Wolf Spider (Worm) (Complete)
- Thread starter The Laurent
- Start date
Feral 5.2
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Feral 5.2
People swirled and buzzed with skepticism and awe, as Skidmark began to rant about the qualities it took to be a Merchant. I didn't even listen to him, because I'd heard enough filth in my life. I just considered the options very carefully.
For a tiny amount of time, at least. I looked over at Sierra, and then at Franky… and then made sure to allow myself to meet Stef's eyes. "Stefanie…" I said.
Bryce was still there, looking confused and put out, but I didn't really care about him. We'd deal with him or not later. He was staring at the briefcase, which was now closed, with clear and evident desire. He wanted it. Just like he'd wanted the power, just like he'd been unwilling to admit that it had costs, that it had requirements. My fury was cold and controlled, this time, at least controlled enough that I could figure out what to do.
"When you see the chance, hit the briefcase with a rock. Something that'll knock it around, but not break it."
We needed to get those samples so that we could see just what Dose had invented. And what if they did work? I thought about that for a moment, and I had to admit that stealing a few of those seemed almost tempting. If they actually worked the way it was said they did.
So, step one, I buzzed my flies around Rachel's face, to let her know that now was the time for her to come in with all she had.
The people were yelling and screaming their approval as Skidmark walked off the stage, no doubt going to go down among them and start picking out people for his little fights. I didn't know what other sorts of tests he had planned, but he looked like he was about to hand off the large briefcase, and so I needed to act now.
My bugs were spreading out, especially the dangerous ones, to try to hit as many of the enforcers and people with unused power patches as I could. I needed to take down everyone as fast as possible…
My only real advantage was that with Mush gone, they didn't necessarily have a lot of muscle… unless the new woman had some sort of power that'd replace him.
My flies formed together into a buzzing, confusing mass in front of him as he walked down the stage. I tried to get it to look vaguely human, and then tried to talk through it.
"Skiiiiidmark!" it said, though it was hard to interpret. But his name was clear enough.
"What the fuck?!" Skidmark yelled, leaping back. Some of the bugs were propelled back by whatever he was doing, but most of the bugs in that pile were flying bugs, flies especially, and so they just remained in place.
"Surrender," I said, speaking through the swarm, my voice echoing anywhere there were enough bugs to roughly emulate it. It didn't sound like a human voice, it didn't sound like my voice, and honestly for that matter I didn't know whether I'd be able to communicate that much.
"Give them back!"
"Fuck, it's that Arachne-bitch," Skidmark yelled, as gang-bangers began to unload onto the bug mass, only to find nothing at all.
He couldn't see me, not yet, and now he was distracted, Dose, Squealer, and the other two capes all looking around as Skidmark swore up a storm of disgusting and absurd invectives.
Pelter drew out a chunk of gravel and tossed it, hard. It went through the air and slammed into briefcase, which tumbled out of his hands.
Alright, now was the time to act. No costume, but I could deal with that. Pelter was aiming another rock right at Skidmark as I ran to the left, trying to get to the girls he'd enslaved.
"Fuck!" one of the men yelled, turning to the girls. "Is she one of them?"
The guards were all big, dumb looking men, and all it took was one of them panicking. My heart was racing, and now the screams of people being stung rung through the mall. I was trying to take down as many people as fast as I could, but we were definitely outnumbered now. At least a few of them were able to slap on the patches, and now that I'd been seen running, the two new capes were headed my way. Skidmark was retreating, clutching the briefcase in his hands, while Dose begged him to give it up, and Squealer? She was in the back, getting additional firepower.
That'd take her at least a little bit of time, and as far as I knew, other than using his own product, Dose couldn't really do much.
We needed to make sure that they didn't get away with them, but Skidmark and the rest of the Merchants, as well as the people we came here to save, took priority.
One of the goons, despite the bugs, pulled out his gun and shot into the crowd of women at random. "She's among us! She's here! We gotta! We gotta!" He fired again, and the bang was even louder, almost deafening me.
One of the girls collapsed in a puddle of blood.
Kayla screamed, loud and long, and the girl who'd been the leader just looked at the body for a moment, staring at it.
The bleeding, perhaps dead girl was dark skinned, in her twenties. Clothed, not naked.
The world shrunk. Bryce was running towards Skidmark. Pelter was slamming shots into anyone who moved and seemed to have a gun or a power.
Rachel was still a dozen seconds or more away from reaching here, on the back of one of the four dogs that were going to tear into this place.
Everyone was running around and firing in a panic.
Sierra and Franky were sheltering behind Pelter.
The girl was staring at the body, "No, no, no. We're going to… we'll get out of this… together," she whispered. But she sounded like not only did she not believe it, but that she'd never believed it.
I'd never heard someone sound so broken, so quick.
And then…
Something filled my vision. Huge creatures, moving things, brief and instant dreams of something fleeting. Alien and bizarre and so inhuman as to defy the idea of ever being anything else except fractal patterns, except strange multi-dimensional things that slipped out of my mind and memory as fast as I thought of them.
The energy of the universe, harvested and used to send a simple message, between a pair. A whispered word, only shouted out loud. Conveyed proudly. They were saying something, doing something… together. Agreement. Concordance. These vast beings felt intimate at the same time that they were unknowable, like lovers paired…
"No!" she yelled, and I blinked, confused at what I'd seen, having almost fallen over. The memories slipped away just as fast. "Chrissie, you stand up!"
And the girl did. She stood up, the wound knitting itself closed as she stood. One of the goons, in a panic, shot her again… and the bullet hit the girl's arm and left nothing more than a bad bruise, as if it was just a punch, and not a bullet at all.
Powers, I thought. She had powers.
"Girls!" she yelled. "Break out!"
And dozens of women all together surged forward, a tidal wave.
The Merchants were cowards, inherently so, and they proved it by retreating.
Then again, all of the women seemed a little faster than before, and the one shot that rang out, loud and horrible, just slammed into one of the girls and bounced off, leaving a nasty bruise, but… not doing what a bullet should do to a naked, unarmed person.
Skidmark yelled out "Fucking stupid shitcock fuckers!" which didn't even make any sense, and waved a hand. A layer of blue something appeared on the floor, throwing the girls back that had almost reached him.
The large woman slammed a hand into one of the girls, and that actually hurt more, because the girl rocketed back into a wall. It was three on… one parahuman that could seemingly give people powers.
I had to change the odds. The dogs were howling, and the screams got louder as I raced right at Skidmark, who turned at the wrong moment. I tackled him clumsily as bees poured down his throat and the suitcase hit the ground and spilled out.
Pelter threw a hard chunk of metal right at the big woman, and it slammed into her chest as she kept on throwing. But the girl was spinning around now, picking up and spinning the shots around before they could hit, and I was struggling with the bastard, trying to keep him from getting away.
Fire flashed overhead and surrounded us, and more and more people were moving. Some of them flying, trying to go against Rachel as she slammed through the mall entrance, her dogs shoving people around.
