"Won't you just listen to me? I'm not a villain anymore!" I yelled, but it wasn't like they were even listening to me at this point.
Tecton's piledriver gauntlet launched down, shaking the ground, but I saw it coming through my bugs, and jumped just before he hit.
Then, in mid-air, I turned around in order to block a strike from Grace, who had used her enhanced agility to run straight through Tecton's shaker attack.
It worked, and I stopped her from actually hitting me, but I still felt the impact in my arm. Damn Strikers.
I looked around, seeing the way they'd surrounded me. Tecton, keeping me off my feet. Grace and Cuff, circling me in melee range, and Wanton and Annex were lurking somewhere, invisibly.
Tecton, finally deciding to respond to my pleas, took a heroic stance he'd probably practiced in front of a mirror.
"Foul criminal! Surrender now or we will be forced to take you down!"
I thought the pose looked silly, but the onlookers, about half of them with their smartphones out, absolutely loved it.
"Never!" I yelled back at the self-righteous Ward, and I called forth a group of flies and cockroaches from the massive swarm I'd gathered above us.
They reached me just in time, right before Grace could deliver another punch, and they swarmed her, covering almost her entire body.
Almost immediately, she fell to the floor and started screaming in agony.
Cuff, who had been hesitant about joining the fight, took that as her cue. "Noooooo!" she yelled like the overdramatic teenager she was, before she towards me, getting ready to knock me around like it was nothing with those metal gauntlets she was wearing.
I took the bugs that were swarming Grace, covered myself in them, and stepped to the side, my movements invisible in the small cloud of bugs.
Cuff missed me, and accidentally swallowed a few flies while she was roaring in rage. In the meantime, I brought more bugs down, and created a few swarm-clones around me.
Then, becoming more confident, Wanton started throwing around more pieces of rubble, destroying my swarm clones with them.
Sure, they could reform, but they would know that I wasn't located in those clouds of bugs.
"Come out and fight, you coward!" Tecton yelled, walking forwards all heroically. He was laying it on a little thick. Perhaps he wasn't as good in acting as he thought he was.
I pretend to humour him, and sent one of the swarm-clones forwards, slowly walking for Tecton. In the meantime, I made my way to the fringes of the battlefield, and started focussing on the bugs on the outer reaches of my range.
It had been pretty easy to find Revel, Myrddin, Shuffle, Snaptrap and Tattletale. They were hiding in the tunnels that were spread throughout the city, long forgotten and abandoned. I'd noticed them before, when large concentrations of bugs came into range beneath the earth, and apparently Tecton was quite familiar with their layout, as he had pointed out the hiding spot to the Protectorate members before the battle began.
Outside of that however, I couldn't sense anyone, except for the onlookers standing around, gawking with their phones out. I desperately hoped that the Hexenwolves would hurry, because it was actually rather difficult to have an extended pretend-fight like this. I just couldn't find any excuses not to immediately swarm Tecton, Grace and Cuff with a horde of bees, and I was quite sure that Wanton could easily counter me if he wanted to. His Breaker state was completely immune to my insects, and he could move around inside of it. I wasn't entirely sure about the specifics though, maybe he could only move within a specific range of his point of origin, or maybe he could only stay transformed for a number of seconds that was a multiple of seven but not of three. Powers could be weird like that, and someone not doing something obvious wasn't always a sign of them being stupid.
Then again, Wanton did give off the impression that he was kind of stupid. Maybe that was because he sounded like he was ordering something at Starbucks whenever he transformed, or because he was such a big Myrddin fan.
Then again, Harry was an actual wizard rather than a crazy person, and he actually used pseudo-Latin phrases to cast spells, so maybe there was something to it, and yelling out Italian-sounding words actually helped improve Wanton's power.
Getting an idea for a plan to buy us more time, I gathered a large part of my swarm, and instead of creating a swarm-clone, roughly the size and shape of my own body, I created a larger mass, with four legs and a tusk-like teeth things made out of bees where it's face should be.
Most of them were confused, but Grace seemed to have figured out what I was trying to do. She took a fighting stance, ran forwards, dodged past the bee-tusks, and smashed a fist into the head, at which moment I scattered the bugs making up the head, making it seem like she'd blown apart some sort of construct.
Given all the cameras around here, it seemed like a good idea to make people get the wrong idea about my powers. If a supervillain wanted to fight me and though I couldn't control bugs outside of pre-made construct, then I'd be able to get one up over them.
