A Tale of Transmigration

by CrashLegacy

For Taylor Hebert, death was just the beginning. Reincarnated into an alternate earth version of herself she awakens to find herself trapped in a very familiar locker. Now armed with knowledge of her previous life and the ability to not just control bugs but also manipulate their biology, Taylor sets off to do what she always wanted to: be a superhero. Spoilers abound; sorry.

11. Chapter 11

-/ Chapter 11: Repercussions \\-

Alexandra Thomas stood in the mouth of an alleyway with her hoody drawn up around her. She was just far enough in as to be half hidden by the dark and not look like a prostitute. That latter part was important because said alley was essentially at the intersection of the ABB and E88 territories. A stretch of three miles that the two gangs fought over and shifted hands so often that it's residents were rarely sure of who actually controlled the area on any given day. It was also one of the few points where you could occasionally spot members of the two gangs kicking back with one another. If anyone took a good look at Alexandra she'd be made in a heartbeat. Not because she was in costume or anything, but due to her feet being only covered in ace-bandages despite the slowly receding winter's chill.

She shifted uncomfortably, the waiting was killing her. Across the street she spotted a particular E88 gangbanger that was making small talk with two companions...well not actual companions. That was Browbeat, the fellow independent whose biokinesis was far more versatile than he let on. Right now he looked like the Aryan ideal, strong jaw, attractive features, superbly fit, blond and blue eyed. Unlike the others around him he wore his gang tag on his flesh, a scroll work of the gang's initials in old English font across his bared left bicep.

His muscle wasn't just for show either. He had explained that the particular enhancements he had made gave him a denser, powerful musculature that not only allowed him to deliver bone crushing blows but also provided a measure of damage resistance. He'd apparently been shot with a .45 in the past and it hadn't penetrated the corded muscle of his chest. And that wasn't even taking into account his other power, point blank telekinesis.

Somewhere nearby she knew their third lay in wait as well. Voltage was, for lack of a better description, a living taser, able to generate massive amounts of electrical energies from his body and bend it to his will. Like Browbeat and herself however he seemed to be limited in the range of his ability. He performed more like a striker than a blaster. Not since he first emerged a year ago had anyone seen him do anything as flashy as emit a bolt of lightning, something she'd have immediately tried if she'd been gifted his powers.

She saw a flash of light out the corner of her eye that she guessed to have been emitted from a rooftop. Voltage was signaling that the target was approaching. She stock a step backward into the brick wall of the building she'd been all but leaning against. Her power went to work creating a depression around her. She mentally drew out the design she wanted tonight for the more exotic parts of her costume that made her far more recognizable as a cape than any amount of cloth ever would.

The plan was simple. Voltage was going to do something to draw the ire of an ABB kill squad before riding the power lines over to where Browbeat and his E88 'friends' were. Browbeat, upon sighting the kill team, would open fire with an Uzi he had acquired from a raid on an E88 storehouse they had hit during an earlier operation. If all went as expected the two gangs' forces would get into a nasty firefight that would further ratchet up the tension between them. Browbeat, of course, would beat a hastily retreat to Ale-Mason's hiding spot where she'd grab him and whisk him away before anyone could get lucky and kill the hero.

While she was submerged in the wall, however, she had no idea of the going ons around her, save for the sounds that permeated the material from which she drew her name. It wasn't until she heard the staccato of automatics that she knew the deed was done. She poked her head out of the brickwork finding that chaos had erupted in the short time she'd been submerged. Voltage jerked to the side in midair avoiding a blast of wind before he landed on one of those steel cables that she always assumed was used to keep telephone poles from falling over. Electricity arced off the cape as he propelled himself up the cable before performing the maneuver along the power lines.

Knowing he was essentially clear, Mason turned her attention to the gangs that were now in a pitched fire fight with one another. It looked like the ABB kill squad Voltage had pissed off included not just the normal ABB fodder outfitted with shotguns, AKs, and the like, but Feng Lao himself. She also noticed that the cape was bleeding profusely, likely from the surprise attack Browbeat had instigated under his role in this 'mission.' Browbeat himself was slipping into the alleyway she was in, discarding the Uzi he'd used to start the conflict.

"Mason?" He hissed in a loud whisper.

Instead of directly answering she leapt from the wall, caught him, and pulled him into the pavement of the alleyway with her . She felt him tense up not only from the sensation of being engulfed by concrete but also from her lips meeting his. While there was a sensual connotation to the action, Alexandra reminded herself that she was locking lips to share air with him. Submerged as they were, Browbeat couldn't breathe, so she had to provide air for the both of them as she utilized her power to send them hurtling towards the rendezvous point.

Twenty two miles and five minutes later Alex broke the life-giving kiss and was rewarded with a stunned "wow" from the teen hero. She grinned back from her position astride him and looked about. The rendezvous point was another alleyway just outside of the Docks. Voltage might be a while as his part in the plan included sticking around long enough to see the encounter bear fruit. She glanced back down and smiled mischievously, "enjoying the position?"

"Very much, thank you," Browbeat responded as his features changed before her eyes. She produced his mask from a pocket which he quickly accepted and donned. She hadn't told him yet, but she already knew what he looked like under the mask. She'd identified him at the football game she watched between Winslow and Clarendon last week.

A month back when they had started working together Browbeat had explained how his powers worked. He could manipulate his own biology, the kinds of changes he could produce were, according to him, limited only by physical limitations and his own imagination. He had explained how the first time he had added muscle mass it had thrown him off balance enough that he didn't even want to try doing more exotic things like growing additional limbs even if said limbs would have been bad ass dragon wings. That said, it took time to affect the changes, likely a safeguard to prevent him from killing himself with his power. For example, while the disguises he assumed only took a few minutes to create, converting his musculature to and from the superior version he used in his cape identity took hours.

As the teen finished donning his mask Mason stood and stretched before almost skipping to the nearby wall to lean against until their third showed, "I didn't see much. It went well, right?"

"Well if you call drawing blood from Feng Lao and seeing a guy's head explode at near point blank, then yes."

"You okay?" Mason asked, not sure if he meant that he was the one who killed the guy or that he'd simply seen it happen. They both knew that killing gang members wasn't just a possibility in their current situation, but a likely outcome. Browbeat, to her knowledge, hadn't killed anyone yet and didn't strike her as the type who would do so unless it was a tragic accident. By contrast, she already had blood on her hands and was willing to coat them in more if it meant saving someone from being victimized by the gangs. That being said, murder was a last resort.

"No. Yes. I don't know," Browbeat responded as he watched the E88 tattoo on his arm fade into nothingness. "This stuff Voltage keeps coming up with. It's sound, don't get me wrong, but it's pretty fucking heavy."

"Yeah. He's a bit extreme. You think he's going to go Antihero on us?"

"Don't know. I mean, you've heard the rumors about him frying that one empire cape's brain?"

"Yeah," Mason responded. While Browbeat and she had originally crossed paths on patrol, they really got to know each other through private chat rooms and messages across Parahumans Online. As such, she had read a lot of the same forum threads as he had, including those about their enigmatic ally.

Before more could be said on the subject there was a flash of lightning and a shower of sparks as Voltage leapt into the alleyway and rode a rusted pipe down to where they stood. He was the oldest of the group somewhere in his twenties and bipolar if she guessed right. He was garbed in a form fitting body suit made reportedly of Kevlar over a wet suit foundation. It served to prevent accidental electrical discharges with only the wire coiling around portions of his body conducting the current to the outside world. His costume was completed by a long coat made of some light fabric that made it's flared out tails flutter in even the lightest breeze.

He turned his head in their direction and she got the impression of a smile gracing the face hidden under the concealing fabric mask, "I'd call that a successful mission."

"So?" Mason asked.

"I left shortly after E88 reinforcements had shown up. Feng was in retreat. While they might figure it was our plan from go, Feng's too proud. He'll lay blame on the E88 for his injuries and my escape. More over, with the other three operations we pulled off the Empire is going to assume it's another ABB raid on their holdings."

"So..." Mason dragged out the word hoping to make Voltage realize what she was trying to draw attention to without being the first to mention it.

Browbeat seemed to have no such compunctions, "Our pay, man."

"Oh, right. Sorry. Behind the dumpster in the duffels." The eletrokinetic said, "Suggest laying low for a few days to be safe. I'm still available at the number I gave you should you need support."

"Yeah. We know." the heroine replied as she pulled a gym bag free of its hiding place and unzipped it. The quick check confirmed the presence of cold hard cash, so she zipped it back up and tossed it to the teen she was rapidly coming to have feelings for.

---

I had so much to do, it felt wrong to take a day to myself. I had been preaching it to Panacea though, and it was long overdue for me to practice what I preached for once. Once, singular. I had too much to do for this to become a regular occurrence. Between my bio-tinkering with my costume and swarm, slowly working on the lair itself, collating the intel I'd been gathering, and making plans to deal with the big threats to the city. Yeah. I had too much to do to take a day for myself. But I was going to because it'd look weird if Taylor Hebert had no social life to speak of. Lung, Kaiser, and Coil could wait. My identities were far more important.

