-/ Chapter 2: Irons /-

I woke with a start. Feverous cold sweat rolling down burning skin. My stomach lurched at the dream-memory. Nightmares. Brian's body stretched across the inside of a meat locker. Organs visible. Nerves raw and exposed, crisscrossing every surface. I scrambled out of bed. I barely made it to the bathroom in time to puke my dinner out into the toilet. As I heaved again I made a mental note to kill Bonesaw.

"Taylor? Honey, are you okay?" Dad called from the other side of the door that had slammed close behind me. I felt guilty, I must have woken him.
"I just threw up, Dad. I'm fine really," I called back sickly. This wasn't good I couldn't afford to be sick I had things to do today. And the day after. And every day after that. Damn it. It had been a little over three weeks since I had died and woke up in the locker in another life on another Earth. The events of my previous life, usually little more than fleeting memory, visited me in detail every night. Occasionally it would be a pleasant memory, but by large it was just the nightmares. Some times it'd be Slaughterhouse Nine, other times it was Scion, other times…well my previous life provided ample fodder for hellish dreams.

Too much of it being things I had personally done…

"Nightmare about the other day?" Dad asked through the door, his voice was calmer now.
I didn't answer him though, that would probably make him think that it was, 'yes, the locker incident again'. It did occasionally feature in my dreamscape's cinema. I gurgled some foul-tasting water from the sink while hitting the flush. It took three more gurgling sessions before I stopped tasting bile.
I felt shaky and weak. I was glad I had no plans for going out in costume; I wouldn't exactly be sending the image I wanted to. Dad had medicine ready at the door with a glass of water.
"Small sips," he reminded me.

Everything went down and stayed there. Thanking a few religious figures I got down stairs and collapsed into the sofa. I heard Dad in the kitchen bumbling through the cabinets. I moved a cockroach that had ventured into said cabinets out of the way and sight before Dad got to its original position. I let my mind wander to the swarm as I heard his triumphant "ah-ha."

I wasn't overly surprised to find that the vast majority of insects in the neighborhood were either directly around or advancing toward the house. My power had called out to them during and in the aftermath of my latest nightmare and the swarm responded readily. I countermanded the orders; most went back to their regular haunts but a substation portion of the population was headed back towards the derelict that had been the Grovers' house. The hundred or so widows in the basement were restless but busing themselves making my costume. I checked the progress they had made while I was asleep. The body suit was coming along well.

During the day while I was busy with school the spiders hunted and fed; I no longer even had to worry about them fighting one another or biting anyone anymore either. Using my power I had radically altered their minds. Instead of the solitary territorial predators they had been the widows now functioned as a community; individuals and small parties would hunt anything from rodents to other bugs and drag the prey back to the nest in the basement. The massive webs they weaved in the corners of the basement were littered with cocooned prey and swarming with the next generation of my modified stock.

These spiders were as large as my hand with a body length of almost two inches with reinforced exoskeletons and denser muscle. My little web-weavers could produce four times as much silk and store ten times as much unspun dope. As a single 'shift' of my spiders could work almost a week straight before they ran out of silk and the colony in the basement had enough adults to more than total two shifts I didn't even need to rotate the web-spinners during my daily jogs like I had last time around.

I was distracted from the swarm by the teapot whistling. I could smell ginger. All these changes to my spiders were thanks to my new power and tutelage under Testament. I met the hero nearly a week ago. The memory, unlike those of my previous life came back to me easily.

"I thought I was going to be meeting only you, Testament," I stated through my swarm having detected Vigilant loitering around the prearranged meeting spot with the armored hero. The two members of the Protectorate tensed as I formed a swarm decoy in front of them.
"And I thought we'd meet mask to mask," He responded. The hero cut an odd figure, while he wore an off-white, dinged and otherwise worn suit of plate armor that looked like second hand caft off from a few different tinkers his proportions was lanky. Instead of wearing a body suit or padding of some sort under the plating Testament's body was wrapped like a mummy in rune inscribed cloth strips. I wondered how long it took him to don everything.
"My costume's not completely intact," I admitted in swarm speech and it was true, all I had was my mask; the gauntlets were…being difficult. I wasn't exactly thrilled about going out in such an incomplete costume but I needed help understanding my new powers as attested to by the drop in the local bug population that I had used as 'test subjects.'

The swarm finished sweeping the area for others that could possibly be with the heroes. I wasn't going to discount the idea that Armsmaster or Piggot might have set up surveillance to try to identify me. While it was generally looked down on to out a cape, having knowledge of one's identity did give you and advantage when dealing with them. Just ask Shadowstalker. Not finding anything usual, I ducked into an alleyway to change.

"If it's really a problem I could leave. I'm only here because Armsmaster wanted Tess to have back up when meeting 'this unknown cape.' But if my presence here is going to sour things…" Vigilant trailed off. He stood a fair distance apart from his cohort and I idly wondered if there was some friction between the two.
"I'd rather you stay now that you're involved," My swarm responded as I pulled on my mask and removed my hoody. Under it I had chosen to wear a one-size-too-tight dark grey long-sleeved shirt along with a pair of overly loose black cargos.
"Why?"
"You're already here; obviously wanted to meet me 'mask to mask' as well. And it's easier to keep track of you and I won't have to worry about you trying to ID me," My swarm said as it paced. The swarm clone stopped at the entrance the alley I was in. More bugs flowed out of said alley drawing their attention as I walked into the swarm form and it collapsed around my body covering every inch of me in a crawling, shifting mass of insects. The swarm flowed around me while I had the bugs obscuring my yellow lenses scatter as I added; "Besides I'm already here."

My theatrical entrance had served to break the ice. My correspondence with Testament beforehand through an e-mail provided by Vigilant had readied myself for his show and tell style of instruction. To my surprise he wasn't limited by the Manton effect allowing him to not just shape the biology of others, but himself as well. He seemed far more adept at changing his own body then others, and through physical contact I was able to observe the way he modified himself to add features, enhance himself with more efficient organs, redundant systems, and so much more. Together we modified several members of my swarm, sometimes to such extreme levels that it made Vigilant squirm. It was a good thing that he couldn't see how inhuman his partner really was under his wrappings. Testament, I realized belatedly, was a case fifty three.

At the end of our meeting Testament handed me a small insect cage I had noticed with my power; a set of Darwin's bark spiders resided within, a male and an already fertilized female. I had in passing mentioned that the species was able to produce silk that was twice as strong as what I was using and ten times that of Kevlar. If anything could be said about the hero it was the he was gracious in a manner that wasn't common in this time.

Progress on my costume felt slow, like when you tried to watch water boil, but steady. I almost scraped the progress I had made when I got the Darwin's bark spiders and modified my web-spinners to produce silk of the same quality. Instead I decided to layer in sections of the new silk with the previously spun material serving as a foundation. Right now if I had to guess the body suit was well into the seventy percents of being completed.

The mask itself was completely done now, well completed to my current specifications. I was already considering a number of improvements to the design already, more chitin in the face to reinforce it, additional 'sub-eyes' that would conceal lamps, cameras, microphones, and so forth and so on. That's not to say my current mask was completely identical to my previous designs; beyond the layered silk the mouth and jaw area was notably different. The mandible-styled guards were still present but they were now a buckle and strap design similar to the oxygen masks of a fighter pilot's helmet. Combined with opening in the underlying silk I was now able to expose my mouth if I needed to say eat, vomit, or what have you while in costume without removing or mostly removing my mask.

The gloves took longer to complete, mainly because there was a lot more chitin plating being added. I had 'opera' length gloves that extended to just past the elbow, were in the final design it would button into the sleeve of my body suit. What was problematic was creating strong, rigid claws out of chitin and silk. I had to find the right combination of treatments, building design, and base material that produce a set of claws that matched my requirements. Curing the shells could only be done while Dad was out the house as it tended to smell from the chemicals that were used, while the base materials also had to be manipulated, grown, and harvested. There were problems in the actual construction and I found myself more than once wishing I could just grow a ready to use claw on a bug. I had tied a few times. It didn't work out too well.

