Crisis 1.1
There were certain things one avoided in a Cape city like Brockton Bay. Certain situations people knew to avoid if they could or had the chance.
People would flinch around certain things and did their best to avoid what they saw as glaring targets or that would make them glaring targets. Sometimes it was a bit like the old gang days, being careful what color clothes you wore or skin you were in certain areas. But other times the most outlandish things became targets.
Like an armored truck at stop light.
It was like a big honking target screaming "Come get me!" to every crooked Cape in town. Cold sweat would develop on anyone who saw one in their rear view mirror.
Profanity would be slung and prayers would be sent out. All in the hope that somehow the light would hurry up and turn green so they could speed away.
But that day the drivers unlucky enough to stop at Fifth Street weren't given a chance to run away. Instead they were surrounded by a dome of swirling and literally deafening darkness. Separated from the rest of the city's noise, their normal background noise replaced by things a little more ominous. The sound of rumbling growls of mutated and monstrous dogs combined with the buzzing and skittering of countless bugs. It was an offsetting combination, that made one driver panic and try his luck driving blind through the darkness.
Skitter honestly felt guilty as one of Bitch's dogs landed on the hood of his car, giving a firm warning to all within the darkness not to move, effectively trapping the armored truck between the various cars.
It felt like the bank job all over again.
Creating enough fear to control the situation, turning the surrounding people into shields to control the heroes, and then using that control of the heroes to escape. It left a bad taste in her mouth, but from what she could tell it was the safest way to do things. It was the best choice in a bad situation.
She needed to do this job to make it all worth it, to make herself a hero. She just needed a little more time, a little more information and the giant lie that had become her life would be over.
"Skitter, your turn." Lisa – Tattletale, she mentally corrected - said, queuing for her part in the heist.
Ants, roaches and other crawlers she'd collected from across Brocton Bay over two hours' time scuttled out from the shadows and street gutters, surrounding the truck and began the mission Skitter assigned them. They dug into the cracks of the doors and squeezed through air vents, entering the secured vehicle with little difficulty.
"That is still creepy as hell." Regent said in an easy drawl, showing no real care or emotion to add to his words. So she ignored him.
There were seven men in the vehicle, including the driver, and now each one of them were all scrambling to unbuckle themselves to escape the onslaught of biting insects. Armored trucks were designed to stop bullets and rammings, not bugs.
The plan was to force the guards on outside the truck, ambush them via mutated dog and Regent twitches, grab the item and run. Hopefully all would be said and done before the Protectorate could mount a proper response.
The dogs were greeted by startled screams as they landed with harsh thuds. The storm of flying bugs that followed shortly behind them probably didn't help. It was one of the largest swarms she had ever gathered, hoping to make up for their quick and dirty plan with sheer numbers.
And seeing how their targeted truck was shifting back and forth as the squad inside panicked, it was working. Though, Skitter hoped they'd come out sooner rather than later. That way she wouldn't have to bite their more sensitive areas.
It was a nasty thing to do, but they were in a hurry, and she would really rather not be caught before she finished her self-appointed mission.
She needed for this job to succeed.
With that thought in mind she had her bugs bite down just a bit harder, lessening only when they got closer to door. She had to give them all the more incentive to get out of that armored truck.
Metal clunked and devices let out almost distressed sounding beeps as the desperate officers made for their escape. But outside they found not relief but three monstrous dogs.
Despite their pain, despite their panic, the men and women in front of the teens were trained soldiers. They were people who signed up for and dedicated themselves to fighting opponents beyond themselves and the scope of their abilities. It was no surprise that they were able to bypass their panic enough to lift their PRT issued Foam Sprayers.
Though there was a surprise for them, in the form of Regent twitching their muscles, jerking arms off course and jolting their legs out from under them. The Undersiders were lucky enough that the combination of such twitches led to one member of their opposition being foamed to the ground.
Regent was still a key part for them as they attacked the rest of the PRT Squad, ensuring Bitch's dogs weren't foamed down while they literally sat on the bug bite covered officers. The dogs entertained themselves by turning the sprayer nozzles into chew toys.
As they stepped into the back of the truck there was jostling in the front, as Grue dealt with the driver and the last guard in a fog of darkness.
Inside the truck there were three cases. There wasn't supposed to be three. There was only supposed to be one device, one package. Did that mean that the others were booby trapped?
Tattletale didn't seem to pay it much mind as she looked over each case, snapping off a stand peg on each case. "And off goes the tracking devices." She said as she brushed the pegs to the side before turning her attention back to the three guarded cases, "Now let's see what we have here."
It was almost appalling how easily Tattletale opened each brief case. Each one opened with a few taps to the key pads, unlocking codes that were supposedly secure.
She stared at the content of the cases for a good long while, a while that was a bit too long for her teammates comfort.
"Tattletale," Grue's distorted voice called out, "Hurry it up."
"Right, right. Sorry," she said as she closed each case. "They're all part of the package; we gotta grab all of them."
"Fine, whatever. Let's just hurry it up." Grue sounded on edge, Skitter couldn't blame him. He thought the plan was a bad idea from the start. He was certain that a Protectorate counter-attack was going to happen any second.
And he was right.
As she, Tattletale and Regent each took a briefcase, someone pierced through Grue's darkness.
The inky blackness clung to him like smoke as he descended from above, careful of his speed due to literally flying in blind. He was dressed in modernized Grecian armor and lightning crackled from various parts of his wardrobe, most notably his spear.