I decided to wear a dress today, I wasn't that big on dresses but I was trying to extend the type of clothes I was willing to wear. The fact it was a yellow dress irked me. Yellow must really have been my favorite color. I put a jacket on over it, not one of my usual hoodies, but it was still chilly enough that I needed my arms covered. It also happened to hide the bruise I had on my left arm from where Skitter had parried a tire iron the night before.

Well, the dress was actually for another reason, it'd be easy to slip on and off. Skitter had an early meeting with the Dallon girls to attend before Taylor was supposed to be across town meeting up with some of the friends I had made. In fact, after leaving home and catching a bus across town, I ducked into an abandoned building and changed into my costume. A few minutes later I was mounted on Atlas and making my way towards the rendezvous point.

---

"There she is," I heard Victoria say as I had Atlas set down on the opposite end of the rooftop from the youths of New Wave. I say youths, because Laserdream and Shielder were present in addition to Panacea and Glory Girl. This also looked like the most official meeting with New Wave so far since everyone was in costume.

"Sorry I'm late, I had to stop an actual high speed chase," I explained as I dismounted and approached while my personal swarm condense around me, "I never realized those actually happened."

Victoria laughed at that while the remaining members were more reserved. Shielder and Amy did manage to chuckle, but beyond that they seemed set in 'serious business' mode. That wasn't a good sign. "Okay. What's going on?"

"Mom had a tinker take a look at that cloth you gave us a while back. He basically had an aneurysm when he realized what it was," Crystal answered, "Like as in needed a visit from Panacea because of it."

"Oh. That's not good," I replied. Not wanting to come off as a sociopath or something I asked, "Is he okay?"

Amy answered in the positive before pointing to Atlas, "May I?"

"Go ahead. If you could, figure out what's wrong with the abdomen. I'm sort of stumped," I requested as I crossed over to the rest of the group, "So, that doesn't really explain why I'm entertaining twice the number of people this time around. Not that I'm against it or anything, but it is unexpected."

It was Laserdream that answered, "Aunt Carol wanted to purchase the silk in bulk from you. Victoria and Amy aren't really business minded so they sent me."

"And I just wanted to meet you because you actually got Amy away from a hospital without twisting her arm. You've got no idea how long we've been trying to do that," Eric supplied with a genuine smile on his face.

I couldn't help but smile behind my mask at the comment and was about to reply when Amy...squeed. No, seriously. The sound she made was almost identical to the typical 'fan girl squee.' As I turned my attention to her with my swarm I replied, "It's easy when you figure out what she likes."

"Amy likes bugs?" Crystal asked confusion evident in her voice.

"No, she likes getting the chance to flex her power in different ways, or more likely she likes discovering interesting biologies," The girl in front of me raised her eyebrow in response, all but begging me to continue. "Imagine being a teacher having to grade a hundred tests a day every day of the week for an entire school year. You'd get burnt out because of the monotony of the task. Anyone would. Then after about a month you come across a test where someone went at your written question completely sideways. The answer makes you blink in surprise because it's so different. Moreover, reading it you get an idea of how the testee got to the answer."

"Huh, when you put it like that I suppose it would be pretty neat." Crystal said before crossing her arms in front her chest and taking on a more business-like tone. "So how much is it going to cost for New Wave to acquire your spider silk?

"The spider silk itself isn't outright for sale, that was just to show the material I'd be using when I start accepting commissions."

"Commissions?"

"Yeah, making costumes."

"So instead of purchasing however many yards of material we'd be paying for an entire costume or just parts?"

"Either works. To be honest I'm still hammering out the details, but at the moment I can say that I'll definitely be producing form fitting bodysuits you'd be able to wear under your current costumes. They should protect you from low caliber gunfire similar to the thin vests worn by police under their uniforms."

"So we're a bit early?"

"I jumped the gun a little when I gave out that sample," I admitted, "I only recently got someone particular to throw their hat in on this venture and I still need to get around to providing samples to the PRT and police. Beyond that I'm busy breeding the spiders that are going to be producing the silk, so production isn't quite at the level I want it at."

"Understandable. What kind of cost are we looking at?"

"A basic bodysuit's going to be fairly cheap all things considered, but more cloth or detail heavy designs are going to quickly jump the cost up since it's going to be taking me away from crime fighting."

Laserdream nodded her understanding, "And when can we expect this venture to be ready?"

I shrugged, "Not sure. I should hit the target population of my weavers by the end of the month. I'll put fliers in your mailboxes or outright tell one of you when I'm ready for business."

"Right. Well, I guess I really didn't need to come by after all," she said with a sigh.

Crystal and Eric shared a look before the latter asked, "What exactly do you do at these meetings anyway?"

"Panacea and I talk shop a bit while I lead Glory Girl to any crime I ...detect... Victoria?"

"Yeah?" The blond asked from where she literally hovered by Amy as the latter continued to gush over Atlas. Through the swarm I could hear her making little comments on the massive bug. Man, she really liked him.

"I've got a mugging in progress two blocks southwest. Want to do something about that?" I asked. She replied by twirling around as she ascended, pointing herself in the appropriate direction. I quickly turned back to the Pelham kids and said, "You guys joining her or going to listen to Amy and I talk shop?"

"I'm so going," Laserdream announced as she flew into the air after Glory Girl. Shielder glanced from the two airborne girls to Amy and back again. It didn't take a genus to figure out he wasn't sure if he should leave the healer alone with me.

"I'm staying," he announced after the moment of indecision passed. That created problems. I didn't know how much Eric actually knew of Panacea's powers. Did he know she could do more than heal? Normally I had a small swarm collect around Amy so she could 'play' with her powers as we talked or between ideas I showed her. If he didn't know about the extent of her powers, she'd not be able to do that and I knew that it went a long ways to helping her relax.

I gave him a simple nod and crossed to where Amy was still. I reached out with my power and examined Atlas, it didn't take long for me to notice her hand at work. Panacea wasn't limited in how she worked her powers like I was, I needed schematics or be prepared to spend a lot of time failing to create the sort of alterations I wanted. Amy, on the other hand, had an intuitive knowledge of biology. Moreover, when she started modifying stuff, it almost never pushed the subject closer to the edge of my control. In fact, it was often the opposite.

"So?"

"This is amazing. He has a hive structure built into his abdomen," Amy answered without turning to look at me. Even without noticing that, I'd have been able to tell she wasn't giving me her undivided attention as she was still making modifications to Atlas, specifically, cleaning up the optical nerves. I'd been a bit messy there, especially when it came to the smaller eyes. Like the wolf spiders that I drew inspiration from, the smaller eyes hardly deserved the term. They were able to do little more than detect the direction of incoming light. My mind didn't even try to translate the results into a mental image."I don't see what's wrong though."

"Atlas here is supposed to be able to be fed by the on-board swarm. The colony of Weaver Wasps produce honey and he's supposed to be able to absorb nutrients from that through the hive membrane."

"Neat. I suppose having a swarm of your wasps collecting food for him would probably go over better than the alternative," Amy said before pausing, "Oh I see what's wrong. It's actually rather simple, take a look."

I did as asked, placing my hand on Atlas' horn. As Panacea said, it was a minor error, one I should have noticed. Essentially, I made the membrane walls backward, the side that would absorb the nutrients was opposite the hive. Stupid mistake.

I glanced back at Eric who was starting to make his way over towards us."Also before he's closer, how much does Shielder know about your power?"

Amy paused at that and it wasn't just because of the question. When I asked it, I had used only the bugs on my suit, a special selection whose noises didn't travel as far as my normal swarm voice did. It effectively allowed me to whisper in my swarm voice, even if I was losing some of my core sounds. Further, when used alongside my normal array, it added an undercurrent and accent that helped to fill out Skitter's voice.

"He knows the full extent of my power. All of New Wave does," She explained and I realized that of course they would. It'd be hard to keep secrets when your team included Network.

Network was one of the 'true psychics,' capes that, like me, had powers that touched the minds of others. While I was limited to bugs, Network was limited to what his power could do. He couldn't scoop out information from someone's brain or reprogram their personality or anything. The analogy that was often used by New Wave was that he made 'psychic chat rooms' mentally linking individuals' minds to his own. To my knowledge, he had joined the team largely due to how public his trigger event had been. He triggered in a terrorist bombing that caused the building he was in to collapse. Trapped within the rubble, his newly awakened power reached out and networked everyone with a half mile of the site, allowing him to provide invaluable help in coordinating rescue and relief operations.

"So we do things like normal?" I asked. After all, it was one thing for him to know her full capabilities but it was an entirely other thing to see her casually manipulate biology of a small swarm for fun.

"Yep." she turned her attention to Shielder and asked, "Wanna see something neat?"

---

Sara Holden let out a wide mouthed yawn as she fought the urge to stretch. Her father had pointed out that she was adopting more feline-like mannerisms in her human form. She wouldn't really be bothered to suppress the action if not for Taylor. The teenager had explained the plethora of reasons why capes wore masks and otherwise concealed their identities. Originally, Sara had only donned a mask out of tradition, but the idea of one of the gangs going after her family in an attempt to secure her allegiance, kill her, or anything else was enough to make her take the whole secret identity thing more seriously.

