I Think We Need a Bigger Flyswatter Chapter 2 (Original chapter, Chapter 10)
With Vista
Missy Biron, the Ward known as Vista, was the most powerful Shaker Cape in Brockton Bay. She could compress, expand and bend space as easily as if it were silly putty. She could shrink a door down to a centimetre-sized gap or turn a dingy little closet into a football field-sized room.
The greatest limitation on this awesome power was that she was affected by the Manton Limit. Basically, anything organic in the space that she wanted to warp would shut her power down cold. Thanks to Skitter summoning a swarm of insects from somewhere, and continually calling more, the corridor between the Warlord of Brockton Bay and the next room was crawling with cockroaches, flies, mosquitoes and other nastiness.
That didn't even take into account the supersized roach that was standing between her and the Warlord. Just looking at it made Vista shiver in disgust.
"Skitter, surrender." Miss Militia ordered again, calmly, "Alexandria herself has been summoned to talk to you. Once she arrives, you will not get off lightly."
"I never was." Skitter replied softly before the sound of footfalls signalled her departure.
"…damn." Vista muttered. She might not be able to sense organics in her Shaker field, but she could tell when an organic life form was in her field, because she couldn't manipulate that particular area. The sheer amount of insects that Skitter has summoned was like one big area where her power said 'nope' to her.
"Well shit." Clockblocker said mildly, "So we have one of the Warlords of the Bay running around in the building and she's probably not very trusting of PRT or Protectorate personnel right now. What now?"
"Alert, alert!" Director Tagg's voice boomed through the speakers of the announcement system, "Skitter the Warlord is loose! I repeat! Skitter the Warlord has escaped from her cell and is loose in the building! All exits are to be sealed and guarded, any insects within line of sight are to be killed and all Squads are to be mobilised to hunt down and recapture Skitter!"
"Is he seriously…?" Kid Win asked in disbelief, "Fuck, this is not going to end well."
Miss Militia's eyes tightened and narrowed before she grabbed an assault rifle from mid-air as it was created by her power and shot the oversized cockroach with an entire mag of ammo. It was rather vicious for her, so Vista assumed she was taking her feelings regarding Tagg's latest ploy out on the dumb insect.
"Wards, move out." The older Hero said softly, "We have a Warlord to catch."
With Skitter
"Shit fuck!" I dodged another PRT trooper and slammed him to the ground using my newly acquired Brute strength. I then picked him up and threw him into the rest of his squad before swarming them with insects, eliciting screams from them.
Countless flies, beetles and roaches died as the troopers screamed and thrashed, but they were all replaceable. I was drawing in insects from all over the limits of my range, which wasn't inconsiderable now that I had seemed to have Triggered for a second time. Just like Grue had thanks to that little psycho Bonesaw.
Something that not many people seemed to realise was that there was no such thing as a completely sealed house. Likely Mannequin, back when he was the Heroic Tinker Sphere, could have created one, but, for regular houses and office buildings, there were always at least some bugs in them and always a few dozen ways for them to get in and out of a building.
While I was locked up, I had used my dwindling number of insects to scout out the insect-controlled portion of the PRT building. I knew exactly where to direct them into and what insect should enter which entrance.
Once that had been done, I had scouted out the nerve centres of the PRT building; the offices of the Director and Vice-Director, the cells, the Wards' base in the basement, the Troopers' Armoury and, of course, the Confiscated Villain Equipment Storage Vault.
Calling it a 'vault' was a bit grandiose in my opinion. It was just a regular door with a complicated digital lock on it. It was hubris, if you asked me. The designer of the PRT building never imagined that they would have to worry about a villain breaking out of their cell and stealing their equipment back. They all assumed that I would run for an exit, any exit, in order to get out of the building. They were so, so mistaken about that.
I left the squad of troopers behind me and advanced on the stairs. The vault room was two floors up. Far enough away from the cells to be safe but not so far away to be a long walk for the troopers to take confiscated outfits to. Long live lazy room selection.
