Disclaimer: all the works used in this text are owned by the people who have the respective rights to them, it is in no way my intention to infringe upon their copyrights in any way, shape of form.

So i like Worm, i like Gate, one day i got thinking how would the plot of the latter go if instead of plain old Real World that we have the Gate connected to one with real superpowered people. Since something like that wouldn barely make the 10th page of any newspaper in Marvel or DC, where "invasion from other dimension" seems to happen every other week, i've opted to go for Worm instead. Frankly, at this point i haven't planned much beyond "capes kick the asses of technologically inferior civilization", but one thing that i'm certain of is that i'm going to throw the canon events of both stories as far as i can throw them as soon as it makes sense, as i have some ideas of how i'd like to see the events unfold. Or will drop it after 2-3 chapters because of burning out the enthusiasm/getting bored. So without further ado, please enjoy the story!

Itami

It was 21st of March, 2011 and Itami Youji was a rather happy man on the late afternoon of this day for several reasons. It was the first day of spring and the temperature has been raising steadily for the past few weeks, the snow has already dissapeared and after a relatively cold winter nature, such as it was in a large city like Brockton Bay, was finally starting to awaken from her lengthy sleep. Another factor of Itami's mood was his recent promotion, following what his superior has described as "exemplary service and going above and beyond the call of duty" during his involvement in a recent situation where a freshly triggered Tinker has nearly blew up her college after getting a bad grade (as far as he would consider the situation, all he tried to do was finding some good hiding spot from the madness, that it was only thanks to that that he managed to find a large explosive before it had a chance to go off and kill dozens of people was a fact that he had wisely ommited from the report). It came with a solid increase in pay (which was always good), a pat in the back from the local Protectorate director (which he didn't care about all that much) and a week off after all the paperwork regarding the incident was taken care of (which was a jackpot, as it was to coincide with a large fantasy event that was set to take place on this very day).

So it was on this lovely, sunny day that Itami was walking through the labyrinthian streets of the Docks district, eyes glued to the display of a local area map on his phone as he was trying to determine where was he exactly supposed to go to find the convention. As a member of organization which prided itself on highly trained agents and bleeding edge technology it was no surprise that, at the moment, Itami was hopelessly lost.

He took his eyes off the phone and started looking around, hand awkwardly scratching the back of his neck.

"Crap, all streets here are so chaotic, how do people even find their way around here?"

He grumbled under breath, "It's like a maze in here, is that what the organizers were going for? Only the worthy shall find the way to our overpriced merchandise?".

He noticed that his situation was hardly unique as there was some teenage girl in a shirt with Alexandria's logo on it, a Legend themed backpack and some dark grey blouse who also looked quite perplexed at the situation she found herself in.

"Two heads are better than one", he though as he approached the girl.

"Hey kid, are you lost?", Itami asked loudly as he approached.

"Wha..?", the girl replied eloquently as her head snapped and her eyes honed on him.

Itami idly thought that the expression she suddenly adapted was a textbook case of "deer in the headlights".

"What's got her so startled, i was just going to ask for some directions...". It only took him about five seconds of girl staring at him like that, making him feel rather uncomfortable, when he realised his own stupidity. "Right, you're a Japanese guy, in the middle of the Dock district, who suddenly approaches a teenage girl and asks her a question like that. Might as well be wearing nothing but jeans and a giant dragon tattoo on chest and jump at her with a katana while screaming "LUNG BANZAI" as loudly as possible to complete the full ABB gangbanger look", he berated himself.

"Because i'm kinda lost myself, thought you're also heading to the Fantastacon, it's supposed to be somewhere around here but for the life of me i can't find my way to it", Itami said lamely, his eyes wandering around.

"Umm, sure...", the girl said relaxing visibly, "That's where i was heading too, kinda forgot the adress, thought that i knew where it's supposed to be since i jog around here everyday".

"Cool, so one of us knows the adress but not where the place's supposed to be and the other one knows where it's supposed to be, but not the adress, think we could pool our resources and maybe manage to find the place?", Itami asked the girl grinning sheepishly.

"Erm, why not, so where is it exactly?"

Itami told her the adress and after consulting the map one final time the party of two had finaly set towards their destination.

"Thanks for the help kid, name's Itami Youji", he introduced himself.

"Emm, no problem, i'm Taylor Hebert", the girl replied, although something was clearly either distracting her or making her uncomfortable.

"She must be still thinking i'm some ABB goon trying to kidnap her or sell her drugs or whatever, awkward", Itami thought, "Not like i can do anything about it, that was kinda creepy of me, best to just shut up and hope she won't have a panic attack or something".

"Mister Youji, sorry to be a bother but do you think i could borrow your phone for a second? I forgot to tell my dad that i wasn't going straight back home after school and i don't want to worry him, and i don't have a phone myself", Taylor asked meekly.

"Sure, just one thing, please just call me Itami, mister Youji is my dad, OK?", Itami replied as he handed over the phone, Taylor thanking him and giving him a tiny smile in return.