Which, in turn, was why she let Taylor modify her purse. She wasn't really much of a purse person herself, but she couldn't come up with a more subtle way to carry her mask and have a place to stuff her clothes if she needed to go beast. Taylor had added an extra compartment for her new mask to fit into when not being worn. Taylor's craftsmanship was such that even with the mask inside had Sara not known it was there, she'd be hard pressed to locate the slip. Then there was the mask itself. When she got it from Taylor Monday at Peerless, she'd been dumbfounded. In fact, after class she had headed to AU to show it to Sabah. The mask looked like it was made by someone far more skilled than the folks that made the Protectorate capes costumes. It looked awesome.

She yawned again trying to push the lingering dredges of sleep out of her system. Noon was early for Sara to be waking up on the weekends. Normally she'd be basking around the house in sometimes odd places or taking hour long cat naps at outright random times. But Taylor had called asking to hang out, actually hang out, not just asking her to cover for her while she did something as Skitter. She enjoyed the other girl's company and, in her opinion, they didn't get to just hang out enough.

From what she understood, Taylor was going to be meeting with some people she met over the week in school and wanted something familiar to help ground her. Sara didn't pretend to understand how difficult Taylor had it with trusting people or maintaining the correct facade, but she had seen it in action more than a few times. It was amazing to see how much Taylor changed between civilian and cape identity. Everything changed about her from voice, to body shape, to mannerisms, even her walk. If not for prior knowledge and having her scent firmly engraved upon her mind, Sara likely wouldn't make the connection.

A fly buzzed her left ear stopping in a hover and moving laterally back and forth, making the sound oscillate in her ear. It was Skitter's way of indicating to her she had arrived. The oscillation was actually Morse code, that in this case translated to the word 'changing'. Not more than a few minutes later her bespectacled companion walked out of the cafe she'd been loitering by and gave her a friendly wave.

---

Sara gave me a short hug and when we broke asked, "How'd the meeting go?"

"Pretty well. I got introduced to the Pelham kids," I informed her. Sara just nodded in response apparently understanding that I was still digesting everything from the meeting. I was already a little worn out, I hadn't really expected Shielder and Laserdream to show up or the business speak that had been required with Crystal. If Sara hadn't already been waiting for me, I'd probably have canceled and just curled up in the lair. Dealing with people was exhausting.

Still, at least I'd been able to go over all the things I wanted to with Amy. The problems with dart launcher had been ferreted out and fixed, and the prototype went over extremely well with Shielder. While he'd been busy shooting at things on another building's rooftop, Panacea also tweaked one of my gauntlets' venom glands to produce an insanely safe benzodiazepine-based tranquilizer. Based on what she said, I couldn't kill with the venom even if I actively tried nor was it addictive or such. Still I wasn't going to take her word for it alone, before I used it in any capacity, I planned to get it checked out by the PRT.

"So who exactly are we meeting with?" Sara asked snapping me to the present as we began walking.

"Well it's supposed to only be Barbara, Luke, and Jeff but I wouldn't be surprised if more of them showed up," I answered. Noticing Sara's raised brow I elaborated, "I got a feeling that they tend to do a lot of stuff together. Tight-knit and such."

"Right."

"Jeff's going to be the one in the wheelchair. Luke's got the whole tall, dark, and handsome thing going for him, but he's spoken for by Barbara. Barbara described herself as an amateur photographer and sleuth, which actually brings me to my main problem with them."

"And that is?"

"They're cape geeks," I explained. "As in the type of people trying their darnedest to keep up with the cape scene and ferret out secret identities, relationships, particularities of powers and such."

Sara coughed and gave me a look worth a thousand words, "Yeah. I know, it seems like a risk to associate myself with them. But really, they can't be that good. They go to Arcadia with the Wards and haven't figured any of their identities out yet. Besides, do you think they'd expect the girl trying to fit in with them to be a cape herself?"

"You have a point," Sara conceded before adding, "But I don't like it."

---

Fugly Bob's was another divergence between my last life and my current one. In the previous life, it was rather rundown part-restaurant, part-bar, part-shack. Here, it was better maintained and doubled as a sports bar-style restaurant. Back when it opened, it was the preferred place of the dockworkers to gather after a hard day's work and even after the city fell on hard times that hadn't really changed. Part of that was due to Bob giving loyal customers discounts and that he's hired more than one dockworker when times got tough for them.

Another part likely had to do with the fact Bob was a proponent for Dad's plans for fixing up the ferry, getting the docks back on its feet, and an ex-cop that been assigned to foot patrols in the area. According to the story, Bob's 'fuglyness' came from damage he received when he got into a tussle with a cape. The injury made him retire from the force and while Panacea had since repaired most of the internal damage, he still carries the scars like a badge of honor. One of those 'this is the guy who got in a fight with one of the most dangerous parahumans ever to lodge in BB and was the one who walked away' claims to fame. Of course, the fact that Armsmaster, then in his early 20s, was the guy who actually put down said parahuman often gets left out of the story.

Shortly after his retirement, he'd opened up "Bob's Bar and Grill" but everyone just called it Fugly Bob's so much so that the signage was amended to include 'Fugly.' Bob didn't like that bit of vandalism but hadn't gotten around to having it cleaned off; might have to do with the increased business he'd gotten since. Of course, said boom of business might have had to do with Manpower mentioning the restaurant in an interview around the same time.

"Blaster?"

"No. Looks like her effects start breaking up after a few feet. Striker maybe."

"Mover definitely since she flies," Jeff said. Luke and Barbara were piled into one side of a booth while Jeff, bound to his wheelchair, was stationed in the isle. The three of them were intently watching something on the tablet that Luke was holding.

I made the universal quiet signal to Sara and slipped into the booth opposite them. Shortly after Sara had joined me, she started giggling which, of course, drew their attention. The expressions on their faces were priceless.

"When did you get here?" Barbara asked.

I plastered on my best impersonation of Tattletale's vulpine grin and, in an over the top manner, replied, "Oh, I slipped in a few minutes ago. With you all completely ignoring me, I decided to get my friend Sara over here so I wouldn't feel so lonely."

"Liar," Jeff retorted. I couldn't help but let the grin slip into one of my own natural smiles.

"We sat down less than a minute ago," Sara said. She offered her hand across the table, "I'm Sara Holden, I met Taylor at Peerless. We've got classes together when I actually bother to show up."

Barbara shook her hand and went through a lightning round of introductions. When Luke was introduced, he casually threw his arm across his girlfriend's shoulders. For some odd reason my mind supplied the fact that Brian had never done anything like that with me. When we got together, he hadn't been in a good enough head-space to give those small gestures of affection and before that, well I seem to recall him telling me I was like a sister to him.

I pushed the thoughts aside, glad Dean hadn't been around to pick up on the associated emotions, and asked, "So what were you watching?"

"Oh, a new cape made her debut last night. Someone caught it on video and posted it on YouTube," Luke explained as he slid the tablet over to us. Sure enough it was on a YouTube video titled 'A Girl on Fire'. "She's some sort of pyrokinetic with a side of flight. Jeff pointed out that while her flames seem powerful, they don't stay in coherent shapes very far from her body."

I felt a strange sense of familiarity as I watched the video. I'd never met this cape in either of my lives so far, but something struck a cord. While I wished I could place why, I settled for simply observing. The girl was wearing some sort of leotard that was white and red that only seemed to draw attention to the fact she had a body people would kill for. While I could tell she was masked, it was almost impossible to focus on her face due to the fact her long hair was on fire. Well, it didn't look like it was burning per se, just sheathed in flame. Overall the costume's quality, from what I could tell from the video, wasn't anything to write home about.

I watched as she dispatched a group of ABB thugs with a practiced ease. She alternated between delivering waves of fire that bowled over her opponents with far more kinetic energy than the attacks had any right to possess and flame wreathed hand to hand strikes that took full advantage of her ability to fly. Near the end of the video, the pyrokinetic used a vertical wave of fire to lift her last opponent a good foot and a half off the ground. She followed up by pirouetting in the air and delivering an explosive kick that sent the gangbanger a good twelve feet away to land on one of those ambiguous white vans. I blinked, realizing what I'd just seen, and looked to Sara for confirmation. She gave me a nod.

"What?" Jeff asked, "You noticed something, didn't you?"

"I recognize the fighting style," Sara said, preempting me. "It looks like the style Iron Claw teaches flying capes at Peerless. But I know for a fact, we've not had a pyrokinetic attending for the last four years I have so this girl is probably emulating what she saw."

Sara was lying, the way this cape moved indicated a great deal of training. And it wasn't just that she was performing what Jamie often refereed to as Acrocombatics, she was synergizing her pyrokinesis with her hand-to-hand techniques that stunk of someone Nakamura had taught for a few years. "That said, she looks like she's pretty good at using her powers. I'd say that'd be chalked up as a successful debut."

"Yeah. Pretty good one on average. The costume isn't anything special, but between the flaming hair and the way she fights, I'd say nobody's going to complain about it," Jeff said.

"She picked a poor time to debut though," Barbara said. "I mean, I understand this new girl getting herself some of the action and everything, but I don't get what's up with everyone else. "

"What do you mean?" Sara asked. Unlike the rest of us, Sara didn't really have her ear to the ground when it came to parahuman affairs and activities. I had been getting her to slowly work her way through PHO's cape profiles for the city so she'd be more aware when she did inevitably encounter another cape.

"He means we're due for an Endbringer attack soon," Jeff answered. "Normally crime and cape encounters taper off as everyone prepares and hopes that their city doesn't get hit. But here, the clashes have been getting more and more intense with each passing week.

