Interlude 2: Annette

V2

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I had seen a lot in my years.

I'd seen things both gruesome and majestic, horrifying and inspiring, in my tenure as Matriarch. Things which had etched themselves deep into my soul. I had been witness to events that the English language was ill-prepared to describe. Few could boast as long and eventful a career as the Matriarch.

So why was it that I always found myself most surprised by the mundane.

"And that's why the patriarchy is an old decrepit system that is leading to the decay of the world order around us."

"Grace," I said in exasperation, shaking my hands in the air as I struggled to come to grips with the scene before me"What the actual…"

I glanced at the eight-year-old girl in the room and swiftly corrected myself, "...fudge."

"What the fudge Grace?" I repeated seamlessly, shooting Grace a glare.

My dearest friend of many years held her palms up in innocence. "What?!"

"The Patriarchy? Really?" I shot back, hand on my hip, "You've been here five minutes and you're already trying to explain 'The Patriarchy' to Amelia?"

Amelia looked between the two of us strangely.

Grace stood up to her full height, the heels of her boots just enough to edge an inch over me. Her long and straight golden locks flowed down the shoulders of a fashionable black bolero jacket. Combined with flawless skin, Mediterranean features, black pants, and a white dress shirt, she cut an impressive image of feminine command and confidence.

All of which went flying out the window when she held up her hands in surrender and, with a dismissive wave, said, "It's fine."

I quirked a brow. "It's fine? Really?"

"Yes." Grace leaned back dramatically. "Amelia's learning this stuff just fine. Aren't you my little peanut?" she said, turning back to the newest addition to my family.

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms, letting the skepticism simply ooze off my form. Shooting Amelia a glance, I waited for her reply.

"Uh…" Amelia's face scrunched up uncomfortably. "...my father's a bad man?"

I shot Grace a look.

Grace had her hand over her mouth, doing her best to hide her "Oh no" face. Her hazel eyes met my own thoroughly unamused pair. "Okay, it sounds bad-"

"You're da...arn right it sounds bad!"

"You mean damn?" Amelia asked innocently.

I gave Grace a disbelieving and betrayed look.

"I didn't teach her that!" Grace denied emphatically.

"I'm supposed to believe that?" I questioned.

"I heard it from father a lot," Amelia supplied helpfully.

I sighed and rubbed my brow. "Why does that not surprise me...?"

Just another thing to add to the list I thought. For all your best intentions at heart, you had no idea how to be a father, did you?

"See, he was a bad person!" Grace supplied cheerfully, "He supported the patriarchy, one of it's biggest advocates even." She nodded to herself with a smug expression.

I threw a pocket dictionary at Grace that she caught with practiced ease and a smirk.

"Oi!" I barked, jabbing an imperious finger in her direction. "Stop corrupting her!"

"I'm not!" Grace insisted, laying an offended hand against her chest, "I'm just trying to nurture peanut here into growing into the powerful smart and strong woman she can eventually be!"

"Why do you keep calling me peanut?" Amelia asked, no doubt jumping on the only part of the conversation she could actually follow.

"Because," Grace began, squatting down to meet Amelia at eye level. "You're so cute I could just eat you up!" she said, punctuating the sentence with a finger on the girl's nose.

I had to admit, I was actually impressed with the sheer fire held in the unamused glare Amelia leveled at Grace.

Grace chuckled. "Oh, you are so going to take the world by storm when you grow up."

I rolled my eyes again, fighting back the temptation to smack Grace with a rolled-up newspaper.

"Alright, that's it." I made a shooing gesture. "We've had enough indoctrination for one day."

Grace pouted. "You used to like my indoctrination."

"What does indur...inda...indoctored mean?" Amelia asked, looking up at me with those big brown eyes of hers.

Grace stood behind Amelia, flashing her own big hazel eyes in a mocking expression. They reminded me of a lot of memories she'd dragged me in to, some good, some bad, and some absolutely not appropriate for family time.

"It means, we're going to be doing grown-up discussion stuff," I told Amelia with a wide smile that was as fake as it was a desperate attempt not to laugh or cry.

Amelia returned the smile with a flat expression. "Does that mean you're going to talk about sex, murder, or tax stuff?"

I opened my mouth, heard the "what the actual fuck" come from Grace's lips, and closed it. A thousand thoughts ran through my mind. More than a few revolving around fantasies involving Marquis, a spray bottle filled with sugar water, and bees.

Lots of bees.

"Tax stuff." I eventually decided, nodding seriously at Amelia.

Amelia looked down in mildly disguised disgust. "Yay…"

She started wandering around the room, looking uncomfortable and out of place. She'd only just gotten here, and she was still trying to wrap her head around the new reality she found herself in. This wasn't just a really long sleepover, it wasn't like a fun little trip to somebody's place.

I'd been doing everything I could to make her feel welcome in our family, but it always broke my heart to see her like this. To see such a bright young star so...lost.

So, I reached within myself and held out a hand.