Why was I so hung up on making a set of clawed gauntlets? Because I wanted to have a melee weapon always available to me for one; for two it was because it tied into the particular type of martial arts I was learning. At six on Tuesdays and Thursdays I went to Sam's Self Defense and took lessons in Krav Maga, while I spent Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays over at Peerless Kung Fu learning the principals of Eagle Claw fighting.

I had told my dad the night after my trigger event I intended to learn how to defend myself so that he'd have one less reason to worry about me during my morning runs. The added benefit I had stated was the whole honor, discipline, and so forth would also help me endure the bulling at school. I was lying to Dad and I hated it. I was attending two different martial arts schools for the sole purpose of learning how to fight; if I happened to gain that other stuff in the process then all the better.

I had chosen each school for a particular reason. Sam's was a little hole in the wall dōjō run out of the Instructor's basement and situated in deeper into the docks but it taught the rather brutal and decisive art of Krav Maga. I'll admit that the fact that they advertised a focus on self-defense techniques for 'real life' situations and a course specifically geared toward training women in escape techniques had done a lot to sell the school to me. What didn't hurt was watching the YouTube videos of practitioners in action or learning that the 'Sam' of 'Sam's Self-Defense' was actually short for Samantha, the lead instructor's wife.

Peerless Kung Fu on the other hand was much more…what I expected of a martial arts school. The place sat in the corner of a strip mall. It stood out not only because of the horrendously garnished sign depicting a tiger and dragon dueling around it's boarders, but because the building had at some point been expanded to produce a second story and was the only place in the plaza that stood above the original single story construction that had from what I saw of the interiors looked like it had previously been a Chinese buffet and had only seen as little work as possible done to it to convert it into a dōjō. And yet if the peeling and fading paint and stained mats worn to point of being threadbare were any indication the building had been a dōjō for a fair amount of time.

The place had classes going for the majority of the day, unlike Sam's whose six to ten pm classes were due to the instructor's nine to five job, each designated to a particular skill level or group but never seeming to have too many students for the number of present instructors. Further Peerless taught a rather large number of different styles, and weren't actually limited to Kung Fu despite what the name indicated. For example, when another martial arts school, Royal Dragon Martial Arts, went out of business last fall; they hired most of the staff, including Sensei Randall whom teaches Eskrima.

Almost every website I visited had absolutely glowing reviews for the dōjō, the ratings from parents of young students were also very high indicating that it'd be the kind of school that my dad wouldn't mind me attending. The ones who didn't leave glowing recommendations tended to also be the ones who didn't like parahumans. That was notable since not only did Peerless actually offer classes aimed specifically at capes, but their headmaster was Gui Nakamura, better known by his codename Steel Claw.

Dad disrupted my train of thought when he left for work an hour and a half earlier than usual; He was no doubt headed to one of the locations that had served as a battleground during White Knight's rampage. By that time however I was feeling a lot better. I sat in the basement wrapped in warm polyester pajamas and a fuzzy blanket as I watched the spiders work. I guessed that by the end of the month, the time I told Vigilant I'd likely have enough evidence for Piggot to act on the 'corruption' I was investigating, I'd have the full costume completed. At least a week left till I'd feel like Skitter was truly reborn.

I glanced about the basement before my eyes settled on the small box filled with the odds and ends I had acquired for my costume. I found a woman in the market that was selling some beautiful lens I'd end up using on a future version of the mask. the gold-yellow tinted, polarized lens where easy to spot in the bundle of silk scraps, each were bubbles with a vague geodesic pattern printed across the outside that somehow didn't appear when you looked through them. I honestly had no idea how that worked but I had a large number in an assortment of sizes that would serve as lens covers for anything I could come up with. The box also contained a fair number of wires and electronics. My current mask had a single low grade camera mounted next to the right eye lens. I was already planning to have at least mics and an additional camera added to the mask to better capture what I encountered while out in costume. There were more ideas with requisite parts already stowed away in that box, and detailed in my cape journal.

I called forth a small collection of bugs to me. I reached out and touched one of the beetles in the crowd before me and drew on my power. My target started to twitch as its body slowly swelled in size, unlike with natural growth the beetle's carapace grew in tandem. The bugs that were making physical contact with me were quivering as I drew on them to fuel the change. The growth slowed to a crawl as the last of the fat stores fed into the beetle's expanding form. With a 'push' of my power I went beyond. I was well aware of what I was doing; it wasn't hard to recall how much 'organic matter' Panacea had needed to create Atlas. I watched in morbid curiosity as my 'resource bugs' collapsed in on themselves as my power atrophied the swarm's bodies to supply it with the required matter. As they were fully consumed I checked my patient; it was now immense in size. Not Atlas big, but larger then a tarantula, its body was now almost twice the size of my hand. I focused on the bug's biology tweaking it here and there to make it easier for it to breath, to reinforced it's physiology to support the increase in size, and I focused on the composition of its shell. Once all the adjustments were done I sent the oversized bug down to the Grovers' house to hide along with a small collection of similarly large bugs that would eventually donate their carapaces to my costume.

I massaged my temples hoping to stave of the building migraine that came with this use of my power. The migraines weren't as bad as they had been when I first started testing what I could do but they were still annoying none the less. It was just another shortcoming of this aspect of my power. I knew I could do a great deal with my new powers, but only if I had 'sampled' the biology of a similar organism to use as a basis. It didn't even have to be another arthropod I was basing the changes on either, I had for example turned a cobweb spider's legs into human fingers while practicing under Testament's tutelage. But if I tried to do something without a reference point I usually ended up deforming and killing the 'patient'.

Between the morning worshiping of the porcelain god and the low grade migraine I wasn't really up for a run, but I pushed myself to jog to school. My return to Winslow High had been celebrated with a renewal of the bullying campaign I had been dealing with. Which was good; I hadn't spent most of my money buying the spyglases for nothing. Realistically I knew they wouldn't stop, I had already lived it once after all and the knowledge of just how little this all amounted to, and the fact I was recording most of my day at school now, helped to take the edge off the torment I endured.

First period however was a safe haven. I had Mrs. Knott for homeroom and once the relatively simple assignment was complete the advanced students like myself had the rest of the period free to goof off online. The work was even more tedious then anything thanks to the fact that I had already done it in my previous life. Not that that stopped me from blowing through the assignment. Tedious didn't really affect me anymore after repeating the same modification to ninety-seven spiders. I dropped the finished file in the 'completed work' folder and went on my merry way to the net.

I still hadn't gotten in contact with Panacea. New Wave's website, such as it is, wasn't much help. It had basic four-year-old profiles for its membership which included four more capes than I remembered, two of which had died between the postings and the present, general mission statements, history section, a gallery, and so forth. The way everything was presented and the text written it felt like the site was made during better, hopeful days near or at the start of the New Wave Movement. For example there were e-mail addresses for fan mail for individual members and a phone number to call if you're interested in having the team show up for some event or something. The movement had basically died with about a quarter of its overall membership and their family being killed or otherwise picked off by villains.

I ended up learning through the Parahumans Online forums that Amy Dallon was last sighted in Australia dealing with the aftermath of the latest Endbringer attack. The attack had occurred shortly after I triggered in this life, without a costume to wear I stayed home. It didn't help matters for me that I didn't recognize the particular Endbringer but knew it was what the cape community referred to as a 'Lesser' Endbringer.

Enbringers were generally more numerous in this Earth then they had been in my previous life, but they never really stepped up their assault schedule like they had in my previous life. Attacks came generally ever 3-4 months. The Major Enbringers were essentially like the ones from my previous life; the Behemoth, Leviathan, Simurgh and so forth. Those three were still in play but they weren't the initial three that this world dealt with. For example; one referred to as Aeon, which looked like a centaur of massive proportions, had been the first Endbringer to be killed by capes and that was back in the 60s.

