The world shifted and expanded.

It was so abrupt that it had me and the others gasping in shock as the buildings collapsed like water. They fell and splashed into the wobbly streets, giving a clear view of the rest of the devastated city. The city rose, enveloping the colossal crystal tower in the middle of Brockton Bay like a blanket and pushing us down hill.

A loud curse came from Foil as we sailed down the watery mountain. Liquid erupted like pillars, geysers that shot up into the skies. The streets gave away like waves receding to the image of thousands of corpses washing up on shore. All the bodies littering the street were smooth, wet and pale. The only distinguishable aspects were the scars etched into their skin. Different, each one telling a different story.

A male body with puncture scars all over his arms, a woman with a hole from where the womb would be, a child missing its heart.

The van's tires slammed into the mass of bodies with an uncomfortable wet squelch. A cringe went up my spine as I considered the horrid sound, feeling the wetness that splashed from the bodies underneath us onto the swarm surrounding the vehicle. An uncountable number of yellow eyes snapped to look at us, never flinching as the three Leviathans stepped on and dragged them. Parian was stiff, bothered by the unsettling image of the bodies simply lying there and looking.

As if an order had been given, the bodies underneath us all reacted as one. Arms reached up, male and female, old and young, healthy and decrepit. The vehicle came to a complete dead stop, making all of us snap forward at the abrupt arrest. I felt it through my swarm, the multitude of hands grabbing and pulling at the van. The cluster of bugs surrounding the three Leviathans let me know of their struggles as well; they were sinking and lashing out. They hadn't come to a complete stop, but their pursuit was being hampered.

"What the hell!?" Foil cursed, pressing the accelerator paddle and only succeeding in making the car rumble. "What's going on!?"

I exhaled. "We're being held by all those humanoids…"

"The Leviathans too!" Parian exclaimed, looking back. "But they're still moving closer, even if slowly! We need to go!"

"Parian! Give me your threads, Foil, can you use your powers on the threads and my silk?" I asked as Parian handed the string fibers.

"Yeah!" Foil coughed out with a wince. I nodded, handing her the the threads and silk. She took them, then look at me. "Be careful, not to grab them on where I'm going to pass my hand over. If you want to keep your hands intact."

"Just place your power on them except for the tips," Parian looked at me. "Planning on using your swarm to sawed through the hands?"

I nodded, feeling pleased at the quick understanding of my plan. "Foil, try to give my bugs space to grab onto."

The asian ex-Ward nodded as Parian used her powers to levitate the threads and my silk. Foil traced her hands over it as I slid the cracked window down, letting the red air pour in. I coughed violently, but pushed on despite the acidic taste clinging to my throat. The others had a similar reaction, but Parian still managed to make the fibers and spider webbing swerved and go out of the window. Parian leaned besides me, trying to look out where she was going to use her snake.

I moved the swarm, grabbing the ends of the threads and silk. Stretching it, they moved and cut right through the limbs arresting the van. The van tipped to the right and we were all caught by surprise.

Morgana yelped. "Argh! I think a tire just went flat!"

Foil looked at me. "Careful, I did a hasty job implementing my powers into the silks, so even a slight nick is dangerous."

I nodded, moving more of the swarm underneath the van to make sure to not lose another tire. Not a second after the van tipped on the back. I looked back and cursed as one of the Leviathan's hand scraped the roof. "Shit!"

Foil slammed the accelerator pad, the van rumbled as it tried to move forward. "Fuck! Skitter, get the silks away!" the ex-Ward cursed, putting the van to go in reverse. My swarm cleared just as the vehicle snapped back, crashing into the Leviathan. The monster's tail slammed into the sides and sent us flying.

Morgana howled in pain. "Transform to normal! Now!" The cat heeded my words, and in a plume of smoke we went sailing through the air. I spread my arms, landing on Atlas. My swarm wrapped silk cords around Parian and Foil's waist. I turned and grabbed Morgana, not giving the feline time to recover. "Zorro! Now! Pull out your projection fast and grab the spider silk!"

"Uh!?" Morgana looked completely caught off guard. I felt frustration at my quick plan being ruined. Zorro appeared in a quick burst of blue fire, and its beefy arm thrust towards the swarm and grabbed the silk. It pulled them up with a strong tug and held the two female capes in its arms. The cat gave out a long frustrated sigh, glaring at me. "Geez! Can't you just tell me what you were planning!?"

I shrugged. Fast thinking, he may act like an immature kid but he has experience.

"W-What is this thing?" Parian questioned as she looked at the visage of Zorro.

"My Persona. That's where I really shine while inside the Metaverse," Morgana boasted.

Foil looked down and cringed. "Are those supposed to be representative of corpses?"

"I...I don't want to be here. We need to go…" Parian bemoaned.

"Welcome to the club," I muttered.

"This is bad! Mementos is changing way too drastically!" Morgana screamed. "This only happened one time and it wasn't good!"

I was alarmed by his frantic words. "When?"

"End of the world event! Really bad!"

"Shit! Did the rogue passenger go after another cape!?" I questioned hurriedly.

