Read aloud to me alt Taylor

by Kahlil Johnson

Dnd

47. Ff5

Butterfly 9.2

"I'm going to need Browbeat," I said as I finished folding the map back into its small square, the innocent 'Welcome to Brockton Bay!' on the front.

"What for?" Bao asked with slightly raised eyebrows.

How to say 'hello' in Chinese wasn't the only thing I learned at Lung's criminal get-together. Some of it was volunteered, like Cho's insight on what separates villains from criminals, and some I figured out for myself. Most of it came down to money, who had it and how much; how to get more of it. It quite literally did make their world go round. A villain, with the right set of powers, could get by on raw power and intimidation, or stealth and subterfuge, taking what they wanted but criminal enterprises were built on the green.

I wasn't sure which one Coil was, a villain or a criminal, but the simple facts were: he had a tinker, who would need materials. He hired people like the Undersiders, paid them. He had enough connections, or influence, to worm into the PRT. It spoke of money, and it had to come from somewhere.

I would find him eventually, but in the meantime I liked the idea of putting him on the defensive. Smoke in the fox hole.

"I'm going to need him to cause trouble," I muttered.

Bao's head tilted slightly as the corner of his mouth twitched up. "Where we hitting?"

"Browbeat and I," I corrected him, "are going to check something out."

"What?" Bao gaped. "But -"

"Backup," I said sternly. I directed a cricket to crawl up my leg and side to where I could scoop it off and place it on Bao's scarf. "I can take a bullet in my costume," it would hurt like a bitch most likely, but it had survived a field test, "and you know how much punishment Browbeat can shrug off."

That you can't, I left unsaid.

"We're with you," he shot back, hurt. "All of us."

"That's what the cricket is for. It sings, that's your cue." I was taking the dragonflies and hornets, I had too few of them as it was, but I split my mosquitos and decided to leave a few moths and fireflies to lead the way.

"To come to your rescue?" He snorted.

"I don't want anyone hurt, but that doesn't mean -" I won't use you. I bit my lip and resisted the urge to knead my forehead through my mask. I tried not to, but I thought of Noriko's words. "Once I'm sure of it, when we find something we can use, I'll need everyone."

Bao looked at me, his eyes slightly narrowed and a small frown.

"So sue me for wanting everyone home in one piece," I hissed, starting to get angry. "Don't you?"

He looked away. "Yeah," he breathed, his eyes downward. "Yeah. Sorry, I just," his fingers balled into fists then flexed. He rolled his shoulders and peered up at me through his eyelashes. "Don't leave me too far behind, okay?"

I opened my mouth, to say what I wasn't sure, but before it came out he was already walking off waving his right hand in a large parabolic arc. I felt the moth on Peter's back catapult into the air. I turned around just in time to see him land heavily on the road in the heroic three-point landing. Several of the teens behind me started clapping.

"Show off," I muttered.

Browbeat had an unfamiliar face, but his eyes and voice were still the same. I went over what I wanted to accomplish and then we headed out.

The marks on the map weren't guaranteed things, most likely because whatever activity had gone on there was of a transient nature. The first two were busts, nothing but empty street and run down buildings to them. The only positive was that keeping Bao updated with our progress using my moths and fireflies wasn't as complicated as I thought it would be. I knew where every bug in my range was in relation to me, like I knew the positioning of my hand. Translating that was like blinking, I just did it.

My jogging routine was also fucking vindicated. Without it, I would have collapsed five blocks back, no question. Peter would have to carry me.

"Hold on," I put my hand up slightly and Browbeat walked into it, coming to a slow stop. Nearby was the place, the start of all the bullshit at school with Emma, me, the ABB, on the edge of ABB territory that bled into Empire, a three-way intersection shaped like a T with one of the arms a one-way street. I made my way there, a short detour because I had to see it. My insects mapped the alleyways three streets over and Peter's heavy footsteps echoed off the brick walls behind me.

The roads were clear, no dumpsters or vans blocking the way. The chalk outline had probably long since been washed away by rain. It looked like just any other street. If it weren't for the road signs, Pepperidge crossing Church, I might have thought it was the wrong place. I don't know what I expected to feel as I looked down at the pavement; I hoped for closure of some sort. Perhaps that was exactly what I got because standing there, I just felt like it was over. Relief.

"Alright, I'm done here."

"You...didn't do anything?" Peter mumbled.

"Long story." I thought about telling him, what happened here and what it meant but that felt a bit too much like baring my heart and soul. And this was personal. No matter how I dealt with everything moving forward, I was at least moving forward. That was far more than I could say for Emma.

On the trail end of that thought, one of my roaming insects abruptly disappeared. My steps slowed. My immediate response was to send a mosquito in the general direction of where I'd lost the first one, making a sweep of the area and when that eventually winked out of my control as well, I stopped.

Browbeat caught on immediately. "Someone there?" he whispered.

"Or something," I replied back just as quietly. There were no streetlights here. Everything was draped in shadow and I was completely reliant on the moon and what I could tease out using my dragonflies and moths ultraviolet sight. I angled my bugs as I started walking again and there, at a far corner on an arm of the T was a spot of...nothing.

No light, ultraviolet or otherwise. The mosquitos smelled nothing from the silhouette, there was no heat, it was as alien to me as it was to my insects. A standing corpse. I wanted away from it. I picked up my pace and sent another mosquito, focusing on it, hoping for a clue.

It died.

There wasn't even any pain.

My breath hitched, once. Peter glanced at me and growled, a reverberating rumble that bubbled up from his chest as he turned around, walking backwards as he scanned the street. He lashed his bone tail back and forth, sparks flew where it crashed against the pavement.

"Don't," I said. Maybe it was the equivalent of a bug zapper super power, only capable of being the bane of gnats and mosquitos everywhere. However, I wasn't about to test that.

Whatever it was stepped away from the shadow of the buildings, its 'head' turning in our direction. Under the moon, I could see more through faceted eyes but not much. It was a person, that I was sure of, but it was hard to see through the cloud of inky mist clinging to them.

Shadow Stalker?

That was the only parahuman I knew of with a power that was described as a shadowy mist form, a former vigilante that joined the Wards a few months ago. I didn't call out to her for two reasons: she had a bit of a brutal reputation that I wanted no where near my ABB group and second, I wasn't completely positive it was even her. Where were her iconic crossbows?

My stomach sank as the shadow started following us.

I pulled out the folded map from the back pocket on my costume where I stashed things like my can of pepper spray and epi pens. If we wanted to lose her, and I did, we would have to make some detours. Wordlessly, I showed Peter the map with illuminating fireflies and traced out a path with my index finger. The mark it lead to looked more like a cross than an x; the note by it in scribbled shorthand wrote 'build.'

I took a lot of turns at a brisk pace, careful not to double back, and eventually our shadow dropped off my radar.

I couldn't relax.

I lead us back on track. The city was actually rather nice here with the road free of potholes or broken glass, and the buildings still had a proud air. Water was still dripping from one of the gutters in fat droplets that splashed onto the concrete of the sidewalk. The streetlight chased away the faded colors and washed out greys to reveal dark green siding and a handsome red door. The windows were tucked away behind steel grates and as I got closer I could see why: watches, necklaces, earrings and bracelets were on display. The sign above the door in rustic lettering spelled out 'Tannerman's Jewelers.'

There was a warehouse beside it, all windows dark. Innocent enough picture.

The view from my bugs told a different story.

Behind the buildings and away from prying eyes on the street were men in low contrast uniforms and what might be body armor, familiar shapes in their hands. Guns. They were loading boxes into the blocky form of a Humvee or armored truck. At first glance you could say they were just transporting valuables from the jewelry store, the same way you wouldn't bat an eyelash at seeing an armored truck at the back of a bank. However, unless they were emptying the entire store of its merchandise for some reason, there were a few too many boxes there. Too many people, I felt.

Still, I would give them the chance to prove they weren't who I thought they were. One.

"Got something," I told Peter. I absently updated Bao on where we were. "The back of those buildings, seven men." An idea formed in my head. I squatted down, mentally drawing a square on the street. "They have a van behind them," a millipede crawled into position, "and they are loading up boxes." I had a few small beetles stand very still. Seven fireflies marked the men, one was pacing and I had one follow his movements. "These three have guns ready to use, the others will have to get hands free and draw first."

Peter crouched down next to me. "The buildings?"

A large beetle represented the jeweler's and a centipede the warehouse.

"I'll handle them." He said, straightening.

"Nothing permanent," I said quickly. I had to swallow my heart back down. I didn't think he would, I hoped he wouldn't but I had to be sure. "They need to be able to answer some questions."

He gave me an assessing look and I met it.

Listen to me, damn it, I thought.

The boyish, slightly unhinged grin he flashed me then screamed 'Peter' and I let out a breath I hadn't been aware I was holding.

"Any surveillance?" He asked.

I took another look at the scene. There were two cameras overseeing the front and back of the store and the front of the warehouse had one as well, but behind it seemed open. I relayed that information, and he scanned the buildings. "Here's what I'm thinking," he began.

The moon slipped behind a cloud. The street briefly went dark and that was our cue.

Peter crashed into them from above, a wrecking ball covered in bone taking two with him, yanking a third man off his feet with his tail. He recovered fast as they raised the alarm, his arm becoming elastic and stretching, whip-like with his fist a club at the end, a clean sweep. His bone armor rippled, revealing vents in his flesh that hissed with faint gray vapor.

Those scrambling for their guns froze a few critical seconds to hold their breath or cover their noses and mouth.