If the major Endbringers were like big bad raid bosses, lesser Endbringers was a game's sub-bosses or the lieutenants of an organization. They were weaker in pretty much every regard and capes handled them differently then the majors because they were a lot less destructive. They were herded, kited, and contained as best they could be until the Endbringer got annoyed and left, by contrast the goal with the majors was to kill them. And it made sense; despite being weaker the lessers still filled 'slots' in the Endbringer lineup that attacked in a set order. Leaving the lessers alive meant that there could be greater periods between the major Endbringer attacks, which meant more time for recovery and planning.

The bell rang as I was still considering Endbringers and the differences they must have on this Earth given that there was no Scion to drive them off. I adjusted my glasses to stealthily turn on the concealed microphone and camera in the legs after shouldering my backpack. Sophia added another entry into my records when she shoulder checked me while headed down the stairs that I had to head up to get to History. She put enough force behind it to throw me easily off balance and I slipped before catching myself on the railing.

Bitch.

And waiting for me in my next class was a desk covered in glue paste. Cute. I took another seat and was rewarded with the disappointed sigh of one of the trio's auxiliary friends I shared the class with. I couldn't help but think that if it was disappointing for her to simply not see me react to such a blatant prank that she'd be sorely disappointed when everything came crashing down on the terrible trio's heads.

History was one of those classes I hadn't ever put much work into because it was well dull. The me of this world hadn't been of the same mind but maybe that was because the history of capes spanned more than just the last thirty years; there was around eighty years of cape history to cover, surely some of it was interesting. I suppose the fact that Mr. Michelson, my history teacher, to put it mildly was so animated helped the class pay attention to the lecture. He went overboard waving his arms around, exclaiming like he was in a certain frank miller movie, and even showing up to class wearing period costumes. Mr. Michelson hadn't existed in my past life, or if he did he didn't teach at Winslow.

The rest of the day was uneventful, which I was thankful for. In a way; part of me actually wanted the girls to do something major again so I could record it. If they did something like the locker incident or stealing my mom's flute again I'd have the kind of proof that would be impossible to ignore all on its own. The clincher I guess you could call it.

After the bus ride home I did a check on the bugs at the Grovers' using my power. I was particularly interested in the small collection of wasp queens I had stashed there. Wasps during this time of the year usually were still overwintering. I had left most of them in that state with only one behaving as if it was spring. The hornet's nest from what I could tell was coming along nicely. I called one to the hibernating queens and several of the workers from the budding colony sending them home ahead of me as I intended to use the bugs for my next modification project.

When I got home I immediately headed up to my room depositing my backpack on my bed as I booted up my aged computer. I didn't have internet at home, but that only meant that I had a secure place to store and edit all of the 'evidence' that I recorded from my glasses. While the machine booted up I filled in today's entries in the bullying journal and scribbled down some notes on ideas I had come up with for bug manipulation. The spiders I modified were working wonderfully and I wanted to try enhancing some of my more valuable swarm members. Like the hornets.

Once the boot sequence was done I downloaded the data from my glasses while I made sure the duffle I stored my martial arts stuff was ready to go. It was; I hadn't moved it since the previous night. I threw the sweats I used for Sam's in the wash with a quick load and made sure the second-hand gis didn't smell of sweat...well more so then normal.

The computer beeped indicating the download was done and I sat down to work through the syncing of the audio and video components and authoring Skitter's entry for the event – taking care to use different wording, phrases, and so forth from my entries in my bully journal so it would be less obvious that Skitter and Taylor were the same. I had even come up with a fiction concerning how Skitter and Taylor crossed paths, how the cape knew Shadow Stalker's civilian identity and so forth. It helped considerably that Sophia was a creature of habit I had been able to catch her phasing while in civilian guise with the camera Skitter wore on more than one occasion. It went:

Skitter encountered Shadow Stalker while the latter was in costume utilizing lethal ammunition –I have one of her bolts that I found in the docks to support this claim. Aware of her probationary status in the Wards and the associated requirements for her to use non-lethal ammunition Skitter then tracked her back to her home where she discovered that Sophia was Shadow Stalker. The next day the cape followed Sophia to school and observed through her swarm Sophia's bullying tendencies; particularly in regards to me. After school Skitter approached me in an alleyway. I thinking she was a villain had pepper sprayed her. To no effect (I actually tested the spray on my mask when it was completed to see if I could be affected through it so there was likely some lingering spray. Skitter presented the spyglasses and a 'solution' to my bullying problem. Given that this happened less than a week after the locker incident I was inclined to accept.

Dad got home from work. I headed downstairs with my backpack and duffle; as I entered the kitchen my dad greeted me, "Taylor. How was school?"
"It was school," I responded setting the duffle down next to the backdoor.
"More bullying?"
"It wouldn't be a normal day in my life without it?"
Dad sighed as I got out my homework, "What happened?"
"Sophia shoulder checked me on the stairs. I caught the railing before I could go tumbling down. Then in History my desk was smeared with that pasty Elmer's glue. I choose a different seat," I explained.

Last time I hadn't talked to my dad about what was happening and as a result he ended up thinking that every day since it happened had been something as bad as the locker incident. It had been one of the many things that had drove us apart so I had resolved myself to share; besides if he knew how petty the majority of it was he'd be less liable to try to take matters into his own hands. And since Dad knew who the guilty party was and had been in frequent contact with Emma's dad, who was representing us for our suit against the school and had no idea his daughter was one of the bullies, he could very well do something about it.

"Maybe you should ask your instructor how to defend against a shoulder check then," my dad suggested in his mind I should be able to respond to Sophia's more physical bulling without getting into more trouble. And he might actually have been right if she wasn't a cape.
"Well there are stairs in the dojo…"
Dad laughed.
"I have a feeling that most of the responses Sensei Nakamura would demonstrate to me would be things that'd end up getting me in more trouble."
"Have you learned anything so far that can help you?"
"I… well there's the breathing techniques to help me from flying off the handle," Dad didn't seem all that amazed at the idea but last Friday when Sophia had ran up behind me and threw me by the backpack into a puddle of cold mud the breathing had helped me keep my power under control. I had caught that one somewhat on camera.
"I also learned how to break arm grabs," technically that was something I learned at Sam's, but Dad didn't know the difference.
"Is that so?" my dad looked around, "Is it something you can show me here or would you be throwing me around?"
"I can show you here," set my math homework to the side and got up, "You won't even end up on the floor. It's just a basic move."

A few moments later Dad was rubbing his shin where I had more or less kicked him the six times he had grabbed my arm too tightly for me to just use the basic technique to escape, "I'm supposed to aim for soft tissue, but I figured you might want to give me a brother one day."
Dad chuckled at that, "Instead you aim for the shin like a bratty five-year-old. I can imagine the groin kick would be pretty effective deterrent from repeated attempts."
"Or the follow up kick to the face if they double over from the pain."
"That hurts just thinking about it."

While I finished up the remainder of my homework, Dad put together dinner. By the time I had eaten it was a little before five when my dad would normally get home. I knew he had worked out some kind of arrangements with the other shift managers to be able to get home earlier. It was probably why his mornings started so damn early now. It pained me because I knew he was doing it largely for my benefit.

Dad had insisted on driving me to Peerless Kung Fu. He hadn't actually been there yet and wouldn't have known where it was if not for me having pointed the dojo you the Sunday before when we had eaten out at one of the better pizzerias. I could already tell he wanted to do the whole walk in and get a look see to understand this facet of his daughter's life. As such I didn't argue when he stated that he wanted to come in with me.

