-/ Chapter 6: Frustrations /-

I had a restful night's sleep for the second night in a row. Well at least I did until I woke up a two in the morning. It was the cold-sweating eyes-wide-open awakening I was actually getting used to, nor the result of stomach churning nightmares that saw me racing to the bathroom to lose my dinner. No, I had simply slept almost nine hours after having turned in early the night before. Given the hour I actually tried to go back to sleep; I couldn't. Reluctantly I went through the morning rituals, save breakfast as quietly as possible so as not to disturb my dad's rest. All too soon I found myself with literal hours left till I needed to head to school and nothing really to do. I rolled over my options.

The local bug population had diminished greatly as I moved most of the swarm I had stored at the Grovers' home to my lair; That's not to say there weren't any that I could make use of I had several nests of various bugs spread across the four blocks from my home though I had been careful in setting them up. I knew that most cape powers with an effect zone had said zones that could be described as a sphere. If someone went looking for Skitter and found all or even most of the nests currently in my range my house wouldn't been in the center of any circle they made, rather I had arranged them to suggest a two block radius burst around three other homes all of which had teenaged girls living there. One of these houses was Emma's; I thought it was funny. The most damming things in my home were my costume and the relatively small colony of widow weavers still in said room.

Regardless, there weren't really enough bugs around for me to loose myself in micromanaging or even just swimming in their senses. So I couldn't distract myself with the swarm until I feel back asleep. Not that I was likely to; I was wide awake now. I still had a light migraine so no bio-manipulation; nor was I, for that matter, in the mood for the mind wracking task of planning out future manipulations. Similarly I didn't feel like trying to decipher the technobabble of the lair's documentation or shift through the Parahumans Online cape profile archives I had downloaded. I had already completed all my school work; both homework and even the one cross-semester assignments we had been given already were all done. I couldn't even justify trying to veg out in front the TV downstairs or occupy myself with the few years old games I had for the game cube hooked up to said television, not with the possibility of waking Dad.

I suited up and snuck out the house. It seemed like a good idea; just make a circuit or something through the docks. A patrol, I'd be doing them soon enough when I joined the Wards. I'd get close enough to some of the sites I knew about to collect some more intelligence then head home, swap outfits, and head to school. I didn't even want to think about school. That was the plan at least. By three thirty I had buried an ABB dealer and his entourage under a tide of bugs, bound them in spider silk and called the police using one of their phones. But generally I hadn't done much more than peak inside drug dens, whore houses, and so forth to find business as usual.

Given the ample amount of time I had left before I needed to be back home I entered the small slice of territory that was claimed by the Merchants. More specifically I moved towards one of two drug houses I had discovered in January. Once I was in range I gave the place a once over. A ragged tenement greeted my bugs. The machine room that covered the basement level of the building had been converted to handle the refinement and packaging of some sort of drug that was lethal to my bugs. I wasn't sure which drug that was, especially given the fact I was looking at a Merchant drug lab and they sold a large variety in the city. The area was manned by a dozen people dressed only in their underwear. Besides them in building there were nineteen people that fit the profile of Merchant gangbangers and another twenty or so that were either whores, users, or more often both.

When I had decided to make a move on this place I had started gathering my swarm more overtly and now had several million individuals under my banner. Banner…I needed some kind of mark, logo, insignia; something to think about later. Any rate, I mentally dug out every scrap of intelligence I had on this place as I planned my attack. I'll have to be moving fast throughout the attack to make sure I had ample time to vanish and get back home. I could let my swarm handle things completely by themselves. I hadn't actually done that except for a few petty crime interventions so it would still add a level of uncertainty. Was I still referencing Bakuda's 'rule through fear' methodology?

I shook my head, I was still working on making Skitter a terror and rumors would follow quicker with a personal appearance so I'd be moving in as well. That didn't mean however that I needed to be risking myself as much as I had been. I started directing the bugs on site to foul up anything I thought were weapons, whether it was by having smaller bugs cram their bodies into moving parts or spiders cocooning the same parts. As I reached the last alley between me and my target I diverted more to that task and built up clusters of bugs over the heads of random targets.

There was one half-asleep person on lookout sitting at the base of the building's stoop. I wove a little more uncertainty and unpredictability into this encounter by completely bypassing him by slipping out the alley and across the street off towards the right. I hid behind a SUV. The building had once been rather nice looking with the apartments that formed the façade all having a terrace style balcony; those balconies now served me as a means to enter the premises. I unspooled a length of spider silk cable and threaded it through a quick-release climbing assembly as I formed a swarm of heavier fliers on a rooftop across the street. I sent my bugs up to secure the other end and I tested the line before I began the slow process of climbing up to the third story. Instead of scrambling over the balcony's rail and entering through the third floor I simply clung onto the side of the balcony and positioned myself directly over the glass door of the second story apartment beneath me.

After a few more seconds of maneuvering everything into place I moved. The swarm positioned across the street moved first their droning ratcheting up as they neared. Just as the tendril, headed by the heaviest of my selection of fliers, was impacting the targeted window I jumped letting the cable go taunt and snap me towards the very same window. Just after I felt the jerk I hit the quick release, more or less preserving the built up momentum and easily providing the extra force needed to shatter glass. I managed a decent landing not that the five occupants of the room could actually tell given the swarm that flowed in with me.

As I drew myself up the swarm I had already moved into the building attacked in seven different locations a cluster of bugs half again out massing their targets dropped onto the heads of not just obvious armed gang bangers but on some of the whores and strung out addicts that were present. This was another part of the unpredictable nature of the assault; I wasn't just going after the Merchants but anyone who did business with them, sending the message that even the latter group wasn't safe from my wrath. Some of them had the sense to try and flee, I allowed it but not without a parting gift or two to make them feel like they had barely gotten away. With luck the tale of such a 'harrowing escape' would spread among their peers warning them away from further business with the Merchants.

One of the gang members in front of me drew his piece from his waist band and fired. I felt myself start to tense in anticipation of the pain…except none came. Through my bugs I could sense the path the bullet had taken and I almost laughed, not more than twelve feet away and he had missed by nearly a foot. When he pulled the trigger again the weapon didn't function, the casing of the first round was jammed in the slide thanks to an unreasonable amount of webbing a spider had deposited. Similarly another Merchant was having a difficult time pulling his own hand gun free of his pants thanks to the fact it had been bound to his low hanging pants and boxers.

The third charged me pulling a knife from…somewhere. I caught the weapon arm and in an almost casual display of skill and aggression executed a brutal disarm and neutralized the thug with a technique I had picked up at Sam's. As I was working that one over my swarm lashed out at the fourth, a whore, who had reacted to my arrival by jumping over the couch to put it between us. I could see through swarm that she was peering over the back of the couch wide eyed. I diverted the swarm to the gangbanger that needed to learn how to wear pants; the whore would make a good witness to the deed.

As said gang member cursed and screamed A tide of insects were passing through the drug lab, knocking over beakers and vials, ripping open packages of drugs, and harassing the near naked drug makers. When a group of Merchants came running down to see what was happening they feel victim to trip wires my spiders had affixed along the staircase. In a room on the third floor a couple woke up to find themselves already cocooned to the couch they had passed out on.

As I broke the knife wielder's arm the first gunman charged intent on pistol whipping my skull to bits. Unfortunately for him he had waited too long to give up on pulling the web free from his gun; I was free to deal with him. I slapped the inside of his swinging arm arresting the momentum as I stepped in and elbowed him in the jaw. Thanks to the swarm I felt how he'd move next; when he threw what would have been a decent body shot I had already stepped back and out of the way of the offhand punch. I twisted my left arm to grasp the elbow end of his right forearm and shot my own right out to grab his throat. I twisted and, as a portion of the swarm smashed into his legs from behind, continued the maneuver bringing the both of us to the ground and all but choke slamming the gangbanger.