"Amy?" I said as I pooled the energy together.

She turned to me, giving my outstretched hand a curious look.

"Watch closely, okay?"

What happened next made her eyes go wide with awe.

A lump welled up just underneath the skin of my palm. It started small, a few undulating ripples, before growing in a pulsating mass of flesh the size of a tennis ball buried within my palm. Another push and the thin skin tore open, revealing the small creature within.

It was a large eight-legged creature closely resembling an arachnid, but covered in short violet fuzz, with two large golden lenses covering their primary eyes, four smaller ones dispersed around its body in golden dots, and two pairs of wings. The moment the new queen awoke, it became a bridge, instantly connecting my mind with it, and it's mind with the hundreds of critters within its range. I could make more Spiderwasp Queens to expand the range if I wanted, but that wasn't why I'd made her.

The queen shook off some of the already evaporating gunk and crawled onto the fingers of my hand. Behind her, the flesh in my palm closed up completely, not leaving so much as a scar. All in all the process wasn't terribly painful. Creating and hatching the eggs within me felt more like relieving some internal pressure than it did tearing myself open to unleash monsters unto the world.

"Whoa," Amelia said, enraptured by the whole spectacle. She stared at the critter with such intense focus, I couldn't help but smile. "Cool…"

"I know, right?" I said, "Do you know what this is?"

Amelia pursed her lips. "Your power?"

"Yep." I nodded. "Right here is a spider wasp Queen. This one is named Mary."

I reached out with my hand, offering the spider wasp queen to the girl. Amelia looked at the bug with a mixture of fear and curiosity, glancing at me with uncertain trepidation.

"Go on, take her," I prodded Amelia, "She loves to play."

I worked through my connection to "Mary", who might as well have just been another part of my body, and made her clap two forelegs together.

Amelia nodded seriously and took the spider wasp queen into her own hands with slow, careful, and deliberate movements. As her hand came close, I simply had the spider wasp queen walk over to her hand.

Amelia stared at it for a long moment, just looking over everything about its unearthly body, enraptured by its strangeness.

Then, she grinned.

Amelia grinned a devious grin and giggled a sinister giggle.

Before I could even raise up a hand, the girl had sprinted out the doorway.

I opened my mouth and stared at the spot on the wall Amelia had just been standing in front of.

My mouth closed with a click.

"Smooth," Grace said from over my shoulder.

I ignored her for a moment, instead immersing myself in the local swarm to map out the house. When I was sure I was in the clear, I had a spider drop on Grace's face.

My oldest friend barely flinched.

The lights in the room flickered and I felt the telltale burst of exhaustion, I looked behind myself and saw Grace's hand enveloped in a shell of golden light, highlighting the middle finger she raised in the air.

"Ladies."

Our heads both snapped towards the newcomer to the room.

Daniel, wearing a white tee underneath an unbuttoned black shirt entered the room holding a plate with four glasses on it, each containing a variety of liquids and fruits of vibrant colors. His other hand was held out in surrender.

"Could we not? I don't want to have to patch another hole in the wall or clean up a few hundred dead bugs again."

Grace huffed, releasing the shell around her hand and folding her arms together. "That was one time, Daniel."

"One parahuman fight in this house is one too many."

"Please," I scoffed, "It wasn't a fight."

"It was barely a tiff," Grace agreed.

"A row."

"A kerfuffle."

"At best."

Danny stared at the two of us for a moment. Then, he shrugged.

"Okay," he said. He pointed at me. "Then you're cleaning it up"

I opened my mouth.

"By hand," he added.

My jaw went slack with horror.

"And you." He pointed at Grace. "Get to pay for anything you break."

Grace glared at Daniel and slapped his hand away.

"Don't put your hand in my face again." She scowled.

"Don't put your hand in my wall," he responded blankly.

Grace stalked up to him. Her heels gave barely half an inch over him, and she milked it for all it was worth. Her head tilted back, letting her "look down" on him from over her nose. Her eyes and hair began to glow with an ever so faint golden hue, the result of a fine-tuned use of power. One hand poked Daniel right in the sternum.

"I'll put my hand wherever I please. Don't presume you can tell me where I can put my hands, you chauvinist-"

"Gracey~"

Grace froze.

I snorted.

Danny, if you looked very close, might have smirked.

Suddenly, a woman came out of the kitchen and draped one slim arm around Daniel's shoulder. The other snatched a drink off the plate in his hand and took a dainty sip.

The woman's head plopped itself on Danny's other shoulder as she leaned on him. Her beautifully aristocratic and almost royal Asian features pouted at Grace. "You weren't bullying Danny again, were you?" she asked innocently.

Grace held up her strong front for a moment. "No." She frowned, averting her eyes from her partner's piercing look. "I just…"

"Cause Danny's so nice and kind, he's such a good cook…" The woman took a long sip from her glass, closing her eyes in pleasure. "And he makes the best margaritas."

Grace bit her lip, refusing to look at her as she tried to save face.