"The heroes, the independents particularly, are putting a lot of pressure on the gangs who are responding in kind. There's been three reported kills attributed to Quiver this week alone and each target was a gang affiliated parahuman. On the other end, you've got reports of gang members being seen carrying AKs and even some ad hoc technicals on the streets in the docks. But for all that hero on villain action isn't the primary thing on the radar. Tensions between E88 and the ABB have been skyrocketing as they launch raids and outright attacks on one another."

Jeff didn't know how right he was. Beyond dodging kill squads myself, I had seen at least two outright battles breakout between the ABB and E88 featuring nothing but normal gangbangers. I also knew both sides were ratcheting up for a war, I'd been able to follow some E88 gun runners to two different armories that looked like it had enough firepower to fund a third-world revolution. The ABB was actually worse, their street-level thugs were packing submachine guns, rifles, and explosives with increasing frequency. Most disturbing though was I had spotted strong-point guards wielding tinker tech examples of those heavier armaments.

I knew that the ABB had a second tinker among their membership, but I hadn't seen any example of his work beyond Feng Lao's armor until I started attending Arcadia. His stuff was thankfully easy to spot, Asian iconography and styling was central to his works. Still, the trend was worrying because if I traced the path of escalation back to its source, it ended at me. I was directly or indirectly responsible for this state of affairs. And yet, here I was taking a day off.

I was pulled from my morose thoughts when I heard Sara state she was going to order a Challenger, 'maybe two,' off the menu. Fugly Bob's Challengers was two one-and-a-half-pound patties of the greasiest a hundred percent beef to ever be consumed by man topped with several strips of bacon, three slices of American cheese, handfuls of jalapenos and onions, wrapped in a massive sesame seed bun that barely fit the burger and dripping with Bob's special barbecue sauce. I stared at her.

"What?" Sara asked glancing at the others' slack-jawed expressions as her cheeks started reddening, "I didn't have breakfast."

"Do you know how few people have even eaten one?" Luke asked. He motioned toward a bulletin board across the restaurant that was only partially covered with photos of Bob with the people who actually finished the burger. "That thing is huge!"

Sara grinned, "I know. I'm already up there."

---

Even though I had a meeting with New Wave's junior members in the morning as Skitter, I figured the day had pretty much been a day off for me; even if it was exhausting none the less. I had spent most the day with Sara and the cape geeks. Jeff left in the afternoon for some reason Barbara and Luke didn't feel like sharing while Lanny and Marcus joined the four of us an hour later. The day had been rather enjoyable, but the powder keg state of the city kept drawing my attention and clouded the later portion of the day. It felt wrong to be taking time to myself when the city was on the precipice of a gang war. Still, I made myself stick to my promise to myself and go the majority of the day as plain old Taylor Hebert.

It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that by Sunday night I had made my way to my lair looking to do something about the state of affairs in the city. While gang battles would undoubtedly occur in the near future, I could lessen the number of casualties that would occur by removing some of the street-level weapons from play. As such, I was going to hit one of two arms depots I knew the Empire had from my reconnaissance. To that end, I was gathering a sizable swarm as I changed into my costume.

Honestly I didn't feel as confident as I usually did going into these sorts of raids. Part of that was because I was attacking an arms depot. Weapons were scattered across the entire area and I wasn't sure how effective my costume would be against the more powerful weapons. That's not to say I couldn't or wouldn't do it, but I was going to have to do a lot more prep before I actually commenced the attack. More so if I intended to personally intercede.

I was running over everything I knew about my chosen target as I cobbled together a course of action. At least I was, until I noticed a very odd concentration of fleas on the roof of a building across the street from the depot. Fleas, even in the large number present, weren't a good choice for information gathering. I could learn blood types and some general information about the fitness of their hosts, but actually discerning who they were and what they were doing? Not so much. As such, When I diverted some of my swarm to identify the hosts, all I really knew was that the group tasted like a mix of five people and three dogs. I don't think I even remotely had considered the possibility of the group being the Undersiders until a fly landed on Grue's helmet.

---

Nervous.

That was the vibe she was getting from her teammates. It was understandable; they didn't have enough intelligence for this attack. She had found the public documentation for the site, but the large buildings that made up the construction yard could have easily have been modified in the intervening years since they had been filed away. They knew there was a veritable armory down there, but they had no way of knowing how secured and easily accessible it was to the thugs guarding the site. Even so, she doubted that they wouldn't encounter at least one guard armed with a rifle.

Tattletale spared the rest of the team a glance again, removing her eyes from her binoculars. It's not like she'd miss much, one of the visible guards was picking his nose he was so bored. Grue was calm, but worried. He hadn't looked away from his own optics since they arrived nearly an hour ago. Bitch was still sending her power into her dogs at a slow trickle, bulking them up for the upcoming assault. Regent was playing with his scepter; Moira had once again shown off her varied skills by dressing the scepter up significantly and actually making it more functional as a weapon. Instead of just the tines mounting electrodes for the built in taser, their where now studs on the brass struts that cupped the crowned topper that served the same purpose. This allowed Regent to shock opponents during swings instead of just thrusts.

Wraith herself was the easiest to read; she was scared. The recent revelation that she wasn't actually invulnerable while in her wraith state had hit her hard. Tattletale was still learning little things about her power every time she was exposed to it. The aforementioned revelation had come when watching Moira spar with Brian. When his punches put holes through the near gaseous form, he left bruises at the point of impact that were about the size of a dime. Lisa's power then supplied that the damage transfer would be significantly greater the more dispersed her body became during a battle. A bullet might not kill her while she was a phantom, but it would leave a larger wound as the supersonic wake broke her form apart. And being caught in a hail of gun fire? The damage per hit would exponentially increase as her figure was scattered ever further apart. Stormtiger could likely kill her with a single flex of his aerokinesis.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a fly crossing her line of sight. Even before her power told her anything, Lisa heard a buzzing drone becoming more audible. Rachel's dogs had reacted as well and shortly it was loud enough that the others noticed. A massive...bug landed a respectable distance away. Skitter sat atop it in a manner not dissimilar to how Bitch rode her own animal companions.

Acknowledges Bitch with a nod. Swarm held relatively near her body; small fraction of total number. Purposefully being as non-threatening as possible without making herself vulnerable. Aware of how to interact successfully with Rachel. More familiar with her than a single encounter would allow.

The bug controller dismounted in an easy, practiced motion. Her head turned stopping momentarily on each Undersider. Lisa's power delivered more details as she noticed how long her apparent gaze lingered on Grue, Wraith, and herself.

Familiar with Undersiders as a whole. Relief at seeing Grue, knew of his previous injury. Familiar with me. Friendly. Not familiar with Wraith. Previously unaware of her existence. Uncomfortable with her close proximity to Grue. Intimately familiar with him.

Tattletale's eyes widened. Brian would never keep a secret like that from the rest of the team, he was all about full disclosure between members of the team. It had taken a good deal of convincing him that hiding Alec's past from Moira had been a smart move. It would have been easier if she had explained how and why rape was such a hot button for the ghostly cape, but that wasn't hers to tell.

Grue is not familiar with Skitter.

Wait what? How was that possible?

Skitter is a reincarnate. Familiarity of Undersiders present from previous life. Wraith was not a member of the team, Skitter was.

Lisa's mind blanked at that point. She had nearly considered the idea that Grue had picked up another stalker. This was big, she knew that there were people who had had previous lives scattered around the world. Her power had filled the gaps in the conspiracy threads she read on the Parahumans Online forums. She knew Clockblocker was one thanks to offhand comments he'd made in recording distance of a phone. But someone who was a member of their team? That intimately knew them already? How do you respond to that? Do you let them know you know?

Wait, she was a hero. Shit.

"Undersiders. I didn't expect to find you here," The cape said in an inhuman voice. It sounded like it was, no it actually was just the bugs under her control making noise. That suggested an impressive degree of control.

"Skitter, right?" Grue asked. Everyone had tensed at her words. Well, everyone except Lisa and Rachel.

"Yes," She answered curtly. Her posture actually indicated she was emotionally hurt by his not recognizing her. Tattletale's power reinforced the observation, indicating that the earlier comment of intimate knowledge meant such on many levels. Skitter schooled her response quickly enough that no one else noticed.

"What are you doing here?" She motioned towards the binoculars the group had on hand, "Spying?"

"Planning," Lisa supplied, her power helping to guide her, "Our employer wants us to hit this strong point."

"He's having you attack an arms depot?" The heroine asked sounding somewhat incredulous at the idea. Lisa couldn't help mentally whistling at fact the bug-themed cape was able to add inflection to the voice of the swarm.

Knows Coil's identity as your employer. Plans to remove him from the scene. Aware of his powers and current plans to eventually rule Brockton Bay. Opposes him in an ideological level. Possible ally.

Tattletale nodded as her power kept feeding her information. She suspected that they were being used again as a distraction for one of their boss's other operations but also knew he valued them too much to simply throw them to the wolves. It seemed like he had predicted that Skitter would be here. She had watched the videos of the new cape's activities and knew that she'd be able to severely alter the outcome of any raid they made on the depot.

