1.3
"When you find the kids, kill them." Lung said.
My breath caught in my throat. The ABB, one of the more powerful gangs in the city, were planning to murder children. Lung was right on the top of my "capes you don't mess with" list, but I couldn't walk away from this. I knew I would never be able to live with myself.
When I realised I had gained powers I did my homework. I knew that no matter how much stronger or faster I had become, I was no match for Lung. I could run at nearly twice the speed of a normal human athlete, and crack bricks with a punch. I could even heal small wounds in minutes.
Lung, if the rumours were true, had fought Leviathan to a standstill in hand to hand combat, and their battle had sunk Japan beneath the ocean.
So yeah, I wasn't quite in his power range.
But here he was, about to murder children and all of my careful planning and research was seemed like nothing compared to that moral weight. If I backed down now, how could I ever call myself a hero?
I reached out and felt my forces gather. Swarms of crawling insects surrounded the street, just out of sight. My army. The flying swarms gathered overhead, high enough to be out of sight on this moonless night, hundreds of pounds of insects ready to fall like a tide. I had the dangerous ones shuffle forward through the swarms, the black widows and brown recluses, the wasps and Africanised bees. I knew I couldn't afford to hold back against Lung.
Something else tugged at the edge of my awareness, like a gap in my vision. Unlike humans and inanimate objects which were just empty space until my bugs settled on them, these holes in my perception felt like they should be visible. They felt wrong.
The gang began to move along the narrow alley before I could ponder it further.
I readied to move at a moments notice. My plan involved staying hidden on this rooftop while my swarms scattered the gang and my more scary bugs dealt with Lung, but I knew better than to assume it would go to plan. I flexed my joints, loosening the stiff armoured plates and the heavy clawed fingers. They weren't much against someone like Lung, but I had found that combined with my increased strength the wicked spidersilk talons could tear through concrete. My last resort.
I couldn't delay any longer. Small fliers tagged the group, mosquitoes scenting out the warmblooded gang members and providing me a general's perspective of the street. Flies crawled around at belt level and discovered which gangers held guns, who had knives. Overhead the more dangerous bugs divided accordingly.
Before I could spring the trap I felt more than saw the gangers react, bunching together to face the east. And then they began to scream.
I reflexively pulled the swarms away from the noise and turned my focus to the street. Down in the alleyway the holes in my perception surged forward. Whatever they were, they were fast and they were alive.
I risked a glance over the edge of the roof and saw carnage. A group of people was among the ABB, tearing them to pieces. Literally.
They were nondescript, men and women in tattered clothing. In the low light almost nothing stood out about them.
Other than the fact they were rending other humans limb from limb with their bare hands.
I dropped back to the roof, trying to remember if any of the vigilante or criminal cape groups in the surrounding region dressed like these people. None sprang to mind, certainly none that destroyed people like this.
A fireball erupted in the street. Lung I thought. At least I wouldn't have to engage these murderers, Lung could handle himself and a dozen or so superpowered enemies were as far out of my range as any A-class fighter.
The bugs I was using for reconnaissance supplied more information than my patchy knowledge of villain groups did.
The others swept through the gang with a preternatural grace. The few bugs that could hold onto the fast moving capes relayed unexpected information. Each attacker seemed inhuman, albeit in different ways. A few had scales, others fangs and many further had vicious claws.
The other anomaly came from the bugs themselves. The mosquitoes did not see these things as food. They tasted wrong, they felt cold. And they all felt the same.
There was something off about it all. Despite the different physical characteristics of each cape, my bugs and my own mind were telling me they were all connected. Especially the mental blind spot they all occupied, if I couldn't see they were all different people I would think that it was a duplicator cape with a Stranger power tearing the ABB apart.
A roar echoed through the still night as a massive blast of flame washed over the street, easily reaching the rooftop. I huddled down behind the wall, but even so the air became uncomfortably hot for a brief moment. Lung had obviously engaged his enemies.
Unfortunately that fireball had fried every bug in the alley, leaving me effectively blind. I cautiously peered over the edge of the roof.
Lung was growing. He was now around nine feet tall and silvery in the distant streetlights, scales starting to poke through his skin. He carved into the attackers as easily as they had crushed his gangers, his metallic claws ripping into bodies and rending limbs. The new capes seemed tougher than a normal person, but nowhere near tough enough against a monster like Lung.