They were soon standing still for another reason: three-inch-long hornets alighting on their faces.

"A precaution, gentlemen," I said, coming out from the darkness in between the two buildings, trying hard to breathe evenly and not give it away that I'd jogged in. I had to stay out of range until Peter's distraction. He could sneak around the back, climb to the top of the building and jump off without giving a shit. "To keep this friendly."

'Nuff said.

Up close, their uniforms had no distinguishing marks or logos, no badges and I frowned behind my mask. I steeled myself. "Reach for your guns, and this will get a lot more unpleasant."

Two didn't listen.

Many things happened at once.

Peter slammed the head of the nearest mercenary into the van with a loud clong. I called down my swarm, signaling the other half of my hive with the urgent chirping of a cricket. I drove stingers into soft flesh, feeling it like it was my own fingernails that were digging into their eyelids and scraping the eyeball underneath.

They screamed in shock and pain before Peter barreled into them.

The rest remained frozen.

I breathed in, once and shook myself loose. My hornets buzzed in agitation, the chemical trail urging them to attack stirring them, me, up.

"Don't," I repeated.

Last edited: Dec 1, 2014

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Dec 1, 2014

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Threadmarks Butterfly 9.3

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Shujin

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M. NightShujinlan

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She/Her

Jan 12, 2015

#1,992

Butterfly 9.3

Giant Asian Hornets were aggressive.

I knew that intellectually and was familiar with the bleedthrough that I got from my bugs when I controlled them, but I didn't think it would matter in the long run. I would get better at using my powers with practice, and it would be a thing of a past. I didn't think that it was possible for me and my 'swarm' to resonate, for lack of a better word.

My first brush with aggressive bugs came from my Black Widows. They were territorial with instincts driving them to kill and eat other spiders. I felt it, and maybe was a bit snappish and short tempered, but I never felt like acting on it. Even Emma at her worst didn't have me wondering whether or not I should eat her.

Here and now though, all the hornets wanted to do was attack. To punish. Those were things I wanted.

I was still in control. But giving in was more tempting than I expected.

The ones I stung were curled on the floor, one of them in a fetal position clutching at his face. The other was trying to pull off a stoic but I'd already heard him scream. His eyelid was swelling quickly to the point where I wasn't sure he could open that eye even if he wanted to. He had the same kind of forced stillness people adopted when confronted with an angry, barking dog. Don't make any sudden moves, and maybe you'll be left alone.

I had no intention of doing that.

I moved my swarm with slow, deliberate movements. The pests I just spread out around us in a sphere. I kept it big enough to give us room without breathing in a mosquito, but packed them dense enough to be a visible 'wall' of bugs. I wanted to show them that there was no escaping me. I wanted it to seem like a cage. The less time I wasted trying to convince them that I held all the cards here, the better.

The dangerous bugs, the Brown Recluses and Black Widows, the creepy crawlies that people instinctively shied away from because they had too many legs, or huge mandibles; those I had crawl over the mercs. I placed the spiders underneath their collars and made the hornets walk around on their faces. They were big enough that each step could be felt.

"I don't want this to get nasty," I said. Every biting creature I had on them gently nipped the skin in warning. "I'm going to ask questions. And you will answer them. Does everyone understand how this works?"

I had their complete and undivided attention. Good.

"Browbeat." I turned my head in Peter's direction, purposely taking my eyes off them. "Open a crate."

Peter walked over casually with his tail lashing back and forth against the pavement with hair raising scraping sounds. I smiled a little under my mask. He'd caught on to what I was doing.

The smile faded as Peter clenched his fist, and bone spikes spurted out of his knuckles with a light splash of red. The crates were made out of flat planes of cork and plywood and nailed shut, but still just wood. His first blow splintered the top with a loud crack. The second punched all the way through. He used both hands to pry the large splinters apart and dig out packing straw, then he hefted the 'merchandise' for me to see.

I looked at the gleaming metal casing and made a show of looking back at the shop. Inside I was breathing a gigantic sigh of relief. The little niggling doubt of whether or not I had just assaulted a legitimate transport operation evaporated. "That's not jewelry," I pointed out.

I didn't get a response and I wasn't expecting one.

I hadn't asked a question yet and if they had any hope of concealing information from me, their only options were to either obey the letter of the law, or not talk.

If they chose the second option, I would have a problem.

I had the bark, but my bite was of the 'biting or stinging with venomous insects' variety. I had limited control over the actual injection of venom because for most of my swarm, it was an entirely involuntary process. I didn't have reliable means of pain without lingering damage. I needed fire or bullet ants, or other things with a painful bite or sting that wouldn't leave scars or a lingering, permanent case of dead.

My hand drifted to the small of my back where the pouch on my costume was, containing the epipens. After a moment of thought, I fished one out and held it in front of me so that could all see. I nodded towards the one guy I stung who still had his wits about him.

"Why were you moving this out?" I didn't mention the name because there was still a chance that they didn't answer directly to Coil, but through a proxy.

The man stared at me through his good eye for several seconds. "We were on a deadline. It had to be moved."

My pulse sped up at the mention of a deadline. "Had to be tonight?" I asked for confirmation.

"Yes."

I tossed him the epipen and dug out another for the guy on the ground. I would have given it to them even if he hadn't answered, but they didn't know that. I was already sick and tired of being the one not able to tell a lie from an omission of truth. Nice to be on the other side of it for once.

"Where was it going to be delivered to?"

Silence greeted that question.

I chewed on my lip as I thought about my options. I spoke again, just to make sure that they didn't get the impression that I was working through a dilemma. "We were doing so well too."

I could try verbal threats again, reminding them exactly what they had crawling on them but I didn't have much hope of that working. Not only had I threatened before, but I had backed it up that time with my hornets when it didn't ensure their cooperation. No, just talking wasn't going to work. Worse, I needed them cowed. It was still two against six, if the one on the ground stayed down, but I wasn't willing to kill just to make a point.

I leaned on Peter again, feeling slightly sick to my stomach. "That one." I pointed out a man a bit more heavyset than his peers. Poisons lost their potency the bigger someone was. Snake bites, spider bites, alcohol…It was still going to hurt.

Browbeat in his skeletal armor played his role and shoved my target forward. I ignored the ugly, rebellious sneer on the man's face. He worked for a super villain that put bombs in people. I wasn't going to lose any sleep over his contempt of me.

A flicker outside my sphere divided my attention unexpectedly. A single firefly had blundered into my 'sphere' of bugs line-of-sight and it spooked me a little. I could have sworn that every bug in a block and a half radius was under my control. To see one that evidently wasn't, and closing in on my position, had me grasping for control of it out of sheer paranoia.

Only for me to discover that I already had it.

If there was a time and place for the sound of a record scratching, that moment of realization would be it.

I watched as a procession of fireflies, my fireflies, led the familiar forms of Bao and the others to the street in front of the jewelry store. I focused on them and urged them to complete the journey.

"Guests," I said simply. Internally, my mind was racing. I remembered reaching out to the fireflies I'd put with Bao with new orders but after the adrenaline died down, I'd completely forgotten about them. And still they carried out my directives without me being consciously aware of it.

Did they just follow the last urge I gave them? That didn't quite explain how they were able to navigate the grid of Brockton Bay's streets without me keeping track of them. Or maybe I was, somehow. I already knew that my bugs 'bled' into me, now I was faced with the possibility that it was a two-way street.

With the fireflies providing a bit of extra light, I could clearly see the tension in Bao's expression. His right hand opened and closed around the handle of the baseball bat slung across his shoulders like it was a stress ball. The rest of our group followed him like wolves trailing after an alpha, but they were just as jittery. Knuckles were quietly cracked, arms were stretched and those that had weapons had tight grips on them.

And me and Peter had rounded up a bunch of vulnerable, acceptable targets.

I had an odd thought then. Hadn't I just been considering my options for inflicting pain? I flinched away from that train of thought when Bao caught sight of me. His face softened slightly; heart on his sleeve like always.

"Missed the fun?" He quipped.

"Not all -"

Peter's tail moved.

Punctuating my words was a wet crunch that escalated into the sound of popping plastic and cracking metal. The minion I'd ignored, because he'd been curled up on the floor, grunted in pain and bit his lip until it bled.

" - of it." I finished.

Peter's face was blank as he lifted his tail, skewered hand on it as well as the broken remains of what looked like a walkie talkie. Completely blank. There was nothing on it.

"Naughty, naughty," he said. He used his powers to make his voice rougher, more menacing.

Bao turned and without warning he whipped the bat off his shoulder and slammed it into the jaw of my chosen victim. The man choked out a gargled scream. His entire face purpled but an area on his jaw line was quickly turning an angry red. I was fairly certain it was broken.

"Anyone else want to try something stupid?" Bao called out. He swung the bat down, purposely scratching the aluminum on the pavement. He met the eye of each and every mook we had captured, and spat in front of them. "Figures."

"Who were you contacting?" I demanded. I felt I already knew the answer to that. A walkie talkie didn't need numbers being dialled, just pressing and holding the talk button would ensure that anyone on the other side could hear what we were saying. I quickly went over the conversation. I didn't name Coil or myself, but I had dropped 'Browbeat.' If Coil was more aware of the capes in the city than Parahumans Online was, then he'd know we were ABB.

Didn't matter. He'd done enough to piss the gang off by trying to kill Amy. It shouldn't be a surprise.

"We could hand them over," Bao mused.

"To Lung?" I asked a bit tersely.

"Oni Lee."

Oddly, the reminder of that particular pet psychopath of Lung's didn't reassure me.