My spiders were swarming over my victims bringing limbs together or firmly adhering them to the floor as last of the gang members in the room with me rushed for the door …and was promptly swallowed by a chitinous avalanche. I shrugged my shoulders as I had the swarm partially concealing me thin. I turned my gaze to the whore, still staring wide eyed at the cape that just decimated her acquaintances in mere seconds, and spoke a single word through the swarm, "Run."

As she bolted through another door…leading further into this particular apartment, I moved on and checked the progress of my swarm's assault. Everyone had been neutralized even the look out who had been set upon as soon as he ran inside to try and help his buddies. Spiders were binding everyone who hadn't beaten a hasty retreat while other insects continued to ravage the drug lab. Two of the few weaver wasps I had with me bore a borrowed cellphone to my person, carrying it aloft by strands of spider silk. I wasted no time in alerting the police and slipping away into the predawn.

I got home while my dad was showering, a lot later than I wanted to. Thankfully as he was otherwise occupied there was no chance of him spotting me still in Skitter's costume. I changed making a point of wearing a shirt that was brighter than the usual muted colors I wore. If I was going to say why, I don't know. Maybe It was like celebrating the coming end of my tortured existence at Winslow. Or maybe I wanted to show the trio that I had nothing to fear from them, that I didn't have to hide from them or anyone in the usual nondescript clothes I wore to blend. Maybe it was symbolic of me coming out of my shell to make friends with Sara. The point is I was going to wear a nice yellow shirt. Though admittedly it was under my grey hoodie, so I'd have to leave it either partially or completely unzipped for anyone to see it. Eh, small steps.

I got back downstairs and started cooking breakfast before Dad escaped the confines of the bathroom. As such when he came in dressed, his hair still characteristically damp from the shower he started the conversation with a skeptical, "Already ready for school?"
"Yep," I said with a slight bit more cheer then I felt, "and got my run in already too."
"You woke up early."
"And went to sleep even earlier. Yesterday's class really wore me out"
"I see," Dad said as he noticed the morning paper sitting on the table for him. I had unrolled it on the way in and had been all smiles when I saw a picture that had to be a still from a PRT officer's helmet displaying the scene the Protectorate and PRT walked in on yesterday at the Aquarium. While the focus was on the strung up form of Surge, I was visible off to the side seated on the over turned bucket. I hadn't noticed how …angular I had my joints bent, it made Skitter look even more inhuman. The only thing I wasn't fond of was the way the Bay Chronicler insisted on calling me 'Skitter' with quotations like it wasn't a confirmed name. Did I need to write it in webbing for them or something?

Dad took his seat at the table and started reading the front page, "Looks like your friend made the front page."
"Yep."
"Making quite the name for herself."
"You think so?" I asked wondering if others, particularly those in the PRT and the sponsored heroes thought the same. I had mentioned I'd be more amicable about joining the Wards after I established myself solo. If they thought I had done so they might start aggressively trying to recruit me.
"Less than a week and she makes the front page on both Monday's and Wednesday's papers. I hope she doesn't burn herself out at the rate she's going though. She did right by us."
"Yeah. She was a big help," I admitted making a point of referring to Skitter in the past tense. Dad didn't seem to notice it however. Instead he just nodded as I served breakfast.

We ate in relative silence that was only broken by niceties about the meal. After which Dad cleaned the dishes and I prepared for school. Well. Actually I made a few more notes in my hero journal and did some light stretching and warm-up exercises. I did everything I could to not think about facing the terrible trio again. Yesterday despite my skipping class hadn't involved any activity be the girls, I wasn't sure if that was because they were aware of the paradigm shift that occurred when the Wards visited Winslow or if they were just recovering from me standing up to them and probably planning their next move. If it was the latter I expected it to be something big. By standing up to them I had escalated things; it was just a matter of what they came up with.

I jogged to school and despite the fact I was heading to the proverbial hunting grounds of the trio my steps were lightened. There was something about seeing your exploits in the paper that made you feel like you were accomplishing something even if intellectually you know that wasn't the case. I might have disrupted drug operations by closing down a handful of the sites, throwing punks behind bars, and stealing the profits but when it came down to it all of that was replaceable, disposable and the gangs had fairly deep reserves to draw from.

I spent the majority of the day in class waiting for the terrible trio to ruin my good mood. Well my pleasant mood. While surfing the Parahumans Online after completing the assignment in homeroom I found a message from Panacea asking to meet Skitter shortly after school. I was to pick the place though I'd have to put off sending a reply until I could run to the library during lunch. History was …hilarious as Michelson spent the entire period off on a tangent about a time when he personally met the Triumvirate. If I had to guess I'd say he was bending the truth a fair amount.

English I shared with Emma so I expected something to happen. I was waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop. It didn't. Nothing of note really happened except that we were assigned a pair of books to read. It was the same story by the same author, except one was from Earth Aleph. We were to write a paper on how the books differed and apply some critical thinking as to why they were different. Easy assignment, but given that I'd be transferring soon-ish to Arcadia I probably didn't even have to worry about it.

When lunch finally did roll around I slipped out of school without my tormenters none the wiser and got to the library. The meeting place I picked out was a parking garage downtown that would serve my purposes nicely. I even specified which floor. The location gave me just enough time to rush home, get my costume, and get to the meeting place. Before heading back to school I stopped by a Subway for my meal.

School proceeded uneventfully. My last two classes of the day were Math and Art, in that order. Math, like English, I had with Emma while Sophia was in my Art class. So once again I was waiting for something to happen and once again nothing did. There was no off hand comments, none of the rumor trading, or other nasty surprises the girls usually came up with. Rather Emma spent the majority of class doodling in her notebook and Sophia diligently worked on her art project. Maybe I had gotten lucky and the terrible trio did feel the paradigm shift or maybe they just gave up when I showed any hint of a backbone. Yeah right, I'm not that lucky. But the bell signaling the end of the school day came and went without incident as did my trip home. By this point I was feeling thoroughly spooked; I spent an entire day in school without so much more than a dirty look being cast my way. That hadn't happened since the few weeks leading up to the locker incident. Given how shaken I was over that event I think it was justified that I was expecting that this wasn't the end.

Twenty minutes later I was masked and was watching Amy and Victoria Dallon as they awaited my arrival. I was technically here early but it was obvious by the way Glory Girl was impatiently pacing and how engrossed in her novel Amy was that the New Wave members had been here for some time now. Their presence meant my usual theatrics might be a little harder to set up covertly. Especially since I couldn't land a bug on either directly, Victoria's force field was slippery even to my bugs' ability to cling to surfaces while I couldn't land one on Panacea without her possibly screwing around with my power like she had at the bank a lifetime ago. As a result I had to use the vision and hearing of my swarm to observe their activities.

I wish I had brought bugs with better vision or hearing for surveillance. While I now had a better understanding of how to decipher the swarm's sight and hearing it was still the weakest of my powers and hardest to utilize. Part of that was because each species in the swarm that I actively used for the task added complexity to deciphering the senses since no two kinds of creepy crawlies had the same vision, hearing, or even sense of taste. The numbers of individuals being utilized for those senses and their proximity to one another further influenced the difficulty of using those sense. There were other things as well that factored in; my brain had a hard time dealing with seeing subjects from multiple angles and the way many bugs had a rather large field of vision didn't help matters. Generally my best bet was to utilize a relatively small, tightly clustered group of creepy crawlies that had similar auditory or vision range as a human's own senses. Trying to do things with greater number or a larger variation in viewpoints tended to give me headaches, not the power migraine I experience with my bio-manipulation, but more like when you strained your eyes staring at the TV for two long. I suppose it was some manner of sensory overload or something.

I sent out a single weaver wasp to secure the cable of spider silk it carried to a pillar near the pair. It wrapped the cord around the object once and flew it into a knot. On my end I pulled on the cord forcing the relatively loosely tied knot to tighten. Once there was no give the wasp went to work coiling more silk on the cable and adding additional anchoring. The cable on my end was being similarly secured by a small section of my ever growing swarm.