Bones were being broken, and I looked up at the chaos, my bugs swirling and stinging en masse. It was almost hard to balance all of it, the knowledge and the violence and the--
Fire seared again, closer, and I sprung off Skidmark, who hauled himself up, still trying to escape or fight back.
The whirling girl made it hard to run, and one of the vials was being picked up by her undertow.
There Dose was, trying to sweep them all up, but someone was there first.
Bryce, eyes glowing as he screamed, grabbed one of the vials and kicked at Dose, stronger than he should be, his hands glowing. "Mine! Mine! Mine!"
Bees just bounced off of him, and I needed to take him down. What was he even doing, I thought, as Pelter kept on firing at the whirling girl, and the other girls, all listening to the orders of the person with the power, were currently beating the shit out of the big woman with the brute powers.
People were fleeing, or attacking each other, and the dogs helped shield Rachel from the attempts to take her down, at least for the moment.
...it was sensory overload. I could barely keep track of everything and attack everyone at the same time when there were so many things to do. Franky was running towards his sister. Sierra was staring at Bryce. In the back, Squealer had some sort of electric motorbike going, one that zapped any bugs that got too close, and she was revving it up.
Rachel was just a few dozen feet behind me, and I was racing as fast as I could towards Bryce and Dose, as Bryce took off the package and held a vial of something that he downed at once--
I shuddered, another bout of strange non-memories, and saw… no one. Bryce wasn't there. And then he was, made out of pulsing, flickering stuff. Silvery-bright, his whole body one moment that, and the next physical.
Dose took the moment's distraction to sweep up the vials and the briefcase and start sprinting towards the back. "Hold them off! I gotta save the paperwork!"
Yeah, like I was going to let that happen. "Pelter! Finish them off, we need to get Dose!" Then I kept on running, leaping over a glowing patch of Skidmark's ground that I'd seen him prepare to make, as one of Rachel's dogs caught up to me.
There were dozens of powers in play now, so many that it was hard to keep track, but none of them were beating Rachel, and they weren't coordinating. Too many of the Merchants were running away while they still could, and so while one of the dogs went down, heavily injured, the person who did it paid by getting mauled.
Nobody was dead yet, besides the overdoses, but this was a situation that couldn't stand.
"Angelica!" I yelled, grabbing onto the saddle on the dog and hauling myself up. "Chase!"
*******
It was a race, and one interrupted almost immediately by Squealer slamming right next to me on the way to rescue Skidmark.
A bike built for two, I thought, dazed, as Angelica screamed but, after a moment's pain, obeyed my shouted order to continue on.
Behind the counter at a clothing store, long since looted, Dose raced to pick up some paperwork and begin to try to put all of the vials back in the suitcase as he yelled orders at a half-dozen Merchants. "Fuck, take these! Use them! Hold her off!"
Skidmark was climbing on the bicycle just as the fat woman was overwhelmed and the whirling girl finally swarmed by my bugs, and I knew that the two of them would probably get away. That bike was very fast, and the ability to phase out the bugs…
Pelter shot at them, but it failed, and Bryce? He seemed to be staring at Sierra in horror, when he actually existed, physically.
This was a mess, but we were winning the fight, somehow, even as things fell more and more apart.
With a roar, Angelica crashed through the door of the store, just as Dose was grabbing his sixth vial. He looked down at the four left to grab and said, "Fuck it!"
Then, after slapping a patch on his shoulder, he shoved his hands towards me. He instantly dispersed, disappearing and reappearing as my bugs were somehow destroyed at the same time.
He sprinted for the back door.
"I've got to…" I began, but one of the temporary capes he'd empowered, a drunk looking woman, flew right at me, slamming into Angelica so hard I was knocked off. I rolled, dazed and confused, trying to keep track of what was going on. I had to get to those vials. And the papers he'd scattered on the floor.
I had to figure out just what was going on here, and why he'd… had he really been that scared of me?
I also had to survive, and as the six capes advanced, two flying, one of them wielding lasers, and the other two with unknown powers, I wasn't sure if I would.
One of the faux-capes was slipping around back with a gun, and Angelica couldn't defend both sides at once. Not unless she just sat on me, and that wouldn't help. She was snapping and lashing out, but the flying capes were too fast, and the ones on the ground were out of her range.
And there was another fact I hadn't even realized: I was out of bugs. There had to be bugs to track every single person here. There had to be bugs to attack the Merchants still fighting, and the patch-power capes that were still holding up the rest of my team, which was making their way towards me, but slowly.
There had to be bugs to monitor the fleeing capes, and there had to be bugs to get in the corners and watch to make sure there were no tricks.
I had too many problems for too few bugs, for once, and that meant that other than a few bees, I didn't have much I could do. A wasp or two, a spider here and there, but--
I was basically helpless as they approached. Except for the giant attack dog. Angelica was the size of a van, and very, very dangerous, but that just meant it'd take me a while to lose…
So. I was going to make it take as long as possible, because I knew Rachel would come. I had the bugs there buzz and try to annoy the groups, try to get them to understand I need help, but Rachel was right in the middle of beating up some asshole who seemed to have been selling attack dogs.
That was to say, a little distracted.
There was an odd dissonance here. I should have been terrified for my life, and a part of me was, but another part of me was so spread out, from so many different perspectives, doing so many things, that there wasn't time for the same fear I would have expected.
I sat up, groaning, as Rachel finally looked up, across the way. Dose, at the edge of my range, tripped over nothing at all and fell down, the suitcase falling open for just a moment before he was able to get up. I huddled against the dog as I sat. "Stay back! You really should just run," I said, in my best Arachne voice.
"Fuck you! Ruining our fun!" A woman stepped forward, holding out a hand. There was energy crackling in it, but the energy was strange, or rather, looking at it made my head hurt. "You're that Arachne-bitch, right?"
"Yes. And you're going to be in a world of pain within a few seconds."
"We've got you surrounded!" a man yelled from above, as he slammed into Angelica once again.
The woman shot the ball of electricity, and yet she missed, slamming into Angelica's side.
...which meant she didn't miss, and that was the target. Angelica didn't yelp, or anything at all.
"What was that about?"
"That was about killing you. Now, you stupid bitch! As my owner… I command you to kill Arachne!"
Angelica turned on me, growling, and I saw that her eyes were white. Pure white. That power allowed her to control people… or animals, or something. She hadn't targeted me because… I'm not sure why. Maybe she didn't think about it, maybe a giant dog looked better as something to control?
But either way, in a single move, she'd stripped me of protection, and also probably ensured that she'd be lucky to survive, if Bitch knew about it and reacted appropriately.
Angelica's white eyes gave me no hope of just trying to somehow talk her out of it, and the girl backed up, giggling with glee. "Huh! I just knew that'd work! Isn't it neat? Now, die by the hands of your own dog!"