I swallowed it down. "Get up," I ordered. "Consider yourselves requisitioned."

The ABB around me cracked grins.

Coil's men got up silently. Professionals, maybe, I thought. I took in their uniforms and how it defined their group by how much it didn't identify them. Soldiers. Where does one even find paramilitary willing to work for a super villain?

My paranoia came surging back, though for a different reason. They had a deadline for moving computer parts and it was tonight. That was the only thing they had been willing to say. Why would that question be answered, but not anything else? If they were as loyal and experienced as they seemed, why answer at all? Why give away a piece of Coil's plan?

They had a deadline and it was tonight.

My heart began a slow descent to the pit of my stomach. Why not answer that question? The deadline was tonight. The plan was already in motion.

Tonight.

Fuck.

For three blocks I prayed I was wrong, or at least that it wasn't as dire as I thought I was. I spread my bugs to my absolute maximum range, and angled their eyes in order to see further. Seven thousand three hundred and forty one insects watched Brockton Bay.

That meant I had a front row seat when, roughly ten minutes later, ABB's skyline erupted, and the thunderclap of exploding bombs rattled my ear drums.

I ran. My legs pumped with every ounce of speed I could pour into them, the soft soles of my costume doing nothing to hide how hard the street was. My swarm surged in front of me, scouting, trying to see the damage before I got there. The heat was nearly stifling and my first attempt of just swarming a burning building with bugs met with fire and burning wings. The fledgling idea of running in there and hauling people out myself withered. I looked around for help.

First one here.

My bugs alerted me I wasn't the last.

My first warning was a hole suddenly appearing in my sphere and I span just in time to see what looked like a small cloud of black mist drop down from the rooftops. I remembered this cloud, this parahuman, when I was searching for Coil's people.

I had initially thought it was Grue, but that hadn't made sense when I took my bugs dying into account, and now that I was taking a closer look, I knew that this couldn't be Grue. The cloud was much smaller than what the PHO forums had said Grue could put out in a fight, and it tended to cover a wider area, like a fog bank made of darkness.

"Coming to look at the fireworks you fuckers set off? You make me sick." I blinked behind my mask. Grue definitely wasn't female. Who the hell was this, and why was her voice so familiar?

"Why the hell would ABB do this? This is our territory!" I snapped back, shifting my swarm around and above me. I didn't even think of retreating. Everyone had vulnerabilities. It just a matter of finding them. I could feel Browbeat, the moth on his back was moving in my general direction. If I got his attention, two against one.

The mist was rapidly reforming into floating swords as the teenage girl, she didn't sound old enough to be anything but, stepped forward with a derisive snort, "Yeah? Would make a nice statement wouldn't it? Blow someone up, send a message to everyone to toe the line, especially with your extortion."

That stung, and it pissed me off, to be reminded about Dad had to go through every month. My swarm buzzed and clicked around me and I thought I heard an echo as I hissed out, "There are people in trouble, and I am going to help them."

A sword dragged through brickwork without making a sound; the blade had cleaved a clean line. Right. Not getting touched with that. I noticed that her mist was diminishing, no, being funneled into those weapons. It didn't cover her quite as thoroughly anymore. Behind my mask, I smiled.

Vulnerability.

She stepped forwards and the fire light played off a bright-red ponytail, "No, you're going to put your hands behind your fucking head so I can hand you over to the real good guys, not play this 'honorable' Yakuza bullshit."

More swords appeared, and the mist faded further, allowing me to see what sort of costume she was wearing. It was underwhelming to say the least; her costume was clearly store-bought and the mark of an amateur on their first patrol, all dark tiger-striped camouflage patterns and a black full-face mask that all had to have come from the local military surplus/hunting good store.

Somehow I knew that I wouldn't be surprised if the price tags were still on those clothes, they looked practically brand-new.

I was being threatened by a rookie on her first night out and somehow it felt a touch nostalgic, not to mention a little weird, to be in this situation. But I didn't have time for this as I remained standing and pointed back at the building. No, the street, that was rapidly being engulfed in flames.

"If you haven't noticed, buildings are on fire."

"What makes you think I give a fuck?"

The voice and the hair made it click for me.

Emma.

I could hear the rush of blood in my ears simply overpowering the sound of the building slowly giving in to the heat and structural damage. Emma. Emma was a fucking cape!? I took a step towards her, numb. I was seconds away from recalling my bugs and setting every one of them on the selfish bitch who made it her calling to ruin my life, when I became aware of the sounds my insects were picking up. People in that building were screaming, pleading for help.

I gritted my teeth until my jaw ached.

I didn't have time to fucking deal with this.

"Get out of my way." I directed my bugs. Again, I thought. Seeing through the smoke with them was not easy and I found myself relying on their secondary senses more than anything else. Often they ended up too close to the flames just like the first time, and I fought down shivers when I felt the extensions of myself being seared, smothered, charred.

I extracted my hornets after losing three. It felt like a huge loss, like I had just crippled myself with my blind flailing but I pressed on with the others.

Emma did not decide to help matters.

She stepped forward, everything about her body language screaming confrontation. The swords made out of her mist increased in number and I stared at them, unimpressed. She didn't launch them, instead moving closer in some kind of power play so I was reasonably certain she couldn't. Her power was short range, and making those weapons took away her protection.

I could take her. Lung did get that one thing right. The fear of a rabid bitch's bite was easily broken. Emma was not Kali, Oni Lee, Coil. She was no Lung. I refused to be scared of her any more.

"Why the fuck should I listen to you?"

"You don't get it," I snapped. "I. Do. Not. Care. Get out of the way and shut the fuck up, or I will make you. This is our territory. You do not matter. They-" I waved my arm at the burning building. "Matter. Validate your existence or leave."

I was playing on a hunch. What she had told me, about being a victim and being a survivor, for all that I couldn't understand why that lead to me being locked in a dumpster, Emma had a thing about agency. If I was wrong, then I was wrong. Didn't make a difference. For the second time that night, I deliberately took my human eyes off an enemy. There was no Sophia or Madison here. I still had my hive to protect me.

"Browbeat!" I snapped. My hornets saw him tilt his head before he veered off his path. I didn't quite sigh in relief. Yes, he had super senses. In large bounding steps off intact buildings, he crashed by me. He glanced between me and Emma but gave no sign what he was thinking.

" 'Sup?"

"Two adults, one child still trapped in there. Second floor, 3rd room." Wading in ourselves and blindly searching would have been suicide. Less so for Peter, but the main danger of fire is suffocating from the smoke. I didn't know if that was as much as a problem for him as it would be for me, but getting him in and out quick couldn't hurt.

Prioritize the living.

"On it."

I could see Emma watching me. She didn't know who I was. I had no intention of enlightening her.

I started running towards the next fire I could see a few blocks down. The streets were started to get crowded with warm bodies among burning debris, but there was little panic or fighting to escape.

I could see people standing on curbs and low brick fences to make themselves visible, shouting in languages I didn't understand, directing the crowd. People were turning on outdoor faucets and filling random containers with water and dumping them over cars that had caught fire. Space was cleared for shell shocked victims. People pointed at their homes, missing a family member or neighbor. Others held on to each other, crying.

Police sirens and the wail of fire trucks pierced the air.

I didn't know what was going on in her mind, but behind me, Emma trailed.

That made a light, warm feeling rise in my chest as I scouted out more buildings. It felt like victory.

And it lasted until I saw the man with the Oni mask on the roofs and the sirens were drowned out by a roar of seething, draconic rage.

Last edited: Jan 12, 2015

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Jan 12, 2015

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Threadmarks Interlude, Civilian

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Shujin

Shujin

M. NightShujinlan

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She/Her

Mar 31, 2015

#2,068

AN: Guess who! I would recommend re-reading. It's been a while.

Interlude, Civilian

"Toooong Kaaaang. We're shooting hoops at O'Reiley's at three. We, meaning you. You got two hours!"

Click. Beeeeep.

"I told everyone you were coming, and the sun won't kill you. Up and at 'em!"

Click.

"Ass." Tong grunted.

Beeeeeep.

"If you're happy and you know it, shoot some hoops! If you're happy and you know it, shoot some hoops! If you're happy and you know it and you really want to show it, if you're happy and you know it shoot some hoops! One hour!"

Click.

He tied his shoes a bit angrily. Then sighed when he pulled too hard and undid the butterfly knot by accident. Do over. He inspected his shoes with a critical eye. Looks good. He reached out for the wheelchair armrest and hauled himself over. He strapped his legs in and snagged his duffel bag off the floor.

Beeeeeep.

"Don't leave me hanging, Tong. It'll be fun. The guys, and one girl, are all here. Giving you fifteen."

Click.

"No more messages."

Beeeeep.

He used the elevator to get down to the ground floor. It was a Sunday afternoon, which meant the apartment building was virtually empty. Everyone had someplace to go, something to do before Monday crept around. He could see his hair sticking up in odd directions in the metal reflection of the elevator door like he just rolled out of bed.

Not too far from the truth.

He had his gloves on by the time the door opened and he rolled out. The blue button on the wall with the stick person sitting on a beanbag icon was slapped roughly. The front door lurched open and he took the ramp down to the street.

One time Church St. all the way down to Bayview Ave. and through to the Boardwalk, all that was prime property. When the wind was right, you could smell the salt water. The entire thing was on a slight slope over the aqueducts. A few streets over, people could sit behind their townhouses and small backyard and see the sunlight glinting off the water and watch ships come in.

Not anymore though. No more ships and the place was like that one block of cheese that sat in the refrigerator too long. You can cut the mold from the corner, or center to make it look good from the outside. It was all rotten underneath.