I knew, or at least suspected, from previous encounters with Amy that her power didn't work except through skin on skin contact. Even the dead skin cells of the scalp could prevent her from utilizing her power. As such I didn't have to worry over much about her discerning that my theatrical tricks were just that if we touched. It also meant I had an edge over Panacea; I could work my bio-manipulation through relatively thin layers of material like my gloves.

"Ames!" Victoria called out drawing her adoptive sister's eyes. Glory girl was pointing out the swarm that was slowly forming in the parking garage. A few dozen cockroaches came out from around a car while another group of spiders moved across its roof. Other groups of various bugs appeared on the ceiling, the pillars, and pretty much anywhere else. I had the bugs move at a fairly slow pace and left a good fifteen feet around the girls free of my developing swarm.

Amy had quickly stuffed her novel away and gotten to her feet, Victoria was protectively shielding her sister with her arm. Not that either girl could really do anything meaningful against the swarm. Well Amy could probably wipe them out en mass as they touched her, but Glory Girl? Maybe she could accelerate fast enough to cause sonic booms. But that was really all I could think of.

I came in on the nearly invisible zip line shrouded in a much larger swarm of flying bugs. The mass completely concealed me from view as we came into the garage and my feet arrested my momentum. Hitting the pillar made my feet sting but I ignored it as I had several fireflies light themselves. In the dense swarm they looked like small pin points of light that slowly converged as I released the carabiner from the cable and tucked it away. I turned towards the girls as the ends of the silk cable were eaten through and collected by my swarm for later use. I started walking towards the girls, as the bugs formed a vaguely humanoid shape in the forefront of the swarm that matched my movements. The fireflies clustered into eyes, the edges of the swarm spread apart while the groupings making up the swarm form became more defined. As they did this I moved through the swarm at a slightly quicker pace. In short order I was on the other side of the swarm form which all but dissolved as I walked through it and out of the swarm carrying only a few thousand with me in a personal nebula. From their view it looked like the swarm had solidified into Skitter.

"Panacea. Glory Girl." I spoke with the swarm. The majority of my swarm disappeared just as quickly as they arrived largely hiding under or behind vehicles.
"Arthropod Lovers Anonymous?" Amy responded sounding unsure of her presumption.
I chuckled in response conveying the sound carefully with my swarm before stating, "Also known as Skitter."
"I thought your message said you had the same power set as Testament and me."
"-but I'm the cape known for controlling bugs? I can also manipulate their biology."
"Oh," Panacea said at about the same moment that Glory Girl muttered something along the lines of 'weird.' The latter had finally dropped her defensive stance and started simply drifting about. I say drifting, because she was floating about an inch off the ground. Show off.
"Just bugs?" Amy seemed to both deflate and be relieved about that. It didn't take a genius to figure out why. Manipulating biology, to put it simply, had the potential for a lot of abuse. Even with the limitations of my ability I could become something as scary as Nilbog, but being able to change humans? Very scary. On the other had since I couldn't affect humans with the power I couldn't use it like Amy did healing people of all manner of ills. From what I knew of her, she spent most of her time going around hospitals treating critical cases or running to Endbringer events to try to keep injured capes alive.
"Yeah."
"Some power," Victoria commented bitterly. I couldn't help smiling at that.
"Want to see what I can do?" I asked the hovering cape.
"Sure," Glory Girl said as she floated over to me arms crossed a smug expression on her face; Panacea for her part looked interested.
I extended my arm towards Amy. She reached out with a single finger and poked the gauntlet. Her eyes widened as she spoke, "Her gauntlets are living creatures. Why?"
"The carapace can be regrown if damaged, and I'm planning on elaborating on the design adding features from the various biologics I've sampled.

"If you're able to make this sort of thing, what do you need me for? I've never really explored that side of my powers. I only heal," Amy asserted. It annoyed me that she was comfortable not exploring the abilities of her powers. At the same time I readily understood the need for her to bind herself in rules about how and on what she used her powers.
"I…I'm not very creative with this power."
Victoria started laughing while Amy just gave me a dubious look, "You made a bug into a gauntlet."
"I did, but it took me more than five tries to get the chitin just right on the claws and those other i ideas that I've got? I'm having extreme difficulty implementing them."
"Other ideas?"
"Like stingers in my claws, a muscle layer in the suit, a gecko like skin to help me blend, EMP producing bugs, others that are essentially flash-bangs, you name it. The problem is I can't make a biological system I've never seen through my power, and even then modifying or even implementing it in a bug is exceptionally difficult."

"Stingers in the claws?" Victoria asked eyeing the claws of my costume.
I brought them up to illustrate, "Imagine the claws each being like a scorpion's stingers that are fed from a series of venom sacs. Each sac contains a different venom, allowing me to inflict pain, nausea, limited area paralysis, or tranquilize on command with up to five doses per claw strike. My problem there is some of those venoms aren't very common in nature if present at all and I'm not about to use humans as test subjects for experiments in modifying existing venoms. Well, that and I need to come up with some way to switch between which poison sac is feeding the claws and clearing the ducts so there is no cross contamination; all in a fairly timely manner."
"Okay…" Glory girl said obvious a little surprised by the detail of my explanation or worried that I, a hero, would even consider using poisons. At least I tried to assuage any fears of me testing the poisons on humans, "why would you-"
"Even consider using poisons? There's a lot of naturally occurring poisons among arthropods so I'm very aware of their possible utility. Also, unlike you I'm not exactly swinging above my weight class; fast acting poisons could easily be the equalizer when I do have to confront someone far my superior in physical combat. Or consider the usefulness of being able to induce unconsciousness in a target without utilizing force."

"Poisons I probably could do. That's as long as you're planning on using them on humans; I could design ones that have very specific effects on the human body easily enough with a fairly low risk of overdosing or addiction," Amy paused and leveled a hard look at me. I wasn't sure what line of thought she was following that brought her to that but I was suddenly aware of her scrutiny, "You're not using some of these poisons as a kind of drug are you?"
"You mean like recreational drugs? No! I'd. Hell no! I've been primarily attacking the various drug operations in the bay, you think someone doing that would be…actually I can see where that'd be possible. But no. I've had too many encounters with the results of drug use to ever consider it. The only thing I'd be a risk of getting addicted to would be migraine medicine if it actually worked for the power induced one."
"You get migraines? From what?"
"Bio-manipulation. How fast and how severe of a migraine I get is dependent those same qualities of changes I make. Bigger change bigger headache."
"Like I said, shitty powers," Glory Girl announced from her spot off to the side. Given her expression I got the idea that Victoria's antics were annoying Amy more than me.

"So. How much for your help?"
"You were serious about hiring me as a tutor?"
"Yeah."
"I, this sounds bad, but I'm just glad to have a reason to not be in a hospital," the healer admitted. I have to agree it did sound bad, but I wasn't about to actually say that. I could however understand where she was coming from.
"You won't hear any judgment in my voice. We're teenagers, we should be allowed time to ourselves. More than normal really, given what we could do if we snap our mental health has to come first," I said placing my hand on her shoulder trying to covey just how much I understood. Apparently the cloth of Panacea's robes was thin enough for me to sense though because I got a snap shot of her biology through the action.
I tilted my head to the side inquisitively, "When was the last time you ate, Panacea?"
What little of her face I could see through her robes looked nervous, "I…why?"
"Victoria," I said drawing the other girl's attention, "do you have pockets in that outfit? Amy here hasn't eaten today."
"Oh come on Ames…" Glory girl said with an all too well practiced patronizing tone, "You promised."
"I…"
"Go grab her something? She'll be safe with me."
"I don't," Victoria said before throwing a meaningful glance towards Amy and looking me in the eye, "Okay sure. I won't be long, if anything happens to her."
"There won't be anywhere for me to run. I know," and just like that Victoria shot off into the sky disappearing into a streak. Not able to resist the urge to voice the thought I asked my companion, "Does she have pockets on that costume of hers?"
Amy started laughing.