She was really, really talkative by Merchant standards, I thought, looking at the six of them leering. Then the black widow bit the girl's ankle. I was almost out of bugs, yes, and too few to take out all of them… but I actually only wanted to take out one of them. The girl went down, screaming, as the rest of my bugs focused on her. Wasps stung her wrists just to make an opening at her veins so she'd start bleeding. Flies lodged themselves in her ears and nose.
I was going to go down. Perhaps I was going to even die, but if I could break her control over Angelica, over our dog, then--
The flying cape tackled me, slamming me back through a window, pushing me past mannequins. I felt something crack, and the pain was unbearable as I screamed and thrashed and tried to fight, bugs moving from her to him, but it wouldn't be enough, I knew. He gripped his fingers around my throat and then--
I couldn't breathe. The pain was insistent, and I couldn't breathe and Rachel was roaring something I couldn't interpret and I couldn't breathe--
Darkness did not so much steal over me as it slammed into me.
*******
"Please, open your eyes," a girl's voice said. I recognized the voice, and obediently, after a groan, I did as she said. It took just a moment for me to realize where my bugs were, which told me…
The Merchants were defeated, that much was clear. Everyone seemed gathered in the center of the mall, and… you know what? Maybe I should just use my eyes for a moment. "Okay, so…" I groaned.
"Don't sit up too much," the girl said, looming over me. She was the girl that had just triggered.
I had been going to get up and move, but I decided that maybe I should take it easy for a moment. Rachel approached me, pushing the other girl out of the way. "You okay, Taylor?" Rachel asked. Her face was drawn, and I could almost feel the tension. She looked over at the other girl and said, "Thanks."
"What happened?" I asked.
"Char here saved you," Sierra said, pointing at the girl, who was no longer naked, I noted. The jeans and the shirt didn't really fit, but she was wearing something. Over in a corner, Franky and his sister were talking, and Bryce? Bryce was in a corner, glaring at everyone, but not retreating. He was still phasing, in parts or as a whole, in and out of existence in a very, very disturbing and worrying way.
He didn't, besides that, still look completely human, with the semi-transparency one moment, and then the lightning-like glow, and then something human for a moment, but never his whole body, and never for long before it shifted to another part.
Whatever his power was, it was clearly hard enough to control that he was going to have to work at it.
I didn't feel bad for him at all, honestly. He'd been the one to choose it, unlike "Char" or myself, unlike Rachel or Stefanie. That made all of the difference in whose fault it was. In who was to blame. Powers happened to you, and then you figured out what to do next: choosing it?
But now wasn't the time to brood. "Char?"
"Charlotte," she said.
"Charlotte?" I asked. The name almost sounded familiar. Not very familiar, but the kind of familiar where I might have heard the name mentioned absently once, and then never again. It was a nagging feeling in the back of my mind. "Do I know you?"
"No. You… your people. They saved me," she said.
"You seem to have saved yourself," I said, as my bugs began to take stock. There were about forty or fifty non-Merchants still up and about, the ones that had been enslaved or the like. The whole mall was completely wrecked. It stank of booze and corpses (none of them, it seemed, caused by us, though there were a lot of wounded people about), and weed and… it just wasn't going to be good for anything, even if flying patch-parahumans hadn't gone right through the roof in places.
"I wouldn't have… done that. If you hadn't come here. They wouldn't have shot Suzanne." She said it properly, and I wondered how she felt about killing Char. "But they would have… they would have done worse to her. And what would I have done?"
"Well, I still say you saved yourself." I glanced over at Rachel, because I had a thought of sorts. "Don't sell yourself short."
Rachel snorted slightly, then added, "You saved Arachne. Modesty is bullshit."
"How did she save me?"
"Healed you," Pelter chimed in, nearby. "She's going to have to do so for some of the goons here. We roughed them up pretty bad."
I nodded, still not getting up. Doctor's orders and all that, I thought with a slight smile. "Charlotte, what are you going to do now?"
"I… don't know." But the way she said it, it was like she did know. Everyone was hovering around me, worried. I liked that… not that I'd nearly died, or at least been hurt so badly I'd passed out.
But I liked the idea that some people cared enough to hover, other than my Dad. I wanted to go alone somewhere with Rachel. I wanted to kiss her again and again, because I could tell something from her eyes, I could imagine her panic and fury.
But I didn't notice any dead bodies, so whatever she'd done, it was okay. It was alright. We could deal with it. "Do you have anyone to go back to?"
"No."
I looked at Rachel. I wanted to ask her if she was okay with what I was about to say, but I didn't know how to. "Do you… want to come back to our camp? We're going to take anyone who wants to go." I said, "Can I sit up now, or is there something else you have to heal?"
"No. No. It's fine. I think it… is like regeneration? But slower? So you'll feel sort of energetic for a while," Charlotte said, biting her lip. She looked uncertain. "I do, I really do."
"Oh?" I asked. I was really baffled at what I was hearing. I stared at her. She didn't look familiar, but she looked like she should look familiar.
"I have powers now. I need to help people, and--," she seemed to cut herself off, and just smiled. "Help people." She said it as if it was the most obvious thing ever. I sat up, rubbing my head a little and looking around. I was still dressed in the same ratty, miserable clothes as before. They showed off my body, and I remembered that hand on me…
Now, if everyone else in the entire mall got the fuck out, except Rachel, then I'd be… more fine wearing this. If she cared, and I knew she didn't care about clothes. Still, I shifted around, seeing her eyes on me. Worry mostly, I bet. "And you want to join us?"
"Yes! I've… heard about Arachne."
"And Bitch," I said, firmly. She was part of this too. She wasn't going to be 'and her villain GF, Bitch' if I could help it. We were partners. In more than one sense of the word. Or that's what I wanted.
"Yes…" Charlotte said a little doubtfully.
"We're not that bad, don't believe everything you heard," I said, as I struggled to stand up, moving closer to Rachel. "Pelter, what's happening with Bryce?"
"Sierra wants Bryce to join the Wards. If you won't allow him to join your team," Pelter said.
"No," I said. I didn't even have to look at Rachel. But when I did, I didn't see any disagreement on that score. Rachel didn't like new people period, and if I disapproved, surely she trusted my judgement. Bryce was… troubled. The Wards wouldn't actually fix him.
Honestly, they'd probably ignore his abuses of his power, even if he beat people up or bullied them or worse, even if he might be a murderer. They'd ignore all of that and maybe even encourage it, and then if he died to an Endbringer, they'd put him up on some fucking wall and tell sob stories about how nice he was.
Because yes, Cass had told me that there were actually threads where each person who died was memorialized. Shadow Stalker's was way shorter than some of them, because if you didn't have something nice to say, you'd probably get banned.
Well, screw that. Bryce could go be an asshole somewhere not around me, because I wasn't going to spend hours and hours dealing with him. For no gain at all. It wasn't hypocrisy, I swear.
"Can I join?" Charlotte asked. "I… think I could help you."
"What does your power do?"