None of it made sense. Why would they attack when so greatly outmatched? It was true that they had slaughtered some gang members, but they were losing their own numbers just as fast. 5 minutes with a computer would have made it clear that Lung was not someone to underestimate. Even if that was ironic considering I had been planned to do the very same thing.
Suddenly the remaining newcomers pulled back, retreating silently and simultaneously until they were gone. Something about their movement tickled at my mind, but the train of thought was swept aside by the arrival of a much larger anti-presence into my awareness.
A monstrous … thing leapt from the darkness towards Lung. It was moving so fast as to be hard to make out even with my recent upgrades, but I swore I could see four arms. The few bugs the thing had picked up on the way through the surrounding backstreets were transmitting the feeling of cold hard surfaces, more like armour than flesh.
Before I could blink, the creature tore into Lung, ripping through his scales like tissue paper and carving deep furrows into his flesh.
Lung roared in pain and a new wave of white-hot flame erupted from his skin. I again ducked behind the low wall at the roof edge as the air shimmered in the heat. His power was growing fast.
When my night vision cleared and the heat let up, the action on ground level was over.
Smoke curled in thin tendrils off the back of the four armed monstrosity, standing triumphant over the fallen body of Lung.
Shit.
That thing beat Lung in seconds, its friends have no reservations ripping people limb from limb, and I am stuck on an exposed rooftop with nothing for protection but pepper spray and some bugs.
The beast turned towards the alley mouth at the roar of an engine. I followed its gaze and saw a massive motorcycle slow to a halt. An armoured man stepped off the bike, large bladed spear held in his hand.
Armsmaster. Pre-eminent member of the Brockton Bay Protectorate. A hero.
And then my brain started working again, and the momentary relief was swept aside. Lung single-handedly defeated the entire Brockton Protectorate. And this thing slaughtered him. Armsmaster was going to get killed.
But what could I do? Calling out would only make me a target.
Armsmaster had stepped to the alley mouth, speaking softly under his breath. My bugs couldn't relay the words to me, but I knew he was saying something. Probably about all the corpses, or the monstrous thing standing in front of him. Hopefully calling for backup.
I don't think he had seen Lung's crushed body yet. He was too calm.
The view in the harsh relief of the motorcycle headlights was shocking enough though. There was blood everywhere, pooling on the ground, streaks and rivers painting the walls. Dismembered bodies that had been vague shapes in the darkness were now clearly defined.
Now I knew why my tactile feedback through my bugs had seemed so sticky.
A dry heave shuddered through me but I managed to keep my dinner down. Might need to rethink the full face mask after tonight.
The hero of Brockton Bay levelled his halberd at the creature, the high tech weapon extending to full length. He had clearly decided negotiation was not an option here.
The monster turned towards the light and loosed an inhuman screech. That was the word that kept playing through my mind. Inhuman. If this thing was a cape, it was as distorted as any monstrous parahuman.
Jagged teeth lined a yawning chasm of a mouth, set into smooth indigo skin. Tiny yellow eyes glared out from deep sockets. A flat expanse of skin stretched across the expected position of a nose. Sharp ears flanked the bulbous head.
The hard armour I had felt through my bugs was a faded blue, and was definitely part of the creature. It looked organic, like an exoskeleton. Plates of it covered the body and legs, and reinforced the four arms. Arms which terminated in heavy claws still dripping Lung's blood.
Which reminded me again, and I felt some disbelief at thinking it, that Armsmaster was out of his league here.
I needed to help him. If I was willing to take on Lung alone to save some kids, what kind of person would I be to leave a shining hero of the city to be slaughtered?
Shouting to Armsmaster seemed like a good idea, at least to give him a warning, but knowing how fast that thing moved the distraction could be fatal. And I certainly didn't want to tangle with those claws myself, there was no way my spidersilk armour was stronger than Lung's metal skin.
So I drew on the only tool at my disposal. I flooded the alleyway with bugs.
There was a lot more of them than I expected. It seemed my power had been unconsciously drawing in all the insects in the surrounding region, because it was a droning avalanche that washed into the alley and obscured the monster. Armsmaster tensed, but the bugs never reached him.
Weird. It had pretty much stopped moving, sort of just shuffling around aimlessly. Like it was lost or blind. All of the intensity and aggression it had exhibited earlier had disappeared. I couldn't be sure, but I think the murderous abomination might have been mewling.
As disconcerting as that concept was it suited me fine, as it gave me time to stop Armsmaster from running face first into the claws that cut Lung to pieces.
