needed to make something happen,and soon, I thought, staring at that gun.
They say that guns look bigger when they're pointed at you, and as far as I could tell, either that was true or that was the kind of gun that only the chosen king could lift.
He stepped forward, as if nothing in the world could hurt him, and it couldn't. Still, I covered him with bugs, letting them fly right in front of his eyes, as he ran at me.
I couldn't breathe as soon as he got close, as if all of the air was thinner, and I gasped, stepping back as Angelica bit fruitlessly at him.
I had never been hit before. My Dad was not a violent man, and even if he was, he wouldn't have slammed me into the wall with a backhand. The hit itself wasn't that hard, but the wall was, and I all but flew into it, clipping a box on the way.
The spot where I hit the box was a constant, stabbing pain against the throbbing pain.
"I don't know who you are," Krieg said, his voice cold, "but you've crossed the Empire two times too many."
"Fuck," I groaned, my bugs crawling all over him, but unable to hurt him.
"Cockroach," he spat, aiming at me.
Rachel leapt onto him, screaming in fury, and he turned and tried to knock her aside. But she was grabbing onto him so hard that she just flopped, limp for a moment, and then kept on wailing on him.
And the gun was big enough that he couldn't aim at her from this close.
"Angelica!" I yelled, and to my surprise the dog whipped her head around. "Attack! Block!" I wish I'd known the commands, I thought, standing up, though it hurt so much to do so that I really just wanted to lie down for a week. God, how did capes deal with this kind of thing?
I pointed, and she went. There were gang members already lining up to take a shot, and Othala, screaming and flailing, had run into a woman who was now gaining in height. Growing taller and larger in general, though at least there was a limit if she was going to fit in this back room, which a ceiling clear height of maybe eleven or twelve feet, roughly.
But all three of them were still up, and I'd almost gotten killed. Oh god. Oh god.
Someone opened the basement door, and the bugs leapt right at him, bringing him down with a scream of high-pitched panic, as I stepped closer, but hid behind a crate. "Rachel!" I yelled, and didn't even have time to kick myself for using her name.
She… if she died. I don't know what.
Then I felt it. Suddenly one of my bees was able to sting him.
A large, blue-bottle fly went into each of his eyes as he winced, and they weren't done. Other bugs threw themselves suicidally into his throat. I wasn't going to kill him, that wasn't the idea, but more and more forced themselves down there as others stung at him.
Suddenly, all his composure was replaced by blind panic.
But if it wore off, that meant that Othala had use of her powers again, and so I tried to use the bugs to keep her occupied, all the while cursing under my breath as he finally shoved Rachel away, who got up.
Angelica was wreaking havoc, and Judas was busy, so she called out, "Brutus! Hurt!" And pointed right at Krieg. He kicked Brutus away, the dog sailing into a stack of boxes that spilled out screws, but he was going down, already starting to twitch feebly, barely able to breath with all of the bugs crawling around there.
I didn't think I'd be able to keep her from tagging in Valkyrie #2 unless I just knocked her out, so I had the bugs force themselves down her throat, wincing at the implications of what I was doing. She flailed, this way and that, but I kept it up, until she started to go limp, and then they began to crawl out of her as the Valkyrie charged forward.
Fenja? Menja? It didn't matter, because she was out of costume, actually. Othala's costume seemed as if it had been thrown on, and I suppose the girl hadn't had time to put on armor. So she was growing large with jeans and a T-shirt, and suddenly the situation was changing. Two of them were down, and there was still Angelica to deal with.
I wasn't sure if we were going to win, but I was pretty sure we weren't going to die.
Which was good. I didn't want to die in as much pain as I was low, stepping forward, my back aching so hard I needed to lie down.
I had to hope that we'd drawn the right attention.
I kept the bugs up on Krieg. We needed both him and Othala down for good, and then it'd just be us versus a giantess.
But we had three super dogs, and I felt oddly confident, as long as I could ignored how I'd been batted around. I moved towards Rachel as quickly as I could, trying to bunch up as Angelica head-butted the nine foot tall giant into a wall.
Fenja roared, lashing out with the sword she had remembered to bring, but the dog was already dodging back, having seen it coming. The bigger the dog, the slower they were, but Angelica wasn't that big, and she had the right instincts for a fight.
And sometimes, that's what mattered most.
Rachel grabbed onto me and pulled me back as Fenja (I was just going to pick one of the names and stick to it) grabbed a crate of nails and threw it in our direction.
We barely dodged, as the nails exploded from the box on impact.
Shoot. Shoot. Rachel reached Judas and began strengthening him up to Angelica's size, while I aimed bees straight at Fenja's eyes.