"I… power people up? I'm not sure how to describe it. I'd have to experiment."
"Good. I can work with that. If… Rachel, is that okay?"
Rachel looked at Charlotte. Part of the problem for her was that Charlotte had saved my life. I could see the gratitude warring with the desire to just tell her to fuck off, out of habit as much as anything else. I could read it, and I could see the gratitude winning… though if we were doing this, there were a few ideas I had.
To help Rachel along, and make things better.
"Sure."
"Why did you ask her?" Charlotte asked. But she didn't sound annoyed or snotty, just curious.
"Because her opinion matters to me," I said.
"And not… Pelter's?"
"Hey," Pelter said. "You don't have to ask me, we're not a democracy unless you want us to be." She waved an arm, flushing a little bit at being put in the spotlight. "But I do approve of another member."
"There, see?" I asked.
But Charlotte was looking at Rachel, and I had no idea what she was thinking. It might not be anything good at all. But she'd figure it out soon enough. I moved towards Rachel, and said. "Hey, can you guys get everyone gathered up? Have we called the Protectorate yet? There are a lot of people to arrest, and we need to get out of here before they come back."
"I have," Pelter said, with a smile. "We have this all covered."
"Then, the vials?"
"Got them," Pelter said, waving a hand. The paperwork is crazy. And we have proof that it works. But… it doesn't seem like it's Dose's work. It mentioned something called Cauldron."
Cauldron? "So, we have all four vials?"
"Four?" Charlotte asked. "There were only three vials."
"There. Are. Four. Vials," I said, barely keeping from grinning, punchdrunk, and exhausted, joking and yet also angry. My mood was black, my tone incredulous, uncertain about how they had missed one.
"Then you can look for it. Because Arachne, I didn't see a fourth vial. I was very thorough." Pelter looked worried. Worried that I'd blame her, worried that she'd made a mistake, worried about too many things when she'd managed things so well that all I had left was…
But then where was the vial? We'd see.
"Rachel, can you come with me? We need to pick something up."
"Course," Rachel said, looking at me. I moved close to her and hugged her tight. I felt a little bit unsteady on my feet, as if I wasn't used to using them. Which was odd. Maybe it was a side effect of the healing? I didn't know.
She helped me walk a little as I slowly moved through the mall. My bugs could watch out for any danger. "Your dogs okay?"
"Yeah," she said, hugging me tighter. "You worried me." She admitted it casually, but the look on her face told me it wasn't a small concession. Or rather, she… didn't like admitting weakness.
"It worried me too," I said. Her hand wrapped around my waist, and I blushed a little, leaning hard into her. She was just so warm, and it was nice to just have a moment to breathe in and out. We were alive, and that was what mattered. Right now the future could be as far off as it needed to be.
I was planning for it, but I wasn't living there. I was exhausted, but that just made me want to feel more alive. I wasn't sure how I wanted to do it, but I did know a first step in a plan I had… I might as well start it. I smiled as we went into a store.
A Merchant had dropped a backpack when he was running. I'd noticed it as one of those thousands of unconscious details I'd had to take in.
Out from it had spilled game systems, games, batteries. Loot, in other words. I found the backpack, a dingy pink thing that must have belonged to a girl once, and scooped it up.
"What's that?" she asked, as I continued to pick it up. "Why take it?"
"Don't you want to play video games?" I asked with a weak smile.
"There are other things," Rachel said, leaning in. I kissed her back, hard, and if we didn't have a million other things to do, I would have probably pressed on with the thought my mind had had.
But now wasn't the time. So I bit her lip briefly and said. "Alright, we have what we came in here for. I'm glad we're both alive… now let's get home."
By now it was clear to both of us just where that was.
******
A/N: Alright, so. Thanks to @NemoMarx.
Referenced Animal Abuse, Violence, Bad Language, Slavery.
People swirled and buzzed with skepticism and awe, as Skidmark began to rant about the qualities it took to be a Merchant. I didn't even listen to him, because I'd heard enough filth in my life. I just considered the options very carefully.
For a tiny amount of time, at least. I looked over at Sierra, and then at Franky… and then made sure to allow myself to meet Stef's eyes. "Stefanie…" I said.
Bryce was still there, looking confused and put out, but I didn't really care about him. We'd deal with him or not later. He was staring at the briefcase, which was now closed, with clear and evident desire. He wanted it. Just like he'd wanted the power, just like he'd been unwilling to admit that it had costs, that it had requirements. My fury was cold and controlled, this time, at least controlled enough that I could figure out what to do.
"When you see the chance, hit the briefcase with a rock. Something that'll knock it around, but not break it."
We needed to get those samples so that we could see just what Dose had invented. And what if they did work? I thought about that for a moment, and I had to admit that stealing a few of those seemed almost tempting. If they actually worked the way it was said they did.
So, step one, I buzzed my flies around Rachel's face, to let her know that now was the time for her to come in with all she had.
The people were yelling and screaming their approval as Skidmark walked off the stage, no doubt going to go down among them and start picking out people for his little fights. I didn't know what other sorts of tests he had planned, but he looked like he was about to hand off the large briefcase, and so I needed to act now.
My bugs were spreading out, especially the dangerous ones, to try to hit as many of the enforcers and people with unused power patches as I could. I needed to take down everyone as fast as possible…
My only real advantage was that with Mush gone, they didn't necessarily have a lot of muscle… unless the new woman had some sort of power that'd replace him.
My flies formed together into a buzzing, confusing mass in front of him as he walked down the stage. I tried to get it to look vaguely human, and then tried to talk through it.
"Skiiiiidmark!" it said, though it was hard to interpret. But his name was clear enough.
"What the fuck?!" Skidmark yelled, leaping back. Some of the bugs were propelled back by whatever he was doing, but most of the bugs in that pile were flying bugs, flies especially, and so they just remained in place.
"Surrender," I said, speaking through the swarm, my voice echoing anywhere there were enough bugs to roughly emulate it. It didn't sound like a human voice, it didn't sound like my voice, and honestly for that matter I didn't know whether I'd be able to communicate that much.
"Give them back!"
"Fuck, it's that Arachne-bitch," Skidmark yelled, as gang-bangers began to unload onto the bug mass, only to find nothing at all.
He couldn't see me, not yet, and now he was distracted, Dose, Squealer, and the other two capes all looking around as Skidmark swore up a storm of disgusting and absurd invectives.
Pelter drew out a chunk of gravel and tossed it, hard. It went through the air and slammed into briefcase, which tumbled out of his hands.
Alright, now was the time to act. No costume, but I could deal with that. Pelter was aiming another rock right at Skidmark as I ran to the left, trying to get to the girls he'd enslaved.
"Fuck!" one of the men yelled, turning to the girls. "Is she one of them?"
