Spider Taylor Chapter 2 (Original chapter Chapter 1)
Protectorate Wards Base, PRT HQ
It was a battered and bruised group of Wards that staggered into their base. Aegis was dressed in Clockblocker's outfit and was still regenerating from several nasty bite wounds. Clockblocker, dressed in Aegis' outfit, had several rips on the costume. Kid Win was bereft of his hoverboard and his gauntlets were smashed and damaged in several places. Browbeat's hand twitched every so often and had a cauliflower nose. Gallant had dented armour. Vista was practically unharmed, barring scraped knees and the skirt of her costume being ripped and damaged.
"Well that was a clusterfuck of epic proportions." Clockblocker said, ignoring the usual silent agreement to ignore the elephant in the room.
Aegis glared at him for a second before sighing. "Yeah, it was. Piggot tearing a strip off us wasn't exactly fun either."
Clockblocker removed his mask and headed for the wall, pulling out a whiteboard. "Mind if I take point, Carlos."
"Lay on, MacDuff." The boy waved, "I'm not gonna be getting up for at least a quarter of an hour. I gladly cede lead to you for a while, Dennis."
"OK, so, we know something about the so-called 'Masters of Escape' thanks to this encounter with the Undersiders." Dennis said, ignoring his friend's quip, "Let's start with Grue."
He wrote the names of all of the Undersiders on the board, with the last one reading 'Spider-Troll' in block caps.
"The darkness he generates isn't just darkness." Kid Win volunteered, "It messed with my links to the 'net and with my radio and I was disoriented in it."
That was greeted by a wave of agreement for everyone caught in Grue's power.
"Hellhound's dogs are trained; she controls them with whistles, hand gestures and orders." Browbeat volunteered, "They're tough too; I smacked on in the side and it shook it off pretty easily."
"Anyone get anything on Regent or Tattletale?" Dennis asked, looking around the room. Hearing negatives, he sighed before turning to the last column.
"OK then…I have no idea what her name was, but this spider-themed cape is verified troll." He said with a twitching eye. She had danced around him as he had tried to freeze her. To add insult to injury, she had done so while humming MC Hammer's U Can't Touch This.
"She used some sort of web-like substance to blind me for a while." Vista volunteered, "It dissolved in, like, five minutes though, so no sample."
"She was also a Brute." Gallant remarked, rubbing one dent in his armour, "One strike from her felt like Vicky had hit me, although I could tell she was pulling her punches."
"I think she has some sort of precognition, because when Glory Girl tried to cream her from behind, she leapt out of the way like an athlete." Kid Win put in. He deliberately neglected to mention that she had then thrown the strongest heroic Alexandria-type in the Bay into Clockblocker, who had frozen them both on instinct for ten minutes.
Needless to say, the blond bombshell of a girl had been less than pleased with Clockblocker.
"So a Mover power for her agility as well." Dennis was busy writing on the whiteboard, "A grab-bag I think. Mover, Brute, Thinker and Blaster powers, all mixed into one package. She's also, as I said, a troll."
"She's a bit different to most grab-bags though; they usually have either a few moderately strong powers or lots of weak ones." Vista chimed in, "Dean's armour is pretty strong, and so I'd give her a Brute 4 rating at least, a 5 for her Mover rating and maybe a 2 for her Blaster. Dunno about her precognition though."
"I'd agree." Carlos said, "And as for the precog, I'd say at least a Thinker 3 rating. I was watching her as Hellhound's dogs used me as a chew toy; she knew Glory Girl was coming for her the instant she decided to attack. I think it was keyed to people attacking her, some kind of super-defence sense. If that's the case, I'd up the rating by another point."
Just then the visitor alarm went off, making the Wards scrabble to put their masks on. A minute or two later, Miss Militia walked through the door, leading Panacea and Glory Girl in.
"Ma'am." Aegis nodded formally at her.
"Aegis." The bandana-wearing heroine nodded back at the boy. He had a crush on her when he had first joined and a bit of that lingered still, although he never let it interfere in his duties. "Panacea here volunteered to patch up the Wards."
The healer, still dressed in her civilian clothes and wearing a visitors badge, nodded politely and started healing the Wards. Glory Girl on the other hand walked over to the whiteboard, looked at it and snickered a bit. "You really don't like that she outdid you at your own game, do you Clockblocker?"
Beneath his mask, Clockblocker's eyes twitched. "I joke. She's a troll."
