New Popular Idol Rises in Bavaria - New York Times, November 21st, 1922
Several reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler's anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded, and that he was merely using anti-Semitic propaganda as a bait to catch masses of followers and keep them aroused, enthusiastic, and in line for the time when his organization is perfected and sufficiently powerful to be employed effectively for political purposes.[1]
The Hatemongers Next-Door: The Brockton Bay Gang Trying to Make White Separatism Respectable - Brockton Bay Independent - September 27th, 2004
When asked privately if Kaiser genuinely believed in the violent messaging attributed to his gang, a source close to the gang leader assured that "Actually, Kaiser doesn't buy into that ideology at all. He pretends to, and uses it to motivate the rank and file." [2]
When I got home from school that Wednesday, I spent the afternoon after school dyeing and painting my costume. I had waited long enough. This weekend, I was going to be a superhero. My black and white speckled notebook, which contained all of my notes about my powers, costume ideas and notes cribbed from PHO about the various villains in Brockton Bay had been my guide. I had also pulled out some of mom's old books from the basement and from dusty bookshelves. Among them included Huey P. Newton's Revolutionary Suicide and a write-up dad had made about the tactics of the ILA local during the union's protests in 1995 that had created the Boat Graveyard.
I had spent the week putting the finishing touches on my costume and now that it was Friday, I was ready. I shimmyed into the bodysuit for what seemed like the umpteenth time after all the 'test fittings' I had done while I attempted to work up the courage to actually go out in it. I grabbed the mask with the newly added lenses and straps, along with a police surplus utility belt I had found at a thrift store.
For the first time ever, I had the full costume on and assembled. I looked at myself in the full length mirror I had found in storage down here and looked at myself.
Gone was the awkward and gawky teenager who looked like an upright frog. I looked lithe and powerful, not like a kid playing dress-up as Alexandria, but an actual superhero.
I could do this.
I was ready.
I flew above the rooftops with Dauntless, my quasi-official patrol partner, down below. As we passed through the docks towards Downtown, I spotted another business that had been boarded up and abandoned. On the plywood boards that covered the windows, I could see a Sonnerad, the black sun symbol used by Krieg's cell of the Empire 88, painted on them. Evidently this business had closed up and left due to pressure from the Empire.
I dropped down to the ground level to where Dauntless was.
"What is it Glory Girl?" he asked me.
"Boarded up shop on 19th & Hill." I said. "Looks like it's been tagged by Krieg's cell."
"Thanks." He replied. "I'll call it in."
As Dauntless called in the tag so that the PRT could get a better idea of the state of the gang situation downtown, I continued my patrol forward. Crossing west, away from the boardwalk, I was soon heading into the docks. Unlike downtown and the boardwalk where there was still a core of major businesses to keep people employed, the docks were dependent on the import and export market, which had dried up in the 1980's after the dockworkers union had nearly shut down the city over an open shop law that the city was considering passing. The protests had gotten ugly, with one group hijacking a container ship and sinking it in the harbor to block the channel.
Once the situation had calmed down, the port facility was declared a superfund site, and was deemed too costly to repair. Shipping companies instead went down the coast to Boston to unload, and Brockton Bay was left to wither on the vine, creating a fertile ground for any would-be-supervillains to have an ample supply of newly-unemployed people to hench for them.
Crossing another block into the docks, I saw a moving cloud of darkness obscuring the streetlights. The only cape that met that description was Grue, a minor villain who had been independent until fairly recently. There were rumors that he had teamed up with some other minor villains like Hellhound but that hadn't been confirmed.
I grabbed my cell phone and made a quick call to the Protectorate switchboard who then put me through to Dauntless.
"Hey Dauntless, it's Glory Girl." I said. "I think I've spotted Grue on 49th and Temple. Doesn't seem to be doing anything, going in for a closer look."
"Copy that Glory Girl." He replied. "Possible sighting of Grue on 49th and Temple."
As I got closer, I realized that the cloud of darkness was too light to be Grue's. Where Grue's darkness clouds were an inky black so dark that you couldn't perceive how deep they were, this was lighter and more defined. My first thought was that Grue had decided to lighten his darkness for some reason, maybe so that his rumored teammates could see through it better. Getting closer, I started to hear a buzzing sound, like I was near a beehive. And then it hit me.
That wasn't a cloud of darkness.
It was a massive swarm of bugs.
"Glory Girl to Dauntless." I said into my phone. "Negative on that Grue spotting. Do you have any records of an insect shaker?"
"Did you say an insect shaker?" Dauntless asked.
"That cloud of darkness I spotted? It's a swarm of bugs and there's someone in a costume in the middle of it." I answered. "Costume looks professional, likely an out of towner."