No one was in the front 'waiting' area so we followed the sounds of 'hi-yahs' into what would have been the actual dining area of the original restaurant. Eight students in a random assortment of white martial arts uniforms were practicing forms. Dad couldn't help but notice that three of the students were wearing masks. The sole guy in that subgroup was wearing a heavily padded costume that was a rust color; identification was made easier by the shield emblem on his chest and shoulders. Any confusion at seeing Aegis here was put to rest when you realized the PRT probably had a standing contract with Peerless for Nakamura to train their capes. It did after all make sense. Dad of course was staring dumfounded. I chuckled drawing his attention before adding, "There's four capes in the room Dad."
"Four? I only see three."
I pointed to each as I identified, "There's Jamie in the red and blue mask, Felix in the similar black mask with poorly sewn on cat ears, Aegis of the Wards in the rust colored suit, and Sensei Nakamura is the instructor in the tattered gi. You might recognize him better by his cape name, Steel Claw."
"The Steel Claw?" Dad asked in disbelief. I thought it was funny since Steel Claw was actually the right generation for my dad to have grown up hearing about the nigh immortal's exploits when he was an active cape.
"The one and the same," I replied. To me he was Sensei Nakamura, his days as the Steel Claw had been over for almost a decade and his exploits in costume were more like rumor. My dad on the other hand had probably saw things on TV like the time he challenged Alexandria to a duel and the two fought to a draw. That was one of those things that sounded like rumor, especially when you considered that Nakamura was only rated as a Brute 2/Mover 4 while Alexandria was above five in each.
"Wait. You said the girl with cat ears was Felix, as in Felix your friend from class?"
"Yeah," Dad arced his eyebrow at me, his way of asking me to elaborate. So I did, "She's cool; eighteen maybe nineteen years old. And she's been helping me learn some of the stuff I have trouble with."
"What's her power?"
"She's pretty much a were-cat. Claws, black-grey fur, catlike features, everything but a tail and a predisposition for balls of yawn included. She can even transform partially, like to only make use of certain qualities."
"And Aegis? He's one of those super strong brute class capes right?"
"Actually his strength is more the product of an endless adrenaline rush. His real power is the ability to pretty much take any kind of punishment and not just heal from it but not have it slow him down in the slightest. He wears that padded suit for our safety, in case he doesn't pull an attack enough while sparing after getting riled up."
"They let you spar with capes?"
"Well yeah. But Felix never beasts out, Jamie's a blaster so she just doesn't use hers, and Aegis acts more like a punching bag that occasionally pushes back then anything."
"I'm beginning to understand why your gi is so beaten up." Dad told me.
I couldn't help but smirk in response: I actually had two gis but I was certain which one he was talking about, "Actually Felix gave it to me like that, all that damage is from when she went full on were-cat while wearing it. Speaking of which, let me go change."

The locker rooms if I had to guess was once the kitchen of the previous Chinese restaurant though you could only really tell by the cracked tile floor. Beyond that the room looked more like an odd mix of restroom and locker room features. The wall that segmented the girls and boys sides was covered in lockers and while the room included showers and all the accommodations of a proper lavatory, the various stalls that dominated the space were more closely related to the changing rooms one would find in a department store. These stalls differentiated themselves from those by the high-tech 'privacy' devices built into them and the room at large. Pressing the cape icon -well it was actually a domino mask, but whatever- locked the stall's door and made it glow with a light depending if any humanoid organics were in the room proper. Green meant there were none while red indicated one or more. This allowed a cape to change in private and simply wait till the light shown green to exit their stall. When they did so all the other stalls in the locker room would lock for about a minute to give the cape ample time to leave the locker room without having to worry about someone else hiding in a stall emerging at the same time.

These weren't the only measures protecting cape identities either; Peerless I learned was an electronic dead zone. I'm not exactly sure how it worked but my phone was locked as soon as I stepped through the door into the dojo and unlocked as soon as I exited. That meant if a parent called a student they had to leave the building to answer but this lockdown affected all sorts of electronics, even things that weren't networked. Try to record something and you'd end up with a video and audio track of static. All these intricacies for cape security were due to the fact that Peerless was one of the neutral grounds of Brockton Bay, unless they were training under Nakamura's watchful eyes no cape was dumb enough to fight here.

When I emerged from the locker room I found Dad and Sensei Nakamura talking. I tried to ignore them as I went through the stretches and warm up exercises; usually I skipped about half of them since I'd jog to class but with Dad having driven me here I didn't have that luxury.

"So you train capes too?" Dad asked. His arms were crossed as he stood next to Sensei Nakamura as if it made his lanky frame look more imposing. I wasn't sure how noticeable to others it was but I could tell my dad was restraining himself; probably suppressing his inner fanboy. After all as I mentioned before the Steel Claw was in the right generation to be one of Dad's heroes.
"Yes, the second floor is actually designed for sparing between capes," Nakamura smiled the mix of Asian features, strong jaw, and a 'superman' curl of bangs somehow looking younger next to my father's world weary visage. This contrast was completely flipped when one looked to their outfits; my dad a jacket over a plaid shirt and a pair of well broken in jeans while Nakamura wore one of the most beaten up gis I'd ever be able to imagine with a belt that while black was fading to grey from age, "We generally move them up there when we start working on combat merging."
"Combat merging?"
He sighed, "Where we develop ways to use a cape's powers in close quarters combat. It doesn't matter if the cape has a power that synergizes well with hand to hand fighting or not; in fact the less obvious synergy in the power the more rewarding it is to develop a combat system around. That said there tends to be a lot of trial and error, and property damage, involved. I'm one of the few people who can actually train capes like this, so smart capes will pay rather exorbitant prices to learn from me. Anyway, because they tend to pay more I can offer classes for unaugmented physiques at pretty low prices."
"Oh."
"Would I have to worry about my daughter sparing with a cape?"
"You mean besides when I'm showing her how to do something?" the martial arts master retorted as he leaned against the wall, "You won't have to worry about her coming home hurt from it. But she'll probably end up sparing with them by the end of the day."
Dad rubbed his chin in thought before Nakamura continued, "Besides at the rate she's progressing our capes will be the ones worried about sparing with her. She's very quick on the uptake I've only seen a few people advance as quickly as her, and most of them are members of my own family."
"Is she that good?"
"Your daughter is a white belt in a class full of brown and black belts and she does better than holding her own. If I didn't know any better I'd say she was previously trained."

I couldn't help but smile at the praise. In truth I was guaranteed to spare with capes because my class actually consisted of nothing but capes. Nakamura had figured out that I was a cape in less than a week of lessons and had put me in the same class as most of his cape students that weren't in their own private classes out of necessity. The only reason I was here now and not the next hour when the 'cape class' actually started was to appear as Taylor. After all it would look weird if Taylor suddenly stopped coming to class around the same time a similarly built cape started attending the cape classes. I intended to keep coming to classes as both myself and Skitter until I finally decided to tell Dad I had triggered since I'd need to keep up the deception if he decided to do this sort of thing again. Not that minded all that much, extra practice was always welcomed.

To be considered an 'attending student' all I was required to do was show up for and participate in classes for three hours a week. To further add to the flexibility Peerless actually offered the same class several times a day, for example the current class I was in was at 11 am and 5pm. Further Nakamura actually encouraged us to 'sit in' on other classes and we could do so at no additional cost. He and the other instructors would rather we attend several instances of a particular class to learn a lesson then to go home with only a partial understanding of the material and possibly get something wrong when we undoubtedly practiced on our own. Doing so without a proper understanding of things often resulted in the development of bad habits. Or at least that's how they explained it to us.