Watching my old friend fall so easily into the woman's play put a smile on my lips. After all the times she'd mocked me for settling down with Danny, watching Akane wrap Grace around her finger felt vindicating.

"N-no Akane, sweety, I was just, er, well…" Grace trailed off, her lips flapping around like a fish out of water. I tried to not outright laugh at my friend's predicament.

"Well what, hmm?" Akane pressed, fluttering her eyes with sickeningly sweet innocence. Danny's face held the same stony stoicism throughout the two's antics. Despite that, Annette could see the way his cheek twitched.

"It was just...you know…"

Akane scrunched her face up in annoyance, unsatisfied with the answer. She turned to Danny, still draped over his shoulders and nursing a drink in her free hand. "Did she bully you?"

Danny looked her in the eyes and paused to consider.

"Yes."

Akane's jaw dropped. She turned to look at Grace in horror.

"How could you?"

"He's exaggerr-" Grace started.

She didn't get the chance to finish before Akane was lightly slapping the woman's arms.

"Bad Grace! Bad Bad Bad!" She chanted. "No hitting the cook!"

I looked at my husband and mouthed the words "How many?".

He looked at her, pondered the answer, rolled it around in his head, and then held up five fingers.

I winced in sympathy for Grace.

"But Akane! H-he was asking for it!" she protested.

"Well fuck you too," Danny muttered as he placed the tray of drinks on the coffee table. "See if I ever bring you guys drinks again."

"Noooooo!" Akane wailed, spinning around and falling on Danny again, all the while somehow managing not to spill a drop of her margherita.

"You simply can't! Then who'll make me my margheritas?" She whined.

"I can make margaritas."

"Honey." Akane gave Grace a dull look. "You can make cold hard juice."

"Well...yeah." Grace blushed. "...What else is there?"

Akane hissed and buried her head into Danny's shoulder. Danny patted her head with one hand and took a look drink of his whiskey. "There there, Akane. Annette doesn't understand either."

"I'm not that bad." I absolutely did not pout.

I'd only caused a fire one time.

"Hey, I can learn!" Grace protested, "It can't be that hard if Danny figured out how to do it, right?"

Danny looked Grace in the eye, drink in one hand, her fiance in the other, and mouthed " D"

Grace sputtered indignantly, her face flush with rage, I could tell she was about five seconds away from yelling.

On the other side of the house, I could also see something through my swarm that really shouldn't have surprised me. I sighed, stuffed my fingers in my ears, and muttered, "Here we go."

An instant later, Grace's tirade was cut off by a shriek echoing through the house. The shrieking continued, coming closer and closer, all the while followed by maniacal laughter. Grace paused, Akane raised a brow, and Danny rolled his eyes.

Moments later, little Taylor came running into the room and hid behind me. Chasing after her was Amelia with Mary in her hand and a wide grin on her face.

"Come on Taylor, isn't it cool?!" Amelia taunted.

"No!" Taylor shouted, ducking behind my dress.

"Taylor sweetie, what's wrong?" I said, running my fingers through my daughter's hair, trying to calm her down.

"Amy's being mean!" she cried, pointing at the older girl.

Amelia smirked. "I'm just trying to show her your cool gift. Sharing is caring, right?"

I forced myself not to roll my eyes in front of the children. I had to set a good example for the two of them, no matter how much I may have wanted to start taking shots myself.

I knelt down to get on Taylor and Amelia's level. "Now, Amelia, Taylor doesn't like it. It's wrong to try and antagonize someone with something they don't like. That's called bullying."

Taylor scrunched her face up. "What's atigone?"

"Antagonize," Amelia corrected her with a haughty expression.

"Amelia..." I chastised.

Amelia rolled her eyes but lowered the bug in her hands. "Fine."

"Now Taylor," I said, pushing Taylor back out in front of me, "Why are you so scared?"

"Because it's gross and weird and wrong and-and-and…" Taylor trailed off, her voice hiccuping at the end.

I pursed my lips. "And what?"

"And…" Taylor looked around cautiously. Then she leaned into my ear and whispered, "And they're always watching me."

I winced.

It's not that bad...right?

I sent a quick glance to Danny for support. He gave me the look that said, "You've been doing dumb parahuman shit again, haven't you?"

"Look, Taylor, they aren't scary. They're just bugs. They just want to be your friends," I tried to assure her.

The odd look Amelia gave me didn't inspire confidence that it was working. Neither did the ghost of a smile on Danny.

"Amelia dear, could you come here please?" I said, trying a different tactic.

Amelia frowned but stepped forward. Taylor cringed and leaned away, but I held a hand on her back to keep her in place.

"Okay, now Taylor, all bugs are alive, right?"

"I...guess?"

"They're alive just like you and me."

"I...but they're icky."

"And at the end of the day, they're just like us." They weren't, not really. "They have lives they want to live. They don't want to hurt you." None of the ones I left in the house did, anyway. "And all of them are beautiful and special in their own way."