The guards were all big, dumb looking men, and all it took was one of them panicking. My heart was racing, and now the screams of people being stung rung through the mall. I was trying to take down as many people as fast as I could, but we were definitely outnumbered now. At least a few of them were able to slap on the patches, and now that I'd been seen running, the two new capes were headed my way. Skidmark was retreating, clutching the briefcase in his hands, while Dose begged him to give it up, and Squealer? She was in the back, getting additional firepower.
That'd take her at least a little bit of time, and as far as I knew, other than using his own product, Dose couldn't really do much.
We needed to make sure that they didn't get away with them, but Skidmark and the rest of the Merchants, as well as the people we came here to save, took priority.
One of the goons, despite the bugs, pulled out his gun and shot into the crowd of women at random. "She's among us! She's here! We gotta! We gotta!" He fired again, and the bang was even louder, almost deafening me.
One of the girls collapsed in a puddle of blood.
Kayla screamed, loud and long, and the girl who'd been the leader just looked at the body for a moment, staring at it.
The bleeding, perhaps dead girl was dark skinned, in her twenties. Clothed, not naked.
The world shrunk. Bryce was running towards Skidmark. Pelter was slamming shots into anyone who moved and seemed to have a gun or a power.
Rachel was still a dozen seconds or more away from reaching here, on the back of one of the four dogs that were going to tear into this place.
Everyone was running around and firing in a panic.
Sierra and Franky were sheltering behind Pelter.
The girl was staring at the body, "No, no, no. We're going to… we'll get out of this… together," she whispered. But she sounded like not only did she not believe it, but that she'd never believed it.
I'd never heard someone sound so broken, so quick.
And then…
Something filled my vision. Huge creatures, moving things, brief and instant dreams of something fleeting. Alien and bizarre and so inhuman as to defy the idea of ever being anything else except fractal patterns, except strange multi-dimensional things that slipped out of my mind and memory as fast as I thought of them.
The energy of the universe, harvested and used to send a simple message, between a pair. A whispered word, only shouted out loud. Conveyed proudly. They were saying something, doing something… together. Agreement. Concordance. These vast beings felt intimate at the same time that they were unknowable, like lovers paired…
"No!" she yelled, and I blinked, confused at what I'd seen, having almost fallen over. The memories slipped away just as fast. "Chrissie, you stand up!"
And the girl did. She stood up, the wound knitting itself closed as she stood. One of the goons, in a panic, shot her again… and the bullet hit the girl's arm and left nothing more than a bad bruise, as if it was just a punch, and not a bullet at all.
Powers, I thought. She had powers.
"Girls!" she yelled. "Break out!"
And dozens of women all together surged forward, a tidal wave.
The Merchants were cowards, inherently so, and they proved it by retreating.
Then again, all of the women seemed a little faster than before, and the one shot that rang out, loud and horrible, just slammed into one of the girls and bounced off, leaving a nasty bruise, but… not doing what a bullet should do to a naked, unarmed person.
Skidmark yelled out "Fucking stupid shitcock fuckers!" which didn't even make any sense, and waved a hand. A layer of blue something appeared on the floor, throwing the girls back that had almost reached him.
The large woman slammed a hand into one of the girls, and that actually hurt more, because the girl rocketed back into a wall. It was three on… one parahuman that could seemingly give people powers.
I had to change the odds. The dogs were howling, and the screams got louder as I raced right at Skidmark, who turned at the wrong moment. I tackled him clumsily as bees poured down his throat and the suitcase hit the ground and spilled out.
Pelter threw a hard chunk of metal right at the big woman, and it slammed into her chest as she kept on throwing. But the girl was spinning around now, picking up and spinning the shots around before they could hit, and I was struggling with the bastard, trying to keep him from getting away.
Fire flashed overhead and surrounded us, and more and more people were moving. Some of them flying, trying to go against Rachel as she slammed through the mall entrance, her dogs shoving people around.
Bones were being broken, and I looked up at the chaos, my bugs swirling and stinging en masse. It was almost hard to balance all of it, the knowledge and the violence and the--
Fire seared again, closer, and I sprung off Skidmark, who hauled himself up, still trying to escape or fight back.
The whirling girl made it hard to run, and one of the vials was being picked up by her undertow.
There Dose was, trying to sweep them all up, but someone was there first.
Bryce, eyes glowing as he screamed, grabbed one of the vials and kicked at Dose, stronger than he should be, his hands glowing. "Mine! Mine! Mine!"
Bees just bounced off of him, and I needed to take him down. What was he even doing, I thought, as Pelter kept on firing at the whirling girl, and the other girls, all listening to the orders of the person with the power, were currently beating the shit out of the big woman with the brute powers.
People were fleeing, or attacking each other, and the dogs helped shield Rachel from the attempts to take her down, at least for the moment.
...it was sensory overload. I could barely keep track of everything and attack everyone at the same time when there were so many things to do. Franky was running towards his sister. Sierra was staring at Bryce. In the back, Squealer had some sort of electric motorbike going, one that zapped any bugs that got too close, and she was revving it up.
Rachel was just a few dozen feet behind me, and I was racing as fast as I could towards Bryce and Dose, as Bryce took off the package and held a vial of something that he downed at once--
I shuddered, another bout of strange non-memories, and saw… no one. Bryce wasn't there. And then he was, made out of pulsing, flickering stuff. Silvery-bright, his whole body one moment that, and the next physical.
Dose took the moment's distraction to sweep up the vials and the briefcase and start sprinting towards the back. "Hold them off! I gotta save the paperwork!"
Yeah, like I was going to let that happen. "Pelter! Finish them off, we need to get Dose!" Then I kept on running, leaping over a glowing patch of Skidmark's ground that I'd seen him prepare to make, as one of Rachel's dogs caught up to me.
There were dozens of powers in play now, so many that it was hard to keep track, but none of them were beating Rachel, and they weren't coordinating. Too many of the Merchants were running away while they still could, and so while one of the dogs went down, heavily injured, the person who did it paid by getting mauled.
Nobody was dead yet, besides the overdoses, but this was a situation that couldn't stand.
"Angelica!" I yelled, grabbing onto the saddle on the dog and hauling myself up. "Chase!"
*******
It was a race, and one interrupted almost immediately by Squealer slamming right next to me on the way to rescue Skidmark.
A bike built for two, I thought, dazed, as Angelica screamed but, after a moment's pain, obeyed my shouted order to continue on.
Behind the counter at a clothing store, long since looted, Dose raced to pick up some paperwork and begin to try to put all of the vials back in the suitcase as he yelled orders at a half-dozen Merchants. "Fuck, take these! Use them! Hold her off!"
Skidmark was climbing on the bicycle just as the fat woman was overwhelmed and the whirling girl finally swarmed by my bugs, and I knew that the two of them would probably get away. That bike was very fast, and the ability to phase out the bugs…
Pelter shot at them, but it failed, and Bryce? He seemed to be staring at Sierra in horror, when he actually existed, physically.
This was a mess, but we were winning the fight, somehow, even as things fell more and more apart.