As I transitioned from stretches to warm up exercises I recalled the day he had sat me down in his office for a talk. He had initiated the conversation with a simple, "Taylor."
"Sensei," I reflexively returned; I wasn't sure if he realized it was supposed to be a bit of a joke.
"You know I value honesty in my students, correct?" he asked causing my stomach to fall. I wasn't sure how but he knew. I hadn't even triggered a week ago and someone had already figured me out. I remember trying to figure out what exactly game me away. I had been using my powers, but I thought I had been subtle enough with them. I used barely any bugs to tag my sparing partners, most of the time they were simple houseflies that wouldn't be out of place even during the winter. Beyond that I had a few bugs on the walls that I used to give me more perspective. Nothing that should have tipped anyone off.
"You said that a few times today...at least a few times," I smarted back. I couldn't help it Gui generally joked with his students just as much as he taught them. It was like he was the martial arts equivalent of a Mr. Gladly but it actually worked for him because he tempered the joking with the amount of respect and trust he radiated.
"So you can understand my confusion when I notice that one of my students is a cape, and she despite knowing my own background and that I have a special program for capes never informed me."
"I don't-"
"Taylor, there's only so many times I can ignore how your sparing partner always ends up with a few flies hanging onto his gi or the way more bugs are visible while you're here then when your not. Or the way they seem to react to you on an instinctual level. I'm worried that I may be putting my normal students at risk by having an unknown element training alongside them. So here we are. What exactly is your power?"
I took a breath. I hadn't realized I was being that noticeable. This was bad. Right? I had only met Nakamura four days ago, but I also knew enough about his persona in costume to know he was a trustworthy sort. I made my decision and took a leap of faith, "I can control, and sense through bugs."
"I'll admit that sounds a bit lackluster."
"I can individually control every one of the bugs within a few blocks from me at once with a great deal of precession. Imagine for a moment a swarm of a variety of bugs ranging from mosquitoes to black widow spiders. They are directed not by instinct but a human intelligence fully aware of each individual bug's capability, position, and status. They attack in coordinated swarms, fliers airlifting their grounded brethren, stinging and biting bugs like wasps and spiders target soft tissue, other bugs clog openings or obscure sight. The swarm is pretty much an army and I their general. They are strong on their own, but become exponentially stronger with a greater intellect behind them."
"Have I mentioned I'm an arachnophobe?" Gui queried the light tone suggesting he was joking, "How does this factor into your hand to hand fighting?"
"I can use bugs to track my opponent's movements, allowing me to sense when they attack and already be reacting before they have even fully committed themselves to the assault. You can't really flank me, and you rarely surprise me. In a real battle I'd have a swarm of bugs circling me and crawling over my body, masking my movements, harassing attackers, and providing a physiological aspect to my presence."
"This bug sense is how you were keeping up with Felix then?"
"I…so that was the clincher. Yeah. I was reading her movements before a normal human would have been able to. But really I wasn't keeping up with her. She was still out pacing me."
"Don't sell yourself short, I don't think she's had anyone ever get that close to matching her in speed before."
"Not even speedsters?"
"Not many seek martial arts training. At least here."
"Oh." I said. That was somewhat understandable. If you had more overtly physical powers like brutes, strikers, or most changers and movers there was generally less need for actual hand-to-hand training; you could get away with brawling and still be combat effective, "So where does this put me?"
"Well, you don't have to worry about me outing you. That's one. But your week of free lessons is over after today. From here on out if you want to continue learning here I can think of a few options. I'd say to keep your identity a secret attend the next week or so for classes as you are. Just limit your bugs more. I'll even wave the fee for next week if you just want to stop there."
"And if I actually do want to learn?"
"I have a private class with Felix and another pair of capes, I'll put you in there and we can continue training with your powers active. For those you come in costume, at least a mask. If you need it I've got a few dozen or so old luchador masks around here somewhere."
"They're in a half-closed box in the closet over there," I said motioning with my head, "A spider made its home inside the box."
"Right," Nakamura laughed, "Well what do you think?"
"I need a price to pitch to my dad."

Dad had left midway through my forms so by the time this class let out around six I didn't have to worry about trying to come up with an excuse for staying later. I hung back and made a poor attempt at small talk with Felix while the rest of the class hit the locker rooms. The feline themed cape was not only another powered student here but also an assistant instructor, a friend of sorts, and the only other person aware that I was a cape. Nearby Aegis signed an autograph for one of the parents that had waited inside for their kids.

"So, you think you can play cover for me tonight if Dad calls?" I asked Felix.
She smiled, "More recon?"
"Yeah. I just don't want my dad worrying about me being out late. You know."
"Sort of; my folks know I'm …well me. And I'm not one for more than a late night stroll. Not really a patrol or anything. Right?" Felix responded. She had told me about how when she triggered it was in a response to Empire Eighty-Eight trying to assault her and her Jewish parents. So it wasn't like it was ever a secret from her parents; they had had a good view of the woman retaliating with lethal force against the skinheads.
"Yeah," I replied quietly as my mind conjuring comparisons to our parents and the possibilities of what would happen when Dad did find out about my powers, "I better get ready."

I slipped into the locker room as the last of the previous class was finishing changing back into their street clothes. Stepping into a stall I quickly changed into costume. I even changed my gi to the more damaged one Felix had given me and replaced my white belt with a grey sash of spider silk. I couldn't' hope that no one would notice if Taylor and Skitter wore the same gi and it wasn't like the one I was putting on was unusable, it fit well enough and the sleeves which had been torn apart after Felix completely transformed in it were easily wide enough to accommodate my gauntlets.

Instead of heading back into the main training room I took a flight of stairs up to the second floor. The cape room as it was generally called looked almost identical to the lower floor; it even had the same smell, a mix between musk and cleaning product, something I learned was because no amount of Febeze was going to get the sent of sweat, blood, and whatever else out of the mats. The chief exceptions to this were the tinker tech lining the walls that reinforced the walls to thee point I bet a nuke could detonate inside the room without causing much if any structural damage. The other difference was that one of the walls further featured an array of heavy duty 'glass' that allowed spectators to watch the capes train with some degree of safety. I wanted my dad to be on the other side of the partition one day.

"Alright. Skitter, what's with the gauntlets?" Aegis asked motioning to my clawed armwear. He stood with the rest of my 'class.' Jamie, Felix, Sensei Nakamura and he had all still wore their training gear I was the only one that had to change between classes, not that Aegis and Jamie knew.
No reason to let them in on the secret unless I had to. I called upon the small swarm I had connected to since arriving and brought them into the room. Utilizing the swarm's 'voice' I answered, "I finally completed them last night. Been working on them for a while to tie into the eagle claw techniques Felix has been teaching me. Like them?"
"They look badass," Jamie stated as she grasped one of my hands and pulled my sleeve back to expose the entire gauntlet. From what I understood Jamie was a typical airborne artillery cape. She had demonstrated her power when we were first introduced by making a small sphere of crackling blackish lighting before fizzing it out. She was very reserved in her power usage which was a good thing since she was rated as a Blaster 9 primarily because of the raw destructive force she had behind her attacks. And while she was maybe a year or two older then me she had that awe and excitability of a young child. I wouldn't be surprised to learn it was a side effect of her power.
Aegis asked, "What's the plating made from?"
Everyone had demonstrated some of their power to their peers so that there was some level of trust between each other. Aegis flew, Jamie showed off her ball lighting, Felix went beast, and I demoed a swarm decoy that mimicked Jamie's antics. So no one was really surprised when I answered, "Chitin. Insect shells, like beetles and stuff."
"Same as your mask?"
"Mostly, there are a lot of technical details, but basically there's around eight different compositions types of chitin in the gauntlets, only two in the mask. If I was stronger I could probably jam my claws into a wall to climb and not worry about the tips breaking."
"Nice." Aegis responded.

Everyone was stretching out. Unlike most of his classes, his cape classes usually consisted of mostly sparing with Felix and Nakamura giving pointers and everyone making observations. Nakamura singled me out by locking eyes with me, "Did you get all stretched and warmed up Skitter?"
"Yes sir," I replied using another simple difference in my speech to make me less recognizable. While Taylor called Nakamura 'sensei,' Skitter called him 'sir.' It might seem like a small thing but it was usually a collection of small things that gave away secret identities.
"Then you're up first. Show me how dangerous those claws are," he said as he walked into the center of the room and tuned to face me. I called my swarm to me surreptitiously tagging him and the others with a few bugs to keep track of everyone as he discarded the top of his gi, no doubt to keep it from being damaged by my claws. Gui's build reminded me of Bruce Lee, extremely defined musculature on what was essentially an average frame and a light build; if not for the fact that I knew better I'd say he was in his early to mid-twenties as his body showed no sign of aging beyond that point. When he stepped into his own fighting stance I adopted a stance somewhere between the general Krav Maga combat stance and the stance used for Eagle Claw fighting.

We spared for about two minutes going back and forth. Gui made it a point to stay one step ahead of any offensive I threw at him while my bugs on him gave me ample time to recognize his own actions and simply not be there. That's not to say we didn't hit each other, occasionally one would slip up and get tagged, Nakamura mostly got caught when my swarm temporarily blocked his view and masked my movements for a second.