It was just as she ended talking with her dad that they both noticed something strange. There was some guy who appeared from the street that they were just about to switch into, he ran past them terrified as if one of the Endbringers was personally chasing him. Soon after more and more people in similiar state appeared.

"Hey Taylor, you best go find someplace to hide, don't want to get trampled by that crowd", he said looking at her, "It's probably just some moron who came in cosplaying as Jack Slash or something and people got scared over nothing, but better be safe than sorry", he continued before noticing that the girl was again standing still, with wide eyed expression. "Is this like a common occurence with her?", he thought dryly, "Yo, Taylor!", he spoke much louder, poking her in the shoulder, which finally got her attention.

"You. Go. Hide. Got it?", he spoke slowly, loudly and calmly, just like he was trained to do in such a situation (or at least what he thought he was supposed to do, it was a boring course).

That finally got Taylor's attention as she gave him a determined look, nodded and jumped into a nearby alleyway.

Meanwhile Itami was on his way to the source of panic, it was his day off and he's been waiting way too long to take part in some event like this for some prankster or other idiot to ruin it!

"Best call it in to HQ just in case anyway", he thought as he fumbled around the pockets for his phone.

"Where did i put it, seriously it's never where i last remember it was, it's like there's some Master or Stranger around who's got a life goal to be a mild annoyance to me, which would be so incredibly petty that i can't even...", he stopped as finally the memory of him giving the phone to that girl right before the whole panic started. "Damn, i hope this is not just some elaborate pickpocketing attempt, because i just bought that bloody thing and it cost me almost all of the bonus i got for that bomb thing!"

He had half a mind to just turn back and try to find the girl again to make sure that he won't lose the phone when suddenly he saw something that made him completely halt. Most of the people running were already past him, with few stragglers left behind, but before him was what was the source of the panic. There was an honest to God band of orcs or goblins of some sort rampaging no further than 20 meters ahead. They were wearing primitive armor and were covered in red liquid, source of which was rather obvious. Bodies were everywhere, people dead and dying and their attackers having the time of their life. Even a slacker and loser like Itami felt a cold feeling, starting around the stomach. With not a single thought of doubt he grabbed a concealed service pistol that all PRT agents of adequate rank were allowed to carry while off duty, his long training (the one of few that he actually payed attention to) overriding any other course of action. He took careful aim, going first for some ugly, pigheaded creature that was about to do unspeakable thing to some poor woman trying to crawl of the pool of her own blood, and pulled the trigger. Ugly bastard managed to live for one last heartbeat as it penetrated easily through the bronze armor and the layers of fat, flesh and vital organs beneath. He hasn't hit the ground yet when Itami switched aim and went for one of its comrades, who at this point haven't even realized that they were under attack. By the time the third one was dead they started shouting, and by the time second to last went to the ground, the last survivor finally honed in on their most likely attacker and started a charge, only to join his friends after taking no more than three steps.

Itami took a calming breath, silently counted the number of bullets left in the magazine and started assessing the situation.

"God, what the fuck is going on in here? What are these D&D rejects doing here, what the hell, who does someting like that? Uber and L33t? No fucking way, that's not their style, they know they'd get Birdcaged for shit like that, God, what is going on!?" were some of the thoughts that were running through his head. He was about to start having thoughts that were actually constructive to handling this situation, when a loud roar ripped through the air. Appearing from the same alley as the orcbeasts before, there was now a real life dragon heading straight for him, with some knightly looking guy on it's back wielding a lance larger than he was tall. Ignoring the sheer surreality of the situation (truth be told, this hardly qualified towards 10 weirdest things that happened to anyone... during last seven days), he took aim again and emptied rest of the clip into the monster. He managed to clip one of the wings and the beast went to the ground, but unfortunately it was not enough to kill it. While it no longer had a raider, who was killed by one of the bullets managing a lucky hit to the noggin, it was still an extremely pissed off dragon who was about to charge him. Itami was about to say the last prayer when all of a sudden he heard something inbetween the beast's roars. An incredibly loud buzzing noise, growing strong with every second until it was almost deafening was followed by a veritable swarm of bugs of all sorts of shapes and sizes hit the dragon and shortly they were was forcing it's way into every single cavity that the beast had, stinging and biting on the parts of skin exposed around the dragon's thick amor on their way. It was enough to distract the monster from charging him as it was now too busy thrasing around, trying to get rid of the unwanted passengers. It was at this point that Itami felt a strange selse of calm overcome him.

"That must be what the old veterans were saying, that feeling where you sorta stop caring about whatever crazy stuff is going on and just think on how to best deal with the situation", Itami mumbled to himself as he gathered his wits and tried to start acting like the professional PRT trooper that he supposedly was. "Now, first thing to do is to make sure that all the civilians are out of the way, then get somewhere safe and get in contact with HQ, they'll know what to do, then i'll have to...", he was just thinking that when suddenly the appearance of another dragon flying overhead interrupted him.