AN; More on this series, beginning to diverge from canon a bit more. Canon states there is at least week between Arc 5 (which ended with the fight Taylor left for in the last chapter) and the beginning of Arc 6 (6.04 Taylor mentions a week off to recover from her concussion and injuries but it's all off screen and we've seen stuff on screen since, so at least a week). I'm shoe horning this and one more scene into that week.

Disclaimer; I am not Wildblow, I don't own Worm or its characters.

It was only a few days after the meeting with Principal Blackwell that my Dad asked me to visit him at his office for a meeting. We went in together and I worked on a few assignments Dad had given me until we could get the home schooling or transfer to Arcadia sorted out. It was no surprise that he asked me to review the Declaration of Independence after his comment the other night, but I was surprised when he asked me to read books by Dale Carnegie. I had heard of "How to Win Friends and Influence People" but "The Art of Public Speaking" was new to me and very dense even by my mother's standards. Thankfully I was given a reprieve when Dad's secretary buzzed the intercom.

"Mr. Hebert," the secretary's voice was a little tense, "Your ten thirty appointment is here."

"Thank you Marcy, send them in and give us some privacy please," Dad released the button on his desk and turned to me. "Sit by my side please. I'll handle things for the most part but we will need your input."

Before I could say anything the doors opened and two men walked into the room. The first was a well built man, obviously used to heavy labor or constant exercise, dressed in a tailored black suit with black gloves. He was wearing a rubber skin cap to make him look bald and his bright red tie was held in place with a gold tie-tack with a U made from diamonds. The second was taller and scrawny, dressed as a Catholic priest in flowing vestments. He had a purple stole with an embroidered L around his neck. The domino masks over their faces simply confirmed their identities, Uber and Leet.

I started to bristle, seeing them again after they worked with Bakuda, but managed to force it back down. Uber looked at me and tilted his head for a moment, ok maybe not perfectly under control. I began to gather my swarms outside and in the ceiling tiles above the office, just in case things took a turn.

Uber dismissed me from his notice before addressing my dad, his voice quiet pleasant when he wasn't performing, "Danny, as always it's good to see you again. I hope this isn't just another request for salary raises or benefits. I wish I could help but we are hardly swimming in cash ourselves at the moment."

My dad shook his head, "No, Frank and the others are happy with the current arrangement. Gentlemen, I want to hire you both for a job. You see my daughter, Taylor, has had some issues with bullies. One incident even put her in the hospital, but after exhausting all legal means the perpetrators have been allowed to walk away unpunished."

"Danny, we've worked together for years and you've always played straight with us, but you have to understand, there are rules," Leet spoke up, surprisingly he didn't sound as nerdy as I expected, but something he said caught my attention even more than learning the nasal whine he used on his videos was a fake. He knew my father for years? Uber and Leet had only been on the cape scene for a bit over two years... "Capes robbing banks or jewelry stores are just shrugged off as part of doing business. Cape on cape fights are good ratings for the news. But capes going after normal folks? That's a ticket to the Birdcage."

"I'm not asking you to hurt anyone," Dad replied with just a little emphasis on the word, hurt, "I just thought you might want a volunteer to costar in your next video and a donation towards any costs you might run into."

"You see gentlemen," my father placed a folder on the desk and took two photos out of it, before leaning back in his chair. It was almost stereotypical movie mob boss how he looked, "If I wanted legs broken, I'd call someone else. I initially wanted to have a few people followed, maybe corner them as they get to their car some dark night, put a little fear into them and let them know this wasn't over… Now I can understand a fit young track star being able to give somebody the slip. Even if they went into an alley with only one entrance. Maybe she had a friend with an open window to escape into. But if my friends also told me that tailing that bitch of a social worker had her calling for help and PRT wagons appearing out of nowhere? That might make me suspicious. A bit more digging and I find out that Winslow High, which outright refused to punish these girls, has been receiving numerous private donations from supposed alumni in the last year that add up to a substantial amount. I imagine you can put together the facts as well as I can."

"You found a Ward," Uber's voice was half awed at the revelation and half resigned. He knew better than I the Unwritten Rules about a cape's identity. I spent a few seconds considering that myself, before it hit me.

"SHADOW STALKER!" I name came out of my mouth like a swear word, and my bugs buzzed in the walls and ceiling in response to the sudden flare of anger, "They knew about this and they were covering it up! That's why they refused to do anything. If Winslow expelled Sophia, they'd lose the money and the PRT would never admit that one of their own was doing stuff like this."