"I was planning to strike as well," The chitin and silk clad heroine supplied before turning her head to look directly at Grue, "What do you say we increase our odds and work together?"

"Not going to order my dogs around?" Bitch asked before anyone else could comment. Regent snorted. Grue glared at her from behind his helmet.

"Not unless you want me to," she replied bluntly.

"Do you have a plan?" Grue asked, all but agreeing. Even if one or two of them might not like the idea of working alongside the hero, they didn't really have much in the way of options.

"I had a plan to take the site solo but it would take too long to set up," She explained making a small motion towards Bitch's dogs that Tattletale's power indicated meant she knew the hound master's power had a time limitation.

Grue shifted making a silent question of whether the others were okay with the idea of the team up. Most of the affirmatives were similarly silent; two nods, a twirl of Regent's scepter, and a slight adjustment to Wraith's density.

"We need more intel," Grue said.

Skitter crossed the distance between them, a large portion of her personal swarm collecting ahead of her. By the time she had stopped in front of the Undersiders, the bugs had coalesced into a recognizable map of the compound on the roof with two fireflies providing the necessary illumination to see by. More than one set of eyes blinked in surprise as she spoke, "This is the layout of the area. The beetles are the current occupants, their facing and movements reflected in real time."

"Impressive." Grue replied squatting down for a better look.

"Freaky is more like it," Regent countered only to earn a slap in the back of his head from Wraith.

"Where are the weapon stockpiles?" Grue continued on as if nothing had happened. When Skitter joined him in the huddle everyone else subconsciously followed the example and planning began in earnest.

---

Five minutes after everyone had crouched down to look over my bug map and plan out our assault, Bitch spoke up, "Dogs are ready. We should do this soon."

Right, we had a timetable to work against. Coil was probably relying on them to draw some attention here to do something elsewhere. As long as it wasn't kidnapping a certain precog, I really didn't care what he was up to. I was going to take him down eventually, but he wasn't as capable until he got his hands on Dinah. I planned to deny him that resource, but I hadn't quite figured out how I'd go about it yet. I knew I'd likely end up removing him in a permanent manner. Premeditated murder wasn't exactly something that heroes should do, but Coil was too dangerous to let live.

I wasn't sure what to think about Wraith. She seemed to have taken my place on the team and, if I was reading them correctly, in Brian's heart. It made me a little, jealous? Bitter? I don't know exactly what I felt about it. As a person and a cape? She seemed nice enough and could probably have fit into Faultline's crew, or even hero teams. More so than Sophia had for sure.

Lisa had described her as a mover that could teleport through shadows and control her density to a degree. Wraith had pocketed a bug from my swarm to see if it'd stay connected to my power when she changed 'states'. It had, so she was carrying a large enough assortment in the surprisingly numerous pouches adorning her bodysuit that I could communicate with her easily. We also filled her backpack with some of my more useful bugs, so she could ferry them into the midst of the enemy fighters. For similar reason, a portion of my ground based bugs were crawling across the dogs.

Bitch was going to lead the attack with her dogs while Grue provided a cover of darkness that would allow Wraith to jump directly into the midst of enemy groups. Tattletale and I would be coming in from behind and once we engaged, my bugs would make themselves more visibly known. I say visibly because I was already working on disabling as many of the weapons that would likely be brought into play as I could.

"This going to hold us?" Regent asked motioning to Atlas as we split into our assigned teams. He looked a little worried, at least compared to the emotionally muted manner I was familiar with. I guess I couldn't really blame him, Atlas looked more like a ground-bound brute class unit than a mount.

Preempting me, Tattletale answered, "Oh yeah, this guy could carry three Chubsters and still not be burdened. We'll be fine."

I smiled at the comment. It felt good to be around the gang again even if they didn't share my memories of our previous lives. Regent demanded that we allow him to sit front-most in Atlas' saddle as no other option was 'remotely dignified for a man'. We had no problem accommodating that request.

Though I had disabled the two guards out front, Grue and Bitch still approached the massive rolling door under the cover of the former's darkness. At the same time, Wraith blinked into the guard shack and disabled the gangbanger inside. As we briefly landed on the roof of the building to drop off Regent, I followed the mover through my swarm as she jumped a few times rapidly before literally stepping out of Regent's shadow. She must require line of sight to teleport. The two of them posted up near the skylight, the spot providing Regent with a good overview of the main room of the building while keeping him largely out of sight.

Shortly thereafter, Tattletale and I landed at the backdoor and I sent Atlas over to Grue. As the group that'd be drawing fire they'd need the extra muscle he could provide; besides, he couldn't easily fit through the route we were taking. Tattletale pointed out a spot on the wooden backdoor as we waited for our signal.

The loud shredding of the metal roll door announced the dynamic entry of Bitch's dogs. Grue's darkness billowed in, obscuring the hole the mutated dogs had made. Shortly thereafter Grue and Bitch followed behind Atlas, who easily ate bullets from hastily drawn firearms. I noted with satisfaction that only two of the armed gangbangers were actually shooting as the others' found their weapons disabled by my earlier activities.

One of those guns was silenced when Wraith teleported into the fray and threw the backpack filled with my bugs into one of the gunmen. Luckily, the villainess had unzipped the backpack before she threw it, so I was able to turn the impromptu projectile into an explosion of stinging and biting insects. I sent Atlas charging out the expanding ebon cloud to draw attention as I kicked, all but stomping on the exact point that Lisa had indicated. The door splintered apart, mostly thanks to the fact that termites had seriously weakened the wooden door over the years.

"Better than a lock pick," my lavender-clad compatriot stated. I briefly nodded before moving in. The sounds of battle were loud now. At least ten guns were firing, though thankfully they were either aimed at things that could take it or being thrown off target by well timed muscle spasms. I added my swarm to the mix, providing concealment for my allies and harrying gunmen any way I could. Tattletale and I moved quickly through the backrooms, sure of where and when we'd encounter opposition. With the number of bugs in the tight halls with us, I was somewhat surprised that Tattletale hadn't squirmed at the proximity to my swarm. As it was, I felt a pang of sympathy for those that crossed our path.

Or at least I did until one stepped out and pointed a cut-down, pump-action shotgun right at Lisa. In the moment before he fired I did two things, I sicced the swarm on him and stepped into the line of fire. I was floored by the shot and knew, just from the pain, that at least some of it had hit my body suit instead of the chitin. I didn't hear the gangbanger's screams as my swarm enacted fierce vengeance.

"Shit," Tattletale said as she shoved her hand through the carpet of bugs that I had checking the damage to do so herself, "There's no blood. Hell, it didn't even go through the suit. What is it-Really, spider silk?"

I couldn't help but chuckle weakly at that. The motion made pain shoot through my body. I was going to have a bruise at least. Maybe a cracked rib or two. Still it was better than Lisa taking the hit since her costume provided no protection. I forced myself to my feet and sucked in a pain-filled breath, "I'm okay. Not the worst I've had. What gauge was that?"

"Twelve," Tattletale responded after taking a brief glance at the now cowering and spasming form of the gangbanger. Her eyes when they met my own told me just how much my attack had unsettled her. It didn't enter her voice when she said, "Thanks, by the way."

I nodded, "We should get going. We still got Nazis to beat up."

---

Thankfully, by the time we entered the battleground, the adrenaline flowing through my veins helped with the pain significantly. My determination to hurt these assholes would do the rest. Grue's darkness was largely restricted to about waist height as it slowly swirled. The obvious exception to this were the areas Grue had been moving around, there the inky blackness was easily up to my shoulders and irregular in shape.

I caught glimpses of the leather-clad cape as he shifted about the edge of this larger section of black delivering a quick jab to one chain-wielding Nazi before catching another's wild swing and directing him deeper in the darkness. I had Atlas surge from the dark veil, swinging its head, and by extension, horn at the chain-wielder. The blow impacted the gangbanger's hip with such force it sent him into a cartwheel and likely fractured his pelvis.

Bitch had ducked behind some crates, holding her arm like she'd been hurt. My bugs condensed around her to help conceal her from casual view. Her dogs meanwhile were barreling through any E88 members that thought to stand close together. Wraith I spotted jumping out of an unaware thug's shadow and performing an absolutely insane looking wrestling move before disappearing into shadow as she touched the ground. She reappeared in the scaffolding, where her black-clad figure twisted and sprung off as my swarm descended in earnest.

Tattletale hit the nearest gangbanger with a length of pipe she'd literally just picked up as I assaulted the one person who seemed to have heard the noise. Through the bugs in her pouches, I felt Wraith make another jump before diving onto a nearby Nazi and disappearing into shadow again. I swear I heard her laughing like a child playing tag.

Everything seemed to be going according to plan so it only made sense that the next moment the situation went sideways. I'm not sure how I didn't notice the thug hefting a cinderblock over his head until he was in the process of bringing it down to Tattletale's own. She went down like a sack of potatoes as I retaliated. I slammed a tendril of my swarm into the man's abdomen with such force I actually lifted him off the ground. Not even giving it a moment's consideration, I had another intercept him in mid air and slam him bodily into the ground. He made a wet crunching sound on impact, but I can't say I even spared him a thought as I crossed to Lisa and members of my veil flowed across her to check her condition.

She was still conscious as I crouched over her and turned her over. An angry gash marred her forehead and almost drew my attention away from the fact her mask had come loose. She whimpered, as I cautiously explored the injury with my hands and my swarm found her mask, "Hurts worse than my usual migraines."