With a roar, Angelica crashed through the door of the store, just as Dose was grabbing his sixth vial. He looked down at the four left to grab and said, "Fuck it!"
Then, after slapping a patch on his shoulder, he shoved his hands towards me. He instantly dispersed, disappearing and reappearing as my bugs were somehow destroyed at the same time.
He sprinted for the back door.
"I've got to…" I began, but one of the temporary capes he'd empowered, a drunk looking woman, flew right at me, slamming into Angelica so hard I was knocked off. I rolled, dazed and confused, trying to keep track of what was going on. I had to get to those vials. And the papers he'd scattered on the floor.
I had to figure out just what was going on here, and why he'd… had he really been that scared of me?
I also had to survive, and as the six capes advanced, two flying, one of them wielding lasers, and the other two with unknown powers, I wasn't sure if I would.
One of the faux-capes was slipping around back with a gun, and Angelica couldn't defend both sides at once. Not unless she just sat on me, and that wouldn't help. She was snapping and lashing out, but the flying capes were too fast, and the ones on the ground were out of her range.
And there was another fact I hadn't even realized: I was out of bugs. There had to be bugs to track every single person here. There had to be bugs to attack the Merchants still fighting, and the patch-power capes that were still holding up the rest of my team, which was making their way towards me, but slowly.
There had to be bugs to monitor the fleeing capes, and there had to be bugs to get in the corners and watch to make sure there were no tricks.
I had too many problems for too few bugs, for once, and that meant that other than a few bees, I didn't have much I could do. A wasp or two, a spider here and there, but--
I was basically helpless as they approached. Except for the giant attack dog. Angelica was the size of a van, and very, very dangerous, but that just meant it'd take me a while to lose…
So. I was going to make it take as long as possible, because I knew Rachel would come. I had the bugs there buzz and try to annoy the groups, try to get them to understand I need help, but Rachel was right in the middle of beating up some asshole who seemed to have been selling attack dogs.
That was to say, a little distracted.
There was an odd dissonance here. I should have been terrified for my life, and a part of me was, but another part of me was so spread out, from so many different perspectives, doing so many things, that there wasn't time for the same fear I would have expected.
I sat up, groaning, as Rachel finally looked up, across the way. Dose, at the edge of my range, tripped over nothing at all and fell down, the suitcase falling open for just a moment before he was able to get up. I huddled against the dog as I sat. "Stay back! You really should just run," I said, in my best Arachne voice.
"Fuck you! Ruining our fun!" A woman stepped forward, holding out a hand. There was energy crackling in it, but the energy was strange, or rather, looking at it made my head hurt. "You're that Arachne-bitch, right?"
"Yes. And you're going to be in a world of pain within a few seconds."
"We've got you surrounded!" a man yelled from above, as he slammed into Angelica once again.
The woman shot the ball of electricity, and yet she missed, slamming into Angelica's side.
...which meant she didn't miss, and that was the target. Angelica didn't yelp, or anything at all.
"What was that about?"
"That was about killing you. Now, you stupid bitch! As my owner… I command you to kill Arachne!"
Angelica turned on me, growling, and I saw that her eyes were white. Pure white. That power allowed her to control people… or animals, or something. She hadn't targeted me because… I'm not sure why. Maybe she didn't think about it, maybe a giant dog looked better as something to control?
But either way, in a single move, she'd stripped me of protection, and also probably ensured that she'd be lucky to survive, if Bitch knew about it and reacted appropriately.
Angelica's white eyes gave me no hope of just trying to somehow talk her out of it, and the girl backed up, giggling with glee. "Huh! I just knew that'd work! Isn't it neat? Now, die by the hands of your own dog!"
She was really, really talkative by Merchant standards, I thought, looking at the six of them leering. Then the black widow bit the girl's ankle. I was almost out of bugs, yes, and too few to take out all of them… but I actually only wanted to take out one of them. The girl went down, screaming, as the rest of my bugs focused on her. Wasps stung her wrists just to make an opening at her veins so she'd start bleeding. Flies lodged themselves in her ears and nose.
I was going to go down. Perhaps I was going to even die, but if I could break her control over Angelica, over our dog, then--
The flying cape tackled me, slamming me back through a window, pushing me past mannequins. I felt something crack, and the pain was unbearable as I screamed and thrashed and tried to fight, bugs moving from her to him, but it wouldn't be enough, I knew. He gripped his fingers around my throat and then--
I couldn't breathe. The pain was insistent, and I couldn't breathe and Rachel was roaring something I couldn't interpret and I couldn't breathe--
Darkness did not so much steal over me as it slammed into me.
*******
"Please, open your eyes," a girl's voice said. I recognized the voice, and obediently, after a groan, I did as she said. It took just a moment for me to realize where my bugs were, which told me…
The Merchants were defeated, that much was clear. Everyone seemed gathered in the center of the mall, and… you know what? Maybe I should just use my eyes for a moment. "Okay, so…" I groaned.
"Don't sit up too much," the girl said, looming over me. She was the girl that had just triggered.
I had been going to get up and move, but I decided that maybe I should take it easy for a moment. Rachel approached me, pushing the other girl out of the way. "You okay, Taylor?" Rachel asked. Her face was drawn, and I could almost feel the tension. She looked over at the other girl and said, "Thanks."
"What happened?" I asked.
"Char here saved you," Sierra said, pointing at the girl, who was no longer naked, I noted. The jeans and the shirt didn't really fit, but she was wearing something. Over in a corner, Franky and his sister were talking, and Bryce? Bryce was in a corner, glaring at everyone, but not retreating. He was still phasing, in parts or as a whole, in and out of existence in a very, very disturbing and worrying way.
He didn't, besides that, still look completely human, with the semi-transparency one moment, and then the lightning-like glow, and then something human for a moment, but never his whole body, and never for long before it shifted to another part.
Whatever his power was, it was clearly hard enough to control that he was going to have to work at it.
I didn't feel bad for him at all, honestly. He'd been the one to choose it, unlike "Char" or myself, unlike Rachel or Stefanie. That made all of the difference in whose fault it was. In who was to blame. Powers happened to you, and then you figured out what to do next: choosing it?
But now wasn't the time to brood. "Char?"
"Charlotte," she said.
"Charlotte?" I asked. The name almost sounded familiar. Not very familiar, but the kind of familiar where I might have heard the name mentioned absently once, and then never again. It was a nagging feeling in the back of my mind. "Do I know you?"
"No. You… your people. They saved me," she said.
"You seem to have saved yourself," I said, as my bugs began to take stock. There were about forty or fifty non-Merchants still up and about, the ones that had been enslaved or the like. The whole mall was completely wrecked. It stank of booze and corpses (none of them, it seemed, caused by us, though there were a lot of wounded people about), and weed and… it just wasn't going to be good for anything, even if flying patch-parahumans hadn't gone right through the roof in places.