"So. I may have just gotten a view of your biology. I know just like Testament you don't have many restrictions on your power itself," Amy looked like she was getting ready to bolt, "Would you be opposed to trying things with insect brains?"
"What kind of things?" Panacea asked suspiciously, cautiously, I wasn't exactly sure how to label her tone of voice.
"I was thinking of making some sort of remote controller for my swarms to keep them inline when I'm not around. Something intelligent enough to identify a human and say, 'don't go near that. Hide.' That sort of thing."
"Just that?" she asked curiously.
"Well to get that to work it'd need a dumbed down copy of my power. But yeah."
"I think I could do that. But do you think you'd be able to control it yourself? I mean what are the limitations on what you can control? What is the power looking at to figure that out?"
"I don't know. I know I can't control things with more complex brains, dogs, cats, rodents. They're all beyond me. I can't control fish either. I'd say it's looking at if it has an endoskeleton but I recently shoved one into a bug I'm working on and it's still able to be controlled by my power.
"I haven't really played with brains beyond reprograming them or increasing their mass. But I do know if I mutate too large of a percentage of bug's body into features not present in the species I can control then I lose control of it."
"What do you do then?"
"Have the swarm eat it."
"Wow, nice mental image."
"Oh. Sorry," I apologized; I had noticed that pretty much everything bug related didn't bother me anymore. While I'd like to say I had simply gotten used to it, I wasn't naive enough to think that it wasn't likely a change caused by my power. After all too many others had had their minds altered by the manifestation of their powers and I had been exposed to that twice now.

"Maybe we can start smaller than that?"
"How so?"
"Instead of making a brain that can perform like that and you might not be able to control, how about we extended your control."
"I'm listening."
"Like," she grasped at my swarm.

Realizing she was intending to show me the idea I had the cluster nearest her stop moving about and simply hover. Amy caught a few and mutter a simple thank you before going to work on the bugs in her hands. Out of curiosity I focused my attention on them sensing the changes that were taking place as some were fused into others and those that remained changed to such a degree they winked out of my power...for a second. Panacea must have been able sense my connection to the bugs sever and repaired it.

"Relay bugs," I said in awe, or at least as close to awe as I could get the swarm to sound. The bugs were damn close to the ones she made in my last life. I had considered asking directly for relay bugs but couldn't really come up with a way to explain it or how I'd know she could do it.
"Yep. I felt something weird when I started working on them. Was that you?"
"Yeah. I'm always controlling the bugs within my swarm, it's innate. What you felt must have been me turning my attention on them so I could sense the changes as they were being made."
"Wow, you can sense biology through your power?" She asked.
"It comes in handy when I'm copying aspects from one bug to another. I have these wasps that I modified to have a number of arachnid characteristics so I could have airborne web spinners."
"That's neat."
"Yeah. Unfortunately I don't really have enough produced yet to use them as a mainstay of my swarm."
"Are you breeding them yourself? I assume you can get them to be…"
"Would it surprise you for me to say I'm letting nature take its course most of the time. Just tuning up their sex drives," I explained, "with normal bugs all I do is flip the switch that says its spring and make sure they get fed."
"Not really that surprising," Panacea admitted, "Though that does make me worry."
"About me releasing an epidemic of weaver wasps? They're safely ensconced in my lair...base…hideout…"
Amy laughed as she opened her hands and let the completed relay bugs fly, "Having trouble coming up with a name for the place? How about the Hive?"
"I've not given it that much thought, though that does sound appropriate. I've considered giving my more dangerous creations a sort of dietary necessity I could control, but for now I'm simply sticking to a compulsion to not leave the area."
"Safeguards are always a good idea."
"I agree." I replied as the majority of the relay bugs tucked themselves into my hair I got an odd look from Amy, "What?"
"I just saw bugs go into your hair," she stated, "don't they bu-bother you?"
"Nothing about bugs bothers me. Probably a side effect of my power. Or I just got used to it."
"If you say so."

Victoria got back shortly thereafter with McDonalds for everyone, myself included. I unlatched the mouth cover of my mask and let it hang as I ate some fries. Victoria was looking at me odd prompting me to ask, "What?"
"I never understood the appeal of full face masks."
"Which way? A full mask is just that much more efficient at hiding your identity. Take me for example. Before I opened my mask you didn't even know my skin color, I could have been anyone you've ever seen with this general body type," I smirked before added, "that works well for my hiding my identity and it would similarly work well for anyone fantasizing about a cape."
Amy started choking on her soft drink and Victoria just stared at me a chicken nugget held a few inches from her mouth. Sensing opportunity I continued, "Look at the Wards. Aegis and Clockblocker wear fully body suits and masks, under those they could be anybody. Everyone else in the Wards you know something about them, hair and skin color, and with all of them, my two exceptions included, you have a fair sense of their body type and height. Add in the fact you know they go to Arcadia and you're probably looking at say a hundred boys who could be Kid Win but Clockblocker and Aegis would be closer six hundred or so possibilities given the anonymity their costumes provide."
"Well yeah but that's still a hundred people that Kid Win could be it's not like he wears a name tag or something."
"No but it gives you a direction to look. Hell, probably the best move the PRT could make is have the Wards attend another school or be home schooled. Then everyone would be looking at the wrong hundred guys for a possible Kid Win."

"Do you go?" Amy asked, "To Arcadia I mean."
"Nope. Homeschooled," I said reciting the lie I had told Miss Militia before elaborating on it, "It helps given how often we've moved in the past. Father seems to be putting down roots here though so I'm acquainting myself with the local cape scene far more than usual."
"Does he know you're a cape?"
"I'd assume he does but we sort of have an unvoiced agreement not to talk about it. I mean there are a total of three or four capes with bug themed powers according to Parahumans Online. How hard would it be to notice your daughter has a few terrariums full of bugs and everywhere you move a bug cape with her proportions appear?" I said lying easily. I had picked up on an idea that surfaced on the Parahumans Online forums that instead of being a freshly trigger cape Skitter was actually a recent arrival to Brockton Bay. Proponents of the theory used my apparent skill in both the use of my power and hand to hand combat as well as the intricacies of my costume as proof. Personally, I liked the idea; such a backstory fit well enough and would have people looking in the wrong direction for Skitter's alter ego.

"Those hundreds of options are only if your basing your guesses on just visuals. They're other threads that can connect capes to their civilian identities. For example, their voices, speech habits, mannerisms, even their scent can give them away."
"Is that why you do the thing with talking through the swarm? To hide your voice?"
"Yes. Among other reasons, like it creeping villains out."
"Not just villains. You aren't even moving your lips when you speak. It's kind of freaky," Victoria pointed out in her own way.
"Sorry," I said making it a point to actually enunciate the word with my own voice as well, "Habits. My point is…I was going to say that my point was it wouldn't really take me, or anyone knowing what to look for, very long to figure out who a particular cape is. But that's more…I went down a tangent."

The two Dallon girls laughed and I couldn't help but join in. Even with Dad and Sara I rarely talked this much. I wondered why I was now? Because I wanted them to see Skitter as a human? Was I trying to get them to know me, as such as it was introducing myself with a helping of lies, so that they would be more comfortable around me? So that Amy would help me construct these biotech systems I was having difficulty with or something more? I was I reaching out for a friend like I had with Sara. That had led to me revealing myself to Sara. I, no; the Dallons would only know me as Skitter.

I tilted my head, "Victoria, feel like stopping a liquor store robbery?"
"Um, sure?" the heroine responded.
"From what I'm hearing one is getting hit down the street right now. That way," I indicated by pointing, "I'll have an arrow of fireflies form over the perps' heads."
"Alright!" Glory Girl announced as she jumped to her feet and then into the air. I could feel the rush of displaced air through my swarm. In no time at all she was a block and a half away.