I shook my head slightly at that as I collected her mask from my swarm and started fitting it back on the girl, "Hold still, your mask came off."

She obeyed before saying, "I know about you."

"I expected as much," I countered, pushing away my feelings on the subject until a later, more suitable time.

---

Grue kicked the skinhead in front of him in the center of the chest knocking him backward and into a pile of wooden crates. The firefly flying around the inside of his helmet lit up in the lower left corner of his vision. Without a second thought, the leather-clad parahuman dived to the right as the staccato of automatic fire blared from somewhere behind him. Instinctively Grue called upon his power allowing coiling shadow to billow out from him and conceal his position as he scrambled to his feet.

It only took a second to locate the shooter who stood exactly where Skitter's firefly had indicated, left and behind his previous position. He made a mental note to thank the bug controller as her warnings had already saved him a few times during this encounter. The skinhead seemed to have decided to simply spray bullets into the cloud of darkness Grue was generating. It wasn't entirely a bad idea, Grue's motorcycle leathers wouldn't really protect him against the rounds being spat from the gangbanger's M4. He sent the inky blackness boiling out around his foe as he debated which direction to approach from. The question was answered for him when Wraith's form, looking like shadow against shadow, materialized out of the darkness behind the skinhead in the middle of a corkscrewing drop kick. As the man went down in a heap, she grabbed the dropped assault rifle, ejected its magazine, and tossed it deeper into the black.

As he was not needed, Grue took the opportunity to relocate his allies. Bitch had taken to riding on Brutus' back as she nursed an injured arm and issued commands to her dogs. While he couldn't see Regent from his position, he could see the four skinheads that were retching around an opened box of munitions. The massive bug Skitter had flown in on was slamming its foreleg into the crate, the sounds of the weapons within being deformed by the assault audible even from where he was hunkered down. In other places he found skinheads flailing wildly about as they ineffectively tried to fight off swarms so dense that Grue only registered the vague outline of the gangbangers caught within. He involuntary shuddered at the thought of being on the receiving end of such an attack. Others had simply given up, cowering on the ground in the fetal position as various web spinners bound them to the ground in a manner that made Grue think of Gulliver's Travels.

Skitter was hunched over Tattletale and for a ghost of a moment he imagined the heroine had taken advantage of the chaos of their attack to disable her. That was, until Tattletale rolled over and shuffled to her feet as Skitter turned her attention to an approaching thug. Brian was surprised by the way she immediately closed the distance and began delivering a volley of claw attacks and generally made short work of a man who easily out massed her. He hadn't expected her to actually be skilled in hand to hand, most parahumans who were effective at range never tried to learn how to fight in close.

Grue shook himself and got back to it, advancing on the nearest skinhead. The swarm around the Nazi parted as he strode forth, fist already cocked back. The poor bastard had only a moment to register Grue's presence before a fist wrapped in a reinforced leather glove met the bridge of his nose.

---

Wraith leaped out of a shadow and found that the last of the Nazi pricks had fallen to an onslaught of attacks from Grue and Skitter's swarm. Glancing around, she found the sole heroine of the group inspecting a gash on Bitch's arm as Tattletale played with a cloth dressing that'd been applied to her forehead.

"It's just a scratch," Bitch said defensively.

Skitter tilted her head up so her golden lenses met Bitch's eyes, "And I'm making sure it doesn't become more than a scratch. How are the dogs?"

"Fine. Bit excited," Rachel answered. They weren't the only ones excited; Moira felt ready for rounds two, three, and four and knew she was going to have to burn off the nervous energy somehow.

She glanced to Grue as he rejoined everyone. Moira, not as affected as everyone else was by the darkness leaking out of the teen, could hear him breathing hard and his heart jack-hammering, "That could have gone worse. Skitter, did you do something to their weapons?"

"I gummed up the ones that were on them. Well, gummed up any I could get to relatively easily with my swarm," Skitter answered as Regent made his way into the room while twirling his scepter.

"Hey buggy, thanks for the heads up," Regent said as he went to pat the cape on the back, saw the shifting mass of insects there and thought better of it.

Moira had to bite back a chuckle while Tattletale supplied, "A gunman went up to the roof to try to snipe us. Didn't know Regent was up there already...you made him fall off the roof."

"He's alright. I checked. Unless Skitter here cocoons corpses."

"He broke a leg, but yeah, he was okay," Skitter confirmed as she finished applying a bandage to Bitch's arm. The hound master experimentally moved the limb about before grumbling out what might have thanks.

"Right. I'm surprised we haven't seen any backup show up. I know at least one of them managed to raise the alarm," Grue said, his tone wondering. It was odd, the gangs had all been quick to mobilize hit squads to chase off capes or raids into their territory in the past few weeks. With this obviously being a major store house for their arsenal, they should have had to deal with reinforcements by now.

Skitter shifted slightly and Tattletale spontaneously burst out laughing. Everyone turned to the thinker save for Skitter who seemed to be getting more and more flustered. Between fits of laughter the blond wheezed out, "Oh that's grand. … Skitter coordinated with the Protectorate to hit the E88 at the same time. … Oh god, that's hilarious."

---

"PRT hotline, how may I help you?"

"This is Skitter. Can you put me in contact with Armsmaster or Miss Militia? I have actionable intel to pass to them."

"One moment. Can you supply the code phrase for voice recognition?"

"What…the hell. Are you worried Khepri might be prank calling from her chrysalis in San Diego? Besides, I've never been given a 'code phrase'. Connect me to Armsmaster or I'll fly over there and swarm your cubicle with lice."

Colin chuckled. Something about Skitter's typically no-nonsense attitude worked for him. Perhaps it was just the similarities he saw between the two of them. he was possibly projecting, though. One thing he definitely liked was that she seemed more than aware of when things were over her weight class, which was why he was scrolling through the video Skitter had forwarded them.

The girl had put together a rather effective operational intelligence package on an Empire Eighty-Eight arms depot she had located. Normally, he'd rather have more time to plan an assault on such a compound but the girl's information included video from inside the depot that wasn't even twenty minutes old. The fact that Skitter had asked that they assault the facility within the hour as she struck another on the other side of the Empire's territory definitely helped matters.

He wasn't about to hang a fellow hero out to dry when said hero had been trying their darnedest to do good. He shifted and asked, "Everyone remember their roles?"

A chorus of affirmatives resounded in his helmet as his motorcycle roared towards their objective, a PRT transport carrying the majority of his team shadowing the tinker. Due to the haste in putting the plan together, Armsmaster had gone for a show of overwhelming force. Dauntless, Velocity, Triumph, Assault, and Battery were with him, while Vigilant, who had already been on patrol, was guided in the general direction that Skitter had indicated she'd be operating in. He would serve as a safety measure for the lone hero, either responding to a call for help from her or neutralizing any of the Empire's fast responders. Miss Militia and Testament would remain at base, the former serving as mission control while the latter prepared to receive any injured they may have by the end of the operation.

This massive reaction was due to Skitter's footage having positively identified Krieg as being present within the depot. Along with him were nearly thirty normal gangbangers, some likely the Empire's 'elite' fighters, and two of their lower tier capes. If all went well, the assault on the arms depot would be a huge blow to the Empire. And that said nothing of Skitter's actions.

Five minutes from the target, Armsmaster activated the silent running feature of his bike and heard the PRT transport do the same. It was one of the few vehicles he had spent time modifying and changing the vehicle's sound imprint. It had been an interesting challenge. Still, it worked and had already paid dividends as it allowed his team to be deployed closer to targets like this without unduly notifying the opposition.

-/ Interlude 11: PHO

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Private messages from CapeManiac[Moderator]:

CapeManiac: Victory?
Kid_Win: It's just a natural progression from 'Kid Win' to 'Victory.' Amazingly no cape has ever bothered to use the name so I'm not even stepping on a legacy. Besides I can't be 'Kid' Win forever.
CapeManiac: I guess not. I'm going to get in contact with human resources to confirm everything, but I've already placed the name on the 'illegal' list to prevent it from being taken while I verify things.
CapeManiac: Kid Win, I just got off the phone with PRT HR, they verified your claim. So yes, we'll lock the user name Victory for your later use.
Kid_Win: Awesome. I'm glad nobody on the boards was already using it. It's weird enough that it's likely that Triumph and I will be on the same team in the future. I guess you can say that Protectorate ENE is going to be full of win.
CapeManiac: Har har. I can't wait till this semester is completed so I can transfer to Augustus University and move over to Brockton Bay. Don't get me wrong, Boston's nice but it just doesn't have the cape population since the Tea Party League got arrested.
Kid Win: Maybe by that point I'll have a functioning mark of the Victory armor completed to show you.
CapeManiac: Am I reading too much into it, or are you saying you've got a variant of that armor complete but just not working correctly.
Kid_Win: Not even 50% complete. The cuirass exploded last night while I was testing the thrusters. I'm just glad I decided to test using a dummy.
CapeManiac: I am too. Hate to lose an interesting and fun cape to equipment malfunction.

.