Taylor looked at me skeptically, so I pressed on.

"Now, look at this one," I said, gesturing to the spider wasp in Amelia's hands. "This one is extra special. Can you see how?"

Taylor leaned closer to get a better look.

I hoped against hope that it would work. I'd been trying to gently ease Taylor into the world of capes for a while now. To get her to realize, on her own, who I was. I wasn't overly shy about using my powers in the house. I always had these spider wasp queens on me in costume. I hoped that she'd connect the dots.

"Do you see it?" I pressed. I moved the spider, puppeting the extension of its body and doing it's best to give her puppy dog eyes.

Taylor gasped, snapping back in realization.

I beamed.

Did she-!

"It's an alien!" Taylor pointed at the thing.

I couldn't help but blink, frown, and gape.

"What?" Amelia said flatly, unable to believe what she was hearing.

"It's an alien bug!" Taylor repeated, frantically gesturing towards it.

In the background, Danny snorted.

"I...sure." I nodded reluctantly. "It's an...alien bug. It's an alien bug friend."

Somehow, saying it over and over again didn't make it sound better.

"Now, what do we do with our alien bug friends?"

Taylor scrunched her face up in a look of adorably intense concentration. It took all I had to not squeal and hug her till she popped.

"...to be sure…" Taylor muttered.

"What was that Taylor?" I asked expectantly. Taylor looked up, her face set in an ironclad determination.

"It's the only way to be sure." She nodded firmly.

I pursed my lips and cocked my head. "What is?"

Taylor looked up, meeting me with a frighteningly intense gaze for a seven-year-old.

"We have to kill it with fire."

I blinked.

The room blinked.

Mary blinked.

In that moment of stunned silence, Taylor snatched Mary out of Amelia's hands. She looked down at the bug with an unflinching gaze.

"Purge the Xenos," she said, "Kill them all. It's the only way to be sure."

Then she ran out of the room.

With glacial slowness, I turned my head to meet my husband's gaze. Danny stood there, one hand clamped over his mouth, desperately trying to hold in the laughter, the other holding up Akane who was nearly bent over wheezing.

Amelia looked at her hands, out the door Taylor left, then back up to me.

"What just happened?"

I pointed an accusing finger at Danny.

"I blame you for this."

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"I really only have myself to blame here."

I looked up at the dark sky, blanketed with a thick layer of heavy clouds burdened with the weight of a coming storm.

And I had to go out in the middle of it.

"Nice job Annette," I said to myself as I quickly parked and glanced at my watch.

12:05pm. Danny would be at work, and the kids would be at school. Zoe was picking them up today, which meant I had a cool four hours before anyone else got home.

Plenty of time.

I got out of the car and walked into the mall, glaring at the wide assortment of hearts, roses, chocolates, and cards shoved into every square inch of marketable surface area that could be found. It felt like it was all mocking me, saying, "Hey, it's not like we were subtle about it".

It just made me groan and shake my head, if Danny found out about this he'd never let me live it down.

Pushing it off I began my literal-last-minute valentine's day shopping spree.

Two hours later I was in Southern Hospitality with a bag of clothes for the girls, a bag of lingerie for...tonight, a box of chocolates for the family, and trying to finish it all off with some whiskey for Danny. At this point, I was tempted to grab a bottle for myself too.

"Wait." I held up a hand to the very patient clerk who'd been tending me. "You're telling me that bourbon isn't just from Kentucky?"

"Not technically," the young man answered with a smooth southern purr, "Now, if you ask a Kentucky brewer, then you're looking for a fight, but as far as everyone else is concerned, if it's from the States, then it's bourbon."

I rubbed my brow, feeling more and more confused the more I talked about it. "But I never hear about, say, Tennessee bourbon or, hell, California bourbon."

The man smirked and walked over to the wall to wall shelves of bottles. He came back a moment later with a simple glass bottle containing a smooth amber liquid.

"May I introduce you to 'West of Kentucky?' It's a California brand of whiskey known for its smokey fruit taste and spicy finisher."

I sighed, more inclined to chug any old red wine. "Do you think my husband will like it?"

"Well…" He cupped his chin. " For Valentine's day, I'd personally recommend Four Roses-"

"Got that for him two years ago."

His brow shot up for a moment before giving me an appraising look. "How did he like that?"

I shrugged. "He said it was one of the best bourbons he'd ever had."

"Hmm…" The man rubbed his chin in thought. "He might like Monkey's Shoulder then...I could-"

He was cut off by the sudden appearance of a deafening blast of sound intense enough I couldn't figure out what it was. For a moment, there wasn't sound, definition, or time, just raw noise.

And then it waxed and waned, in and out, in a familiar pattern that called up the darker memories of my mind.

It was an Endbringer alarm.

"Oh god…" the young man trailed off, his eyes wide in naked terror. For a moment, I too held my breath.