As my first bug construct fell apart, I created several more, swarming the Wards with them. They followed Grace's lead, and started fighting them, dodging my attacks and striking at the swarms with fists, after which I made them fall apart. It went on like that for a few minutes, until I felt Tattletale bump into one of my cockroaches, squishing it. It was the sign we'd prepared beforehand, and it meant I'd have to make my retreat.
I started running in their general direction, and made the cloud of bugs follow me, leaving the assembled Wards behind. Not half a minute later, I'd found the Hexenwolves, running my way in wolf form. Trying to catalogue the differences, it seemed that these were slightly larger and more bulky than the werewolves had been, and they weren't wearing anything, probably because their clothes joined them in their transformation.
I signalled the Protectorate members, hidden in a tunnel just below the ground, in Undertown, using fireflies to give them a path roughly parallel to my own, only a dozen feet below me.
In the distance, I felt one of the Hexenwolves stand still, sniffing the air around him, before taking the lead, bringing the pair straight towards me.
Which was a problem, since there had been four of them the last time I'd checked.
I let my back-up know as much by writing out a big two in bugs, and took my position.
I leaned against the wall of a building, holding my arm to me, like I remembered doing when it had been broken in the Leviathan fight. If the Hexenwolves thought I was wounded, and easy pickings, then that was all the better.
Then, I saw them come around the corner, saw them with my own eyes.
They were big, bigger than the Werewolves had been, and they looked savage. I'd say they were animalistic, but they reminded me more of Rachel's dogs, when they were transformed, than of any actual animal. Drool dripped from their gaping maws as they spotted me, obviously happy with the easy target. I just hoped that Lisa and Harry were right, and that they weren't expecting this to be a set-up.
So if they didn't know anything weird was up, why were there only two of them here? Where had the other two gone?
The two of them stalked forwards, coming closer to me, and I didn't exactly need to pretend to be afraid. It was primal, the fear of being stalked by predators.
I waited until they were even closer, until I judged that they were within the range Shuffle had given me. Then, I gave them my sign.
It is one thing to hear someone explain his powers, it's another to see it happen.
Shuffle was a teleporter, but strangely enough, he wasn't a mover. He had what is called a Manton limit on his powers, something that stopped him from using it on living beings, especially humans, and apparently Hexenwolves.
What he did teleport, was the landscape itself. Or in this case, the street the wolves were standing on, starting from the point right before my feet, which was also right in front of Shuffle, a few dozen feet below me.
The wolves, now standing on air like a Loony Tunes character, crashed down, landing roughly level with the Protectorate members.
"Forzare" I heard Harry yell out, but the spell wasn't accompanied by a blast of force flying towards the wolves. Instead, Revel flew out towards the wolves, her lantern charged with magical energies.
She soared above the gap in the landscape, and launched an orb of pure energy towards the wolves at incredible speed.
Not wanting to be outdone, I gathered my swarm, and got ready to join in on the fight.
The Hexenwolves, supernaturally agile, managed to dodge Revels opening salvo. They couldn't, however, dodge the follow-up.
One of them was hit by an overly large grenade, thrown forwards with the help of a miniature black hole by Snaptrap. "Got him!" he yelled enthusiastically. The other got hit by a blast of wind from Myrddin. From the lack of incantation, as well as the glowing sigil in the air front of him, it seemed like he'd been using his parahuman ability instead of his magic.
The grenade exploded in a thin white mist I recognized. Containment foam. It started to expand, taking in the air and greatly increasing in size, completely coating the front half of the wolf. "You take the other one," Snaptrap yelled out, cocky, happy that he had beaten one of the creatures.
The other enemy, the one that had been thrown by Myrddin, crashed through an empty storefront, landing in a cloud of biting insects. Mosquitos and bees, joined by stinging ants on the ground. The wolf howled out in pain, and started to try and run, but Revel had expected that to happen, and a second orb of force crashed into it, dealing tremendous damage. I could almost hear the cracking of bones from where I was standing.
Revel was one scary lady.
Myrddin joined her, "Fuego", followed by a massive blast of flames appearing from the tip of his staff. Then, he created another sigil in the air, and the half-fried wolf disappeared from my senses, temporarily banished after having been broken, bruised, boiled and bitten. It'd also been stung, but that didn't quite fit the sentence.