I ghosted up the stairs lightly. As I did so, every camera I could find was being swarmed by flying bugs of all sizes and descriptions and every armoured PRT Trooper was under siege in their armour. I left the Wards alone; either they wore armour that had been altered to block my bugs (Clockblocker) or they were pretty much immune to being swarmed by bugs (Weld) or I genuinely didn't want to have to harass them (Vista and Kid Win).
I blame Foil for that last part. Her reminisces about her teammates, Shadow Stalker notwithstanding, had painted pictures of kids I might have liked to have been friends with. Clockblocker was just another Regent though.
Walking calmly past distracted PRT personnel and besieged troopers, I finally stood in front of the locked door into the Vault. I snapped out a kick that hit the door at just the right location to smash off the lock and the door swung open. Ducking through, I immediately pushed a desk in front of the door after I slammed it shut.
After adding several other reasonably heavy objects to the ersatz barricade I had going, I turned to view the room. It was row after row of cardboard boxes. It didn't look like a place that you'd keep confiscated Villain equipment; it looked more like a room at a highschool, one where they kept a bunch of old, out-of-date records.
Huffing, I stalked down the aisles until I found a box with my name on it. Opening it, I smirked. Inside was almost all of my gear; spider silk suit, pouch helmet/mask and most of my tools. The only things missing were my zip-ties and my pepper spray, although I admittedly didn't use it often these days.
I was about to put it on when a thought struck m. The 'new' hero, Defiant was actually the disgraced hero Armsmaster, who had deliberately set things up in the Leviathan Endbringer battle to kill off some high-ranking villains and had tried to kill me along with it. He'd failed and I'd shoved his halberd up Leviathan's ass, metaphorically speaking.
The point was, he was a Tinker that specialised in miniaturisation and efficiency. It would be simple child's play to put a tracker or something in my costume in case I managed to get out. It's what I would do.
Pity I had more friends than he did. I sent in my swarm, mostly the roaches, to scout out inside and sure enough, I found no less than two trackers, one inside the seam at the base of the neck and one inside the pectoral spider silk and chitin armour. Ripping them out was easy. My helmet had a tracker as well. He really wasn't taking any chances with me, was he? Checking my other stuff, I found a tracker or something else inserted inside all of them. Those I couldn't rip or pull out I had to abandon.
Finally satisfied that my suit was Tinkertech free, I got dressed in my outfit. Skitter the Warlord was back in action.
"Skitter." A female voice said out of the speakers in the room, a familiar one at that.
"Dragon." I replied as I pulled down my helmet, "How can I help you today?"
"You can start by surrendering." She replied easily.
"Sorry, look at what that landed me with when I trusted the PRT to keep their prisoners safe before." I replied, "Oh, and answer this question; does a set of all sets contain itself?"
There was a pause. "Ha. Ha. Very funny. Paradoxes don't work on my AI."
"Worth a try." I shrugged, "by the way, the guy who tried to kill me? I dunno of you guys actually care, but he went by the name Coiled. Tried to kill me because Coil isn't around anymore."
"You killed him?" Dragon asked sharply.
"Only after he tried to burn me to death." I told her, "And, as he's dead, would you like to know who he really was?"
"…That's toeing a very thin line." Dragon said slowly, "I only have your word that he's dead."
"He is in fact dead. I shot him in the head with his own PRT-issue gun." I replied, a snarl of satisfaction crossing my face, "And his real identity…was former Director Thomas Calvert of the ENE PRT. An anti-Cape bigot, a Villain and now a hardliner thug. We don't have much luck with our directors, do we?"
"Do you honestly expect me to believe you?" Dragon asked after a long moment.
"No. I don't really care at the moment." I said truthfully, "Now then…it's time to blow this Popsicle stand."
I had known that Dragon had been distracting me, keeping me talking while PRT troopers took up station outside the vault's door. As I had been talking to her, I had manoeuvred several bugs into place. These were beetles like Atlas, ones with heavy armour that would look terrifying and be like walking tanks. When I finished talking, I activated the third new aspect of my powers.