I vaulted off the roof, landing between Armsmaster and the alley. Considering the wave of bugs still sweeping through the alley mouth and the fact I dropped from over a story up, I would like to think it was a pretty cool entrance. Obviously Armsmaster disagreed.
I threw my hands up into the air reflexively, facing down the blade of a very sharp, very deadly looking Halberd. That was glowing. And emitting a high pitched whine. I knew enough to understand that a tinkertech weapon that was making noise was bad news.
"Not an enemy!" I half yelled, half squeaked. Squeaked. In front of Armsmaster. Thankfully my mask covered my flaming cheeks. Maybe that outweighed the risk of being trapped with my own vomit? I was seriously considering writing a pros and cons list if I got out of this in one piece.
Maybe the visored half-mask Armsmaster was wearing was the best of both worlds?
The halberd didn't waver as the seconds ticked by, giving me enough time to curse my lack of foresight. Who the hell startles a hero who just walked in on a mass slaughter?
Finally, Armsmaster nodded almost imperceptibly. "Truth," he muttered, although I don't think he expected me to hear it. It would have been a reasonable assumption before I triggered.
His weapon tip dropped half a foot, less threatening but clearly not a welcoming posture. His body language certainly hadn't relaxed. To be fair I was feeling pretty jumpy myself. At least the whimpering four armed murder kitten still seemed... affected by the swarm.
"What the hell are you?" Armsmaster growled.
What? What am I?
My mind whirled briefly, before coming to an answer that sank in my gut like a lead weight. My segmented, plated armour made of organic looking spidersilk plates. I looked exactly like the monster, claws and all. Again I mentally kicked myself.
"I'm not with that thing!" I rushed out breathlessly. "I'm on your side. I was just watching from the roof." I pointed upwards as reinforcement.
Another brief pause, before he grunted an acceptance of my words. "This your work then?" he asked, gesturing towards the dense cloud of bugs.
I nodded wordlessly. Everything I said seemed to make this worse.
"Why did you help it get away?"
Arrghh. Even not speaking wasn't helping. I was beginning to wonder if this was as bad as it seemed to look, or if he was just totally paranoid.
"It isn't gone, it is still in there," I said. "It seems confused by the bugs, it's pretty much just sitting there" I added quickly as he tensed. He seemed to ease a little again, but his weapon stayed up.
"OK" he growled. "So take away the bugs then, and let me do my job."
I started shaking my head energetically. Was the problem really him? He seemed pretty determined to misinterpret everything I said and did.
"You can't!" I practically yelled as he started to walk towards the alley. "It is really strong. It took down Lung."
He paused a moment, then shook his head.
"I know," he said, and with that he strode into the alley.
I just stood there slack-jawed for a moment. I had to stay calm. Would I have listened to an unknown newbie cape if I was a big name hero?
Yes. Yes I would.
Fuck. Who knew Armsmaster was a frustrating asshole?
Thankfully I could tell where he was inside the swarm, and even more thankfully he wasn't near the monster yet. Unfortunately the bugs were barely slowing him down, and he was closing in on it. He must have some sort of tinkertech in his mask that let him navigate. GPS or something.
I really, really doubted that the thing would remain spaced out when they bumped into each other.
I had to stop them meeting, but what could I do? I didn't want to risk setting off the creature by attacking it, and it was pretty unlikely my bugs could do anything to it anyway. So that left Armsmaster.
Double fuck.
I just know he was going to misinterpret this too.
I directed the bugs and they swarmed all over him. Into the joints of his suit, crawling under the lining. Up his nose. Down his mouth when he tried to breathe. He flailed around wildly, looking back towards me with what must have been an expression of betrayal. Then he staggered. Then he went down.
I rushed into the alley, guided by the senses of what had to be millions of bugs to his fallen form. He didn't seem to be faking, so I cleared his airway. He stayed down, but at least he was breathing.
I grabbed him by an arm and started dragging him. Even with my new strength it was difficult. The metal of his suit must weigh half a ton, not to mention all the blood and literal guts I had to drag him through.
Definitely going to need a shower after this.
I finally made it out of the bug cloud into the light. In hindsight probably should have used some bugs to check it was clear first.
I let Armsmaster's gore stained arm drop to the ground and slowly raised my hands. What else could I do with the entire Brockton Bay Protectorate in battle lines in front of me?