"I don't know!" Morgana snapped. "D-Damn it…! Did it blindside us!?"

"Skitter, look!" Parian pointed to my left. I looked at it and frowned. Three strands were moving, fast. I could see the outline of weapons in one of the strands, space twisting in another and the third one making every object come to a dead stop. "All those strands are moving towards the tower. Aren't they?"

"Their heading to the Teeth. A fight is breaking out most probably," Foil surmised.

I looked at Morgana. "Do Cape fights change how this place looks?"

"I don't know to be honest, but probably. While me, Ren and Akechi were here we never saw a change this drastic ever. We entered into Mementos like a handful of times, three times to be exact. And two of those times were on the same day. No fighting was going on in reality though." Morgana shrugged.

I opened my mouth to respond, but stopped as I felt the edges of the range of my power warp. I whirled to my left and paled when the three strands moving towards the tower changed direction and headed towards us. The strand warping space, Vista's strand, was twisting everything and anything in its path.

"Shit! Morgana don't drop Parian nor Foil!" I ordered as I made Atlas start to fly away from the strands. The two girls looked as the Ward and Protectorate strands approached us.

"What…!? Oh damn!" Morgana hugged my arm as he looked back. "Why is everything a chase!?"

"Skitter! Where's the exit!?" Foil exclaimed, I looked around, but the entire area was unrecognizable.

"I...I don't know…"

My heart was pounding, this strange, abstract world making me feel nothing but panic. My swarm buzzed and I threw that panic into a corner in my head. Not the time for this. I couldn't allow myself to lose control like this, I just couldn't. Some of my swarm were caught by Clockblocker's power, freezing in midair and cutting my connection to them. It made me wince at the bizarre and harsh backlash this gave.

I maneuvered to get out of the strand's path, but space twisted and no matter how far left or right I went, I still ended up in Vista's path. I let out a harsh curse, feeling my swarm disappear by the numbers as they were pulled into the space bending strand. I continued to move, to try and escape this well of power, but it was proving to be nearly impossible.

"Skitter...did they stop?" Parian asked, confusion lacing her voice. I blinked and looked back at her, and following her gaze I frowned. The strands stood erect, not appearing to be moving, despite how much I was pushing Atlas to create distance between them and us. I gritted my teeth in frustration at that.

Morgana jumped on my lap, looked over my shoulder, and hissed. "We're still being pulled towards that strand!"

"Fuck!" I swore, making Atlas move as more and more of my swarm started to fall into the well of distorted space. This couldn't be it, this couldn't be where I fucking died.

Need that medicine for Rachel, Aisha and Lisa! I looked at the far off tower, the strands of the Teeth moving further away. I tried to reach out, as if my hand could grasp them and pull them back. Force them to stop, force them to give me what I needed.

Need to help the city recover! I let my hand fall to my side and my gaze fell to the ruined city below. My heart clenched at the sight of it all. Everything I and many others had suffered through just to keep this place standing. And just looking at it like this...

Need to make sure dad is okay… the thought came like a far off echo, like something I had in the back of my head and it made a shuddering breath escape me.

How long had it been since I had spent a quiet evening with dad? How many days or weeks had it been since I actually stayed with him for more than a day or two? Guilt weighed in my chest, it was something that made me snarled and glare at everything. This wasn't the time for self-pity or feeling guilt, I push these things into the back of my head and focused on the task at hand. I tried to make Atlas pull forward to escape the well of distorted space, a gasp escape me when I felt a strong jerk back pull us back.

Morgana hissed. "What the-!?"

I looked at my hands; they started to stretch and compress as we got pulled back into Vista's strand. I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came as my voice sprawled through the distorted space. Light swerved in unnatural ways, my vision becoming twisted as I felt myself grow closer and closer to the strand. I didn't know if my heart was beating rapidly or if it had stopped as my body turned and thinned, but I felt nothing but dread.

I can't die just yet!

And in a passing instance, I felt my back hit something so hard that it knocked the wind out of my lungs. I groaned, gasped and opened my closed eyes as I felt my passenger react to thousands of bugs in my power's range. Shakily I sat up, then stilled when I found myself looking up at Miss Militia.

She was holding a gun to my head, and PRT officers around her were pointing their foam sprayers at me as well. Vista and Clockblocker's body language showed nothing but surprise. From the bugs I had on Parian and Foil, I could tell they were tense and nervous, especially Foil. Morgana groaned besides me, body stretching and then flinching from the few insects that crawled over him.

"W-What the heck is going!?" the cat hissed. Miss Militia didn't even pay it any heed, not that I couldn't blame her for ignoring such a harmless looking creature really. I assessed the situation quickly; whatever had happened with Vista's strand had dropped all of us back in the real world. Which meant that Morgana was back to being a normal cat. Right now we were one man short.

I don't know where Foil stands with her former allies and it's doubtful that Parian is going to just attack the Miss Militia or the Wards just because I tell her to do it.

I frowned as the older hero's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Skitter...what are you doing here? Where did you come from?"