They knew who he was. He was perhaps the one of the two people out of anyone on the Brockton Bay Hero's roster that the villains were wary of, Dauntless. He was like Lung lite but permanent. Every day he got stronger, better. What worked on him the week before might not work on him the week, or day, after.
Only Armsmaster surpassed him when it came to putting fear in the various gangs.
And they had to get by him.
"Shit, shit, shit," She heard someone mutter. It might have been her or someone else but she wasn't sure.
Dauntless pointed his spear of crackling lighting at them, the weapon growing brighter with the action. "Drop your weapons, put the merchandise on the ground, and put your hands over your head," he said in a practiced tone. He had probably said the line a hundred times before, probably when dealing with small time bangers. But they were parahumans, something to be more wary of.
Something he should have attacked as soon as he arrived on the scene, not that Skitter wasn't grateful he wasn't attacking them. It just didn't make much sense to announce oneself like that to her. Better to take them by surprise and get it over with as quick as he could.
Hopefully it would give them what they needed to get away.
"Bitch!" Grue called out at he blasted a cloud of darkness at Dauntless, who raised his shield of electricity to block it. It was a daunting sight to see the hero sweep a large chunk of the cloud away.
Unfortunately for him his view was soon occupied by a monstrous and mutated dog instead. Brutus, or the dog Skitter thought was Brutus, had jumped up with Bitch on his back and attempted to turn the man who looked like a Greek hero of old into a chew toy.
They slammed into the ground, the asphalt cracking with the action, with Dauntless's shield shoved into the beast's mouth.
"Get on the dogs! Let's go!" Grue's order was almost unneeded as they were all scrambling to the available dogs, the PRT officers underneath letting out breaths of relief as their heavy loads lifted. As the dogs started to bound forward Grue lifted the darkness that once held the street, allowing for the dogs and their riders to see ahead of them.
"Bitch!" Grue called out again, gaining their remaining member's attention as they made their escape.
But as they sped through the now open street and were about to bound onto the roof tops something slammed into them all. The force was light, but enough to knock those carrying a briefcase off their mounts.
Looking up all Skitter could say was, "Crap." There, already zip tying Tattletale's hands together, was Velocity, the speedster Grue knew was going to ruin everything. He and Dauntless must have been patrolling together.
As he moved away from Tattletale her mouth started to move, "How long is it going to take for you to run away from this, huh, Velocity? You ran away once, you going to do it again?"
"I've already been briefed on you, keep your mouth shut and come quietly. There is no need to make this more violent than it already has been."
"Oooh, those words were so rigid… and you hate it. Leaving one service for another must've been tough. Rules and regulations chaining you down, false promises keeping you around. Feeling like you can't go anywhere else."
"You have the right to remain silent, I suggest you use it." His voice was all but a growl as he did her legs too. And with that last word he bolted up from his position and moved towards Skitter.
She tried to summon up her bugs, put a barrier between the two of them, but they were coming too slow and him too fast.
And then, he tripped.
His feet gave out from under him and the momentum he had built up sent him into a tumble along the street.
"Told you I could take him," Regent said cockily from his spot on the ground.
"Yes, yes you did. And if you could keep taking him we would be very grateful," Tattletale responded before holding her tied wrist up for Skitter to see. "Could help me with these please?"
Casting a glance to where the free dogs were holding off Dauntless, with Grue creating distractions, she nodded her head. She wanted out of this whole situation and fast. Unsheathing her knife she made quick work of the plastic ties around her teammate's wrists.
"We need to get out of here before things get worse. A pissed off Armsmaster and the rest of the Protectorate worse," Lisa said as she rubbed her wrist. "Think you can help them out a bit?"
Help them fight a guy that basically had a giant bug zapper for a weapon? That didn't seem like a good idea to her.
"You don't have to do damage, just distract him so we can get the dogs and get out of here." Tattletale turned her head towards Regent and how he was handling Velocity. "Would you just taze him already!"
"Fine," Regent whined as he slowly advanced on the continuingly stumbling Velocity. Taylor had never seen him use his abilities to the extent he was using them. It was a little frightening.
"Don't forget to tie him up after, speedsters get up quick."
"Yes mom."
"Ugh," Tattletale grunted in exasperation before twitching her head towards her fallen case, "Keep an eye on that for me while I make sure he ties him up, alright?"
"Sure," Skitter said absent mindedly, her eyes shifting to the ongoing fight Grue and Bitch were having with Dauntless. It was obvious who was winning, with how the dogs were now limping and smaller in size, and how Grue's darkness slid off of Dauntless's shield.
Tattletale was right; they needed a distraction so they could get out.
She gathered every bug she brought with her and every bug within two blocks she gathered. Every spider, moth, ant, bee and fly she could reach gathered and swarmed, becoming a massive black cloud of jittering and skittering menace.
The cloud twisted and spiraled around the street as it moved and descended onto Dauntless. He tried treating the swarm as if it was Grue's Darkness, but bugs weren't just something you could swipe away with the wind. At least, not a swarm that size.
He was forced to use his spear to burn away the bugs, using almost frantic swipes to chip away at the swarm.
It was enough though, enough time and relief for her teammates to disengage.
But it wasn't enough time for her to get away. Dauntless had cleared a hole in the swarm and, for the first time she had seen him do that night, fired a bolt of electricity from his spear.
She wasn't sure if it was on purpose or by accident but the shot didn't hit any of them. Instead the bolt slammed into the asphalt near her, sending out a mighty wave of electricity that made her hair stand on ends and made her weak in the knees.
"Skitter!" Tattletale called out, her voice frantic. "Drop the fucking case!"
"Wha-" The question was at tip of her lips when her world expanded into black light and blue stars.