Gaiatsu 2.1

It was after midnight by the time she had the opportunity to sneak out of her house for the first time in costume.

Taylor decided to jog into a relatively familiar area near the Docks, graffiti proclaiming it ABB territory.

Over the next hour she scouted with swarms of bugs to help her remain unseen, avoiding groups of drunks wandering between bars and keeping to the shadows wherever possible.

Taylor detected a house full of drugs, judging by the reactions of her bugs, as people repackaged a shipment of drugs for distribution.

She climbed up a fire escape of a nearby building to get an overview of the area, bending almost in half as she crept up to the edge of the roof, careful to make as little noise as possible as her feet padded across the tarpaper.

Taylor crouched behind the brickwork and planned how to takedown a group with lots of guns

She wondered if maybe she had bit off more than she could chew as a second van drove up and three more ABB members got out.

Her bugs overheard radio chatter about incoming hostiles, a call for backup.

From out of nowhere a loud engine roared as what looked like two long nose semi trucks stuck back to back covered with welded on armor plates drove up over the lawn, the business end of a turret on the hood of the vehicle broke through a window of the ABB safe house and fired.

Windows all over the house exploded outwards.

A man holding a knife with bandoliers of grenades strapped across his chest suddenly appeared right next to Taylor, which caused her to flinch.

Taylor got kicked in the ribs where she crouched on the roof, slashed across her throat by Oni Lee's knife.

She rolled with the momentum of his attacks and flopped down the fire escape, dazed and confused.

"I'm going to die," Taylor thought as she scrambled for her pepper spray, her throat intact but bruised under the weave of her costume.

She sensed bugs move without her control gathering towards a central point.

Maggots on pizza boxes merged with rotting vegetables, broken electronics, plastic bags and bottles as Mush formed a hulking trash body around himself in the alley below.

Oni Lee advanced on her with his knife raised, she doused his mask with a long blast of pepper spray and he disintegrated in a rain of ash.

Taylor silently berated herself for being caught napping and sent out swarms from where she'd hidden them under bushes and in drains to be ready for her call to action.

She tracked everyone in the area with bugs, one soaked to the skin Merchant who carried a large wrench in one hand flicked his other wrist which caused a mud puddle to leap into the face of an ABB gang member carrying a rifle, blinded before he got cracked across the back of the head with the wrench.

Moist set to work opening a fire hydrant with his wrench as the battle raged around the drug house.

Another clone of Oni Lee advanced on the Merchants near the ABB safe house, Skidmark's arm swung with a bowling motion and a blue stripe of force flared beneath the teleporting assassin which knocked him back into ABB members by a panel van.

The roar of engines filled the air as Squealer's eight wheeled vehicle reversed away from the building, heavy chains threaded through blown out windows ripped open the entire wall and Merchants scrambled up and over the wreckage to get inside.

Oni Lee brawled with Mush. Taylor used the opportunity and transferred maggots from old pizza boxes comprising Mush's trash body onto Oni Lee. "At least I'll be able to track him now," she thought.

The assassin's knife sliced through the animated trash to little effect, until Oni Lee punched into the excavated scar garbage exoskeleton up to his elbow and left a grenade behind.

Mush pivoted and threw a mass of compacted detritus towards a group of ABB gangers taking cover behind a car which then exploded as the assassin's grenade went off.

Taylor assessed the battlefield, gang color emblazoned ABB members exchanged fire with Merchants of all types as Oni Lee clones appeared and disappeared defending against the Merchants raid.

But even four or five Oni Lee clones could overcome just how much the ABB was outnumbered by the Merchants and pinned by suppressive fire from Squealers' wheeled monstrosity.

Skidmark created a blueshifted zone which threw Oni Lee flat against wall, only to have another Oni Lee clone appear to the left of the Merchant leader, his knife pulled back ready to strike.

Taylor dive bombed Oni Lee's face with a collection of flies, mosquitoes and moths, which forced him to step back into the blueshifted zone and get slammed into the wall on top of the first Oni Lee clone held off the ground.