Felix as my primary instructor in Eagle Claw would occasionally note a missed opportunity or generally critique my performance. That said I couldn't get a good enough grip on my sensei to really do anything to put him down even as I called in more bugs to my swarm bulking it out to use some complex tactics later. Every time I thought I had a good grab the martial arts master would simply slip out, often times leaving a small trail of blood in his wake from where my claws raked his flesh. Further when he slipped out of my grip he'd reply with a swift jab to my armored chin.

Just about when Aegis started laughing at the situation I followed up another swipe at the offending arm by dropping to a knee and catching Gui by the his lead ankle and hoisting him up. Already off balanced from his retreat he fell and I quickly kicked him over onto his stomach and put my teacher into a loose variation of ankle lock I learned the night before at Sam's. I taped my claw against his Achilles tendon as Nakamura started theatrically pleading making the rest of us erupt in laughter, "Oh spare me! I give I give. Oh woe is me!"

A few moments after when Aegis stepped in to go toe to toe with Gui, the injuries I had given Nakamura was already completely healed. The Ward went about combat completely differently; he didn't try to dodge, rather he took the blows and tried to trap the attacking limb. In one instance he caught Nakamura's punch, stepped in and head butted the martial artist hard enough to put him on the ground.

When Nakamura responded to this by upping the stakes trying joint locks and throwing some obviously augmented attacks, Aegis displayed great technical understanding countering holds, swaying and deflecting powered attacks with just enough movement to get the job done. In the middle of all this Gui put the young hero in a very painful looking hold that the ward responded to by bodily lifting the older man into the air and slamming him to the mats. He followed with an almost lazy slap to the side of Gui's head that made sensei laugh while releasing the hold. In a real fight Nakamura would likely have been knocked unconscious or worse from the blow Aegis could have delivered there.

Aegis could fight with little regard to his own safety because he was so hard to put down. You could put a spear through his heart and he'd not do more than stagger back from the force of the blow. The Ward literally had redundant systems atop redundancies. It wasn't even known if something like a decapitation could kill him since he even had a decentralized nervous system. Add to that that he could also regenerate rather quickly and it made him extremely hard to remove from a fight, which all things considered was probably why he was leader of the Wards currently.

Jamie went up against Sensei next. Out of all of us she was the one who least needed to be in this class, she couldn't use her powers without outright killing. Even the little ball of energy she had demoed for me was too dangerous to utilize like a striker power. Her blaster power was pretty much the entirety of her abilities as well so when it came to hand to hand combat she was essentially just a person who could fly. Not that you could tell she was normal when she essentially bum rushed Nakamura for three minutes straight not giving him even a moment to breath.

Jamie has legs that would easily be described as going on for miles, and she made heavy use of them not only constantly attacking but also out distancing the Steel Claw. When Nakamura tried to close the distance she danced away easily before springing back to the offensive. She did eventually go down when Gui caught her by the leg and pulled her into an overly cautious clothesline.

After that we were paired off, Felix and I in one group while Jamie and Aegis formed the other. Felix corrected some of the things I was screwing up with the claw fighting with not just demonstration and practice but by explaining why the motions were performed a certain way. Sometimes she broke down a particular maneuver into its individual components and sometimes she showed me how to chain it together with other moves or variations on the basic form. All of this helped with my usage of the particular technique.

Nakamura hadn't been blowing hot air when he told my dad I was progressing rapidly. I wanted to attribute this to the fact I did have years of combat experience to draw on that most new students didn't have, or simply being a good study but the truth was unlike others I could watch myself fight from every direction to see how closely I matched the demonstrated moves. I could correct myself based on what I'd seen and inferred from watching the techniques in play. So when it came to learning the proper form, it wasn't much trouble at all. My problems occurred when I tried to utilize those moves in sparing or, god forbid, an actual fight. If I had to make an analogy it would be with fighting games, you might know the button combination of a particular move, but until you learn when, were, and how to use the move it's worthless.

With Felix as my teacher and intermediately borrowing Aegis for a human punching bag I actually felt like I had learned a great deal by the end of the class. Something that Aegis was quick to point out after Jamie and Felix had headed to the locker room to change, "So Skitter, what are you going to do with all this 'Kung Funk' you're learning between here and that other place?"
"I'm going to use it. There's a reason why I'm more focused on the 'practical aspects' of the martial arts," I could already tell where this was going.
"So you're actually going to go out there in costume at some point?"
"Yep, I know exactly where this is headed," I thought before answering, "Yeah. What did you think I was going to be a rogue when I'm putting this much effort into my costume and combat capability?"
"Well you never know there's this one rogue I've met whose costume is really intricate but she doesn't fight. She uses her powers for advertising."
"Which one is that?" I asked despite having a pretty good guess who he was referring to.
"Parian," he answered proving me right, "Though, come to think of it the Gemini Twins are also rogues who use their duplication power for advertising."
I rolled my eyes, "Do I look like I'm one of those types of capes? I think I wear too much to work as a super powered booth babe."
Aegis made a show of looking me over. Given the odd way he moved his head to illustrate it I couldn't help but think he was more likely imitating something he saw Clockblocker do. Not to mention he just didn't strike me as the time to check out people so overtly, "I suppose not. Honestly you look villainous."
I felt a wave of disappointment that was oddly disconnected from me. I knew the costume looked more edgy then most heroes would wear, Armsmaster himself had told me outright on my first night out in my last life that I didn't look like a hero; more recently Vigilant assumed something similar. My costume this time around was even more 'edgy' and yet some part of me was disappointed to hear someone voice it. I quipped, "More like venomous."
"What?"
"I'm going to be a hero. Maybe not by your narrow definition, but that's what I'm going to be. Who I am," I said with more convection then I ever remember having. This wasn't some sort of ploy like when I became Weaver to better position myself to stop the end of the world. This was my honest heart. That scared me a little.

Before I was a villain by circumstance; shaped by camaraderie provided by the Undersiders and the revelation that people like Shadow Stalker and Armsmaster could twist the system to serve their wants and still be called heroes. Combined with my lack of other friends and a misguided attempt to infiltrate the Undersiders it was far, far too easy to let myself become friends and identify with them. I might be throwing away the friendships I could have with them, but this time I was going to twist circumstance to accommodate my original desire to be a hero. Creepy powers and bad public image be damned I was going to be a superhero.

"Something wrong Skitter?"
"Sorry, I got distracted by a thought. You were winding up to pitch joining the Wards right?" I asked; when he nodded in affirmation I added, "Don't bother. I'm not interested...At least not right now."
I could see Aegis's shoulders slump, he must have thought he had been more subtle in the lead up or maybe he was disappointed in my answer, "Oh. So if I ask you later."
"If later is well after I make a name for myself, then yeah I'd imagine I'd be a bit more receptive to the idea," I said giving him a sly smile that he couldn't see behind my mask as I mentally added, "In fact I think I may end up joining sooner rather than later if my plans are too successful."

After class I did exactly what I had told Felix I would. I did some recon. Brockton Bay was different then I remembered in from my past life. I had first noticed the differences while on one of my runs, every now and then I'd come across a building that had been remodeled to function as something it wasn't in my last life or one that had been completely replaced with a different structure. A tenement in the slummiest section of the docks for example, had been bull dozed at some point and the lot now housed a surprisingly well-maintained park that was named after a local cape that had heroically fell against the Slaughterhouse Nine the last time they had come to the Bay. I couldn't be sure where things were and how accurate my memories from the previous life were, thus it was necessary for me to get a lay of the land once more.

But by far the biggest difference was that Brockton Bay's position as a major 'cape city' was more obvious in this life. With a few extra generations of capes vying for control over the city, there were more leftovers from the previous generations. The warehouses and storage units used as hideouts in my previous life were still popular but it was nothing compared to the underground which was almost littered with facilities. Endbringer shelters, cold war bunkers, and the secret lairs of villains and vigilantes both occupied and abandoned were all over the place. One just had to know to look and where. And bugs knew where to look.