"No, you joke trollishly." The blond Cape disagreed, "You just aren't used to the boot being on the other foot for a change."
She hummed a few bars of U Can't Touch This and Clockblocker twitched. He could tell that he was going to have something of a dislike for that song from this point on.
Panacea glanced up at the board and said, "Arachne. That's what they called her."
Kid Win did a quick internet search. "Makes sense. Ancient Greek mortal, who supposedly invented linen cloth and nets, cursed for her hubris in boasting that she could beat anyone in a weaving competition, so Athena challenged her to a weaving competition. The story gets different endings depending on who tells it, but Arachne is always turned into a spider in all of them."
"The connotations of the name suggest more than just the attributes of a spider that are listed here." Miss Militia frowned, "Better put the Thinkers onto this. Excellent brainstorming session."
"We try." Vista said as she stretched, "Now, I'm gonna go get changed and then get a smoothie or something. I need to cheer up after getting my butt kicked by the weakest gang in Brockton Bay."
"Isn't that Über and L33t?" Panacea asked as she finished healing Aegis.
"They're a duo, not a gang." The Shaker shrugged, "They've only had minions a couple of times and never very successfully. The Undersiders have the numbers to be a gang, if not the unpowered lackeys. I guess we're lucky they seem to only have Capes; dealing with Capes and ordinary people at the same time is tough."
"Kid, when can you get the armour fixed up?" Gallant asked. The young Tinker looked at the dents in it dubiously.
"It'd be safer to replace the breastplate completely." He said bluntly, "There are several small fractures in the metal from Arachne's blows. She hit it at just the right angle and with just the right amount of strength to damage it badly enough to be scrapped. Thing is, that should have also hurt you somewhat. What was his damage, panacea?"
"Minor contusions on all three locations, perhaps a couple of bruised ribs." The healer answered automatically.
"See, that isn't right." Kid Win shook his head, "I'd be expecting fractured ribs at the least from this kind of damage to your armour. I built it and it's good, solid armour, but nothing special to write home about by Tinker standards. If anything, I'd say that Arachne somehow altered her blows to do nothing but damage your armour in mid-punch. Does she have some kind of bullet time or something? Sheesh…"
"What does bullet time have to do with anything?" Clockblocker asked.
"If her bullet time slows down her mind's subjective perception of the passage of time enough, and if she had a fast enough reaction time and control over her strength, then she could, theoretically, change the force of her blows on the fly to suit her opponent." The Tinker answered, "It's honestly a far-fetched theory, because maybe Alexandria could do it, the muscle control part anyway, but without Eidolon to grant her a power that gives her bullet time and enhanced reflexes at once, it's a pipe dream."
"There are Parahumans who can do that kinda thing though." Browbeat grunted as he stood up and stretched, "Hell, as far as powers go, it's a bit on the weak side."
"Arachne might seem like a jokester, but she saw through your plan at the bank today in less than ten seconds." Panacea warned them, "She's smart and I honestly wouldn't underestimate her."
"Any other comments, Panacea?" Aegis asked, "You saw them outside of fighting, so that might yield some useful intel."
The healer thought for a moment. "Grue's the leader, but he listens to Tattletale, who is almost certain to be a Thinker of some degree. Regent is like a more snarky version of Clockblocker, with less restraint, Hellhound is…feral…and Arachne…both Tattletale and Grue listen to her. They might have only recently added her, but she has their respect."
"What the heck did a newbie Cape do to gain their respect?" Clockblocker wondered. Miss Militia grimaced.
"Apparently, Armsmaster discovered Lung unconscious and over twenty members of the ABB bound up in an, and I quote, 'unusually strong web-like substance' a few weeks ago." The heroine stated.
"Waitaminute!" Glory Girl said with wide-eyes, "Are you telling me that we just fought the girl who took down Lung and twenty-plus members of the ABB at once?!"
"Essentially, yes." Miss Militia confirmed, "Director Piggot kept it hushed up, because she didn't want word to get out that some newbie took out Lung solo."
"Did Armsmaster analyse the webbing?" Kid Win asked intently.
"No. He planned to do so the next day, but when he tried to get them out of the evidence locker they had been stored in, they had vanished." The female Cape answered him, "I suspect that, like the webbing that struck Vista, it biodegraded into nothing. This is going to make him unhappy. What little analysis he had done to the webbing showed it was essentially a scaled up spider's webbing, with the proportionate tensile strength."
"Do you think she generates it or that it's a biological function?" Clockblocker wondered.