"Jesus Christ." Dauntless swore. "Okay console is checking for known insect capes."
"There's a Stinger over in California who's a villainous tinker. Does power armor, flight packs, missiles, things like that." The Protectorate console operator said, cutting in.
"Not seeing anything like that." I said, relaying what I could see about them to the console. "She's got a dark bodysuit with armor panels and a swarm of bugs around her."
"The other possible match is Pestilence in London." The console operator said. "He's a striker who can induce diseases into people on contact."
Neither of them fit the bill for this cape.
"I'm gonna go talk to her." I said.
When my bugs spotted Glory Girl flying overhead, my heart stated racing a bit. All I could think of was what the heroes, the real heroes, were going to think of my costume. Would they see the slapdash nature of my costume, the obvious brush strokes on the armor paneling, all the uneven seams in the body stocking and laugh at my amateurish attempt at a costume? Would they see the color scheme I used so I could blend into the swarm if I needed to and assume I was a villain right off the bat?
I really wished I could hear what they were saying through my swarm but while I could get some kind of visual or auditory sense from my bugs, it was impossible to make out actual words just from what my bugs were hearing. Maybe I shouldn't have rushed out to do this tonight, obviously I still needed to practice using my bug's senses so I could see or hear through them.
As I was tracking Glory Girl with my bugs, I sensed her suddenly do a loop in the air and then dive down to the ground in front of me, whooping.
"Whoo-hoo!" Shouted Glory Girl and she hit the pavement in front of me in a nearly perfect three point landing, cracking the sidewalk and sending chunks of asphalt and concrete into the air. The column of air that Glory Girl had pulled with her on her dive followed after her and made her hair and cape flutter in the breeze, with her platinum locks whipping around her head.
"Hi there!" She said. "You must be-ack!" Glory Girl's introduction was cut off by the sound of her gagging on the hair that had flown into her mouth during her landing. The superheroine quickly pulled the stray locks of hair out of her mouth before running her fingers through her hair to straighten it out after it had gotten messed up by the landing. "Note to self, using more bobby pins next time." I heard her grumble to herself.
"Let's try that again!" She said, her cheerful demeanor returning. "I'm Glory Girl! Are you new in town?" She asked me.
"Uh yeah." I replied. "It's my first night."
"Welcome to Brockton Bay then!" She said. "Always good to have another... hero?"
"Yeah..." I said. "I'm a good guy."
"Awesome!" She said. "You ever need somebody to show you around the Bay, let me know."
"Huh?" I asked. What on earth did she mean by that? Did she think I was from out of town or something?
"You know, show you where the best places to eat and shop are, what the most effective patrol routes are." Glory Girl said. "I'd say where to get costume supplies from but you look like you've got that part handled."
"I'm, uh.." I started to reply, not sure how much information I should give about myself, I didn't want to say anything that could be traced back to my personal life, even between heroes. "I'm from Brockton Bay."
"Ooooh my bad." She said. "I thought you were from out of town."
"No, I grew up right here in the Bay." I replied. "Why did you think I was from somewhere else?"
"Well your costume looks professional." She explained. "Which means that you have both the means of paying for a pro costume and the requisite connections to cape costumers."
Well that was oddly complementary. I preened internally at her assumption that my costume was professionally made.
"Since there are only a handful of cape costume makers in the Bay, and they haven't said anything about a new bug hero, that rules out a local." She said.
That was a bit concerning, but then she knew the in's and outs of the cape scene better than I did.
"You're not a villain," Glory Girl continued. "You were wandering around in costume without a specific destination in mind, that means you were patrolling, looking for something to happen, which rules out you being a villain."
Suddenly I felt like a bit of an idea. Of course supervillains weren't going to just be wandering around the streets. What was I expecting to find, Lung out on the streets taking a midnight stroll?
"A rogue also wouldn't be out this late unless it was an emergency, and again, you were aimlessly wandering, so that rules that out."
That chain of logic was actually a decent point, I had to admit. And I found myself wondering why Alexandria packages were so often stereotyped as dumb brutes. "Actually uh…" I said. "I made this myself.
"Wait really?" She asked. "That's awesome. What's your name anyway bug girl?"
I winced internally.
"I haven't thought of one yet." I said. "Do you know how hard it is to come up with a bug-themed name that doesn't make me sound like a supervillain or a complete dork?"
"What about Weaver?" Glory Girl suggested. "You wove that costume yourself right?"
"I did, yeah." I said. "And let's go with Weaver for now. If I think of anything better, I'll let you know."