I was deep within the docks dressed in my usual running clothes jogging along seemingly oblivious to any possible threat. The truth was that the bugs of the city were skittering to and fro feeding me information on their surroundings. Over the course of an hour I had located several places that warranted further investigation. Picking one out of the lot to double back and get a better sense of lead me in a vague impression of a circuit, if I was right I knew what I'd be doing my first night out in costume.

My mind was so focused on the bugs crawling through the buildings two blocks away I didn't immediately notice when I ran right into a patch of darker, inky night. I blinked and slowed down to a walk as my mind tried to catch up with my body. I could barely hear my own foot falls, my eyes were completely worthless and it felt like I was walking through... Grue. Damn it. Grue was somewhere nearby; if he was using his darkness it likely meant combat. I sent bugs a head of me as I ventured on trying to find my way out of the inky blackness.

I adjusted my glasses and surreptitiously turned on the camera and mic built into the spyglasses' legs. Only moments later I was snatched and pulled against someone's body. Grue's hollow voice echoed from behind me as he turned us about, "Behave and this will be over shortly."
My breath hitched in my throat for all the wrong reasons. Forget the fact that the leather-clad villain had his hands positioned to easily snap my neck; Grue, or rather Brian, played a starring role in almost every damn one of the more pleasant memory-dreams. I forcibly shoved the lingering feelings from my past life away as I tried to clear my head. Grue didn't know me, we'd never crossed paths in this life and we certainly hadn't had any sort of relationship. I heard a crack of barely audible static followed by a very tiny but familiar voice, "Grue just hold out a little while longer, Rachel sent Brutus your way. He should be with you in just a bit."
"Right," Came the distant yet near voice's response. Grue banished the darkness around us revealing ourselves and the creeping unsubstantial from of Shadow Stalker. The probationary Ward quickly aimed both her crossbows at us. From my position I could see that the bolts loaded were not the tranquilizer bolts that she was supposed to be using. My eyes no doubt widened to near comical proportions; but it wasn't because of the weapons trained on me. It was because I knew this scenario.

"Don't get any ideas Shadow Stalker; wouldn't want the blood of an innocent on your hands would you?"
"You think I care about a weakling that got in the way?" Sophia icily responded. I glowered at her. Brian's grip on me was loose; having slacked at Sophia's devil may care response. I briefly wonder about the ramifications of my being shot by her, It would definitely draw attention to what type of bolts she used and I could possibly leverage it to make the PRT look into our shared past. I quickly threw that line of thinking overboard; I'd rather not get shot.
"I think it'd look bad if you started leaving injured civilians in your wak-" I jammed my elbow into Grue's abdomen just under his ribcage with as much force as I could muster with as little lead in as possible. He sucked breath in surprise as I slipped out of his grip. Darkness immediately consumed him but not before Shadow Stalker fired her weapons. I head a pained cry that sounded like it came from the other end of the block.

Grue's biker leathers slammed into me bodily as he staggered from the injury. We tripped over one another and I ended up sandwiched between Grue's large frame and the brick face of a building. I felt the shaft of one of Sophia's bolts against my arm and I did something I'd probably regret later. I grabbed it and pulled. Brian let out a pained growl in my ear as I extricated the bolt forcing myself to focus on the fact that the bolt was undeniable evidence that Sophia wasn't playing by the PRT's rules and not the fact that I just made his wound worse.

Grue pushed himself off of me and sent me tumbling onto the ground as other noises reached me. I rolled away from him as the darkness opened around the two of us. Brutus in all his mutated glory lurched into the area positioning himself for Brian to mount. A few heavy breaths later he had pulled himself into the metaphorical saddle. I could see Brian was cradling his gut trying to staunch the bleeding. He met my eyes for a long second before uttering a barely audible, "go"

And Brutus went. Just as he disappeared into the darkness Shadow Stalker emerged her crossbows reloaded and ready to finish things. She glanced around and spotted me and all the blood.

"Shit. I didn't hit you right?" she asked angrily. She probably thought it was my fault for it if I'd have been hit, never mind I had made every attempt to get out of the way and she was the shooter. That was just the way her mind worked and I wondered if it was due in part to her powers or if she'd always been so messed up. I leaned towards the latter.
I shook my head, "It's his blood."
"Fuck yeah," She retorted proud of the injury she inflicted, "Which way did he go?"
I motioned with my head before elaborating, "He got on some kind of monster mutt."
"Damn it!" She hadn't even taken three steps when she stopped again. Seemingly remembering for the first time she added with a sigh, "Nice job making an opening."
"Thanks." I said breathlessly as one of my personal tormenters disappeared into the remnants of Grue's darkness without the slightest inkling of what awaited her. I tried not to smile as I walked home with the evidence that would cement Sophia's fate wrapped in newspaper and tucked securely in the pocket of my now blood-stained hoody.

Interlude 2: Piggot
Emily Piggot was just about to shut down her computer in preparation of leaving for the night when an alert popped up indicating a new e-mail had arrived. Against her better judgment she decided to check it.

She didn't immediately recognize the e-mail address until she read the tittle line. Vigilant had told her a few weeks ago about a new and mysterious cape that had contacted him through one of the social media sites he utilizes inquiring on her own quality of character and contact information. He had provided the cape with Piggot's public e-mail as per protocols and kept her abreast of any developments. She had actually been curious after she read the chat logs he'd provided her of their online encounters. The cape, Skitter, had even indicated that the investigation into 'corruption' within the PRT would be complete by the end of the month. Despite the security issues such an allegation and the independent investigation would likely indicate she smiled as the message from 'SkitteringInTheShadows' loaded wondering if the cape created it specifically to make it easy for her to recognize.

Director, I apologize for taking so long to contact you. In case it hasn't been made clear by the obvious e-mail address and what Vigilant likely told you I'm Skitter and I've been investigating one of your subordinates.I however did somewhat mislead Vigilant. It's not an investigation into an officer for corruption, I'm' here to provided evidence of a particular Ward who's not following your rules. I figure I don't actually need to state their name, in either identity for you to correctly guess the subject of my investigation.
I'll have everything ready to turn over to you personally by 6pm Friday. My phone (number in attachment for security purposes) will be on from that time onward, call to set up a place and time. If for whatever reason you decide not to call at that time, I'll seek other means of dealing with this. I don't need to say how bad that could end up for all involved.

Emily sucked in a breath. Skitter was an odd one. Giving a phone number to contact her at was extremely naive usually, but when she checked the attachment image file the number was obviously for a prepaid cellphone. Piggot bet that Skitter didn't intend to even turn the cellphone on until the listed time. What worried her wasn't the nearly veiled threat at the end but the fact that this Skitter claimed knowledge of her target's civilian identity. That worried her because she had no idea how Skitter knew what they did. Well as they say, knowledge is power, and she had access to some very peculiar knowledge herself.