In seconds, the tiny bugs had shot up, filling the corridors and making people shriek in fear. I think that I had developed this power as a result of being around Rachel so much. It was so like hers that it was scary, yet there were also key differences.
With Rachel, she needed to be close to, preferably touching, her dogs in order to use it. I didn't. I could run it down my mental connection to them from anywhere within my brand-spanking new six block range, although the further the distance, the more tiring it was to do. Rachel had to reapply it to her dogs after a certain amount of time. I didn't. The enhancement that I added to my insects didn't go away until either the bugs were dead or I ordered them to shrink. Whenever Brutus, Judas and Angelica had come down off the enhancement, they sloughed off excess fur and muscle. I didn't know if it was the case, but I don't think mine will do that. The mass will just…disappear. At least, that's the impression I het from my power.
Which is a complete waste! If my power did slough off like Rachel's did, I could have so much material to work with for making my armour and clothes.
Anyway, I had set the beetles to appear in several places; three outside to deal with the PRT troopers out there. How were they getting along out there, I wonder?
"Son of a bitch!"
"Where the fuck did those come from?!"
"Foam them! I said FOAM THEM, YOUIDIOTS!"
Yeah, they were having problems. It's one thing to foam a Parahuman, but a horse-sized bug charging at you? Yeah, not so much.
Anyway, I also sent three to hold up the Wards and Miss Militia. The final three that I had initially deployed were tearing shit up. Payback for outing me, you sons of bitches.
"Skitter! What are you doing?!" Dragon cried in disbelief.
"Keeping everyone busy until I'm out of here." I answered before I moved. I hurriedly threw the barricade apart and fled out of the room, darting to the nearest window and shattering it with a single kick. I love being a Brute.
A single beetle flew out in advance of me and grew to the same size as Atlas. Jumping onto my new steed, I gathered my swarm and headed out, only to be brought up short by the sight I had been dreading to see since Miss Militia told me she was coming.
Alexandria. The world's foremost flying brick-type Cape. Only the Siberian had ever caused her harm, aside from the Endbringers. Her dark costume stood out as she floated forward majestically, an imperious set to her body.
During the Echidna Incident, her clone, dubbed Apocrypha by those who had been there, had outed her true identity as Chief-Director Rebecca Costa-Brown of the PRT, as well as her membership of a group called Cauldron, who were apparently responsible for the creation of the Case-53's.
A flicker of anger coloured my mind at the memory of that. Who did she think she was? Compared to her, I was practically a saint. I had killed only once: Coil. Her? She had the blood of who knows how many thousands on her hands.
I quashed the emotion, sinking it into my swarm. Being angry when confronting one of the three most powerful Parahumans on the planet was not a good idea. Cool, calm, collected and in control, that was the way to go.
"Skitter. Last I checked you were supposed to be in your cell." Alexandria stated as she drew closer.
"Yeah, someone, a former associate of Coil, you know, Thomas Calvert? Well someone tried to kill me by filling my cell up with water." I replied breezily, "Didn't really want to die, so I decided to seek my fortunes elsewhere."
"Not an option. Get back inside and stand down." The former Second in Command of the Protectorate ordered.
"Yeah, how about no?" I scoffed, "Would you go back somewhere where you'd almost been killed and weren't sure that the same person wouldn't try again?"
"I will be in the building. Whoever tried before will not dare try again while I'm there." Alexandria stated firmly, "This is your last warning. Stand down or else."
"I'll go 'else' here." I said and summoned more bugs to my swarm, ready to fight.
Her mouth thinned to a line and I got the impression she was frowning under her mask. I was seriously going to do this. I was going to fight fucking Alexandria! Hoo boy. Some days it really doesn't pay to get out of bed.
Shoving my emotions into my steadily growing swarm, I prepared for her attack.
"Have it your way." She said with a small shrug, before she launched herself at me.
I would have had this out earlier, but I had a power failure and lost most of it. Lesson to be learned here; always save every 500 words. Otherwise you have to retype everything.