Topic: Links to All of Skitter Eye-Cam Videos
In: Boards ► Places ► America ►Brockton Bay ►Brockton Bay Discussion (Public Board)

►CapeManiac [Moderator] (Original Poster):
Alright, we've seen these floating around the forums a great deal more than necessary. I've spoken with Venomous Grin (the original poster of all the videos) and she'll only post Skitter 'eye-cams' here or in threads that they directly relate to. Everyone reposting them cut it out, link to this page or the video itself.

A General Disclaimer: Skitter tends toward brutal takedowns and combat tactics. Combined with the ways she uses her swarm, these videos may be disturbing to viewers of all ages and are notably more violent than than those commonly found on PHO. You've been warned.

That said, here are the 'eye-cams:'

[Raid on ABB Stash House] January 28th 2011
[Raid on Merchant Drug House] January 29th 2011
[Raid on E88 Stash House] January 30th 2011
- These early ones are fairly short compared to the reported lengths of the battles. Particularly the 01/30/11 video, which isn't even half the length of the battle.

[Brockton Bay Aquarium of America Hostage Situation] February 1st 2011
- The first showing of Skitter during school hours; according to PRT sources, Skitter has indicated that she's home schooled. Of course, without verification of her identity we have no way of knowing if this is the truth or not. The way Skitter fights Surge here is pretty brutal; he returns the favor, but still.

[Assault on Merchant Drug Lab] February 2nd 2011
- As typical with Skitter's early videos, it starts just as she enters the apartment complex through a second story window.

[Assault on Hookwolf's Dog fighting Ring] February 2nd 2011
- Rachel Lindt/Bitch/Hellhound Team-Up. We have a spot at 5:10 where Skitter orders one of Lindt's dogs and it listens to her, Hellhound doesn't like it. We see a somewhat softer side of Hellhound as she rescues these dogs and Skitter doesn't try to fight or capture her. Not sure what to make of that last bit.

Skitter starts wearing ['Mask 2'] which includes two sets of mics and video cameras, concealed in the sub-eyes. These are all obviously higher quality than her previous equipment.

[Assault on Merchant Drug Lab] February 5th 2011
[Versus Shadow Stalker] February 9th 2011
- Skitter apprehends Stalker by way of one of the most brutal beat downs I've ever seen. I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that this looked personal. Particularly given how unusually vocal Skitter was.

As of February 10th PRT sources confirm that Stalker was removed from the Wards and facing criminal charges, they however only give the vague reason of 'breaking probation.'

[Assault on ABB Drug House] February 13th 2011
[Assault on Merchant Drug Lab] February 14th 2011
[Armsmaster's Helm-Cam of the above]
- A fire starts during this battle and we actually see Skitter call the fire department in the middle of a fight. We then see her lead the firefighters into the building helping to recover gang members, a few of which were already bound by her spiders. On a side note I guess we know Skitter doesn't have a boyfriend if she's out heroing alone on Valentine's Day.

[Assault on ABB Drug House] February 16th 2011
[Criminal Takedowns, February Collection I] Spanning February 1st-17th 2011
- This is a compilation of her stopping petty crime while out on patrol from the first half of February. At 11:40-15:07 is an interrupted rape; the victim is censored for her protection but it's still NSFW, due to the sheer brutality of Skitter's response rather than any nudity.

[Assault on E88 Armory] February 21st 2011
- Team up with the Undersiders. Like the team up with Lindt on 02/11/11, this seems like it's impromptu and Skitter doesn't try to capture the Undersiders. In fact, she warns them when the PRT is coming. This is the first video we have of Wraith in action. At 13:06 Skitter takes a shotgun blast to the gut to almost no effect; that's all kinds of scary.

Noncombat:
[Getting to Know the Wards] ~February 9th, 2011
- This is an interesting compilation of some of Skitter's interactions with the Wards. Some of the earliest bits are actually from the same day as 'Versus Shadow Stalker' and appears to be inside PRT headquarters.

[Patrolling with Vista and Gallant] February 17th 2011
- Some great interactions between the three of them. If there was any doubt about the Wards trying to recruit her, it's laid to rest here. Vista literally asks when she'll join, getting a 'not yet' in response. At 11:17 they stop to arrest some thugs that Skitter corralled with her swarm.

(Showing Page 176 of 178)

► Skitter (Verified Cape):
More videos:
[Assault on E88 Armory] February 20th/21st 2011
[Maestro Regent at the Helm]

I team up with the Undersiders to take down a major arms depot utilized by the Empire Eighty-Eight. The site and captured gang members were turned over to the PRT and BBPD Gang Task Force at 1:15 am, February 21st 2011. I had nine bug cams with me this outing. One actually got hit with a bullet [Link].

Tattletale's mask comes loose at [8:30]. Until I help her refit the mask, her face is pixelated to prevent anyone from identifying her. BTW, that little domino mask is surprisingly effective at altering her appearance.

► Felix (Verified Cape):
… You finished editing all this in two hours? Are you even considering getting sleep tonight?

► Vera:
You're verified now! Are you retiring your other accounts?

► Skitter (Verified Cape):
Vera: I have no idea what you are talking about. BTW, this was what I sent Tin_Mother to verify my identity. [Link]

Felix: Insomnia sucks. How about you?

► Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE):
[Maestro Regent at the Helm]
What did I just watch?

► Vera:
Some selfies really are just better than others.

► The_Scepter:
I approve.

► TheMightyFireFerret:
So the Undersiders have a fifth member named Wraith who wears one really tight fitting body suit. Did they snatch her up right after she triggered? I've never heard of her. Also: baby got back! [Link]

► Skitter (Verified Cape):
I'm 90% sure that Wraith is of 'legal age'. Among other more obvious reasons, the book bag she carried my bugs in was from the AU bookstore.

► Capemaniac [Moderator]:
Warning Retracted. Watch it guys, most, if not all, of the capes in this video are minors.

(Showing Page 177 of 178)

► Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE):
You know what, forget Maestro Regent. I just noticed Skitter took a twelve gauge and shrugged it off. That's terrifying.

► 1UPMaster:
More like it turned you on. We all know you're really in love with her.

► EccentricE:
Clockblocker: You just watched an 8 minute long, masterfully edited video of that encounter set to Master of Puppets from Metallica S&M (1999). Great stuff.

► CrimsonPatches:
More GIFs and stills for the meme engine:

GIFs: [Tattletale Holy %&^$!] [Skitter Glare] [Swarm Lift & Drop] [Maestro Regent] [Twirling Scepter] [Wraith Leg Scissors] [Grue from the Darkness] [Wraith Teleporting 1-2] [Major Leaguer Tattletale] [Wraith Stepping Out of Regent's Shadow] [Regent's Aborted Pat on the Back] [Grue's 1 Hit KO]

Stills:
Skitter: [1][2][3][4]
Atlas: [1][2][3][4][5]
Grue: [1][2][3][4][5][6]
Wraith: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]
Regent: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]
Tattletale: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]
Hellhound: [1][2][3][4]
Her Dogs: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

► Skitter (Verified Cape):
I have a new Avatar, thanks.

►Laser Augment:
Skitter: Of all the options to choose from you pick the one of you glaring at the camera.

1UPMaster: Didn't a Mod just warn us to not to go into shipping territory?

CrimsionPatches: 10+ pictures each of the two villainesses in skintight costumes... I think I see a theme here. Especially after your 25+ picture post of Skitter and Shadow Stalker.

► CrimsonPatches:
And that theme is that I'm a healthy young man? Or maybe I enjoy the aesthetics of the female form? Or that Wraith and Tattletale have at most a very blurry image on their Parhahumans Online profiles and I'm trying to rectify that?

► Rune (Verified Cape) (Empire Eighty-Eight):
Holy fuck. I take a nap and this shit happens. Kaiser is going to be pissed.

►JohnnyBeGood:
Anyone else notice that Skitter seems to fight alongside the Undersiders as if she's part of the group. Someone should point out to her that they're villains.

►PowerchairJouster (Veteran Member):
Rune: Were you supposed to be on guard duty there or something?

(Showing Page 178 of 178)

► Rune (Verified Cape) (Empire Eighty-Eight):
What? No. I've got school in an hour, I was supposed to be asleep. Kaiser's going to be pissed because the heroes just kicked our asses.

Skitter: If we ever cross paths can you just let me run away please. Also, great minds this alike. [This] is my verification image.

► Skitter (Verified Cape):
I'm fully aware of their status as villains. But just because they wear the label doesn't mean they can't do heroic or good things themselves or team up to remove mutual threats. Just look at what happens when an Endbringer shows up.

On that note, the reason I work closely with them during 'team-ups' is a simple case of synergy. Grue's darkness, for example, doesn't actually impair me as much as others due to my swarm sense. ...Also Grue has a nice ass.

Rune: As long as we don't cross paths while you're committing a crime. It's not like you've got a kill count over your head.

►EnjoysLongWalksOnTheBeach:
Yes he does…

Rune: That's an awesome GIF. That goofy grin of yours almost makes me forget you're a Nazi.

►TDH:
Oh God.

►FleetingShadows:
Well it's true. He also has a seriously sexy voice.

►JohnnyBeGood:
Skitter, subverted by the beefcake. I was wondering why Skitter seems to look towards Grue a lot. I figured something was being said and either wasn't loud enough for the mic to pick up or edited out. I never considered she might have the hots for dudes in biker leathers. Guess that's what I get for being a guy, right?