The sirens rang for five more bursts, each one pounding it's way into my skull, before finally cutting off, leaving only a deafening silence in its wake. I let out a breath in relief and turned back to the young man who'd been attending to me. He was still frozen in fear, his breath hitching and eyes wild.

I placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it gently to try and ground him. "Hey, look at me."

He turned, gazing at me with eyes so young and blue that it made my heart twist to see them so filled with fear. "I-it's Indra innit?"

My hand clenched, balling up the hem of my shirt.

"T-that's what the storm's about, right? It's all Indra."

My phone vibrated with an alert. I spared it a quick glance and grimaced.

G: Indra just made Landfall in Chicago.

I cursed.

"Yes," I said, looking the young man in the eyes as I spoke. Comforting lies wouldn't help him right now, that's not what he needed. "He landed in Chicago."

"That's...that's not-" The man stuttered.

"You'll be fine," I cut him off. I knew what he was going to say. Even if Chicago was halfway across the country, Indra's storms had been known to inundate entire continents with their secondary effects.

"We're not gonna see anything close to the full brunt of it."

"But-"

"Just take cover in a shelter," I explained, "This close to the Eye, they'll be up and running. They have food, power, and completely insulated from the elements. You'll be safe there."

He looked at me closely, his eyes scanning for something on my face, some kind of confirmation. Then, slowly, he nodded.

"Go," I said, shaking him.

"I-I...okay, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am." And with that, he turned and ran out of the store.

He wasn't alone.

I could hear the churning crowds, the rise of chaos. I heard smaller alarms going off, this one for heavy storm warnings. I sighed, tossing a regretful glance at the bags I'd gathered, the gifts would likely go to waste now.

My phone buzzed again. Forcing myself to remain calm in the face of Indra's presence, I walked towards the exit, bags in hand, while the other pulled out my phone. I took a glance at the message and snorted.

G: Stay home, girl.

A: Like that's ever stopped me.

H: Early reports are giving severe blizzard conditions with temperatures at 40 below and plummeting.

I grimaced. That changed things. While it wasn't impossible for me to work in conditions like that, all my tinkering hadn't managed to come up with a method for having any variation of my swarm be truly effective in extreme cold weather. Hell, the way Indra fought in it of itself didn't exactly lend itself well to using massed swarms of cheap expendable fighters. He was probably as close to a hard counter for me as there ever was.

A: S&R?

H:...

H: Don't risk it. At this point, even Alexandria's having difficulty just flying in a straight line and Hero's sensors can barely see anything through all the snow and ice.

That bad? I thought, grimacing at the picture my mind painted.

Indra had a habit of turning whatever town he popped up into his own personal shitstorm of epic proportions. While most Endbringers at least had something to hunt down and fight, Indra just sat in the storm clouds while he crafted a storm straight out of the Torah. Trying to hunt him down in the clouds was like trying to fish Leviathan out of the sea.

A: What about helping out the medics?

G: Anne…

H: We don't even have a secure location setup on-site. Hero tried some prefabs, but they're struggling. We've never had to deal with paranormal blizzard conditions before. Especially not on the Endbringer scale.

Translation: They didn't even have a medic tent up. Not one that survived more than five seconds anyways.

Dammit all

A: Fine...I'll just run homeguard

G: I swear to god, if I see you there I will throat punch you and drag you back myself!

G: Hannah, you got my back, right?

H:...

H: The Homeguard is probably the place you'll do the most good today.

G: Damn Straight!

G: Go home and put danny to work making Taylor's little sister!

I rolled my eyes and stuffed my phone in my purse. It wasn't the first time I'd helped out with the Homeguard, I tended to do that more often than not whenever Indra showed up given his MO. It didn't make me feel any less guilty for letting others fight and die in my stead. I always felt like I could be doing something more.

I shuffled my bags around with a huff, making sure I had everything on me. Phone, purse, bags, wallet, keys, coffee. A tiny ritual to push down my nerves.

But it didn't matter. The storm clouds I'd seen outside started to twist as the wind began to howl. The mark of Indra's dance reached halfway across the country.

I bit my lip as I left the hall and approached the escalators to the central plaza. Already I could see the enormous crowd formed from the panic. It wasn't hard to understand why. if I was unsettled I imagine that learning of Indra's presence in Chicago was cold comfort to everyone else.

"Did you hear?"

"Indra's landing in Chicago."

"That close?stu"

"I heard his storms can reach halfway across the country."

With nothing else to do but wait in line, I relaxed and let the sounds of the mall wash over me.

"No way!"

"Endbringers only attack one city at a time, they wouldn't just nuke everything, right?"

"Tell that to Japan. Leviathan didn't exactly go quietly."

The fear in the air was palpable, enough so that I actually considered having Matriarch make an appearance. She'd certainly be able to calm things down, and the level of crowd control she'd bring to the table certainly wasn't anything to scoff at.

"Do you think that Chicago will make it?"

"Why wouldn't it? They have Myrddin on their side!"

"I heard they're getting a blizzard this time. Indra's never done that before."