"I wouldn't have… done that. If you hadn't come here. They wouldn't have shot Suzanne." She said it properly, and I wondered how she felt about killing Char. "But they would have… they would have done worse to her. And what would I have done?"
"Well, I still say you saved yourself." I glanced over at Rachel, because I had a thought of sorts. "Don't sell yourself short."
Rachel snorted slightly, then added, "You saved Arachne. Modesty is bullshit."
"How did she save me?"
"Healed you," Pelter chimed in, nearby. "She's going to have to do so for some of the goons here. We roughed them up pretty bad."
I nodded, still not getting up. Doctor's orders and all that, I thought with a slight smile. "Charlotte, what are you going to do now?"
"I… don't know." But the way she said it, it was like she did know. Everyone was hovering around me, worried. I liked that… not that I'd nearly died, or at least been hurt so badly I'd passed out.
But I liked the idea that some people cared enough to hover, other than my Dad. I wanted to go alone somewhere with Rachel. I wanted to kiss her again and again, because I could tell something from her eyes, I could imagine her panic and fury.
But I didn't notice any dead bodies, so whatever she'd done, it was okay. It was alright. We could deal with it. "Do you have anyone to go back to?"
"No."
I looked at Rachel. I wanted to ask her if she was okay with what I was about to say, but I didn't know how to. "Do you… want to come back to our camp? We're going to take anyone who wants to go." I said, "Can I sit up now, or is there something else you have to heal?"
"No. No. It's fine. I think it… is like regeneration? But slower? So you'll feel sort of energetic for a while," Charlotte said, biting her lip. She looked uncertain. "I do, I really do."
"Oh?" I asked. I was really baffled at what I was hearing. I stared at her. She didn't look familiar, but she looked like she should look familiar.
"I have powers now. I need to help people, and--," she seemed to cut herself off, and just smiled. "Help people." She said it as if it was the most obvious thing ever. I sat up, rubbing my head a little and looking around. I was still dressed in the same ratty, miserable clothes as before. They showed off my body, and I remembered that hand on me…
Now, if everyone else in the entire mall got the fuck out, except Rachel, then I'd be… more fine wearing this. If she cared, and I knew she didn't care about clothes. Still, I shifted around, seeing her eyes on me. Worry mostly, I bet. "And you want to join us?"
"Yes! I've… heard about Arachne."
"And Bitch," I said, firmly. She was part of this too. She wasn't going to be 'and her villain GF, Bitch' if I could help it. We were partners. In more than one sense of the word. Or that's what I wanted.
"Yes…" Charlotte said a little doubtfully.
"We're not that bad, don't believe everything you heard," I said, as I struggled to stand up, moving closer to Rachel. "Pelter, what's happening with Bryce?"
"Sierra wants Bryce to join the Wards. If you won't allow him to join your team," Pelter said.
"No," I said. I didn't even have to look at Rachel. But when I did, I didn't see any disagreement on that score. Rachel didn't like new people period, and if I disapproved, surely she trusted my judgement. Bryce was… troubled. The Wards wouldn't actually fix him.
Honestly, they'd probably ignore his abuses of his power, even if he beat people up or bullied them or worse, even if he might be a murderer. They'd ignore all of that and maybe even encourage it, and then if he died to an Endbringer, they'd put him up on some fucking wall and tell sob stories about how nice he was.
Because yes, Cass had told me that there were actually threads where each person who died was memorialized. Shadow Stalker's was way shorter than some of them, because if you didn't have something nice to say, you'd probably get banned.
Well, screw that. Bryce could go be an asshole somewhere not around me, because I wasn't going to spend hours and hours dealing with him. For no gain at all. It wasn't hypocrisy, I swear.
"Can I join?" Charlotte asked. "I… think I could help you."
"What does your power do?"
"I… power people up? I'm not sure how to describe it. I'd have to experiment."
"Good. I can work with that. If… Rachel, is that okay?"
Rachel looked at Charlotte. Part of the problem for her was that Charlotte had saved my life. I could see the gratitude warring with the desire to just tell her to fuck off, out of habit as much as anything else. I could read it, and I could see the gratitude winning… though if we were doing this, there were a few ideas I had.
To help Rachel along, and make things better.
"Sure."
"Why did you ask her?" Charlotte asked. But she didn't sound annoyed or snotty, just curious.
"Because her opinion matters to me," I said.
"And not… Pelter's?"
"Hey," Pelter said. "You don't have to ask me, we're not a democracy unless you want us to be." She waved an arm, flushing a little bit at being put in the spotlight. "But I do approve of another member."
"There, see?" I asked.
But Charlotte was looking at Rachel, and I had no idea what she was thinking. It might not be anything good at all. But she'd figure it out soon enough. I moved towards Rachel, and said. "Hey, can you guys get everyone gathered up? Have we called the Protectorate yet? There are a lot of people to arrest, and we need to get out of here before they come back."
"I have," Pelter said, with a smile. "We have this all covered."
"Then, the vials?"
"Got them," Pelter said, waving a hand. The paperwork is crazy. And we have proof that it works. But… it doesn't seem like it's Dose's work. It mentioned something called Cauldron."
Cauldron? "So, we have all four vials?"
"Four?" Charlotte asked. "There were only three vials."
"There. Are. Four. Vials," I said, barely keeping from grinning, punchdrunk, and exhausted, joking and yet also angry. My mood was black, my tone incredulous, uncertain about how they had missed one.
"Then you can look for it. Because Arachne, I didn't see a fourth vial. I was very thorough." Pelter looked worried. Worried that I'd blame her, worried that she'd made a mistake, worried about too many things when she'd managed things so well that all I had left was…
But then where was the vial? We'd see.
"Rachel, can you come with me? We need to pick something up."
"Course," Rachel said, looking at me. I moved close to her and hugged her tight. I felt a little bit unsteady on my feet, as if I wasn't used to using them. Which was odd. Maybe it was a side effect of the healing? I didn't know.
She helped me walk a little as I slowly moved through the mall. My bugs could watch out for any danger. "Your dogs okay?"
"Yeah," she said, hugging me tighter. "You worried me." She admitted it casually, but the look on her face told me it wasn't a small concession. Or rather, she… didn't like admitting weakness.
"It worried me too," I said. Her hand wrapped around my waist, and I blushed a little, leaning hard into her. She was just so warm, and it was nice to just have a moment to breathe in and out. We were alive, and that was what mattered. Right now the future could be as far off as it needed to be.
I was planning for it, but I wasn't living there. I was exhausted, but that just made me want to feel more alive. I wasn't sure how I wanted to do it, but I did know a first step in a plan I had… I might as well start it. I smiled as we went into a store.
A Merchant had dropped a backpack when he was running. I'd noticed it as one of those thousands of unconscious details I'd had to take in.
Out from it had spilled game systems, games, batteries. Loot, in other words. I found the backpack, a dingy pink thing that must have belonged to a girl once, and scooped it up.
"What's that?" she asked, as I continued to pick it up. "Why take it?"