"Tong!" Came from somewhere behind him. He didn't look to see who it was.

It was a sunny day, real lazy kind of day. He slowly relaxed in spite of himself as he wheeled down the sidewalk with quick pumps of his arms and then letting the chair glide. His wheelchair was 'high performance,' if that was even a thing. Not the large, clunky type given out at the hospitals because those were built assuming that most of the time someone was around to push you. And it was built assuming its use was temporary.

Insurance payout was enough for it. Barely. He'd spent months hoping they wouldn't fleece him and leave him with a clunky old thing. They came through though, pity maybe?

Yeah.

Tong growled under his breath and sped up.

Pity.

The bus stop had just come into view when he saw them. He could feel his lip curl, but he stuffed it down. They were milling on the corner like locusts. Money changed hands, as did small plastic bags. Tong's teeth itched as some laughed too loudly, cigarette smoke turning the air hazy. Dog and tiger icons, one or two dragons and a snake.

Ignore them, he thought to himself. He tightened his grip on the wheels of the chair, the friction rasping against his gloves. Not a cop anymore dumbass. No gun, ignore them.

The bus stop was just close enough to get their attention. He could feel eyes on him and he gritted his teeth. Out the corner of his eye, packets of white powder or blocks wrapped in white paper and stamped in black ink vanished into pockets.

His fingers twitched towards his cellphone in the side bag.

Even if he called it in, what was that going to do? Brockton Bay Police Department knew better than to bust an ABB drug op, he'd have to forward it to the PRT. And he knew how well that was going to fly. No known parahuman on site.

Close but no cigar.

And they knew it too. Cautious, but he was sure they'd keep right on going once he got on the bus. A man was harassing a young woman a bit further down, across the street. It was too far to hear what was going on, but their body language said it all. Not a cop, don't do it.

The guy grabbed her arm and twisted.

Tong was already pedaling across, cursing under his breath. "This is a bad idea. The fuck am I going to do? Ram him? Bite his ankles? Shit." He sucked in a breath. "Hey! Asshole! With the dog tags!"

The woman used the distraction to break free. She froze immediately after and curled into herself after a hesitant step backwards. His response was to shove her the rest of the way into the wall.

Dick. Tong thought. He scooped up a pebble from the street and ignored the burning scrape on his fingernails. He threw it, hard. It nailed the prick in the arm and from the way he flinched, Tong knew he felt it. "Talking to you, princess!"

The man turned. "Joo gu lae!?"

Korean, Tong knew that much at least. If he had to guess, wasn't something polite. " I speak 'Murican." He tried to imitate his roommate with a cocky smile. He felt sick doing it. De-escalate. "I'm going to steal her for five minutes. You mind?"

The man's head swiveled between Tong and the woman twice. The anger bled into irritated confusion. "She good, not that good." His laugh after was grating.

Should have aimed for his head. With a bigger rock.

"I want to talk to her." Tong saw the man's expression begin to turn ugly and he held up his palm quickly. "Wait, wait." He leaned into the armrest so he could lift up his butt cheek. He fished out his wallet and pulled out a twenty. "I just want to talk to her." He offered the money.

After a moment of thought, the bill was snatched out of his hand. "Five minutes."

Tong nodded and wheeled over. Close up, he had to revise his estimate of her age. Not quite twenties, it was just the makeup adding a mature cast to her face. He'd be about six inches taller than her standing up, but he hadn't been able to really stand up in four years so he stopped a few feet away. Enough to give her space and so he wouldn't have to crane his neck to look her in the eye.

"Hey," he called softly.

Her arms were still wrapped around herself. She shivered as her head bobbed, low. He wasn't sure if she was just showing that much respect or overcompensating because he was shorter. "T-than' 'ou."

Her accent was thick and he frowned. "You're welcome." He rocked his wheelchair a little before shifting the small lever on the right wheel that acted as a brake. "Why are you doing this?" He nodded his head back at the man who took his money. "Why?"

She shrugged thin shoulders and looked away.

"Hey," he said, even softer. It coaxed her eyes back to him. "You can get out, stop doing this. If you want. I can help."

She shook, a full body shiver. "Can' leave." The 'L' was poorly formed and it just added to the sinking feeling in his gut. How long had she been here? Did she have identification?

"I can help," Tong repeated. "I've got friends at the police station," Badge #137, medically discharged thanks to his lower body paralysis, but he kept in touch. He had to or he'd have gone insane. "And the PRT if – "

She was shaking her head hard. "Can'. Lung – "

"Forget Lung." He said a bit more harshly than he intended. Hypocrite, he thought. He leaned forward. "Did she threaten you? Is someone going to hurt you if you try to leave?" He glanced over his shoulder. The man was getting impatient, tapping his heel against the street curb. "Him?"

She kept shaking and clammed up.

Tong sighed. He wasn't going to get anything if he kept pushing her. The feeling of helplessness burned at the back of his throat. He swallowed it down. "I live on Church." He pointed. "A block that way, brick outside, green door. 451b. Can you remember that?"

Her eyes followed his finger and flickered back. "Yes."

"If you want help, go there. Okay?" Her head dropped. From shame? He worked his jaw and tried to keep from grinding his teeth again. "Okay?"

"Okay." She glanced up, then past him. "'ou buy me?"

"No." He punctuated it with a chop of his hand. "Just wanted to talk. Church street, 451b. Green door. Remember. Please."

She nodded.

He tried a smile. "Stay safe."

He undid the brake and tugged at his fingerless gloves to make sure they were flush against the ravines between his fingers. He circled his thumbs and wheeled away. He'd have to let his roommate know to keep an eye out. Robin had the oddest times, but he was a good guy. Eager to help.

Tong went back to the bus stop. He met the eyes of anyone who looked at him aggressively. What are you looking at? Gonna do something about it?

For all the unity talk, no one seemed to want to lift a finger. Which was good or otherwise he would have gotten his ass kicked. Dumb, stupid, idiot.

He felt good though. He felt good.

When the bus came by, he noticed with dismay it was one of those old ones still in circulation. Only one door at the front and just stairs all the way up. The elderly man at the wheel peered out at him suspiciously, flickering over the small group at the corner before reluctantly stopping the vehicle and opening the door.

"You need help there, son?"

"No sir." Tong rolled close enough to tag the stair rail with one hand and leaned back until the front wheels were above the platform. Pulled himself in and then put his upper body strength to work crab-walking on his hands using the rails to get on board. His arms and chest muscles burned. "Ta da."

Oh god, he was going to have a heart attack -

The driver huffed and closed the door.

Tong grimaced as he approached the door at an angle. No button for the handicapped. Naturally. It was an indoor gym after all, who wants crippled people? Grunting, he pulled the door open as wide as he could without leaning too far out of the chair and dumping his sports bag. The other hand inched the left wheel forward so he turned into the door to keep it open. He dropped his right to the wheel and shoved the door as hard as he could with his shoulder and scooted forward.

It came back on him but he was through. He ignored the slight ache and wheeled in.

"Hey," he called as he approached the front desk. It had a clean-cut, blond twenty something man behind it wearing the light blue shirt with a volleyball logo and stripped sleeves. He put down the magazine he was reading.

"Can I help you?" The name tag sticker was threatening to fall off but he could see 'Dan.' Slight musculature with a slight beer belly. College kids, Tong thought.

"My friends reserved a court, you got Robin on your books anywhere?" He took his bag off his lap and reached behind him to snag it on the handlebar.

Dan flipped his chair around and pulled a white binder down from a bookshelf filled with magazines, binders and different colors and small trophies. Volleyball, basketball, badminton. "Yeah, court 3. Down the hall, take a left."

"Thanks."

Dan set the binder down and stood up. "Need any help?" He gestured vaguely at the wheelchair.

Tong ducked his head and bit his lip. "I'm good, thanks."

"Cool."

He passed two leggy brunettes in the hall, short shorts and carrying badminton rackets. He was really glad he opted to wear sweatpants so they didn't see how atrophied his legs were.

"Ladies."

The one on the left glanced at his legs, or the chair, either or. "Hi."

She kept walking.

Yeah, well, can't win them all.

The right shot him a warm smile and slowed. "Weight lifting?"

He flexed in an exaggerated macho man manner. He was damn proud of – everything but his legs. "Nah, basketball."

Her eyebrows shot up as she drifted past. "Huh."

He still had a slight smile on his face when he reached court 3. He could see through the glass doors that the guys were already there including some members of his old police unit. The smile grew stronger as he rapped on the door. Robin was easy to spot, lone black guy. He broke away from the small crowd milling around with an infectious half-smile.

Tong wheeled backwards to allow the door enough room to swing open. "I'm here."

"I would have never stopped bitching otherwise." Robin cackled and hijacked the chair over Tong's protests. "Look who rolled out of bed!"

Worst roommate ever. He left his shoes wherever he took them off, insisted on cooking things with way too much spice and was always up listening to instructional DVDs on Chinese at 3 in the goddamn morning, but - ah, who was he kidding? Someone needed to kick his ass every now and again to get him moving. Tong couldn't imagine going through that first year out of the hospital alone.

Gary, a hulking bear of a man with a matching beard and hairy arms ruffled Tong's hair. "Doing alright, kid?"

"How's the PRT treating you guys?" Tong smiled.

"You know how it is," he shrugged. "The pay's terrible but the fringe benefits are appalling." They shared a grin before Gary sobered. "Jeremy's in the hospital."

A phantom ache at the base of his spine straightened Tong's back. "What for? What happened? He going to be okay?"