"Word is, people are getting frozen solid after two seconds in that thing."

While I tossed the idea around in my head, I started molding that energy inside me. Wearing the jacket I was, I fell back into old routines and let it pool in my back. Already I could feel the small eggs hovering on the edge of existence.

"Do we know it's Indra? Maybe it's a new one."

"Oh god, don't even joke about that."

"I wish I was."

In the end, I decided to go through with it. As Matriarch, I could help keep this crowd from turning into a full stampede and trampling someone. This would probably qualify as Homeguard stuff anyways.

"He's got a point. Don't forget about the EB Holiday."

"Maybe whatever sick twisted god came up with this whole thing decided to give us a break?"

"Then he's a real-"

I formed two eggs, nestled against my spine, bulging and-

BANG

BANG

BANG

The silence in the wake of the gunshots was like the deafening silence before a bomb blast. A moment of tension as the whole world seemed to hold its breath in stunned shock. And then it all went to shit.

While the world around me devolved into panicked screaming, my mind sharpened with a razor's focus. Even as my eyes scanned the crowd, I pulled back on feeding the eggs my energy. I reigned them in, holding their development for a moment while I planned out my next moves.

This is certainly a flaming monkey wrench in my plans I thought bitterly, already splitting off from the undulating crowd and moving towards a shaded bench. I sat down and finally let the energy flow back into the eggs in my back. A few seconds later, I stiffened, then, with a quiet breath of relief, it was over.

The instant the two queens were released from their sacs, they formed the bridge between me and the Swarm. I could feel the connections with thousands of insects, all of them bubbles of information, pieces of a puzzle that made a shifting map.

Immediately, I sent out orders. Like the twitching of my toes or the flicking of my fingers, they moved as an extension of myself. The lesser Swarm fanned out, searching for the scent of gunsmoke, the bark of orders, the sight of anything out of the ordinary.

"Find them," I commanded, "Go forth and Hunt."

To my queens, a different order.

"Go forth and multiply."

Simultaneously I set my body to work growing more Queens.

If these people were stupid enough to break the Truce, I wanted to bring the hammer down on them. Make a proper example out of these morons, show everyone exactly what Matriarch thought of anyone who tried to take advantage of the end of the world. I wanted there to be no doubt how monumentally they'd fucked up.

And hopefully, I'd be able to put a stop to it before we all learned why we had the Truce.

"...Grab the jewels…"

There you are I smiled in the privacy of my mind.

There were five of them, three men and two women, all armed and wearing casual outfits which blended in with the other mall-goers, save for the makeshift masks. Scarfs, bandannas, sunglasses, and balaclavas all covered their faces.

It was an attempt, certainly, but as the probing tendrils of my Swarm wormed their way closer to the scene, I was able to get more fidelity on the situation. A mosquito here, a flea there, and a fly on the wall and I would be able to see, hear, feel, and even taste the individual differences in everyone present.

Faint hints of sulphur, perfume, alcohol, sweat, ammonia, various oils, metal, and the strong scent of gunsmoke.

One man walked around in the center of the hall with a rifle in hand pointed towards the ceiling, the barrel still smoking. On either side of the hall, members of his crew were raiding stores, though at the moment they were focusing on the big ones. One was in a jewelry store, smashing cases and pocketing everything in sight while their friend threatened everyone with a shotgun. Much the same scene happened in the neighboring tech store.

On the surface, it might have even seemed like these guys had really thought this through. They were stealing easily thousands of dollars of merchandise while all the capes had bigger fish to fry. A perfect gig.

"Ah shit, look. They got the newest Ladon hardware back here K."

"That's a nice looking necklace freindo. Mind if I have it?"

"B-but I-"

"Awe, thanks. My girl will really appreciate it."

But the reality was clear in all the subtle tells. The way their hands trembled, the way they swung their guns at everything even vaguely threatening. They wasted their precious time wandering around the shops merely grabbing the most obvious and shiny valuables they could find. The poor fools hadn't even waited until the mall had fully evacuated. They would have had all the time they wanted to rob the whole mall at their leisure if they'd only waited until everyone was safely at home or in a shelter.

Not that it would have helped them.

"You give the best gifts, T."

"Oi! You! In the shitty red vest! I saw that!"

"I-I don't know what yo-"

"Toss me the phone numbnuts, or I'mma starting putting holes in ya."

No, these thieves were amateurs. Amateurs with money, basic coordination, and the audacity to pull off a heist like this, but amateurs nonetheless. I'd dealt with the best grifters and thieves from the long line of the Empire and the new blood of the ABB, and not one of them would have been stupid enough to try this shit. Kaiser, I knew for a fact, wouldn't stand for such a mark on his reputation. For Lung, such an act of relatively petty theft at to weave my web around these treacherous fools.

Which meant I was dealing with independent hotshots who had no idea what they were doing.

Or someone playing a long con, I considered, moving the tendrils of my swarm into position. This could just be the sacrificial play of some big player sitting in the shadows.