She checked the ward's duty roster. As she expected Kid Win was still sequestered within his workshop working on his 'next big thing.' The boy had been logging far more hours lately then she was comfortable with for a minor. That didn't stop her from dialing the extension for his workshop. On the fourth ring Kid Win answered the goggles he was wearing was the only part of him that wasn't dirty. The grin on his face didn't disappear when he saw her own countenance, "Director, calling to tell me to go home?"
"Not really, but you should tie things off for the night. I was about to leave myself," she explained, "That was before I got an e-mail from a new cape. I want to borrow your mind for a moment."
"Alright, I'll do what I can."
"Does the codename Skitter ring any bells?" Emily asked the Ward. As soon as she said the name the boys grin dropped. That worried Piggot more then she'd admit, she'd been able to chastise him before and that silly grin managed to stay on his face.
"It does. My last go around Skitter was a villain who joined the Undersiders. Let's see…" he rubbed his chin as he tried to focus on a set of memories that had been fading ever since he triggered nearly a year ago, "I recall her taking over territory, becoming the leader of the Undersiders, Director Tagg publicly outed her."
"She? And Tagg outed her?" Piggot couldn't keep the surprise out of her voice. Outing capes was… bad. Sure she believed that the unwritten rules of capes were somewhat more flexible if you weren't a cape yourself; but she knew there were lines you just down cross even then. When it came to secret identities the best way to use them against a cape was to tell them you knew who they were under their mask, privately. They might not like it, but they'd respect you for your discretion on the matter.
"Yeah, a girl my age if I remember right. I can't recall her real name but by the time she was outed she was basically in control of Brockton Bay. The fucked up thing was he outed her in school where she could have taken hundreds of students hostage."
"Did she?"
"No, she asked them to help her escape. And they did because she was well regarded by the civilians despite being a villain," the tinker explained. Piggot didn't like the sound of that, nor for that matter the grudging respect creeping into her Ward's voice.
"It's weird. I can't nail it down but I remember her being more heroic then some of our members. Throwing herself into battles she shouldn't be able to win to protect people, her territory recovered the fastest after the Endbringer attack, and stuff like that.
"She turned herself in shortly after being outed and Tagg called in Alexandria to help interrogate her. It backfired." Kid Wins face turned solemn as he spoke.
"Backfired?"
"From what I understand Alexandria tried to break her resolve and end up breaking her restraint. She killed Alexandria and Tagg. And then she still turned around and joined the Wards."
"How? How'd she kill someone who's as invincible as Alexandria? For that matter how'd she turn Ward afterward?"
"I don't remember. Or I wasn't there for that part I'm not sure. Honestly I'm surprised I was able to recall so much. It's usually harder. But I recall the Undersiders and Wards clashed often enough; maybe it's because of how familiar I was with them by the time I died? I don't know."

"If you don't mind, what's going on, ma'am?"
"Skitter appeared about three weeks or so ago. She helped Vigilant apprehend Starlight. Since then she's only appeared once to meet with Testament for some training with her powers. And now she contacts me informing me of an investigation she's been conducting into one of my people."
"That. That doesn't sound right. I mean I don't remember her even appearing until like March or something."
"She identified herself to Vigilant as a hero. Perhaps this world's version of Skitter is more naturally good?"
"God, that would be awesome. I still have nightmares about fighting her," Kid Win's response was so quick and automatic that the director felt the corners of her mouth tug up in response to the honest comment. He wasn't the only one who hoped this new cape was heroic; if possible Piggot wanted this Skitter as one of her Wards.
"And on the subject of dreams, pack it up and go home. I seem to recall there being school tomorrow," Piggot stated before ending the call. She made a note to ask Clockblocker about Skitter when the former came in tomorrow. The two Wards were both reincarnated; Piggot went to them whenever her own memoires, as hazy as they were, stirred as they all shared the same previous life. She knew there were other 'second lifers' out there and not many of them actually shared the same previous life. On occasion there'd be someone who'd make an off handed comment that would reveal that nature or especially in the case of parahumans went mad with the twin memories.

Emily had done some research, covertly of course, and she had concluded that in normal humans the previous life's memories started to 'decay' when you were born so most normal humans wouldn't even recall the previous set by the time they'd be intelligent enough to act on them; she only had hazy half-rememberings of the previous life and she had an exceptional memory. In capes however they typically had the previous life's memories recalled in full when they triggered and those memories decayed substantially slower. It seemed that the corona pollentia, the part of the brain that only a fraction of the population had and enabled the potential for powers, was the place this second set of memories were stored…or something.

She flipped off her monitor after setting the computer to shut down and decided to push all thoughts of capes, work, and so forth out of her mind and just focus on having a peaceful drive home and rest.

-/ Author Notes:

This chapter took a lot longer to write mostly because I initially tried to write 'and this is what happened the next day' and then I started jumping around randomly both in the events of that day and how long had passed between chapter breaks. Further the chapter mostly set up, clumsy set up at that. I mean exposition dumps are pretty much guaranteed to happen when you're setting a universe of any sort but I feel that I used flashbacks and exposition dumps in Taylor's thoughts too much in this chapter. I mean, how many times did Taylor get sidetracked with her thoughts in this chapter alone? It makes the whole chapter feel…lacking but in a way that's not easy to peg down and fix without too great of a sacrifice of time and energy.

To put things in perspective I mainly write in bursts, spewing out al an entire chapter in one go before coming back later and editing it. The first chapter took three days to turn out in the form I originally posted it in. Most of that was in editing the previous day's narrative spring. I'd sit down edit the previous day's work and then let mind hit paper and see what happened. This chapter wasn't like that it was more like fitting jigsaw pieces together then writing a narrative. From here however I've got a vague notion of where I'm going but the path is rather malleable.

So… until someone mentioned it I didn't know there was an actual term for the whole rebirth plot device (I should have known better, TVTropes has a term for everything). I initially came up with the idea of using the peggy sue trope because of the name Taylor is given in the last Arcs of Worm. Khepri among other things is a god of rebirth. Yeah. You can thank Wikipedia for the idea.

Thanks for the reviews, for some reason the last two or three reviews only appeared in my e-mail inbox; weird. Keep them coming I do enjoy you guys input here.

Proof, I edited chapter one, mainly in the formatting which I agree was horrible. I'll explain it as I explained elsewhere what you guys got subjected to was pretty much how the chapter was written in Word. Word's margins and page breaks definitely help with the readability of things, and not all of my formatting carried over. This site (and the internet as a whole?) doesn't allow for indents (used to offset the chat logs and e-mail), different text sizes (for the titles), and most annoyingly scrubs empty lines and repeated "-" (which I used for section breaks and offsetting titles respectfully)

I've had comments about Taylor not being Taylor like enough. For example she's 'too trusting' in telling Vigilant about her powers. But really in that case her disclosing that she can 'sense' through the swarm was a lead up to her stating that she was 'over a block away.' She's giving information to shape others view of her after all here's what she gave them to work with, "she can sense through the swarm, but not all of the senses translate well so it's not like she can see with thousands of eyes. She can remotely operate the swarm from at least a block away if she's in civilian guise there's likely no way to tell who she is."

Another common complaint was Taylor not flipping out enough. Some of that should have been alleviated with what I added to chapter 1 and events in this chapter. But honestly Taylor does a real good job in Worm of not flipping her lid, especially if she has a task to set herself to and here that's definitely the case here. She might be starting small instead of the large things some want to see but she's putting herself to task.

Any advice on Taylor's characterization is helpful. I've also been told that I'm making characters too strong. Specifically that Vigilant and Starlight are too powerful, and giving Taylor another power and 'clearing up' her swarm sense is too much. So here's some rationale for the folks that are still reading,

In Worm (during the cauldron base segment) we're told by Numberman (whose using a device) that Taylor triggered twice in 'quick succession', I have a hard time believing that based on her powers; sure they're stronger then they appear; but second triggers seem to add a new facet to an existing power. What would that be, her swarm sense? That's pretty much a required secondary power given her power's range. The fact that the Numberman mentions that Cauldron usually uses Contessa to figure out if there's a chance for a second trigger doesn't help matters for me.

That said it's not even the route I'm going here with Taylor. She experienced some extreme situations near the end of Worm before she ends up reliving her trigger event last chapter. Effectively she has a second first trigger when she is reincarnated. As such she gets a second power which I obviously chose to be bio-manipulation, chalk it up to how often she dealt with Panacea or her work I suppose. To accommodate both Taylor's regrets and her power's general theme the power is limited to only affect Arthropods. There's obviously an exception when it comes to her 'read physiology' capability, but hey required secondary powers?

Now consider that in Piggot's interlude I stated that both Kid Win and Clockblocker are 'second-lifers' like Taylor.

Vigilant I can actually understand having some complaints about. At least until I point out that his strength, durability, barrier, and speed perception are all directly tied into his ability to move fast while his 'no need to sleep' is tied into the precog capability. His strength and durability are the requisites for his speed, the barrier is needed to protect from micro impacts when moving at speed, and his perception is directly tied to his speed so that he can 'correctly' interact with the world. He doesn't need sleep to counter the fact that since his precog power has no off button he'd never be able to sleep anyway.