Turning back to Amy who looked a little surprised at the development I said, "I get that you're a bit uncomfortable around your sister."
"I- did you just send her on a wild goose chase to talk privately with me?"
"No. there really is a liquor store being rob-that was being robbed," I hastily amended as Glory Girl barreled onto the scene, I wasn't really paying the event all that much mind so I hadn't moved bugs in that I could really hear with. Still I got snippets of the owner and Victoria telling the hoodlums they were screwed. Victoria was obviously in her element, "But it did serve to let me ask you."
"Well, I'd rather not talk about that. That okay?"
"Sure. We all keep secrets, some more damaging than others. It's a natural part of being individuals. Do you mind another question I'm sure you don't want to hear in front of her?"
"What?"
"Brains. Are you just scared of making a mistake or scared of what could happen if you turned that power on others maliciously."
"Wow. Heavy question, yes on both accounts. The mind is so complex it makes everything else about the human body seem…like…" she paused as she searched for a suitable metaphor.
"…Like comparing Tolkien to airport fantasy novels?" I suggested before motioning, "I saw you reading before I got here."
"Oh. Yeah I suppose that works," She replied with a small smile.

"I'm sending Victoria after a purse snatcher I spotted a block over, anything else you want to talk about without her literally hovering over your shoulder or should I bring her back afterwards?" I asked the healer.
"I… I don't know. It's nice getting chat with someone without worrying about what she thinks of things but I'm not too fond of you stringing her along."
"I'm not stringing her along, I'm giving her something to do while we chat. She gets to do her hero thing, which I'm realizing she really enjoys given the way she's flaunting her powers. And besides it looked like she was ready to smash my head in to relive boredom," I pointed out.

Sure Victoria did seem bored and not really interested in what we were doing but more to the point I wanted her out the picture for a little while so I could talk to Amy. Seeing her had brought memories of my past life to the surface and I wanted to turn her away from the path she'd eventually stray down if things occurred the same way. Not that they were guaranteed to, but there was a lot of pain and damage that could come to pass if I didn't at least try.

"I…let her work up a sweat I suppose."
I laughed, "I think next time I'm going to bring a few dozen relay bugs so I can really direct her to crime while I show you some of the ideas I've put to paper."
"Next time?"
"I left my journal in the lair."
"Oh," she said before adding, "I was kind of pointing out that you're thinking of next time despite the fact I've not said anything about one."
"Don't tell me you haven't enjoyed the break from the sick and injured."
"I have. It's just…" Amy trailed off.
"You live by the adage of 'with great power comes great responsibility?' You feel like you're skipping out on your duty."
"Yes."
"Then consider this. How stressed out do you feel by the end of a regular day? How numb do you become to the suffering of others? If that occurs every day from here on where do you see yourself in ten years? Twenty?"
"I don't know. Why are you pushing this it's not like I have-"
"You always have a choice and you can't save them all. In ten years if you continue to push yourself to the point you're forgetting to eat, to the point where you're physically relieved for an excuse to get away, you'll find an excuse to stay away permanently. You'll screw up somewhere on something important, you'll outright quit, or you break."
"Break?" Amy echoed.
"You break under the pressures you're putting yourself under, and you become something monstrous. You become a villain in name and deed. There's a reason why militaries cycle soldiers between active duty and bouts of leave it's to help them maintain their sanity. They know that if they put them in the field for too long they'll crack under the pressure so they get more out of every soldier by cycling them. Do the same here for yourself."
"I…you make a good argument. I'll consider it alright."
"That's all I can really ask. So this isn't one sided or anything, if you ever need a spotter for your work I can and will fill that role for you. Just, you know, if you need to work on a noggin."
"…Thanks," Amy said, "I hope I never feel like I have to, but thanks."

Less than a minute later Victoria set down next to Amy. She looked pleased with herself. I felt a wave of admiration for the heroine wash over me and I revolted, "Glory girl. You're dosing us with your aura. I'm sure you don't want me voicing the thoughts cropping up in my head."
"Oh," the cape said before realization hit her "OH. No definitely don't want to hear that."
"No problem...just squash the aura and I'll squash the line of thought."
Her aura faded away the thoughts, which had more to do with jealousy of how much better endowed she was than myself and not the sexual connotations I had led her to believe, faded along with it. I smiled behind my mask before something popped into my mind, "Amy?"
"Yes?"
"Does Victoria's aura affect you too."
"A little. I get this giddy feeling. Why?"
"Just thinking."
"I didn't know that. I thought you were immune you know given of much expos…oh man," Glory Girl looked a lot more like a normal person as she rolled through the possibilities of what she may have inadvertently done to her adoptive sister.

I checked my cell phone; it was getting close to four thirty, "So. Meet again sometime?"
"How about the weekend."
"I've got a date with Gallant on Friday can it be Saturday afternoon, Ames?" Glory Girl asked.
I chuckled; recalling the message that lead to this meeting and drawing their eyes. I tried to wave them off but the motion only served to make them more curious. Seeing no other alternative, I asked, "Is this another double date? Dragging Amy along? Maybe this time she'll get her date's contact information instead of mine."
"Hey!" Amy called out, obvious embarrassed by the flush of her freckled face. Victoria on the other hand had broken down into a tearful laugh along with me. It didn't take long for Amy to join us.

When we recomposed ourselves Amy gave me her personal phone number, while we hammered out when to meet on the weekend. I made my exit with less theatrics simply pulling a swarm close to me and rappelling off the side of the parking garage before disappearing down a manhole. One stop by the spot stashed my bag later I was back to being Taylor and headed home trying to come up with what I'd tell Dad I'd done after school. Probably blame it on Sara. She didn't have school on the day's I had classes at Peerless.

As it turned out Dad wasn't even home when I got back. That worked out fair enough for me; I could transfer my costume into my gym bag without distraction or any sense of caution. I had skipped the last two classes at Peerless; Friday it was to meet with Piggot and raid the ABB site, Monday …well I didn't have a good excuse there I was just so messed up from the emotional rollercoaster of that day that I didn't go. Outside of a visit during the weekend I hadn't been there since I completed my costume. I decided to wear my full Skitter costume with the damaged gi over it and an actual sash of spider silk for a belt instead of the shawl I had originally used instead. Well the gi and sash were completely optional in this case; after all I did want to show the completed costume off to Jamie.

I got to class with time to spare. Sara, correction Felix now since she was wearing that crummy mask I was going to replace as soon as we hammered out a design, was sitting alone on one of the benches on the side of the room. She had mentioned getting some outside input on it. We couldn't talk about it until I was in Skitter's garb or out of sight, but I did want to know more about it. I sat down next to her, "Hey Felix"
"Hey yourself. You didn't show up for class Monday," she pointed out.
"I went to bed shortly after getting home. The Wards came by Winslow."
"Okay?"
"A few of them were there to find out about the bullying. They talked to me and stuff."
"Alright and you sound like this is a bad thing why? Are they not going to do anything?" Felix sounded like she was about to step into momma bear mode or something. It was a tone of voice she only ever remembered hearing from her parents or Emma's back when they had been friends.
"They are. I'm going to get transferred to Arcadia soon-ish, and the girls will get their just rewards. But…"
"But?"
"One of the Wards was Aegis. He knows I'm just a bullied kid acting tough now."
"I don't think anything about your toughness is an act Taylor. I've met people who acted tough or thought they were tough but had no real ability to back it up. You don't act tough. You are tough."
"Thanks," I muttered, "Might as well get ready for class right?"
"Yep."

The normals' class went fairly straight forward. Nakamura demonstrated a few moves, often using either Aegis or Felix as a partner. To illustrate a how effective a particular counter combination was he went full-contact with Aegis which resulted the in Ward ending up in a heap on the ground groaning. There were more than a few chuckles at the way Nakamura had so casually performed the maneuver. When it came our turn to practice the maneuver the casualness Sensei demonstrated was an obvious result of his years of experience as most of us ended up being tossed to the ground with some snide comment from our human practice dummy.