Then, just as I'd thought we, or rather the Protectorate, had achieved victory and the plan had worked, I felt the second wolf dashing towards me at a tremendous pace. Below me, in the now exposed Undercity, I heard Snaptrap yell something, and my bugs felt a strange pull that signified another use of his ability, and another grenade.
I looked at the wolf, and saw that it had escaped the layer of foam it had been coated in, probably by turning him or herself into a much smaller human, turning back after getting loose.
The wolf jumped, effortlessly dodging the second grenade Snaptrap had flung, flying straight at me. I jumped back, covering my retreat with a swarmclone and sending the rest of my bugs at the wolf. Then, before it could clear the pit, a chunk of stone appeared between me and the beast, roughly wall-like. Probably a last-ditch measure by Shuffle.
Sadly, it wasn't as effective as it could have been, and after the wolf crashed into it, it managed to climb on top of it, its deadly eyes aimed straight at me while I was running away from it.
My bugs were making it bleed, but that didn't really matter if it managed to eviscerate me.
I ran, as fast as I'd ever run before, but when the beast jumped down and started running after me, it quickly became clear that it was very much faster than I was.
Behind it, I heard Harry yelling something, and something crashed into the wall that Shuffle had created to try and shield me. It didn't matter, because the wolf pounced, and I wasn't able to dodge it, even though I knew perfectly well that it was coming.
It crashed into my back, and threw me to the ground, where I landed on my back after rolling over a couple of times.
The beast's razor-sharp claws went out, and it slashed at my belly, attempting to eviscerate me.
I was very very happy that I had been wearing my armour plates on top of the silk, and it seemed that the combination of silk and plating stopped the beast from cutting straight into my belly.
Before it could get a proper grip and start tearing through the silk, one of Revel's orbs slammed into it, throwing it off of me.
Thinking quickly, I let go of my bugs, making them scatter and cover the area on my stomach the beast had attacked. Hopefully, the beast, man or woman, would believe me dead in its haste to flee from an absolutely livid Revel.
Another orb flew over me, and I followed it by tracing the spontaneously dying bugs. The wolf dodged, but Revel wasn't just your average cape. She was team leader in one of the largest cities in the country, which meant she was an incredibly capable combatant. Her orb changed trajectory in mid-air, and tracked the running beast.
Once the wolf was out of sight, I tried sitting up, wincing at the bruises the wolf had inflicted upon me, I was going to be black and blue tomorrow. I bit through the pain, and tried standing when I was surprised by Revel's hand on my shoulder.
"Are you alright?" she asked, terse and to the point.
"Some bruises, but he didn't get through my costume," I replied.
She nodded in confirmation of my reply, and turned around, looking in the direction of her assembled team members.
"Shuffle, go get the van. We need to get Skitter here to the clinic at HQ. She might have some internal bleeding. Myrddin, my last strike drew blood. Gather it, and prepare one of your tracking abilities. And Snaptrap…" she looked in his direction, and I saw that he was almost cowering beneath her gaze.
"Yes ma'am," he replied.
"Let it be clear that this was the last time I'll ever trust you in the field. I know you have a reputation for being both capable and independent, and I made the mistake of trusting in that reputation. Instead of living up to it, you lied to us which led to a tactical mistake and a teenager that almost died," Revel said, floating in front of him, making herself taller than him so that he would have to look up to her.
Instead of replying, Snaptrap just stood there, unable to figure out how to reply.
"I'd double your patrols, but you'd love that, wouldn't you? A chance to get even more attention from the media. No, instead, I'll you a warning. You either fail, embarrass the team or get someone hurt one more time, and I'll trade you to the containment zone at Madison. Nicely away from all the fame you love so very much."
He looked angry, about to yell something, until he thought better of it and just apologized instead.
"Yes ma'am, I'm sorry ma'am, it won't happen again."
"It better not," Revel replied.
In the meantime, Tattletale came fluttering over to me, taking a look at the torn armour segments around my waist.
"Looks like your armouring worked, that could have been a lot nastier," she said.
"Yeah, a bit bruised, but I've had worse."
"You sure there were only two of them here?" Lisa asked, she looked sceptical about the bruises I wasn't sure how I'd noticed it, she just kind of gave off that impression through her floating.
"Yeah, just those two, nothing else. It's weird," I replied.