The eyes were the most vulnerable part of a body, and even if she was stronger and tougher the larger she was, her eyes would still be the most vulnerable part of her. And indeed, she dodged out of the way, swiping at the bees, which dodged around her hands as Angelica bit into her leg.
Judas was still growing, and as long as we kept her distracted, we were doing our job. But what about the rest of the men? Half of them were down by now, because I'd been distractedly covering them with bugs and biting and nibbling them to pieces, and Brutus was currently terrorizing the neo-nazis on our side of the back of this shop.
The fight was not nearly as chaotic as the one a week back, and so I tried to focus on what I could do. One of the bees finally stung Fenja in the eyes, and she screeched, and knocked down a wall, trying to escape.
It burst down, and she tried to retreat out into the night, clearly giving up this fight as lost, which was right about when Judas was large enough that she let him go with an, "Hurt!" and a pointed finger in the giantess' direction.
Angelica was still gnawing on her leg, her claws scratching up her other leg as if she were a cat and Fenja were a scratching post, and all in all, I didn't see much of a chance for her to escape. But once she stepped out, she began to grow in size, trying to shake off Angelica now that she was eleven feet tall.
But Judas tackled into her, and she half fell, catching a hand on the side of the building, which meant that Judas was able to bite into her sword arm. He didn't bite quite as deep, but there was still blood flowing, a lot of blood, and now that she was out in the open, we had her.
I advanced, dodging a bullet from a gang member still active. He had four bugs on him, so I felt it when he aimed, and moved out of the way almost before I had pondered this fact.
Brutus went straight after him with a whistle from Rachel, and we advanced closer to Fenja, as my bugs kept on going for her throat and eyes. I didn't know of any other easily targets, really. I guess her chest might hurt if I stung it, and there were other places I guessed, but I didn't want to go down there.
I was focused on taking her down. She needed to go down. They needed to stop this.
As I advanced towards the hole in the wall, I skidded on the nails and slammed my shoulder into one of the shelves, which toppled over. Whoops. Well, a hurt shoulder was nothing compared to the back, and so I slid forward and managed to right myself, glad that my mask hid my blushing face.
Fenja kept on fighting, but with two dogs and the bugs on her, she clearly needed to escape.
So why wasn't she?
When I stepped outside, I saw it. In the distance, there were flashing lights. The PRT were coming. And she wanted to know where they were going to fan out so she could break through.
But she wasn't getting that chance. Rachel whistled as we moved out onto the grass at the side of the building, which was freestanding, and then there was Brutus. She was going to bulk him up too, and she put her hand on his head as he began to grow. I kept watch over any of the goons inside, to make sure none of them were getting in the right angle to hit her. Once Brutus began to really grow, she crouched behind him, which was a smart move.
It was dark, and with a little cover, getting a good shot would be hard, and wouldn't really hurt Brutus, especially since her power healed her dogs.
The vans were drawing closer, and Fenja was no closer to finding a way out, considering the way her blood was tracking everywhere. We needed to finish her off, though.
I frowned, as she kept on retreating, but I couldn't think of anything. Yes, I could make a mass of bugs, and a normal person might trip on them, but she was too large for that, and too strong, she'd just squish them.
Too large. Well, if we had water, she might slip and fall and break her crown, but again, we didn't.
The van opened, and armed and armored PRT figures stepped out, alongside Miss Militia.
The American themed superhero and second-in-command kept her distance, aiming what seemed like a sniper rifle?
She fired, and a dart came out of it, slamming into one of the open wounds.
Ah. The better to bypass the hard skin, though with as little as it was, I doubted it'd take her out. If it was a tranq, I thought, it'd be designed to maybe take out a bear. She was considerably larger than a bear, which really would have made me feel a little self-conscious.
I couldn't imagine having her power. Every zit blown up, standing there for everyone to see. Powerful or not…
I was getting distracted, the pain sending my mind along weird alleyways to try not to focus on it. I was perhaps a little loopy, and I needed to sleep.
Fenja did slow a little, as another dart buried itself in one of her legs.
All of that blood couldn't be good, and I knew that she'd need serious medical attention if she escaped, or even if she didn't. And Othala was out and still unconscious in the store, with bugs there to fend off anyone who tried to get to her.
Fenja swayed, and swiped feebly at Judas, knocking him away just as Brutus charged in too, now taller than a person.
Then, like a tower falling, she collapsed with a loud thud.
And just like that, we won.
Woo.
My back hurt.
********
A/N: So, thanks to @NemoMarx.
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