A third Oni Clone teleported to Skidmarks right side, this time swarms clotheslined Oni Lee with spider silk rope attached to silk drogue chutes improvised from two spare pieces of silk fabric which pulled him in again to land on top of the previous two clones.

Moist finally opened the fire hydrant with a lunge against his large wrench and twisted his hands in the air which redirected the spray of water at yet another Oni Lee clone to get knocked back into blueshift zone and add to the barnacle of bodies in the center of the wall.

All four Oni Lee clones were thoroughly hosed by Moist, which incidentally knocked off most of the maggots to leave thin ashy mud behind as the ABB cape fled the scene.

Taylor sensed those remaining maggots appear and disappear as Oni Lee teleported away before they were beyond her range to detect.

Bugs returned her silk line and drogue chutes to her as she stabbed an epipen in a downed ABB ganger who struggled to breathe.

"Hey, thanks... WHOA, hey baby, remember that bad trip I had from the brown herbal ecstasy? You didn't slip me any of that again, didja?"

Squealer said "Naw, I'm saving that for Easter."

Skidmark turned to Taylor, "You saved us a buncha hassle. Telepor-tard's a pain in the ass to deal with."

Mush reformed his torso, a drug ravaged face peeking out. "You a rogue or what?"

"Naw, just look at that custom outfit, she's goin' the merc route, obviously." Squealer said while she pulled folded bills secured by a rubber band from her cleavage, "Call that a retainer to NOT work for the ABB, or whatever."

Taylor caught the slightly sweaty bundle of money and tried to say something, but the impact of Oni Lee's knife across her throat earlier made talking more difficult than she expected.

Skidmark said, "So, whadda we call you? Swarm girl? Oh, hey… how 'bout Fly Girl like them dancers on that old TV show? Or Bug girl… Bug Buggy Buggerson, Bugfuck…."

Skidmark's face lit up with a lopsided smile.

Taylor thought, "Oh hell no."

She directed the closest flying bugs directly down the Merchant leader's throat.

"That's it! Yer Bu…*kawff*"

…TERfly," Taylor said forcefully, her painful throat disguising her voice, "Call me Butterfly."

Mush asked confusedly, "Like the knife?" as Skidmark hacked up a lung.

Moist wrenched the fire hydrant closed and asked, "Ain't butterflies got wings?"

Taylor gestured with the folded bills, "Hey, I'm saving up."

Skidmark guffawed, as if that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard, before he turned and barked orders to the Merchants who had finished loading their plunder into Squealer's vehicle. "See which o' these assholes got keys to any of these cars. Waste not, fuckin' want not."

Squealer pulled out another stack of bills and a pen from a hip pocket of her denim cutoffs, "Tell you what, if you see any other Tinkers out and about call me and let me know where."

"Um, why?"

"Y'see, Tinkers get inspired when they can paw over another Tinker's stuff. How d'you think Armsmaster came up with that super-cycle of his? By copying one of my designs, that's how."

Taylor looked incredulously at the welded Frankenstein of a vehicle behind the Tinker and said, "I'm not going to fight any Heroes…."

"…and I'm not asking you to. Just call this number," Squealer pointed to the phone number she'd scribbled on the top bill of the second stack of money she handed Taylor, "and I'll handle the rest. Any Tinker, even Leet, just call and you'll get double what we paid you tonight, or more."

"That's all?"

"That's all."

Skidmark picked up something near a fallen ABB gang member and tossed it to the ground in front of her and said, "OK, Butterfly… here's yer namesake, catch you around."

Taylor picked up the folding blade and tucked it into her storage compartment beneath her armor along with the cash.

Merchants drove off in former ABB cars and vans or piled back into the ramshackle vehicle which roared off into the distance before the night abruptly dropped into silence which left Taylor alone amid the aftermath of her first cape fight.

The sound of approaching sirens broke her from her reverie.

Taylor jogged few blocks away until she sensed no people with her bugs and was sure no one had followed her so she felt it was safe to turn towards home.

She had made it almost halfway home before she stopped dead in her tracks with a shudder at a horrible thought.

"Holy shit, did I just join the Merchants?"