"Not really, now that I think about it. Remember, they wanted to aim the Protectorate at the Alphas, and make them think they were responsible. But the problem was that you knew they were separate groups."
"But… it wasn't just me."
"No, Parian was there too. So if they wanted to destroy all the witnesses."
"Then they're going for Parian."
"You're sure of this?" Revel asked, joining in the conversation.
"It's either that, or there's internal strife in their group, and I don't think we can bank on that," Tattle tale said.
"Very well. I'll send a few squads to the campus. Myrddin, do you have enough material?"
I looked at Harry, who was using a small vial to gather blood from the floor.
"I think so yeah, I should be able to track our perp anywhere in the city, unless the whole blood thing doesn't hold up with the transformation."
"Wait, you can track people through blood?" I asked him.
"Blood, hair, stuff like that. I establish a connection between the part and the whole, and use that as a means to target my spellwork, including tracking," he replied.
"Wait… you can track people like that, and you didn't tell me?"
"I have to agree. That wasn't a good move," Revel said. "Skitter, do you have any mosquitos left from your first encounter with them?" she asked me.
"No, it's been a few days, and even if it's not digested yet, I didn't bring those bugs," I replied.
"Too bad, but keep it in mind for the next encounter."
I saw several vans arrive, as well as the Wards. Myrddin, done gathering materials for his tracking spell, and was showing a larger vehicle with a foamsprayer on top the location of the banished Hexenwolf.
"I gotta say, those massive bug-monsters were really fucking cool!" Annex said. I hadn't exactly noticed him in the fight, mostly due to the nature of his powers. I couldn't affect him when he was in his breaker state, but he couldn't do much against my bugs either.
"Hey, don't fucking swear," Grace said, "Or do you want us to go through another fucking PR course?"
"And force us to look at an attractive young woman for an hour straight? Oh no, what a horror!" Wanton joked back at her.
"Cut it out or I'll ask Heathrow for a fat granny next time," Tecton said.
"What, can't we get a burly hot guy instead?" Grace said.
"What, you want a dude with muscles and a degree in communications studies? Good luck with that," Tattletale joined in.
I opened my mouth, trying to say something about finding a golden, Brian-shaped mean between twink and muscle-freak, but stopped after feeling one of my bruises start hurting when I breathed in. In the background, behind me, I felt a fly on Revel's head move. She was looking in my direction.
Shuffle arrived in a smaller van, opening up the back, showing a seating area on both sides, as well as a small medical kit.
"Grace, Cuff, with me," Revel said, commanding the two girls. Then, she put a hand on my back, gently pushing me into the van, and closing the door once Grace, Cuff and Tattletale had followed. Then, she clicked a button on her earpiece for a second.
"Shuffle, take us back to base. Everyone else, we'll be taking a short break in order to let the suspect return to his allies. Then, we take them down."
When she was done she turned to me, and pointed to the stretcher located on a table just behind the driver's compartment.
"I presume you can't actually take off part of your costume, and I don't think cutting the obstructing material away would actually work, given how strong it is."
"It's spider silk," Tattletale supplied. "And I think one of her ribs might be cracked."
After hearing the two of them, I understood why she'd asked for Grace and Cuff specifically. They were both girls, and while I thought Tattletale and Revel were overreacting, I appreciated the idea behind the gesture.
"Skitter, you don't feel pain as much as other people do, so it's probably worse than you think," Tattletale said.
Begrudgingly, I obliged them, and tried to remove my costume, except for the mask. Taking off the armour segments, I noticed I had some problems getting to the ones behind me, my arms sore from being thrown to the ground.
"What happened?" Cuff asked. "Did we hurt you by accident?"
"One of the wolves got her," Revel replied. "Snaptrap fucked up."
I saw a sly smile appear in Grace's face, happy that she'd caught her boss cursing.
Noticing my difficulties, Cuff started helping undo the clasps and straps that held the armour segments in place. Once they were all removed, I sat down on the little medical bed, and let Revel help me out of the tight-fitting silk.
"Yeah, pretty sure you've got a cracked rib, no dangerous internal bruising though," Tattletale said.
"You are sure of this?" Revel asked her.
"Pretty sure yeah, my power isn't usually wrong with stuff like this unless I get faulty information."