Staring back at her, I thought on what would be the best response. Before I could decide on what to say, an explosion went off in the distance that had me, my two companions and the cat flinching and turning to look in the direction of the loud noise. I froze when I noticed the smoke filling up the skies and the orange glows illuminating the buildings.

"What the hell is going…?" Foil gasped.

"Brockton Bay is under attack, again," Clockblocker answered with a lot of scorn. I turned to look at the white costumed hero, then moved to stand on my feet. This fact should've shocked me, or at least filled me with dread. Brockton Bay had suffered enough. I'd hoped that Echidna would be the last major event in a while. But I realize I was asking for too much, with the Teeth and those two Fallen capes in the city, there wouldn't be any peace.

Miss Militia's arm fell to her side as I stood before her, gun not disappearing but not pointing at me any longer. Good, some progress.

"Whatever's happening, we can help, in exchange for you helping us." My words were firm, making the heroes regard me strangely.

Miss Militia shook her head. "Not the time for negotiations Skitt-"

"The Teeth took a large supply of medical equipment and medicine. Help me retrieve them and we can negotiate an exchange," I interrupted her, the older hero shut her mouth and narrowed her eyes at me. I continued, "I really don't know what's going on, but if there's an attack on the city, there's only one villain group that I can think of are capable of doing this."

"The Teeth huh?" Clockblocker crossed his arms, stance becoming a little rigid when Miss Militia looked back at him with a reprimanding frown. She turned back towards me.

"I'll take a guess and say that you know where they are then?"

"You're just going to believe me?"

Miss Militia shrugged. "This isn't how the Undersiders operate, especially since we got word that your territory was the first to start showing signs of most of the attacks."

"What…?" I growled out, my heart thumping harshly at the fact. The desire to swarm everyone present and get on one of their trucks to drive back to my territory was very tempting.

"They've mostly stopped, or have been prevented. We got visual of Grue and some unknown cape preventing the exploding vehicles from causing anymore mayhem in the Boardwalk." Miss Militia said that and it calmed me down. Unknown cape? They wouldn't...shit, Joker got out.

That was a worrying thought, another thing to add to the pile. But at least he seemed to be helping. If he was willing to keep his word about wanting to work with me and gain my trust, then he was doing a way to good of a job. Something to think about later, for...

"Then let's find the Teeth, I know where they are. But they might be moving, we can't let them escape." I answered with certainty.

Miss Militia nodded and turned towards the officers, gesturing for the PRT trucks. "Make room for them! We're changing into the offensive, inform Assault's team about the change in plans. Skitter?"

"What?" I crossed my arms.

"Like last time, give me your bags and equipment. The same for the two of you, Parian, Flechette."

I frowned, shaking my head. "We already did this and I proved to you that I'm not going to take advantage of the situation. Especially…" I gestured around as to more loud explosions went off in the distance.

"Miss Militia…" Foil approached, movement shy and almost filled with shame. "I don't think we should be arguing...we won't cause any trouble, we only want to defeat the Teeth and-"

The older hero shook her head. "We are an impasse then, I won't risk the people in my care. Not especially after the stunt you pulled yesterday, Skitter."

I winced internally at that, remembering Assault and the other protectorate who had attempted to stop me. It had been a futile attempt, all my pent up anger just exploded rather chaotically. I could've unleashed it all on Joker, Morgana and Crow, but they were non-threats, at least at the moment. But the Protectorate heroes? They just gave me the excuse I needed to lash out.

"Hey!" I turned, looking as Morgana glared at me and hissed. "I get you're a villain and their heroes, so your suppose to hate each other or whatever. But not the time! I don't like all those explosions and Joker seems interested in working with you. So how about you play along and not end up in jail! Especially since the rogue passenger wasn't in the Metaverse!"

I frowned at the words, then sighed. I'm tensed, and feel as I'm going on a fucking whirl with everything that's been going on. I don't know if it was the Metaverse that had me this rattle or if everything that had been going on since I started my life as Skitter was finally beginning to take some kind of toll on me. Whatever the case I nodded and took of my belt, handing it to Miss Militia.

"Fine."

"Huh, so all it takes is an angry cat meowing at you to get you to stand down?" Clockblocker said with with a drawl, he shrugged. "Good to know."

"Funny." I snarked back at him. Miss Militia glared at the white costumed hero then back at me.

"Enough. Skitter, you'll take us straight to the Teeth so we can put a stop to this." Miss Militia spoke firmly. I turned towards Foil and Parian.

"Let's go." They nodded, my gaze fell on Morgana and I scooped him up. "Come on, you too."

Vista who had been mostly silent, spoke in disbelief. "Why are you bringing the cat?"

I looked at her, shrugged. "He isn't mine, and I wouldn't like to ruin a potential relationship because I let him die."

The heroes mostly looked confused, Miss Militia dismissing the absurdity of it all as probable teenage drama when she shook her head, rolled her eyes and walked towards one of the trucks. Let her think whatever she wants for now, less questions and less arguing about if I could bring the cat.

"I can take care of myself, you know?" Morgana hissed indignantly, I just hushed him as I went towards the truck.