But to what end?

I shook those thoughts from my head. At the end of the day, that wasn't my ballpark. I may have heroic tendencies, but I wasn't the type to go patrolling the streets looking for heads to crack. Not since Taylor, anyways.

Fortunately, I knew how to network.

Slipping out my phone again, I sent alerts to my contacts in the Police, the PRT, and New Wave. They'd make sure this info got to the right people to start getting the ball rolling on this. Knowing them, Carol'd likely play defense while Director Holt supports Commissioner Summer's efforts to dig out the rot that caused this.

In the meantime though, I doubted that I'd be getting any support heading my way anytime soon. Indra meant the authorities had their hands full making sure everyone got to safety. On the other hand, there wasn't anything stopping someone from New Wave showing up and helping out, but I didn't feel like setting up a strategy around a roll of the dice. So I was probably on my own.

Perfect.

"Ladies and gentlemen," The person I assumed was the leader started speaking. He was a pretty average caucasian man, average height and build with most of his features hidden by sunglasses, a bandana, and a hood, waving around an AR with one hand"there's no need to panic. Just give us the goods, and we'll be on our way. The heroes aren't coming, they've got a monster to slay. We're just here to make a quick buck. Don't get in our way, and you get to go home."

It was as predictable as it was adorable. I couldn't even count the number of times up and coming robbers tried to put on a show, capes or not.

Still, it bought me time.

Slowly, inch by inch, my swarm encircled them. Weaving behind every crack and crevice, they hung in the vents, the pipes, and the shadows.

A man sitting under gunpoint near one of the pillars in the central hall flinched as he saw a spider skitter past his hand, and dart back into the shadows. He blinked, then looked around to see if anyone else had noticed it. He leaned closer to the pillar, trying to peer into the seams where it connected with the floor.

I decided to humor him.

A single ant crawled out of the crevice and looked up at him with its multifaceted eyes. The man frowned, staring at the ant as if it would provide all the answers. After a moment, he looked back and gestured towards the gunman wandering around the hall, delivering his spiel to the helpless masses.

He turned back to the ant in askance.

In response, five more ants crawled out of the hole and up the pillar. Right before his eyes, danced across the concrete, before settling into the unmistakable shape of a Y.

The man's eyes widened, and in the corners of his mouth, I could see the ever so faint hint of a smile. A mischievous gleam danced in his eyes, and when he turned back around, he sat a little taller.

"You're monsters. Taking advantage of the situation like this." A woman spoke up.

"Oh, we're not monsters, ma'am. Just...entrepreneurs. Honestly, we're-"

"You're fucking traitors is what you are," the man by the pillar said.

I smiled.

"Yeah, traitors!" another agreed.

It started small, the cowed crowd looking amongst themselves in fear. But then another voice spoke up.

"Traitors!"

And another.

"Traitors!"

And another.

"Traitors!"

Soon enough, the whole hall was chanting along. With every hostage that joined in, another gained the courage to speak up. Soon, it almost seemed as if the thieves would lose all control.

The man in the center of the hall hung his head and sighed. "Well, I guess we gotta do this the hard way."

He lowered his gun and pointed it at the nearest hostage. All bravado left them as the panic set in. "No, wait!"

In the adjacent stores to the main hall, the thieves continued looting. When they heard the commotion from the man left alone in the hall, some sighed and shook their heads, one chuckled, and the last merely brushed it off and went back to work.

"Hey, I wanted to do this the easy way." The gunman shrugged. "But you guys had to make things difficult."

He chuckled darkly. "Don't worry, I'll only wing ya."

He pulled the trigger. The hostage flinched. The hall went silent.

And nothing happened.

The gunman paused, then pressed the trigger again. Nothing. While the mask hid his face, the delicious flavor of annoyance, anger, and even embarrassment wafted into the air. In his confusion he checked his gun, trying to find out what was wrong with it. When he checked the trigger, he found the problem.

It was covered in ants.

He panicked, immediately dropping the gun and leaving it to clatter to the ground. I wasn't worried about it going off, the bugs I'd snuck onto the gun had triggered the safety without his notice, his gloves insulating his senses.

"Wha-" he started to say when the critters that lined his bandana leaped into his mouth, silencing him. As he choked on them, he continued to stumble backward in panic. Right into a silk tripwire.

He fell backward into the web I'd laid down for him, his flailing getting him tangled up in the spider silk. Wisps of my swarm crawled out from every crack and every shadow to envelope him, binding him in silk, binding his mouth shut with their bodies, and dragging him back into the shadows with through careful leverage, tight coordination, and sheer weight of numbers. One moment, a treasonous thief stood above the hostages, rifle in hand and waiting to make an example out of someone. And in the blink of an eye, several thousand drones, a mere fraction of my growing swarm, had left no trace of him behind.

The hostages stared blankly in shock.

A second later, one of the gunmen in the side stores paused. The wanton looting left behind, the woman, armed with a pistol, looked around confused, no doubt noticing the sudden silence.