"Crusader." He shook his head, smiling ruefully. "They barely got out before Krieg showed up. And you know Ranan. Another place to patrol around for the foreseeable future. Till Piggot signs off on giving the all-clear, at least."

Tong knew Ranan. Cautious to a fault, maybe, but who could blame him? Ever since that blow out that took out Manpower and nearly axed Armsmaster, everyone was on eggshells. Piggot wasn't going to sign off on clearing. Not anytime soon.

It was like the city was shrinking every day. "I'll stop by, General?"

"Bring chocolate pudding cups when you go. Would not shut up about hospital jello."

The rest of the crew were an eclectic bunch, but they were his bunch. Ethan and his wife Morgan in matching sport tees and arguing like they hated each others guts. Jason with too much money, chronic laziness and a habit of dressing up as Hercules for Halloween. The Mayor's kid Rory had been joining them lately, sometimes on the sidelines with his nose buried in a textbook but he seemed alright. There was a new face, curly brown hair and slightly tanned and Tong pointed him out.

"Name?"

"Carlos."

"Grandmother's neighbor's sister's husband's nephew." Ethan said with his usual shit-eating grin. "Twice removed."

A hero? Tong thought. It was a kind of an open secret, the big pink elephant in the room when Jason's pants or jacket would spark with white energy a bit too bright to be static when he got excited. Or when Robin got a call in the middle of making a sandwich, make some halfass excuse and Tong would read about a Protectorate dust up with the E88 or ABB in tomorrow's paper.

"You're on my team, kid." Tong double checked the straps holding his legs in place and motioned for the ball. "Robin?"

"I got your back."

"Gentlemen," Ethan began. "Prepare to get your asses kicked."

"Oh really?" His wife, Morgan crossed over to Tong's side and snagged the basketball, setting it on her hip.

The man's permanent smile died at the betrayal. "Well, shit."

"We lose, you'll never hear the end of it," Jason remarked. "We win…"

"Couch." Ethan sighed at Morgan's vicious little smile. He dug into his pocket for the quarter that set their games. "Heads." He flipped it, and opened his hand to show everyone the George Washington. "Our ball!"

It's always heads, Tong groused. How's he doing that?

They played best two out of three. His team lost, not that it was any surprise really, instead of four people they had three and a half, but he had fun and didn't feel like too much of a burden. The middle of the court was taken up by people sprawled out on the polished floor. Carlos and Rory did the water and Gatorade run to the vending machine and sacrificed Ethan's quarter for a Snickers bar.

"We should get -" Rory's voice hiccuped as he squeezed into his sweatshirt. There was a halfway point where the sleeves were just flopping all over the place and just his hair was sticking out the collar as he spoke, muffled. "Colin and Hannah to join us, you think?"

"Colin." Ethan repeated. His face scrunched up in confusion as he twisted the cap off a bottle. "Colin."

Morgan readjusted the jacket she was using as a pillow. "We can get Hannah if it's soccer."

Tong bit his lip and experimentally rolled his chair back and forth. He wouldn't be making any penalty shots anytime soon but, "I can try to swing it. Need a good field though."

(Behind him Jason and Carlos were having their own quiet conversation. "You tell your girlfriend, to tell her mother, that I got the mortgage this month."

"Thanks, how did you - "

"Eric.")

"We playing another?" Tong asked. "Best three out of four?"

Morgan groaned and covered her face with her right forearm.

"Work," Ethan said as Rory opened his mouth. The kid paused, a minute frustrated expression passed over his face before he tried again.

"Uh, babysitting my cousin."

One by one the rest of them begged off for a variety of reasons. Gary had promised to look at the garage door before his wife got home, Carlos had a school project to finish, Jason tried to nonchalantly claim he was meeting someone for drinks only to get dogpiled. Well, it was mostly just Ethan.

"Date!? You have a date? Why didn't you tell me?"

"The last time I told you anything - "

"Pfft, this is different." Ethan waved it away with the open water bottle, spilling it on himself. He put the bottle down. "Wait, is this that one girl that - "

"Yes," Jason cut him off.

"So."

Morgan lifted her arm briefly. "Behave."

"Just making a comment." Ethan held up his hands innocently. "Drinks, huh? Stop by, order something fruity with a weird name, go home?"

"I dunno, catch up, hang out. We –"

"Break the bed again," Ethan interrupted loudly in a stage whisper.

Catcalls instantly broke out. Carlos put fingers in his mouth and let loose a piercing wolf whistle. Jason stopped and turned a glare on the widely grinning Ethan as Robin playfully punched his shoulder. His lips twitched. Tong watched a flush slowly make its way up his neck into his cheeks and chuckled at the man's embarrassment.

"Look at his face!" Ethan howled. "Look at it! Look at it!"

Jason bounced the basketball off Ethan's head.

"Never gonna tell you anything."

"You're only getting that now?" Morgan teased, reaching with her free hand to poke her husband in the side. "Slow learner."

Ethan pouted.

They all dragged their feet packing up, trading jokes and news but in the end they turned in the ball and filed out of O'Reiley's Indoor Gym. "Next week?" Tong asked, trying not to sound like he was pleading. "Same time?"

Some visibly thought, others pulled out their phones to check their schedules.

"I can make it," Rory offered first.

Ethan and Morgan did their 'silent conversation' thing with their eyes. "We can make it if we push it back an hour," Morgan said eventually. "That alright?"

Tong didn't quite sigh in relief when it was.

They said their goodbyes and began to split up. Carlos hung around and raised his hand like he was in class. "Tong, right? Sorry, was just wondering," He nodded self-consciously at the wheelchair. "What happened?"

Tong sucked on his teeth. "Lung happened."

The boy flinched back in surprise. "Why?"

Something hot and ugly formed in his stomach. He angrily set the brake on his chair. "Does it matter why? Damn." He breathed, lowering his head into his hands. Easy, officer. Don't bite the kid's head off. "Look," he recovered and pretended to check over the straps holding his legs in place. "Ideally, you have superpowered assholes making trouble, the PRT or the Protectorate deals with it. What really happens is that you've got someone making the call on who's going out. Are the fire department going to respond to a fire? A patrol to divert to a 911? And you don't know what you're gonna get, till you get there."

Carlos nodded slowly. "Lung?"

"Yeah," Tong blew out a harsh breath and shifted on his chair. "Point is, it only takes one fuckup." He held up his index finger. "One hit a little too hard on a 'normal.' You ruin their life. So you," he pushed Carlos lightly. "You watch yourself, okay?"

"Yeah." Carlos smiled somberly. "I know someone, who could talk to P – " The kid grimaced. "Amy Dallon. Do you want….?"

"I - " Tong swallowed. "I'm pretty bad off." He gripped his thigh through the sweatpants and grimaced at how he could almost fit his hand around it. It was all hard, flush against the bone and tendons.

"It won't be a five minute thing, but she could heal you."

The bottom dropped out of Tong's stomach. She could heal me. Last he heard, the kid had retired from the 'lay on hands' thing. Onto bigger things. And after everything that happened to New Wave, people just…let her go. And not in a healthy way either, like she was just as broken as the rest of the ones off the roster.

There were rumors, on PHO and other places. Maybe she was.

Selfish of him to hope, but...

"That – " he swallowed. "That would be – " He stopped talking and just laughed.

Carlos laughed with him. "That a yes?"

"Hell yeah!"

Robin extended the invitation to join him and Jason down at The House. And there was nothing good to watch on the TV anyway, so he took it. A bit aways, but they had time to kill. He took a shower and put on one of his good shirts. The jeans were always a pain in the ass, no change there. After stuffing his feet into his Nike's and lacing them, he was good to go.

Jason met them a few blocks from their destination cleaned up and hair still wet. At first he was just talking and joking with them like he always did. Then he saw the big neon sign rise up in the distance and it was like it triggered hyper-awareness of his wheelchair and the other people on the street headed in the same direction. Walking on two feet.

The feeling got worse the closer to the building they got. Tong could already hear the club music beats vibrating through the walls and all he could think about were his emaciated legs and shriveled feet. He couldn't dance. The last time he got drunk he tried to pop wheelies in his chair and got horrific rug burns. On pavement. What was he doing here?

"Hey, uh, maybe I should just go home…"

"One drink," Robin insisted. "A glass, mug or shot, come on, man. Live a little."

Tong smiled weakly and let himself be pushed along.

The House used to be part of the Boardwalk tourist circuit. Unofficially. In the daytime guests from out of state toured the shops and cafe's on the waterfront, or swam in the approved areas of the Bay. Aside from that one store selling printed T-shirts it was all very PG rated, fun for the whole family.

Come sunset, you ditch the kids and/or the parents and hit up Brockton Bay's nightlife. There used to be a rave place on Lincoln, the whole thing was designed like an aquarium and shined the lights through the water. Perfect for making newcomers and lightweights puke their guts out on the sidewalk. It closed down a couple years ago. The Journal reported on it as part of a series covered the economic decline and why businesses were moving out of the city.

Tong wasn't sure why The House fared better, maybe because it was a little of everything. Pool tables, dance floor, bar with large televisions on the walls and club sandwiches. It switched hands sometime ago but no one knew who had bought it out. Mallory, the old owner still ran the place but it was real obvious something had changed.

For one thing? Lot of Asians.

"One drink," Tong muttered. Jason held open the door. The vibrations of the sub woofer escaped and made his head pulse. It didn't take his eyes long to adjust to the low light, everything was colored in hot pink. One of the back walls by the bar was covered in windows facing a large parking lot spotted with sedans and one white van close to the building.