"Don't you want to play video games?" I asked with a weak smile.
"There are other things," Rachel said, leaning in. I kissed her back, hard, and if we didn't have a million other things to do, I would have probably pressed on with the thought my mind had had.
But now wasn't the time. So I bit her lip briefly and said. "Alright, we have what we came in here for. I'm glad we're both alive… now let's get home."
By now it was clear to both of us just where that was.
******
A/N: Alright, so. Thanks to @NemoMarx.
- Location
- Florida
What a clusterfuck of a fight. You did a solid job expressing the sheer chaos, what with Tayler having to keep a handle on everything and actually failing due to a lack of bugs.
Lt. Ouroumov
The PR in PRT
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Team Wolf Spider has three Cauldron vials, that could actually help them boost their forces if they're willing to use them. They even have proof they work thanks to that idiot Bryce.
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
"Eh, last idiot I heard trying this trick wound up being caught with food dye in water."
They have those?
So his usual expression?
Just remember, try not to kill him.
Yeah, something tells me Bitch needs to explain some facts to him.
"What about Bryce's skull?"
"Hey!"
"Could work."
And aren't just water with food coloring.
Subtle, but effective.
"After this test, shitlords, we have a standarizied test. Hope you got a pencil!"
"Is the LSD kicking in already?"
"Say please."
"AAHHHHHHH! MY ENTOMOPHOBIA, ARACHNAPHOBIA, AND AGORPHOBIA!"
"Come on man, I spent all week on these!"
"Bitch owed me 20 bucks."
"Huh, guess I forgot the live rounds."
Nah, no good joke here.
Give him the gift of a swollen throat!
Bitch please stop talking. You're already close to finding yourself without eyebals if Arachne gets ticked off a bit more.
Good luck out running a pupper, idio
Awww, did the widdle baby realize that powers have consequences?
A rare statement/
Hoh yeah, she's gonna die.
"would someoen throw a tarp over him?"
"Why? Let 'em rot."
Nope, not at all.
"Bryce? Empty your pockets, now."
- Location
- Florida
That wouldn't surprise me at all.
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Another one? You'd think you'd stop after drinking the first.
But y'know, unless you read the paper, you might not realize that vials only work on someone without powers already.
- Location
- Malaysia
Bitch: *glares* "Didn't say anything."
Another one? You'd think you'd stop after drinking the first.
But y'know, unless you read the paper, you might not realize that vials only work on someone without powers already.
And that's the best case scenario. Worst case scenario, he and Noelle can be buddies in suffering.
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Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah well, idiot thought the Merchants were nice people, he might drink two vials.Another one? You'd think you'd stop after drinking the first.
But y'know, unless you read the paper, you might not realize that vials only work on someone without powers already.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Merry Christmas, I hope this was alright?
- Location
- ⇙
Aside from Bryce getting powers it was a great chapter
The fight was a well-written mess and while the merchant capes got away, it was still a win for the good guys. Team Wolf Spider Thrower even got a new member who can heal and make people bullet proof.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Aside from Bryce getting powers it was a great chapter
The fight was a well-written mess and while the merchant capes got away, it was still a win for the good guys. Team Wolf Spider Thrower even got a new member who can heal and make people bullet proof.
Team...
A B P C?
Team Peanut Butter and Crab Apples?
Hrm.
Team: Mahou Shojo The Dark Years? Since it's four girls, and one of them is a man-slaughterer, one of them attacks people with spiders, and one of them is a trauma survivor? And then one of them is the responsible, grounded one?
Sure why not? Just go the RWBY route. If they get more members they can just add more letters.
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There's a magical girl who summons bears, so Rachel has precedent, and sort of Taylor. And Char is pretty meguca-y, since she powers people up with friendship and love sorta!
And pelter got the boring wish and ended up with throwing things really good as a weapon.
- Location
- Usa
So Char is an AoE Othala of some sort, maybe? Really strong single target regen, paired with a weaker group invulnerability buff? Definitely a good addition to the team.
Dose's fixation on the vials bordered on the obsessive, it seemed to me. Was he trying to reverse engineer the Cauldron formula? He'd be in a unique position to do so, as a "powers Tinker".
I totally missed Whirlygig's potential as a straight counter to Pelter with her point blank TK field thing. Good thing the field has a minimum safe distance that the bugs could infiltrate.
Dose's fixation on the vials bordered on the obsessive, it seemed to me. Was he trying to reverse engineer the Cauldron formula? He'd be in a unique position to do so, as a "powers Tinker".
I totally missed Whirlygig's potential as a straight counter to Pelter with her point blank TK field thing. Good thing the field has a minimum safe distance that the bugs could infiltrate.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I hope Bryce wasn't the wrong kind of annoying. I admit, with the, "Mine, mine, mine!" stuff, he was a little ridiculous.
- Location
- Florida
He was a blend of selfish greedy idiot that refuses to acknowledge reality and the existence of consequences. Considering every other character strongly dislikes him and make that clear, he's the right kind of annoying. Because I just know he's gonna get absolutely hammered for his idiocy. It's when characters try to excuse the annoyingness that it becomes the wrong kind.
- Location
- Usa
I didn't think it was a bad characterization. He came across like a classic cult member, IMO. Cut off from his former friends/family/value system, indoctrinated in an "integrate or suffer" fashion into a new, toxic social structure, and then given a light at the end of the tunnel "salvation" in the form of literal superhuman powers. Not to mention all the drugs, which would have done wonders for the whole "brain reprogramming" tactic that IRL cults practice (usually in the form of peer pressure, withholding food/resources, and/or inflicting "new normals" on their members via transplanting them into hostile/unfamiliar environments (Jonestown)).
Given the choice between going back to his old, post-Leviathan, crapsack life (Sierra) or staying the course and going for broke to make all his recent hardships worth something (powers vial), it's no surprise that he didn't give his sister a second thought and instead darted off towards probable death. Sunk cost fallacy on one hand, tons of real world cult examples on the other. Both made his behavior pretty believable.
That said, he was still super fucking annoying. I'm so glad Taylor prioritized and put his issues firmly on the back burner when the real threats came knocking.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
So, any predictions for what's going on? I mean, future plot stuff.
Ganurath
Literal Enthusiast
- Location
- A Valid Location
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I suspect that the Wolf Den will get a visit from either Faultline's Crew or the Protectorate's Cauldron capes in the near future, although in both cases I can only guess how diplomatic they'd be.
Everyone learned not to fuck with Taylor and Rachel. So, the camp is nice and peaceful with maybe a few pups from the dog shelter to help cheer up the camp.
In truth I'm waiting for one of the heroes to try to arrest Rachel. I don't think the hero will be ready for the reaction from Taylor and the people of the camp.
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Doubtful, maybe one of the out of town transfers would try it, but the locals?
No dice.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Update will be Monday.
In other news, Hollywood aesthetic has a lot to answer for.
In other news, Hollywood aesthetic has a lot to answer for.