When Aegis tried to do the same to Jamie, the girl arrested her momentum using her ability to fly and put him into an airborne armbar. What made things all that much more hilarious was that he comically flailed her around for a few moments. He eventually got her to release him by ticking the back of her knee. I decided I didn't want to know how he knew she was ticklish there. More than a few students laughed at the obvious use of the two capes' powers.

When it came to my turn I couldn't help but get infuriated. Not at the difficulty of the move but the way Aegis managed to push me or slip away with the absolute minimum required force. He'd for example duck under or otherwise avoid a roundhouse kick or an over extended punch and while I was off balance and exposed gently push me away with just enough force to make me tumble and stagger. And that's only if he decided to touch me, most of the time he'd just avoid the attack or break free and not follow up instead steeping back to maintain distance.

I had gotten used to him letting himself use a little more strength than he did against others when dealing with me even if my civilian guise. I always assumed that he recognized that I could take it or something. Compared to most of the other students I did deal with pain and minor injuries far better. I never cried at least. Using the previous examples, instead of gently pushing me away I was use to Taylor being pushed to the mat or even thrown a few feet when I screwed up and left myself open. I hated him for deciding he needed to handle me with kiddy gloves.

When I finally did pull off the combination, after feinting twice and breaking a grapple attempt, he congratulated me like it was a big accomplishment. I couldn't help but fume at the pretensions jerk. By the end of the first class I was seething. Aegis was treating me like some frail little flower instead of his normal view of me. This was exactly the type of thing that I had feared would happen when he showed up with Piggot during our meeting on Friday. Peerless was supposed to be one of the few places I could go where I'd be treated like something other than a loser.

When I walked into the cape room a little while later Aegis was laughing at some comment Jamie had made. The three masked capes had just randomly congregated into a little clique listening to Jamie's words. She had that natural charisma about her. I imagine that combined with her childlike attitude it must have made her real popular. When Jamie spotted me she gave me an excited grin and practically ran over to me, "Oh my god, you costume done. It's so hardcore!"

Jamie seemed oblivious to how irate I felt as she circled around me making a number of comments about how badass my entire costume turned out. As I had decided to go without the gi, there wasn't anything covering my costume so she was able to see, and often point out, every little detail. Call it symbolic or something, but when I wore a gi I felt like I should be holding back focusing more on technique than the fight itself. I don't mean pulling my punches; I mean holding back the aggression that Krav Maga had been working to instil in me.

"That happened here?" Jamie asked as she fingered a pockmark left over from when I was shot on Sunday.
"I got shot Sunday when I raided the E88."
"You okay?" Felix asked eyeing the damage to the shoulder cover worriedly.
"Yeah it's fine, the shot didn't even penetrate and I only got caught by a small portion of the blast."
"How far were you?" Aegis asked.
"Twenty feet maximum," I admitted, "I tried to bob out life of fire."
"And it was what, a twelve gauge shotgun?"
"A shogun. It was one of those standard pump action designs, but I don't know the bore size."
"I was guessing a twelve based on the size of the mark."
"Oh."
"Mind if I tell the Director about your costume?"
"Not at all"
"You don't have a utility belt," Jamie commented as she tucked a finger between the silk layers of where my gauntlets and sleeves connected.
"Not right now, but I've got plans for one to loop under the platting on my hips and I've already got two utility straps on each of my thighs," I explained plucking the almost camouflaged thigh straps. It was hard to feel irritated with Jamie's infectious attitude being thrown my way. Well at least it was until Nakamura put us into pairs to spar and I ended up across from Aegis.

Once we started I didn't hold back. Physically that is; I only had a small swarm of bugs around me a few hundred for my swarm voice so I couldn't really use them to any effect. Not that I wanted to at any rate; I wanted to hit something. Normally I'd work to mix together elements of Krav Maga, Eagle Claw fighting, and the more generic style being taught to normals during these classes to try to establish a style for Skitter. I wasn't doing that consciously here; here I was just dismantling my opponent utilizing the ruthlessness and all in approach of Krav Maga with whatever move came to mind. I floored Aegis with a knee to the face at the end of a combination. As he got up he innocently asked, "Did I do something wrong or something?"

"I've had a shitty day. I'm taking it out on you because you can take it," I replied, the swarm's voice staying devoid of any emotion as I didn't bother to put any inflection into it. Oddly enough Aegis just kind of accepted that as a good enough answer. A very small part of me felt bad about what I wanted to do, Aegis was a nice guy.

"Well then come on, let's see what you can do when you stop playing around," he said as we closed again. I should have found this as a release for my frustration but my mind kept asking questions. Why was he so willing to take a beating? Did he enjoy it? Would he be considered a masochist if he did? Or maybe he just preferred to take the abuse in place of someone who couldn't? Maybe his name implied he was a shield in more ways than one would assume. A mental image of him doing this same thing for Shadow Stalker promptly popped into my head. The obvious follow up comparison of her and myself did not help my mood.

I actually got angrier the more we tussled, I'm not even sure why. It wasn't like Aegis was just standing there he did counter, block, and occasionally try to evade, but he never really had the opportunity or maybe just not the inclination to go on the offensive. He did trip me up every time I got sloppy, but that was really it. I didn't really give him breathing room and when I did I was baiting him to set him up for a counter that ended with him eating the mat. Part of my brain recognized that I was going to end up getting under Aegis' skin if I kept this up. Another part didn't care while another was a little too excited at the prospect. That last part should have scared me.

So it shouldn't have come as a surprise when he landed a solid blow to my jaw and sent me to the mat. I felt something give. I blinked in disbelief as I pulled myself into a seated position. I felt the side of my mask using members of my swarm as Aegis spoke, "Sorry. I…that one got away from me. Are you alright?"

"It's okay. You just cracked the jaw guard. No big deal. I think I've had enough for now though." I said the shock of the blow was far more damaging than the actual attack had been. Another wave of annoyance filtered over as I considered the fact I'd have to repair the damage later. That was on top of the damage to my shoulder cover I had from Sunday's raid. What can I say? Growing the replacement carapaces, harvesting them, and treating the resulting chitin was an annoyingly long and unnecessarily complex process.

"You sure; I mean…" Aegis's posture told me how repentant he was over the whole thing.

I nodded, "Yeah I pushed too hard. I need to keep a better lid on things. It's my fault."

"I told you it was okay," the Ward responded as he checked a spot on his suit that had been gouged by my claws. I knew the suit was self-repairing nanotech or something I'm not entirely sure but it was a neat trick. From what I understood the entire suit was made as a test bed for some ideas from the tinkers of the bay. Still I hadn't even tried to not use my claws, there were dozens of gouges from them across the suit if he had been a normal person I'd likely be wanted for murder, "Though admittedly I feel sorry for anyone who pisses you off, Skitter."

I laughed and glanced over to where Nakamura was correcting the other two girls in the class. I caught Felix's eye and she gave me a warm, friendly smile. It seemed that Sensei hadn't even noticed everything; or maybe he was ignoring it having deduced why I was so wound up. I let out a long breath.

"So, what made your day so shitty you wanted to unload on me like that anyway?" Aegis asked as he sat down next to me. I couldn't help it. I stared at him glad my goggles were damn near opaque from the outside. He shifted uncomfortably under my gaze and muttered, "or you can…not tell me. That's fine too."
"I don't have very many friends," I said. He paused and looked me in the eye, or at least I was pretty sure he was looking me in the eyes given his mask obscured the view of his own eyes as well it made the whole 'making eye contact' bit difficult. I took a breath, "One of my friends found out something about me and I was worried he'd treat me differently because of it. Since the secret kind of changes the dynamic of our relationship, right? Well, today I went and hung out with him for a bit like we usually do. And maybe I'm just jumping at shadows, but it feels like he's treating me differently just like I feared. And the worst part is I can't call him out on it because…well It's my fault."
"Must be a hell of a secret."
"You have no idea."
"Is it your secret identity?"
"No. something …worse."
"Sexual orientation?" He asked prompting a snort from me. He chuckled and stated dryly, "I've got nothing."