As I scouted the blocks around us with my bugs, I felt something with my bugs two blocks away. Two guys were cornering a girl in an alleyway. As I directed my swarm to get a better sense of the situation, the two guys were bald or had shaved heads, which meant they were probably Empire.
I started running towards the alleyway. Glory Girl chased behind me.
"What's up?" She asked.
"Two guys with shaved heads, cornering a girl in an alleyway." I said.
The superheroine snarled. "Sounds like Empire 88."
"That's what I thought as well." I said. "Block and a half that way." I pointed in the direction of the alleyway.
I ran towards the alley, pulling all of the bugs in my range into a large cloud. With smaller bugs that couldn't fly I came up with the idea of making the flyers pick them up and carry them. As I continued running, I sensed Glory Girl diving towards them through my swarm.
As I rounded the corner, I used the swarm to hide my approach, I didn't want these guys seeing me winded from running. Taking the opportunity, I used my bugs to pull my canister of pepper spray from my utility compartment, palming it in my hand.
I sent some house spiders out ahead of me and snuck them onto the clothes of the two guys menacing that girl.
Ahead of me I felt through the swarm the two guys running away, Glory Girl flew off after one, and in one smooth movement, grabbed him by the shirt collar and lifted him up. The other guy was running directly towards my swarm, I redirected where I was running to intercept him, and as he ran through my cloud of bugs, I bent down and rammed my shoulder into his gut. The guy doubled over almost immediately to gasp for breath.
With the cloud of bugs covering the alley, it made it hard to see what was going on in the limited moonlight and street lighting. So I went ahead and parted my cloud of bugs and had them land on the walls of the buildings.
Getting my first good look at these guys with my own eyes, I had no doubt that these guys were Empire. On the one in front of me, the nazi trying to catch his breath had a tattoo of three interlocking triangles[3] on his upper arm. I had seen that same symbol on enough E88 paraphernalia at Winslow to know a hate symbol when I saw one.
The other guy in the alley looked over at me in fear. I felt awkward standing there saying nothing, so I walked over slowly, hoping that I was intimidating them.
I had a house spider lower itself down on a thread from my fingertip.
"This right here is a brown recluse spider." I bluffed. "They are all under my complete control. Three of them are already on you, waiting for my order to bite you. If they do, it won't be pretty. Brown recluse venom makes your muscles necrotize. That means it decays while you're still alive. It takes days, but the only real cure is taking a knife to the area around the bite. That might be okay if you have one bite, carve out a half-pound of flesh, let the wound drain, stitch it up. But what if you have three or four bites? Or ten?"
"You..." One of the would-be muggers stuttered. "You fucking psycho!"
I ignored him. As much as I tried to train as a fighter, I knew that I had no chance against them in a fistfight. I had to scare him without having to throw a single punch. "It's excruciatingly painful. Nothing you experienced during your initiation into the Empire even compares, I can guarantee it. You're rotting alive, your flesh turning black as it liquefies. So maybe you shoot me. Maybe you even kill me, though I doubt it. Either way, whether I walk away from here alive or not, you get bitten. They're already on you. Both of you."
Internally I was praying that they'd take the bait.
"F-fuck you bitch!" One of the Empire thugs said. I ordered one of the house spiders on him to bite down. He screamed in pain immediately.
As the other guy saw this happen, he tensed up.
"H-hey look! We don't want any problems okay." The other guy said.
"You should have thought of that before you started mugging that girl." Glory Girl said.
I took a step closer, to try and get the girl they were mugging to safety. The would-be mugger scrambled away from me.
"S-stay away!" He shouted. I felt the guy I had knocked down start to get up through my bugs.
"I'm not afraid of you bug bitch." He snarled. I didn't turn to look at him, I knew exactly where he was and what he was doing. Using my bugs to guide me, I raised my hand with the pepper spray, pointed it right at the guy and squeezed.
I was rewarded with the sound of that guy screaming out.
"Fuck!" He screamed. The other mugger tried to crawl away from me only to be blocked by Glory Girl, holding a dumpster above her head.
"Going somewhere?" She asked. I took the set of plastic zip cuffs that Glory Girl had handed me and cuffed the guy. As soon as I finished, I looked over and saw that Glory Girl had cuffed the other guy.
Walking over to the girl that they had been going after, I dismissed my swarm to try and make myself as non-threatening as possible to her.
"Hey, are you okay?" I asked her.
She looked over at me and I realized that I recognized this girl. Hell, I went to school with her.
It was Charlotte.
FOOTNOTES:
1: This is an actual New York Times article from 1922
2: Paraphrased from a real Wildbow WOA statement.
3: The actual name for this is the Valknut, and it was recently made infamous during the events of last week by being tattooed on one of the people involved.