Dad nodded his head in agreement, looking puzzled by the additional noise but Leet nudged Uber and whispered something that made Uber go very still very quickly.

"Mr. Hebert, I think you need to call Joseph Carmichael," Uber said very cautiously. "And I think we need to get rid of the masks here."

"Why would we need the Union legal counsel? If you're thinking about unmasking to Taylor so you can hire her, we've already got the waivers and liability paperwork?" Danny asked the pair.

"No, Taylor needs Carmichael, not us, and you just spilled more identities than you think," Uber turned to me next and pulled off his domino mask and rubber hair cover, "Taylor, I know this may seem like an excuse, but I need you to understand that what happened with Bakuda was not our choice. My name is Mark and I really don't want fight right now."

"Tim," Leet removed his own mask and hat, nodding, "She had us rigged to blow. On my mother's grave, I swear it."

I looked at them both and saw they were clearly uncomfortable. Did they think I was going to bury them in spiders any second? Was my reputation after last weekend really that big of a deal? I did cut out Lung's eyes, but it was the only way to keep him from killing us all.

"Bakuda?" Dad asked in shock, "You told me your concussion happened because you were too close to one of the random blasts. What's going on? Why would we be fighting?"

I couldn't help shrinking in on myself. Uber and Leet I could have faced head on, mask or no, but I couldn't bear the thought of facing my father, "It was because I was too close to one of her bombs. It just wasn't random. She put bombs inside people and forced them to fight. They chased my friends and I around for a couple hours, blowing stuff up and trying to hurt us."

"Your friends?" Dad asked skeptically. "Are these the same friends that called you the other night while fighting was going on all over the city? Taylor, just tell me straight, are you in a gang?"

"Kind of," I looked at the floor. "I was trying to be a hero, earn their trust, find out about them, and then turn them into the Protectorate. Things happened and I'm really starting to like them, they're not all bad people. And I still haven't found out who is hiring them to do these things."

"A hero?" Uber and Leet were not about to step in and save me now, they were just watching us and staying quiet. "Are you saying you're a cape too?"

I stood and took a few steps away from the desk, calling my swarms to me as I did. They flowed down from the ceiling and across the floor, arranging themselves around me in a simulacrum of my costume, "They call me Skitter."

My dad fell back into his chair, mouth agape as he tried to take it all in, "You robbed a bank, held people hostage, fought super villains on a web show, and if rumors are true you cut out a man's eyes after he was already down! What happened to my daughter?"

"I didn't want to! You have to understand, I never wanted to hurt anyone. That's why I made myself look so scary all the time. Like a bug that displays warning colors to scare everyone around them. I control bugs for crying out loud! That's hardly something I could use to take over the world. But maybe if people thought I could, they wouldn't fight so hard. You look a certain way, say a few things, and then everyone leaves you alone. That's how it was supposed to be. And Lung will heal, he'll be fine in a week!" I tried to make them understand.

Leet came to my rescue by bursting into laughter, "She's an Internet Badass! Fight me irl bro! I'm jacked."

"Watch out Brockton Bay! This summer, MOOAARR BEEEES!" Uber cackled. "Oh god, you're an undercover hero bluffing everyone around you into thinking you're the second coming of Jack Slash just so you can score a few points with the PRT. Can we film you? People would pay to watch this. By day, quiet little Taylor Herbert, by night bad ass queen of the underworld Skitter."

Even my dad had a small smile on his face, "I'm glad you all find this so funny, but this is nothing to laugh about. Taylor, I think they're right. I need to call the Union's legal counsel but before that you need to join the Union yourself."

"Why would I do that?" I looked at my father with a raised eyebrow. Which he probably couldn't see through the cloud of bugs around my face… Whatever.

"If I call him in because you are my daughter, attorney client privilege will be stretched a smidge since you're not a dockworker. If you join the union, I can call him in for one our workers and anything you and he do will be protected," he explained. "We'll ask you to contribute a percentage of your income to the union based on your seniority, and you will need to do a few jobs here and there just to prove you're a Dock Worker, but it won't be too terrible."

"So, I have to do jobs for you, you get a portion of my take, and it comes with a bunch of guys who help me out if I help them in return? Let me get this straight," I dropped the bugs from my face so I could give him the evil eye. "Your response to me joining a gang is to tell me to join a bigger gang?"

"Hey, at least it has a pension plan," somehow I could tell it was Mark laughing at me and not Uber.

Closing AN, guess the video game for U&L. Uber will give you the series, Leet narrows it down to one game in particular.