Class ended not that long after and I still wanted to put the hurt on something. So I did what any mature, sensible super hero would do…I went looking for trouble in the docks. Not my smartest moment, but I wasn't exactly feeling as well balanced as I usually did. Aegis had gotten so firmly under my skin it was rather embarrassing. Worst part? He probably didn't even realize it unless he knew the connection between my personas and correctly deduced that I had been referring to him as my 'friend' I'm not even sure if I considered him one. He was nice, yes, but was he a friend? Still the idea of him knowing was a little disquieting.

I was somewhere in E88 territory hoisting a drug dealer and his lookouts up by way of clever application of a streetlight and some spider silk when my bugs started relaying something interesting. A few moments of having my bugs feel and look around confirmed my initial suspicion. Rachel, Bitch, whatever was moving with a purpose through E88 territory with two of her dogs already beefed up.

Nostalgia crept in and I found myself heading to intercept her. A dozen questions sprang to mind about what she was doing in the empire's territory. As far as I knew she was an Undersider. She had been sighted in the presence of both Grue and Regent before, and I recalled Brutus being the one to carry Grue away after he'd been shot by Shadow Stalker. I pulled the bolt out of him. I pushed the thought aside with some effort. The Undersiders from what I could dig up had formed about half a year ago and like in my previous life had a flawless track record but generally went under the radar. It didn't take any time at all to catch up with her.

"Hellhound. No, you rather 'Bitch' correct?" I asked as I stepped out an alley nearby. She sat a stride Brutus he looked the same as he had last time I saw him, maybe a little smaller. The other dog was Judas, I think; and seemed more interested in me than Rachel's chosen mount. Bitch herself was dressed largely as I remembered her; she even had the same dollar store Rottweiler mask perched atop her head. The mask wasn't actually covering her face; it was positioned more like a cap probably so it wouldn't obscure her vision. She tensed up as soon as I spoke and I knew this was going to be a rough conversation.
"Who the fuck are you?" she demanded all aggressiveness.
"Just another cape," I replied forcing a slightly submissive tone into my swarm voice, "What are you up to?"
"None of your business. You with the Empire?" she demanded.
"No. They don't like me very much."
"Why's that?"
"I've been attacking their drug dealers the last week. Hit one of their stash houses. Stole a lot of money," I listed off making an effort to not sound like I was bragging.
"Yeah?" She seemed to ponder that, "You here to cause trouble with them right now?"
"Are you?"
"Yes."
"What do you have in mind?"
"That bastard Hookwolf has a dogfighting ring."
"Want me to help shut it down?" I ventured. I could practically see the gears turning in her head.
After a moment she nodded, "They might have a cape or two here. The weak ones."
I nodded my understanding then motioned to Judas, "Should I mount up?"
"Yeah."

We rode in silence; it wasn't an uncomfortable one, just the sort that occurred when neither person really had any reason to speak. I was gathering swarm and feeling the way ahead of us as we trekked onward. Occasionally I'd point out where a gangbanger was and Rachel for her part took me at my word and guided us around to avoid them. Apparently she was of the mind of not drawing unnecessary attention before we got to the dogfighting ring.

After a few minutes I felt a large number of fleas and other bugs enter my awareness all centered in one building. I reactively started feeling out the interior as I spoke up, "I our target a building three blocks from us?"
"Yeah."
"We've got …almost twenty dogs, and four times that in humans. Looks like they have a dogfight going on right now."
"You sure?" Bitch asked anger rising in her voice. I noted she didn't ask how I knew; she just assumed I wasn't just spouting hot air. If I had to guess I'd say it was probably Tattletale's influence on her. She was used to having people around that knew more than they should.
I turned a thousand eyes to the center of the ring, "Yes."

Rachel let out a yelp of an order and the two dogs took off. I was glad I had tightened my grip on the spikes I was using as handlebars when I had spoken. I had forgotten how exhilarating it was to ride one of Bitch's dogs, and how painful. In no time at all we reached the squat building, a small warehouse of little description. I leapt off Judas just before he went barreling into the front door. Bitch shouted commands ordering her dogs about as she and Brutus followed the trail of destruction.

The warehouse had been divided into sections by forming walls made of pallets of boxes of various description and contents. The primary area was the arena which, was according to my bugs, ringed by an electrified storm fence followed by a 30ft wide 'ground floor' and a half circle comprised of a few steel outdoor bleachers. The arena itself butted up against a chain linked fence that was lined up and secured to the edge of the second floor. The area contained the vast majority of the dogs while the upper floor had what looked like a balcony and office.

"Don't hurt the spectators too much," I warned as the two hellhounds, now devoid of riders barreled through the small crowd. I heard what I think was a bark of a laugh from Bitch as she cleaned an empire thug's clock with a right hook. He had emerged from one of the two rooms made along the small hall we were passing through to enter the arena area. I called my swarm in though the hall with us or shattering ancient windows as they moved in a veritable frenzy to get to the targets I designated.

As we entered the arena proper Bitch turned to Brutus and gave a few commands micromanaging the dog; sending him after the gun wielding members of the crowd. A group of six gunmen, who were turning in our direction after realizing their weapons had little effect on Bitch's dogs, were swallowed in a tide of ants and cockroaches. I dismantled anyone who came close as I moved through the crowd, a punk with a lead pipe, a knife fighter, an unarmed gangbanger; I even tripped a few spectators that ventured too near.

I saw a body fly through the from Judas' direction, before he barreled towards another cluster of people. I noted that none of them were actually armed, in gang colors, and hell there were kids my age in the group. I gave a whistle and redirected the dog towards the guy who hand been performing the role of announcer a few seconds before, considering his attire he was likely in charge of this facility when Hookwolf wasn't present. The skinhead yelped as the multi-ton beast set upon him.

The fight, I can't even really call it that it was more akin to a slaughter given the lack of credible resistance, didn't last very long at all. If there had been any parahumans in the mix they apparently didn't have combat oriented powers for we met with rapidly dwindling resistance. The spectators, the ones that could anyway, ran but not without a few stings and bites to remember the night by. I reflexively started binding the obvious gang members with my swarm before something hit me hard in the back of the head.

"Don't you ever do that again!" Bitch yelled at me as I caught myself and spun around.
Riding the adrenaline as I was, I was ready to strike back; I restrained myself. Even with the knock on the head it didn't take a genius to figure out what she was referring to, "He was about to hit a kid and a bunch of civilians, beside I sent him after the guy in charge."
"Doesn't matter. Never ever try to control my dogs."
"Look I'm sorry for giving our dog an order; it won't happen again. But you need to keep a better eye on them."
She blinked possibly surprised I relented so quickly, "Yeah…Good. Now, this guy, where is he?"
"Over there. Going to make an example of him?"
"A what?"
"An example, hurt him a lot and make sure others can see how badly beaten he is so that they know not to try this shit again. For maximum effect he's got to still be alive afterwards though."
"I…like scolding a…sure. Let's do it," she said with a predatory grin. I felt a pang of sympathy for the guy, I had already let Judas tear into him and set more than a few stinging bugs upon him. I squashed the feeling he deserved what he got and I might have saved his life by making the suggestion.

I went around checking on injuries to make sure no one was dead or critically injured as Bitch went about her business with the manager of the ring. She started by having Brutus crush each of his legs between his jaws as she told him how bad it would be if she had to come back. There was a fair amount of coarse language being used and I noted that Rachel was far and away more articulate than I ever remember her being in my previous life. The man fainted from pain mere moments into the assault. She spited on him in naked disgust and kicked him a few more times in the side before marching off into the back area were the dogs were kept.