"Hey." She nudged her partner. "Where the fuck'd Nate go?"

The rest slowly began to notice his absence and started looking around. I could smell the fear radiating from them now. I drank it in through my swarm, the intoxicating scent sharpening my senses. With it, I knew it was time.

I merely needed to close the snare.

One of them tripped when they tried to move into the hall, their foot catching on something in the doorway.

A man opened his mouth to shout at a hostage when something jumped into it.

A woman flinched when something flew into her eye.

The last yelped when they felt an intense burning pain in their hands.

For a brief moment, all were distracted, attention had slipped and their weapons unguided. At that moment, they were vulnerable.

Then I descended.

To call it mere darkness would be akin to calling the sun bright. To describe it as loud would be to call the ocean deep. True, and yet unable to capture the full weight of it.

When ten thousand insects descended upon the halls, they filled it with noise and fury, denying it of light and reason.

There was screaming, so very much screaming, in the tumbled chaos of it all. To many, it would have devolved into nonsense, the sheer overload of senses tearing apart any sense of order in their mind. But to me, this was just part of the orchestra. The rising action as I led the dance of flies. Everyone danced at the end of my string, all of them performers on a stage.

To the hostages, I whispered, "Run".

My swarm churned around them, subtly pushing them out and away from the hall. Like a guiding hand, they were directed through the storm of noise and chaos.

To the gunmen, I chittered, "Bow."

A couple resisted, trying to fire randomly into the swarm. I already saw the paths they'd take, the ways they'd move. With every twitch, I pushed and pulled them, a nudge here and a tug there. No matter how much they fired, they never got anywhere close to hurting the civilians.

I would not allow it.

When the last hostage was gone, disappeared around a corner, I began the crescendo.

The swarm receded, letting the thieves believe they had a moment to breathe. The moment I saw the hope die in their eyes, I felt a smile carve its way upon my face.

There, in the darkness of the hall, the shadows seemed to drip down from the ceiling, to well up from the floor, and pool together into a form of writhing darkness.

It shifted and melted the swarm together, creating a tall and slender figure that seemed to ripple. Then, two stars burst upon its "face", creating eyes of twin burning lights. They shifted between the gunmen, staring them down with an inhuman, yet imperious look.

"Matriarch," one of them gasped.

A line of embers twinkled across the form's head, forming a mouth of stitched light.

I had arrived.

"Bow," I command again. The room shook with the weight of my command. It was near a physical pressure upon them. From behind walls and ceiling tiles, my tendrils rattled every inch of the rooms with the deafening blast of their incessant droning hum.

Most of them were broken. Their hands too covered in stings and welts to hold their guns, their eyes tired, wills burned to ash. The once easy gig had turned into a nightmare, and none of them were prepared to deal with the consequences of drawing my ire.

Three of them collapsed on the ground with tear-stained faces.

But the last man still had some fight in them.

How cute.

He fumbled with his jacket before eventually pulling out a gun. His hand was far too injured to hold it properly, the pistol shaking in his fragile grip.

He didn't care.

I couldn't pin down exactly what drove the young man. Pride? Adrenaline? Rage? Some twisted mix of all of it? In the end, it didn't matter.

He fired twice in quick succession. The first bullet bounced off the floor. The second a concrete column. I ignored it.

Reaching out with a hand, I bid my swarm to descend on him. He fired again and again in desperation. Out of luck, one hit my chest, only for an explosion of butterflies to flutter out and leave my form unruffled.

Adorable, but futile.

The string of a thousand spiders wrapped around his limbs. Tendrils of the swarm wrapped around him, guiding his footsteps towards me. My hand reached out, critters unwrapping themselves from my form and latching on to the makeshift mask. The hood was pulled back, the sunglasses torn off, and the bandanna unraveled.

All that was left was the pale sniveling face of a young man far out of his depth.

"So," I began, giving his head a nudge to look me in the eyes. He flinched, my chittering insects inches from his eyes as the snapped and writhed atop one another. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

He glanced away, trying to force his head from my grasp, muttering something under his breath.

I cocked my head. "What was that?"

Finally, he managed to turn his head to me. When those eyes met mine, they had been robbed of all emotion, leaving only cold chips of ice. His face was drained of any feeling, leaving merely an empty vessel of pale skin stretched across sharp bones. When he spoke, I could taste the ever so faint hint of ammonia on his breath.

"All Hail Archon."

Then the world exploded.

A/n:

Godamn.

It's been a while, ain't it?

If you're wondering I was spending most of my time working on a new KC-esque fanfic I hope to post before the years up. Then I realized it was October and I had to get something done in time for halloween.

Most of the rest of my time has been spent trying to figure out this fucking chapter. It's been sitting around since, like, April and I've only just now been able to "finish" it.

Hopefully, though, it's been worth it.

Anyways, I'm tired so that's it for me here. I have something of a backlog so I'll probably post once a week again, but we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, goodnight all.