"EWWW!" Vista and Glory Girl cringed at that last one, "Clockblocker, shut it!"
The Next Day
It was chaos.
The ABB was going on a rampage, led by Bakuda, the new Tinker of the ABB. Oni Lee was aiding and abetting her.
The Wards were engaged in evacuation of civilians (despite the shrill demands and objections of the Youth Guard) and guarding the hospital that Panacea was working at. Somehow, even the insane lunatic knew not to try anything against the world's most powerful healer however, as nothing emerged all day.
"Well that was a waste of time." Kid Win sighed as he, Aegis and Vista headed back to the PRT building, "I mean, I'm glad that psycho bitch didn't try to attack Panacea, but Aegis at least could have been of more use elsewhere, right?"
"Orders are orders." The flying regenerator sighed. He thought much the same as Kid Win, but he was the leader of the Wards, so he couldn't be seen complaining, as much as he wanted to. He had to set an example, after all.
[Twip!]
Vista twitched as she heard that sound. It was the exact same sound that Arachne had made when shooting her webbing.
"Move it or lose it, slow-pokes!" aforementioned villain cat-called as she swung past them, "Last one to the PRT building's a loser!"
In the circumstances, the three Wards could be forgiven for gaping at the red and blue clad figure swinging from line to line towards the headquarters of the PRT. Aegis was the first to recover.
"After her!" he ordered and flew after her. Kid Win shook his head as if to clear it.
"Did Arachne have someone slung over her shoulders, or was that just me?"
Vista shrugged and warped herself to the end of the street. She had been practicing the technique a lot and it did speed things up, but the Manton Limitation on her powers really sucked. Fortunately, Bakuda's bombing had driven people indoors, so there wasn't anyone around to interfere with her powers. Kid Win sped up to keep up with his two teammates.
They caught up with Aegis in front of the PRT building, where they beheld a very strange sight. Bakuda, the insane Bomb Tinker, was tied up and hanging by her feet from a lamppost. She was totally naked except from a domino mask and an unflattering set of bra and panties and she had a ball gag shoved in her mouth. This was probably a good thing, as she looked furious.
Dangling to the side of her was a gas mask, as well as a small plastic bag that held…
"…toe rings?" Vista muttered in disbelief.
"They trigger the bombs." Arachne's voice said from above them. They turned to see her sticking to the side of the building by her feet. And nothing else.
"Wait, what?" Kid Win asked.
"The gas mask allows her to select the bomb she wants to detonate using eye movement, and then she sets them off by crossing the toe rings." The spider-themed Cape explained, "Impractical, but that says a lot about how she thinks."
"MMMMF!"
"Oh, shush it."
"Toe ring detonators…? Hoo-boy." Kid Win shook his head, "Armsmaster's gonna disapprove of that one. If she wanted to make a concealed detonator, why not rig it up in her clothes or something?"
"I don't try to understand the insane." Arachne shrugged, "I have a hard time understanding why anyone would join the Wards for a paycheck that makes minimum wage look wealthy, but I attribute that to lack of ambition on your parts."
"Oi!" Vista objected.
"Why'd you bring her here?" Aegis demanded, "Aren't you a criminal too?"
"I abide by the Unwritten Rules, Buckler." Arachne informed him, "She doesn't. Hell, she tried to kill me and the other Undersiders. I take poorly to people trying to kill me and my friends. So, she's all yours, courtesy of your friendly neighbourhood spider girl, Arachne. Keep frosty."
With that, she shot a webline at a building and swung away, just as PRT troopers stormed out of the building, Containment Foam launchers rising to try and target the swinging Cape. She moved too quickly and randomly for them to draw a bead on her though and quickly left the area.
"Well," Clockblocker, who had arrived in the confusion, drawled, "looks like we have a citizen's arrest here. Did she say 'welcome to my lair, said the spider to the fly' to you or did you fall into her spider web from the get-go?"
The look that Bakuda threw at the time-stopper, had it been a laser, would have killed him instantly.
So, next up, the second chapter of my first ficlet in this Asylum. I should expand the Tinker classification that I gave her to the subcategories that her specialty gives her, which is Blaster 3 (webbing), Brute 3 (Armoured Spider suits), and possibly Stranger 3 (stealth Spider suits). I might see about making the nano-spider suit from Spiderman Unlimited (if you haven't seen it, go and watch it. The show was good for its time). Any suggestions for tech that Spiderman made that Arachne could come up with, leave it in a review.