The rest of the journey was relatively boring. Revel was fussing around with a few ice packs, and Cuff and Grace had started arguing about a local television series. I wondered about it, trying to fit together the stern but motherish figure giving me first aid together with the shouting, no-nonsense battlefield commander that mercilessly crushed werewolves with her ability and tore down her subordinates with nothing but her voice.
Was it because of my age? Did she feel responsible for me getting hurt? Was the no-nonsense attitude a natural defence against Myrddin's general zaniness?
Eventually, Cuff gathered up her courage, and asked Tattletale a question.
"So, are you really a ghost?" she asked.
"That really depends upon your definitions. I'm not a traditional ghost, seeing as I still have a soul and everything, but ghost is probably the closest thing to describe what I am," Lisa replied.
"Yeah, right, souls. Are you sure you're not just an advanced A.I. or something that Myrddin put inside of that old drone?"
"I don't think so. I mean, it's possible that Myrddin programmed me into thinking I was a ghost, but I could say the same thing about you. I mean, are you sure you aren't secretly a construct he created? That you only think you're real?"
"What? That's ridiculous, of course I'm real. I have a family, a school life, and hell, I have a body!"
"Well, I also had a family, as well as a G.E.D. Do you really think there's no way for Myrddin to have created your family as well? I mean, come on, metal manipulation? Does that sound like a real power to you, or is it something that Myrddin gave to a metal golem in order to allow it to walk around?"
"I'm not a Golem!" Cuff yelled, while Grace started giggling. I was about to join her, but the movement was hurting, and I almost immediately stopped.
"Prove it!" Tattletale said.
"Both of you stop before someone starts cutting herself," Revel said sternly, trying to keep it together by pressing ice packs against my ribs.
"Still not a Golem…" Cuff mumbled, holding her arms over each other while trying to get the last word in. Lisa just replied by making little whistley noises, fluttering around before deciding to give Revel unnecessary feedback on her first aid skills.
After a few minutes, I felt the van enter into the belly of the beast, by which I mean a garage next to what could only have been the local Protectorate HQ. Unlike Brockton Bay, where the Protectorate and the PRT operated out of different buildings, the PRT HQ and the Protectorate base were located in the same building in Chicago. Instead, they had smaller outposts spread throughout the city, containing a fast-response squad of PRT troops as well as, according to the internet, luxurious waiting rooms where the local Parahumans took decadent breaks from their patrols, lounging on expensive massage chairs and drinking only the finest wine.
Then again, that same source also claimed that Myrddin was dating the head of the local vampire gang, and that Campanile was Legend's side-piece.
"Grace, Cuff, Tattletale, I need you three to get to the infirmary, tell them they need to get the x-ray machine ready," Revel said as the Shuffle parked the van.
I thought Tattletale was about to say something, but she didn't, and left the van with the two Wards.
"So, about that conversation you had with Myrddin," she said.
"You mean like how he's a wizard, and Tattletale's a ghost now?" I replied.
"You believe his claims? But no, that wasn't what I meant."
"You mean the other thing… my history."
"Your being a supervillain yes, or at least a former supervillain," she said.
I looked down at the floor, trying to evade her gaze.
"I'd never intended to go there, It's just… with everything that happened," I replied.
"I've read some of the reports from Armsmaster, especially the parts between the lines. I don't agree with your actions, but I can understand them, and I trust that they weren't out of malice.
"Outside of that, you present a problem for me. Going by the books, I should make you a probationary Ward. It would make sure you stayed on the right path, stop any supervillains from attempting to recruit you, and ensure you have a support system.
"Now, before you say anything, let me finish. Harry told me about your problems with the Wards, and I can respect that. However, I am going to put down some ground rules.
"First of all, you will report any incidents with supervillains to the PRT. Second, any proactive capering goes through me for approval. And last but most certainly not least, if you want to stay out of high-school, you're going to get your GED. Break those rules, and I'm recruiting you whether you like it or not. Understood?"
I looked at her; she had a stern expression on her face that sort of reminded me of my mother's when she caught me with my hand in the cookie jar. Eventually, I decided to mimic what I'd seen someone else done, less than an hour before.
"Yes ma'am."
Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Cuff, who was running through the garage to our van, slamming the door open.
"Boss, we've got a problem," she said.
"What is it?" Revel asked her, going back to her business face.
"There's a panicky naked lady with crazy eyes in the lobby, and she's asking for Myrddin."