Skitter: What the hell, she's a villain. You're a hero. You two are supposed to fight!

►Clockblocker (Wards ENE) (Verified Cape):
That's it. We're doomed.

►TDH:
… I give up.

►By Any Other Name:
Regent's more my type. After all you can see more of his body shape and there's no way that's a cup. But honestly we're talking about how 'hot' villains are that aren't wearing form fitting clothing. We could be so off on how they look it's not funny.

► CapeManiac [Moderator]:
We're so not having this conversation. Lock it down or at least take it to the Undersider's forums.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4 … 177, 178

.

Variations of Skitter's Costume (Tinker Rating Pending?)
In: Boards ► Costumes and Cosplay ► Brockton Bay Sub-Forum (Public Board)

►EpilepticMartian (Original Poster):
So Vera and I were chatting the other night and the subject of Skitter's costume came up while we were trying to figure out which image should be used for the cape's PHO profile image.

Vera noted that almost every time Skitter appears in public she's wearing a different costume or at least parts of a different costume. Each outfit is heavily customized so we believe that she makes it herself.

Edit: As of 02/10/11 Skitter has been given a Tinker 3 rating by the PRT. The [Release] indicates that she is a bio-tinker specializing in arthropod biology, whatever that means. She posts in the Costumes & Cosplay forum under the Alias [SilkWeaver].

(Showing Page 27 of 29)

BoPET (Veteran Member):
What do you mean Skitter doesn't consider herself a tinker?

Skitter (Verified Cape):
Tin_Mother: Happy? I was enjoying my anonymity very much thank you.

BoPET: From what I understand tinkers have flashes of inspiration and an urge to act on those thoughts. You put a tinker on stake out he'll get distracted by a way to eek out an extra 10% efficiency in his ray guns that just 'popped' in his head. I don't have that.

I don't get hit with sudden bouts of inspiration and creativity, and the idea is never a fully formed schematic. To give you an example, my [Shock Gauntlets] came about because I was looking at buying a taser and said 'it'd be cool if I could...' The idea took a backseat until February 1st 2011, [Brockton Bay Aquarium of America Hostage Situation], whenan electric eel slapped my ankle. From there it took me over a week to get from concept of [Lightning Jackets] and shock gauntlets to usable equipment. I electrocuted myself eight times and killed over thirty attempts at the modified wasps. I still have an idea involving the electric organs that's yet to come to fruition because I've yet to figure out how to twist the biology until it does what I want.

Tin_Mother [Moderator]:
Yes, I am. Check your private messages.

BoPET(Veteran Member):
How many volts does those gauntlets put out?

Skitter (Verified Cape):
Tin_Mother: What'd I do wrong now?!

BoPET: More than I need. I had no trouble making Shadow Stalker pass out and to be honest I've been worried about using them against common thugs. Unfortunately further adjustments have been pushed onto the back burner due to more pressing matters.

I need to get around to visiting the PRT to get a few things tested. And likely be told, "no, half of your ideas are not appropriate." So far none of the ideas for tinkering up medical 'stuff' has been okayed.

Kid_Win (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE):
One of her ideas involved a bug the size of a coffee machine that bled all over the place.

Aeon:
What?

Skitter (Verified Cape):
You make it sound worse than it was. The bug produces O- human blood that would have been able to be harvested for blood transfusions and the like. And it's not like it was spraying the blood everywhere, it oozed out slowly.

Kid_Win (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE):
There was no off button, Skitter.

Aeon:
I'll just go ahead and repeat myself: What?

(Showing Page 28 of 29)

Vera:
Not creepy at all. (/sarcasm)

Phil:
Seconded.

Skitter (Verified Cape):
But..It's functional. It's not creepy. Actually, it's kinda cute. Kid's making it sound more creepy than it is. Besides my newest version has an on/off lever. I fixed the problem.

Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE):
You don't need Kid's help to be creepy, Skitter.

Skitter (Verified Cape):
Whatever. After my outing last night and having the carapace of my abdomen blown to bits, my costume is starting to really show some [serious] [wear] and [tear]. I've been putting off repairing the chitin because of how arduous the entire process is. This is mainly due to the fact that I have to grow the replacement pieces, harvest them, cure and treat them, and otherwise craft them into the replacement parts. I've been working on variations of the living carapace of my gauntlets to find a suitable replacement for the whole process.

I've tried looking at things like [various][seashells], [crustaceans], and [ironclad beetles]. I've even tried [turtle shells].

IngenuityOnHold:
Why don't you try mixing elements of the different shells? Layer in nacre, chitin, and so forth.

Vera:
The seashell carapace looks awesome! Have you tried abolone shells? According to Wikipedia some folks are working on turning that into the next big thing in body armor.

Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE):
Guys stop it. You're giving her Ideas. Ideas. Skitter with ideas is bad. She always manages to do something creepy with them. Even the innocent ones. It's her real power.

Skitter (Verified Cape):
I'm trying to make living armor so when it gets damaged I can more easily affect repairs. I just have to include fat stores, and all the components necessary to make the whole part a massive bug.

Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE):
Told you. Creepy.

(Showing Page 29 of 29)

Skitter (Verified Cape):
How is that creepy!

CrimsonPatches:
That you have to ask that question says lot about you. I'm just not sure what.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4 … 28, 29

Chris wasn't sure whether to be frightened or ecstatic. The way Skitter had fit in with the Undersiders seemed like solid proof that Skitter, who he'd had to admit was almost certainly a reincarnate, was from his own reality. The warlord of Brockton Bay, the girl who killed Alexandria, sent the Slaughterhouse Nine packing, and took over the city was here. The silver lining was that she wanted to be a Ward. Alright, if he was being honest with himself, the silver lining would be watching Dennis freak the hell out at anything she did.

That said, it was rather worrying that she was associated with the Undersiders. Hell, she'd teamed up with them more times than she had heroes in general. Was she going to slip back into villainy despite her stated intentions? Chris didn't even want to think about what would happen if that occurred. As much as Dennis had nightmares about Skitter, he had only really been subjected to her initial swarm tactics. Chris had been subjected to all sorts of abuse from the cape. And now she could bend biology to her will. He was honestly afraid of what she'd bring to bear against him should they find themselves on opposing sides.

On the other hand, this Skitter seemed more... friendly. She was creepy as hell, but if her comments on PHO were to believed it was largely unintentional. Maybe a side effect of her powers. It's not like she'd be the first to have her powers screw with her mind. Regardless of everything else, he was positive of one thing: he really wanted her to join the Wards.

Chris sighed and started getting ready for school.

-/ Author Notes:

Voltage is supposed to read in a similar manner as a Mordin Solus from Mass Effect. Speaking quick short sentences. Mason we really didn't get a good view of her 'in action' so the ribbing and joking I mentioned in her character file didn't come to the fore.

User Names:

SBers:
CrimsonPatches = RedPockets
TheMightyFireFerret = Stratagemini
EccentricE = DeviantD
BoPET = Cosmoline
IngenuityOnHold = LackingCreativity

ToT Characters:
PowerchairJouster = Jeff
TDH = Grue
FleethingShadows = Wraith
The_Scepter = Regent.

To verify an PHO account all that's needed is selfy with their username on display somewhere. Capes can get away with not having their name displayed as long as it's obvious that they are the ones posting. Bonus points for having a landmark in the image.

Rune hoped on a concrete slab, floated herself up a few dozen stories and using her telekineticly held phone recorded video as she and the phone spun giving a panoramic view of Brockton Bay's skyline as the background. Rune usually posts from her phone while on the move.

Skitter wrote her name in a spiderweb hammock slung between the twines of one of Brockton Bay's largest buildings. in an echo of rune's Taylor had the bug came revolve slowly around to get a panoramic shot of the bay which she then stitched together into a single image. That's the image she shared with the boards, Tin_Mother received a slightly edited one that had a think bubble reading "So peaceful up here. Hope a Dragon doesn't fly by."

To get all three of her other accounts nested she sen a much simpler one where she sat on Atlas as bugs over her shoulder spelled out 'Venomous Grin,' 'Arthropod Lovers Anonymous,'and 'Silk Weaver.' She followed it up with the unnecessarily creepy 'We are Legion, for we are many.'

[Maestro Regent At the Helm] has Regent doing his arm motions to make people spasm cut in intermediately to the combat footage to look like he's conducting an orchestra set to Metallica's Master of Puppets track on their S&M album.

The name of the link actually comes from a line Hatfield said during the Battery Track "Maestro Michael Kamen at the Helm. Yeah!" Kinda sad to find out Kamen died in '03. Dude was prolific.

Stuff that Came up in Beta:

Just a though isn't there a recording of the Child Molester or did that one not end up on the internet?
It would be in Takedown Collection 1, but wasn't directly mentioned. NSFW warning was from a rape she interrupted. she went overboard (broken bones) and then threatened to rot his junk off with brown recluses if she ever saw him again.

What did Skitter hit Kid Win with that she didn't hit Clockblocker with?
Clockblocker was basically immune to swarming because of his costume. He only suffered it at the bank because he was wearing Aegis' which had a open mouth/chin area (and likely eyes). Kid win was the first (Ward at least) to experience capsasin laced bugs and the like. his costume offered little protection against the more squicky swarm tactics.