"Am I sparking?"

"You're not sparking."

"You sure?"

"You're fine."

The House wasn't packed, but it had a good number of people at the bar and pool tables. He'd give it an hour before people had a high enough blood alcohol content to hit the dance floor. Jason was scanning the crowd and to his credit wasn't lingering on any of the more provocatively dressed women there.

Tong wasn't so lucky. The height thing was problematic.

"What's she look like?" Robin led the way past the people clogging the entrance being the tallest of them.

"Bit on the tall side. Japanese? Long black hair, brown eyes, athletic, legs like you wouldn't believe-"

Robin barked out a laugh. "Found her."

Tong followed their gazes a bit awkwardly, half a dozen people were blocking his vision but he eventually got a glimpse of an attractive Asian woman at the bar, talking to a muscle bound guy sporting an open shirt and dragon tattoo on his chest. She didn't have any icons or tattoos that Tong could see, just a plain red T-shirt, denim shorts and a jean jacket across her shoulders decorated with a cherry blossom tree. Her long black hair was swept back and pinned with an elaborate dragon clip.

He was kind of hoping the clip didn't actually mean anything.

"She got a name?" Tong asked. Please be something he didn't recognize. Please be something he didn't recognize.

"Noriko." Whew, Tong thought. Jason cracked his neck. "Excuse me, someone is chatting up my girl."

"If I have to bail your ass out of jail," Robin began. "Piggot is gonna kill us both."

Dragon-tattoo guy had his hopes crash and burn as soon as their friend stepped within her line of sight. She scrambled off her bar stool a bit awkwardly, kicking off her heels when they got caught and going barefoot, and nearly bowled Jason over with a kiss that made Tong feel like a voyeur just watching.

"Damn."

"Ichi! Ni! San!"

Tong slammed back the shot. It burned all the way down and left a tangy sweetness on his tongue. He held the shot glass out for a refill. How many was this? He squinted. Someone slapped him on the shoulder laughing uproariously - couldn't remember the guy's name but he'd been there for the last three slammers - and emptied the bottle into his glass.

He saluted Robin with it and then looked around for Jason so he could salute him too, because leaving people out was a dick move. And he wasn't a dick, there were plenty of people who were though like Kaiser! Everything about that guy screamed 'I'm a douchebag' and then he was a Nazi on top of it -

Oh hey, there he was. In the booth literally caddy corner from him, how'd he miss that? Tong raised his glass in that general direction. Not that Jason noticed. At some point, whatever conversation he and Noriko were having escalated into tonsil hockey.

Tong nudged Robin and pointed at the couple. "For happy endings!" He yelled.

The table roared in approval with him and they all downed their shots. He watched one guy get laid the fuck out trying to get up from the bar stool and was kind of glad he had his chair strapped to his ass. Tong spent the next couple of minutes counting the cars through the window and counting the people to check if they all had designated drivers, but he kept losing track. Why couldn't people just stay still?

"DUI festival," Tong concluded. 'Festival' was only slightly slurred. "Making bank."

Robin scooted the liquor bottle away from him. "Didn't do nothin', officer. Swear it."

Tong was laughing so hard he choked when the white van exploded.

There was a split second of extreme vertigo. The entire world tilted on its axis before the earth-shattering boom screamed into his eardrums. His head cracked against the floor -

Sound. Dim, fuzzy sound like he was submerged in water. Weight was on him. His head felt like it had been cracked open. He blinked open dry eyes. The back wall of windows was gone. The ceiling sagged and broke. Blood was all over the floor from the glass and more. The booths were peppered with hundreds of round holes ripping through wood, cushions and people. Tong breathed and it gurgled, a deep, sharp pain radiated out from his rib cage. His body was pinning his arm to the floor and it was cold, and sticky. And he was tired.

Where was Robin? Jason?

He blinked slowly. Then again. Black was creeping into the corners of his vision when he saw the woman stand up. He recognized her. Metal fragments pushed themselves out of her skin. She looked around.

"Help."

She heard.

Bare feet and the scales sliding out of her skin were the last thing he saw.

Last edited: Mar 31, 2015

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Shujin

Mar 31, 2015

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Shujin

Shujin

M. NightShujinlan

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She/Her

Apr 11, 2015

#2,202

Butterfly Part 2

Tonight was wasting no time in going to hell in a hand basket.

I could hear the faint tones of a lot of sirens in the distance and they were getting closer with each passing moment. Smoke created plumes of grey against the night sky in places and the fiery explosions were just a part of Coil's attack.

At the very end of the block another kind of detonation had taken place. Instead of fire the buildings and people were shredded and punctured, as if from a frag grenade or claymore. Another type of bomb had left most of the structure pristine but the people horribly burned and convulsing like an overpowered taser. Coil has a Tinker, I remembered. This could be worse. But it isn't.

Why?

Behind me Emma made a little noise. "The fuck?"

"Still think we did this?" I asked. I didn't wait for her to answer. "You should leave." I had fallen into that numb, overwhelmed state again. I was able to recognize that I was likely offloading my emotions onto my bugs but the mechanics of it escaped me. It couldn't be healthy, for me or my bugs but I was glad for it. Beating deep was a white hot rage that grew with every step I took and burned at the back of my throat.

I had already decided. When I found Coil, I would let go of my bugs. I would let the Brown Recluses, the Black Widows, the Asian giant hornets make him regret living.

Oni Lee angled his teleporting jumps towards my location and eventually popped onto the rooftop above us dressed for war with a pistol already in his hand. Emma proved to be just as aware of his reputation as I was when she took several steps back. Her 'swords' dissolved until she was shrouded completely. I dismissed her. Not worth my attention.

"You are needed." Oni Lee said. His voice was as dusty as his clones.

I continued moving my bugs through the buildings and searching for survivors. Crickets that I had crawled onto Peter directed him to any I found. They weren't very good in heat, cockroaches were better but we developed a system where he pointed at a house, apartment complex or building: if the bugs were silent, the search came up with nothing but corpses.

My crickets hadn't made a noise for the past four buildings. I didn't know any first aid. I was not sure what to do with the bleeding bodies and puncture wounds. I directed my spiders towards wrapping as many injuries in spider silk as I could while avoiding human squeamishness. I'd lost a fair number of my swarm that way.

"Lung?" I asked for confirmation.

I found a kid pinned underneath a man's body and bleeding heavily. One block, maybe two to the east. My heart leapt in my throat as I made the mental switch to the crickets. Then he stopped breathing. My crickets screamed and Peter bolted but it was too late. I -

There could be no justice for this. Only revenge.

"I'm coming," I said. I wasn't sure what I was thinking. That I needed to get away? I was doing what I could. And it wasn't enough. I needed to breathe. "Bao has prisoners. They work for Coil."

How was Bao taking this? He was out of my range so I couldn't check up on him but I could only imagine how badly this was going to shake him. I could easily recall how he had shut down after hearing about the first bombing. This was at least a hundred times worse.

Oni Lee twisted his head in the direction I indicated. "Understood." He turned back to me. "Come."

Lung's lieutenant lead me through areas that were just as bad off as the ones I'd came from. There were untouched neighborhoods but it felt like they were far and few in between. How long had Coil been planning this? How was he able to plant all these bombs? Without anyone knowing?

Then I considered just how neglected the Docks were, from abandoned warehouses empty apartment complexes. Coil had fingers in the PRT pie, did I really think buying gang members off to look the other way was hard for someone like that? It wouldn't even have to be gang members. There were plenty of down on their luck dock workers that wouldn't ask questions about a job. Thinking that made my stomach clench. He had the Undersiders rob Lung. For all I knew, that could have been the distraction for setting this up.

Game, set, match.

My bugs felt the beginnings of a wind current long before I saw Lung. It was somewhat like what I imagined being in a wind tunnel would be like. The closer we got to our destination the stronger the push and pull was to the point that it picked up light pieces of trash and set it scattering across the pavement. The temperature was rising along with the volume of a low growl that rattled my chest cavity.

The inhale whooshed past my ears and the air pressure made it hard to breathe until the exhale that pushed against us. Forget the refurbished warehouse, dragon murals and rice paper walls. This dirty alley was the entrance to the dragon's lair.

I had ducked around a fire escape when the Oni Lee in front of me dissolved to ash. I saw Kali slumped against a fire extinguisher, the singing of her vibrating metal shards drowned out by the rumble. I saw Snake with a blood flecked bandage on her hand and not smiling.

I saw Lung.

Her scales were the color of tarnished silver rippling up and down her form in triangular shaped ridges. Her legs were long and muscular and angled like the ones on a lizard tipped with obsidian claws. She was long, stretched out almost and there was nothing human left in her face. A two part jaw that snarled and horns that jutted out and back from the top of her head, shoulders and shorter, sharp spikes down her back.

Lung was at least twenty feet tall and dominating the street. The surroundings themselves were familiar even in the darkness. I slipped into some ants to make sure. The smell was the same. This was where Jing Wen lived, Noriko's mom. I looked towards the building I thought was hers. It was somewhat intact..

The front door was broken in as if someone had kicked it down and was hanging limply off its hinges. I swept the building with a few moths, expecting the worst. Her apartment still had the dragon fan above the door. That one was broken too. The apartment itself was completely empty. The elderly woman herself nowhere to be found. Where would she go? And why?

The doors were broken. She didn't leave, she was taken.

I felt like I was missing something incredibly obvious just then.

In front of me the dragon reared up and inhaled.