I had my bugs running threads of silk up into the rafters when Bitch walked out the back, a dog in her arms and many others following behind her. She looked around taking in the scene; my bugs were working on lifting about a quarter of our victims into position for other members of the swarm to bind against objects. For example one was being affixed about halfway up the wall. Other victims, particularly those who had gone down early enough to be sheathed in a thin cocoon of silk, were simply hung from the rafters. The balance of our prey had simply been bound where they lay.

Rachel looked to me. An ever so slight confused look on her face as she asked, "What are you doing?"
"Enhancing the effect this will have on whoever finds it. Can I have that mask?" I asked motioning to the dollar store plastic mask she was wearing.
"Why?"
"I'm going to put it on him," I explained motioning towards the manager who was being strung up into position over the dogfighting ring. I had my spiders carefully arrange a harness of spider silk that would hold him up to prevent the man's weight from being placed on the arms he was seemingly being hung by. Patches of tightly bound spider silk would serve to keep pressure on some of his more severe injuries, "The mask will show whoever finds it that you were the one who did this as well as turn him into a representation of Hookwolf."
"It'll piss them off more?"
"Yeah. It'll basically be a message straight to Hookwolf that you don't appreciate this sort of behavior."
She pulled her mask off and handed it over. A moment later my bugs hoisted the now masked man up finishing the scene. She grinned at the sight and I took another chance, "Um. You probably should tell the rest of your team about this."
"Why?"
"This is probably going sour any relations between the Undersiders and the E88," I said, "They should know the empire might want it out for them all that much more because of this."
"Kay. Good idea," she replied as she idly showered affection on the dog in her arms by scratching behind its ears. I smiled behind my mask at the sight.

We parted ways almost immediately afterward. Though I simply traveled a block over and made my way to a rooftop before dialing the police on a liberated phone. A few moments later I was transferred to a Sargent Ramirez that was in charge of trying to clean up gang activity in the city. I had spoken with the officer a few times before passing on some information I had gleamed during my recon trips.

"Ramirez."
"It's Skitter."
"What do you have for me tonight?"
"Bitch, that's to say Hellhound, and I just raided a dogfighting ring that was being managed by the E88. It's a smallish warehouse on Baker St; look for a missing door."
"All right. Odd that you're tag teaming with anyone, much less a known villain, but weirder things have happened. What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking if you have someone sitting on the place you'll be able to get some intel on gang members, where they go to report about the scene we left them and so forth. And trust me; they will be passing this pretty high up the ladder."
"Why?"
"I strung up the manager of the arena and put Hellhound's mask on him; it makes him look like a crucified Hookwolf."
"You have some brass ones miss."

-/ Interlude 6: The Undersiders

Moira chuckled, "One to the left"
"These guys suck," Alec responded as he tapped the buttons on his controller. On screen his character executed another enemy player.
"It's just a matter of getting into the mindset," the young woman responded as her own character's shotgun roared sending an armor-clad enemy over a rail and plummeting to his death.

They had been playing for almost two hours now, even suckered Lisa into playing. After their first game they had been steadily winning. Lisa had turned out to be an excellent sniper which only served to make the enemy team focus on her. This in turn allowed Moira and Alec to ambush players that tried to sneak up on her or flank around players she pinned down. They would have gotten Brian in on the fun but he had head home half an hour before the idea came up.

"Last clip," Lisa announced from where she sat cross legged on the sofa.
Moira spared a glance to the game's timer and replied, "It should be respawning in half a minute."
"Should I use the pistol or that rifle that spawns up here?"
"The pistol, the last update made it more powerful, especially in close quarters."
"Okay," Lisa took Moira's word for it the girl was a nerd at heart with a plethora of generally useless information stashed away in her mind and a fan of a vast collection of franchises. The first enemy to come up the stairs after Lisa received a face full of high caliber pistol rounds, the second took two before the weapon clicked empty and she mashed the melee button to beat him to death with the grip of her weapon.

Lisa and Moira had bonded some yesterday after the latter's classes ended over a marathon of an Earth Aleph anime. During that the thinker had learned that Moira made her own costume and not just the one she wore as Wraith but before triggering she had often cosplayed as a variety of characters. Moira definitely had the body to pull of some of the characters she had mentioned. It shouldn't have come to that much of a surprise that she was actually rather well known among convention goers and even had an online following.

Lisa smiled as just before a half minute passed the sniper rifle respawned just as Moira predicted. As she resumed sniping from her perch Moira spoke, "I've got to ask. You guys have a huge TV, huge sound system, a massive game library and such, but no headsets?"
"Lisa won't let me use one," Alec replied as his character knifed another opponent before being blown up by a rocket launcher, "oh and they have rockets now."
"Knew I forgot something."
"Alec trash talks if given a mic. Loudly. It's annoying when you're trying to do, well, anything."
"I'm not that bad," Alec defended.
"When I took your headset you had been making comments about an opponent being a hermaphrodite."
Moira laughed, "So do we still have them picked up somewhere?"
"Yep, but we only have two. We can pick up another tomorrow, kay?"
"Sounds good."

Just as the match was ending the door to the hideout opened permitting Rachel and two of her dogs, the last Angelica had been drooling on Alec's leg for the past hour. When the girl walked over to the gather she paused as if she had something to say.

"What's up Rach?" Moira asked, "I swear I took Angelica for a walk like I promised, even got Alec to go."
"Hence why your dog decided my leg was a chew toy," Alec added dryly.
"That's not it, something happened?" Lisa divined.
"I hit a dogfighting ring."
"One of Hookwolf's?" Lisa asked for confirmation.
"Yeah"
"Met that bug girl," the hound master supplied.
Moira quirked a brow at that and asked, "Bug girl?"
"Skitter, the one that's been waging a one person war against the gangs," Lisa supplied, "and you didn't fight her. She helped you?"
"Yeah. Was …nice. Told me to warn you guys Hookwolf might be mad."
"For …leaving a message?"
"That's what she said."
"Should we be worried?" Moira asked, "I mean are we going to have to fight him or?"
"Probably not. Skitter's not the sort to play gangs against one another; least not from what I gathered."
"She doesn't like people getting hurt. And knows how to command my dogs"
"You didn't like that," Lisa stated.
"No," Rachel glanced towards the kitchen, "What's dinner?"
"We're going to get take out," Moira explained, "I was waiting for you to get back to find out what you wanted."
"Food."
"Told you," Alec said with a shit eating grin plastered on his face, "Bitch just cares that it's edible."
"Lisa?"
"Sure, let's go."

-/ Author's Notes:

So I think I'm just going to do bits of Undersiders or Wards when I've got nothing else in mind for an interlude. I know this interlude was incredibly short but…whatever.

Also I'd like to explain something about writing this chapter. The majority of the meeting with the Dallons was written before I published chapter 5. It was one of those scenes I mentioned writing ahead of time. The rest of this? Was written after I got six thousand words into chapter 7 and realized I needed to put this chapter in first. Opps.

I'm not entirely happy with the combat in the Peerless segment. It could be better, longer, and more …meaty. I just can't really come up with anything to do it. Maybe describing some of the back and forth with Aegis, but I'd be concerned about making him look too um…Worfified. New term, coined here. It sucks all that much more because that event was the whole reason I even wrote this chapter. At this point I'm just getting annoyed when I try to work on it.

Some random thoughts:

Gallant's costume is described as being a 'power suit' I assume it provides enhanced strength or something. I recall Tattletale mentioning that whether Gallant builds/maintains the suit himself or not was up for debate and that it was tinker tech. My question is, is it ever described as being armored? Besides its coloration do we know anything about it? TV tropes states his suit is maintained and thus logically likely to have been built by Armsmaster. Where was that mentioned?

The reason Aegis had called Taylor less skilled than Skitter was because Taylor reacts slower and occasionally purposely takes a hit to hide the obvious connections between her personas. The slower reaction time is because she's not tagging her sparing partners with bugs. Aegis is still trying to figure out what to do with his epiphany that the two personas belong to the same person.