A warm breeze, so hot it was stifling swept past me. The heat built in the middle until it felt like I was standing in an oven, complete with the smell of smoke and dustings of ash. It wasn't until I looked up to the skyline and saw the plumes of smoke bending in our direction and shrinking that I realized Lung could do more than create fire.

I was standing in the presence of the one who shielded cities from Behemoth, grappled with Leviathan and faced down the Simurgh. Comparatively, Lung's human form was weak. This was why I feared Lung the first night I met her. You don't fight Lung with bugs. You don't fight Lung, period.

She dropped her head to my level and stared at me through one eye bigger than my head. Lung's eyes were still brown but enlarged like this and up close like I was I could see all of the in between colors on the scales of her iris. Green, orange, some yellow and darker streaks of black. The slitted pupil was rimmed with gold and I could see myself in it.

"You put out the fires," I croaked. My throat and tongue were dry from the heat radiating off her.

"'ow 'e pu' out lives." Lung rumbled. The spark of flame she always had around her head had multiplied like a swarm of fireflies. She worked her jaws and crushed the concrete beneath her feet. "Where. Is. Coil?"

"Whoa, wait, Coil.?" Kali grunted as she painfully stood up. "What does that two-bit fuck have to do with this? What about the Empire?"

"Irrelevant." Snake countered. She looked at me then with her lips pressed together until they were bloodless and looked up at the building behind me. "Company."

Lung's jaws parted as she sniffed the air. It was easy to tell the moment she caught a whiff of something she didn't like because her scales surged. They split apart into seams as she shot up another few feet. She spun in the opposite direction of where Snake was looking. "Aswang." She snarled.

Oni Lee collapsed into ash and popped up again on top of an abandoned truck. Kali barked out a laugh. "By himself?"

No. Not by himself.

"East," I said. Through the eyes of my moths I saw the man. He had ratty sneakers on and brightly colored pants, the kind that would be part of a prison uniform. No shirt, instead his chest and arms were tattooed with grotesque faces and covering his own face was a bone white mask shaped like a grimly smiling skull. Aswang, one of Lung's lieutenants.

Lisa had said he was in PRT custody, and that was all I needed to remember to know what he was doing here.

Trailing behind him was a man in bulky armor and square mask carrying a small bag.

Aswang announced his arrival roaring a few words triumphantly. Only a few, because Lung cut him off by launching down the street wreathed in flame intent on ripping him apart. He shifted and a gigantic doglike spectre with two heads met Lung in the middle. The man with the bag fired a small object from his hand just as the two smashed into each other. It was metallic and a red light blinked on it once before it detonated against Lung's side.

Oni Lee tossed a grenade of his own as Kali ripped a manhole cover out of the ground.

The explosion twisted in a strange way and when it cleared I could see a hole bored through her scales. Her blood steamed and frothed. Acid. Lung screamed and turned into a wild thrashing animal. She turned on herself with her claws to scrape and gouge her own skin out around the wound. Aswang took advantage of this. Both heads tore into Lung's neck and shoulder and they fell together against a building.

I'd seen her shatter a hand on brick to make a foothold. She was shot, twice and barely acknowledged it. This was the first time I'd ever seen Lung in pain.

Out of the corner of my eye, Snake lunged towards me. "Hachi - "

There was a sudden pull.

I had a brief moment of disorientation before I stopped listening to what my brain was trying to tell me and started taking note of my swarm. Above my dragonflies, lower than my moths. My hornets had already located me. Roof. In front of me was a man with a dark costume with a red mask and top hat like he escaped from a circus.

I was grabbed from behind with my arms immediately pulled back and pinned. Some kind of watery creature was at the other end of the rooftop.

Top hat's mouth was moving. I didn't understand a word he said. I didn't want to.

Enemy.

My swarm descended.

Last edited: Apr 11, 2015

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May 3, 2016

#2,288

Thank you all for being so patient with me! I promise that the next update won't take nearly as long, but writer's block sucks a lot. I had to resort to the 'Desperate Bastard' technique of writing this chapter backwards in order to get it done. I knew how it was going to end but getting there was the hard part. But it's done! Huzzah. Now without further ado:

Butterfly 9.5

Enemy.

Consider the dragonfly. Its large compound eyes make up the majority of its head mass giving it an almost perfect 360 degree vision. They were amazing fliers, capable of maneuvers like flying backwards or upside down. They also have a near perfect mechanism for predicting the movements of prey.

Enemy.

The light was wrong. It was too dark to be hunting. The air was heavy with smoke. The fine particles of ash irritated my eyes. Consider the mosquito. They didn't mind it. It was just dark enough and several had young to feed. I shifted one set of instincts for another. The smell of salt, fatty residue, iron. The feeling of heat and plumes of gas that living things exhale. The rooftop bloomed in silhouettes close to me, and shades further out. Air currents flowed around objects, mapping them out.

I layered it with the blue-purple tones of the dragonflies' ultraviolet sight.

Enemy.

Consider the spider. Territorial, easily threatened. Patient. The bristles on my legs were hypersensitive to movement. The origin of, the direction it was heading in. I clung to folds of cloth and substituted it for my webs. I stood still and just felt.

Enemy.

Consider the hornet.

I found the flesh of wrists and hands and neck and stung. I jerked forward as my captor spasmed, gasping. I attacked his mouth, lighting behind the teeth and stinging gums, tongue, cheek as I fell to the ground. I felt a faraway sensation of rough gravel and brick and then ignored it. A few of me died as the captor's teeth gnashed in response but I did not care. Intruders. Trespassers. Invaders.

Enemy.

I rushed the exposed skin of Top Hat's face. He backed away, screaming. For the smaller, weaker hive it was a suicide run. Pulling back from the sting ripped out their abdomens, left behind organs and entrails but the others could sting and sting and sting again. Top Hat choked on mosquitos and black flies, wretching and then-

-he was elsewhere. The floor rippled with the vibrations of something large and heavy and I heard the snarls as the beast straightened from its short fall. I remembered meeting a creature like it before, several nights ago. A monstrous dog covered in thick fur and bone sheaths. I split my attention. Top Hat was escaping. I knew where he had gone. He had not gone far enough. The chemical trails were wafting in the air. I pulled most back to hover over me protectively, but the guards that had his scent would not let him go so easily.

The man that had grabbed me had fallen to the floor and was curling himself into a ball. The hive was blocked, stinging cloth and hide ineffectively. He was hiding his face and hands. Consider the centipede. Agile, flexible, small enough to fit into the tight spaces. The gap between pant leg and sock.

I felt more than heard the sharp, hypersonic pitch of a dog whistle.

The beast leapt forward and my swarm rose to meet it. The soft spaces, the seams that split open on its skin I tore and rent with mandibles until it bled. I crashed into the eyes, stung the inside of its mouth. The creature barked and went into a frenzy, shaking its head to dislodge me.

Movement. The watery creature coiled like a spring, and then lunged. Fast. It barreled towards me on the heels of the dog. Then it was in front. I split my forces again, rushing. Biting, stinging.

Nothing but water. I was drowning.

Panic.

I pulled in more to supplement my numbers, called back the hive guards. Protect the queen!

It wasn't working.

The thing splashed over Captor, washing his body of me. I was crushed against the gravel, ground to pieces. I lost limbs, thoraxes, heads. Flickers of existence snuffed out. It rose as a tidal wave, smelling of brine and crashed down as a solid block of water. I formed a wall with everything I had. I already knew it wouldn't be enough. Moments before impact.

A blade of metal stabbed down, crunching deep into the earth as it split the wave in two.

Ally? Wary.

It reformed quickly, quick enough to spook me. Restless. I knew water. Water did not move like that. Water did not act like that. Not water. Not water.

"The fuck do we have here?" Kali rose like a multi-armed thing, blades of metal hovering around her as the queen of her own hive. Another blade lashed out and speared the dog creature through the chest. It thrashed, bleeding copiously and staining the air with the smell of iron. The frantic movements of an animal knowing it was about to die. "Trash."

The sentient water swirled away from me, back to guard its teammate. Kali glanced at me. Her expression was hidden behind her two faced mask just as mine was behind my own. I chose the small gnat to settle on her unobtrusively. Her smell was repugnant, oily. It was strongest near her metal.

"Ballsy trash."

It was now two against two. I knew I couldn't hurt something made of water, and had a feeling that Kali couldn't either. But we could definitely hurt that ass that had grabbed me. It seemed to realize that, uncoiling.

A second later, a large potted plant was swaying where the man had been. Two against one.

Top Hat.

My swarm hummed with anger. The urge to hunt the enemy down burned.

Another blade whistled through the air and the water moved, sliding around. My dragonflies followed the motion, how the water bunched up in certain spots as 'limbs' for its momentum. The gravel beneath it rolled with its weight. The stones were left only slightly damp. It was flexible, but not a single drop of water was out of place. I followed the trajectory of the metal blade. A clean miss. It crashed to the rooftop with a discordant clang to the backdrop of a muted 'whump' and new plumes of smoke on the horizon.

"Not Empire," Kali mused. "Kaiser parades every parahuman he gets. We'd have known about you."

I opened my mouth. My tongue felt like it was a sodden cotton swab and my cheeks were weighed down with lead. "Top Hat," I managed to gasp out. I wrestled back control of my mouth. I felt tired. I was exhausted and a headache was ramming the bridge of my nose.

Kali glanced at me again. "Oh yeah? Where's sun bitch then?"

The thing surged. It bulldozed through the swarm, shrugging off my every, desperate attempt. It latched onto me with an almost crushing grip, scooping me up on a mad rush to the end of the roof. I could hear Kali shout. I was being kidnapped by a fucking water monster and I was hoping she wasn't about to launch a dozen metal blades after it. We launched into the air and landed heavily on an adjacent roof. The fastest fliers of my swarm caught up quickly, pulling up alongside to bite, sting, trying to cause damage, to cause pain.

Another jump, and I pulled back to mark my surroundings. I noted the position of the moon and stars, the buildings around us. Consider the ant. Capable of navigating large distances solely by the smell of food, or other ants. I laid down the trail patiently as the thing's loping gait ate up distance. We were heading south and east.

Why me? In a group consisting of Snake, Oni Lee and Kali, why would they go after me? Because I was the least troublesome cape there? Did they know what my power was before hand? How?

In the middle of a jump, there was a slight breeze. It killed dozens of me and the thing burst apart.

I was airborne. The first instinct I pulled on, was to fly. Muscles in my back twitched. No wings. I slammed into the rooftop. My ankle rolled underneath me, sending me sprawling across fake grass and smooth pebbles. I pushed myself up to my knees as soon as I got my breath back.

The watery projection? Cape? It pulled itself together and a woman in sweatpants and a black sword in her hand was there to meet it. She vanished from my sight with a flash of black, and it burst once more. The third time, it collapsed into a large puddle of water.

The woman held her sword out towards the water, tense as if she was daring it to reform. When it didn't, I could see her shoulders start to shake.

"Nabiki?" I rasped. Whatever else she or I might have said was drowned out by a crash like a thousand car pileup, and Lung's roar. More sirens started wailing and I recognized the loud sound from roughly four years ago when Lung had first arrived in Brockton Bay. The Endbringer alarms.

I could see Lung, towering above the buildings just like on the news channel. A giant silvery serpent with hundreds of flames around her like a cloud of fireflies. But this time it wasn't Behemoth. It wasn't the Simurgh. There was no Leviathan.

Something was wrong with Lung. Her scales were tarnished with dark blood. Thick rivers from wounds I could see even from here. Her fireflies were winking out one by one. The serpent swayed, unsteady as the two headed dog leapt on it.

The heroes were coming. I thought. They had to be. More than just the local Brockton Bay Protectorate. They'd lost against Lung four years ago and I was sure they didn't want to lose anyone else fighting villains this time. My throat burned. I needed to get closer.

"Find Bao." It wasn't an order, not really. I didn't even know if Nabiki understood English at all. I only knew how to count to ten in Japanese.

"Go!" I bit out. Nabiki gazed calmly at me. The she nodded. She was gone in a flicker of black. I looked around. I was on a private patio complete with a water fountain and a mini golf course. I hauled myself to my feet and went to the fountain. I pulled my mask up just enough to let me splash a handful of ice cold water into my face. I focused on the feeling of cold water slipping down my collar and down my back.

Breathe, Taylor.

Too close. I'd been too close to losing myself in my bugs. I couldn't let that happen again. I pulled my mask back into place and looked behind me at the puddle of water. It was still. I left it.

There was a two part fire escape on my side of the building. I climbed down and flared my swarm around me in a sphere. I refused to get caught off guard again. I took off at a half jog, limping. My ankle didn't hurt as much as it could have, just enough to let me know it was injured.

I got to a good place on the edge of Chester and Peach. From above I could see that another block and I'd be neck deep in rubble. Everything was loud. I could hear Lung fighting. It sounded like two mountains colliding. I circled the condominium and found the fire escape. I scrambled up and could feel the raised grid of the stairs bite into my feet through the soft soles of my costume. I stopped on the last landing just below the lip of the roof. From my new vantage point, I could see the battle between two behemoths with my own two eyes. And it was exactly as I'd feared.

Lung was slowing down.

Aswang flitted in and out, leaping in from the ground, from the buildings around them. He struck at anything he could get a hold on before disengaging to sink into the scenery again. Hit and run. Guerrilla warfare. From the man who boldly walked up to Lung with a challenge, it seemed almost out of character. Or perhaps even he knew that he couldn't really go toe to toe with Lung for very long. He always broke off before pulling his disappearing act and he always waited until he was completely out and in the open before attacking.

If I had his power, why expose myself like that at all? Reach an arm out of the wall to rake Lung across the face then pull it back in before she found purchase. Maybe that just wasn't his style, but I was suspected that he couldn't. All or nothing.

It was nothing right now. Lung's head swayed back and forth like a cobra, searching.

The surface of a building rippled slightly, like a pebble dropped into a pond. The claws were first, silently piercing through the brick followed by thick muscled forearms. Aswang's snarling faces burst out of the glass.

"Behind you!" I cried out. I was over half a block away, there was no way she could -

Lung turned on a dime and met him head on.

Maybe she could.

I covered the surface of every building in range with my bugs as a crude early warning system. Getting close to the fight would be suicide, but if there was one thing I could do, that was it. The second he emerged, I would know.

One of the buildings my bugs settled on was occupied. I could hear the people inside through the vibrations of the glass.

"Wait, wait! There's people in there!"

Lung twisted with Aswang in her grip. I saw it before it happened. I screamed out as if that would stop it. With a brutal heave, Lung slammed Aswang into the building. The family inside cried out even louder, hoarse and disbelieving. Then the wall collapsed in, bringing down the edge of the roof onto the giant dog. Lung bore her flames down on him until he recovered, and slipped from her grasp like water. He sunk into the building silently.

For a long moment, he didn't reappear. Lung snarled and lashed out, berserk, tearing into every building around her like she could force him to materialize. My bugs died in droves as bundles of confused impulses, half of them feeling the heat and others attracted to the light they used to navigate.

I stood there on the fire escape.

Lung was still bleeding heavily, enough to have killed her several times over if she'd been human sized. She was shrinking. At first I thought I imagined it, but she was getting smaller. Instead of forty feet, she was about thirty and change now. A few minutes later and she was only twenty feet long. Aswang still hadn't made a reappearance.

Everything clashed together into a nauseating cocktail in the pit of my stomach. Where was he? What was he planning? Lung killed them. They'd been screaming for help, and it hadn't mattered. There were few things that could survive having a building collapse on them. Fewer still that could survive that and Lung's flames. My bugs hadn't. It would not be a stretch to assume the people hadn't either.

This block had escaped the bombing nearly unscathed. The wreckage that was there now, the bodies. That was all Lung.

I climbed down off the fire escape and took off at a jog. I told myself that I wanted to find any lucky survivors. I told myself that I could use my swarm to find Aswang because he couldn't have gotten far. What I really wanted to do was reach Lung. I didn't know what I would do when I got there.

My mind was racing faster than my feet were.

Lung slipped out of my natural sight, so I sent bugs ahead to make up for it.

I turned the corner and clumsily crawled across a parked car. Despite having never been in this part of town before in my life, I knew where to go. It was almost an instinct, or a reflex. The last known location of my bugs were ingrained in my mind. All I had to do was follow the path they had left. The vantage points was different, but the tastes and smells were the same.

The first street that turned in that direction was a dead end. Half a building had fallen into the street. Arachnids and insects could climb or fly over but I couldn't. The next street was relatively clear so I took it.

The street here was flooded. A fire hydrant either Lung or Aswang had stepped on was spewing water out of its top. The water was covered with a rainbow film of grease.

My dragonflies found them first. A man covered in tattoos of warped faces cracking a woman's head against a wall. She stumbled and slung a vicious right hook into his jaw. He shook it off and grabbed her. He laughed as she struggled against him. I couldn't hear what was being said. It was all just sound to my bugs and there was a lot of sound. The roar of fire, the buildings falling apart, the sirens wailing. The Filipino changer was blocking my view of Lung's face, but her movements were desperate. He threw her to the ground, then pinned her.

No.

A dark cloud fell on him, biting and stinging everything they could touch. I didn't care for the complete topological map my bugs gave me of his body, so I ignored it. He was out of his changer form and preoccupied. He was vulnerable. I didn't bother holding back and felt no remorse. Aswang roared with pain, rising up with his head already turning to see who dared.

Lung chose that moment.

There was a flash. Little more than a spark, really. It went in just behind Aswang's right temple, and came out the other side.

He paused. His head cocked like he had heard something before his face slackened and he toppled over. He hit the ground hard and didn't move.

I got there just in time for Lung to struggle to her feet.

Her black hair was long and matted with blood and dust. Her neck was torn on the right side as a ripped flap of skin plastered to welling blood. An even uglier wound had bored into her side. She was covered in cuts, each one of them sluggishly bleeding. She looked like she was in her mid twenties, maybe thirties if I pushed my estimates and quietly pretty. A small mole was at the end of her left eyebrow and her face was heart shaped. Large dark eyes and a small mouth, and one of the few women I met who stood almost dead even with my height. She didn't have a stitch of clothing on her.

She didn't have her mask. I recognized her. Noriko.

Noriko was Lung.

For a long time, I felt like my brain had simply stopped working. It had been Lung at the bus stop the next day with her mother, pointing out the burned ends of my hair. She'd known. It had been Lung that showed me the garden with the Kyushu memorial. Lung had driven me to Parian for my scarf. Yuka was friends with Lung, and she had no idea. Lung had been there in Amy's hospital room listening to us.

Noriko was Lung. I felt sick to my stomach. I kept running over the times with Noriko, viewing everything through new lenses. Lung had acted so surprised when Snake had first brought me to her office, as if she hadn't already known who I was. The Asian hornets, and the comment that Dad had helped her with her car. The flashes of amusement on Noriko's face when she told me Lung trusted her judgement. The inside jokes I hadn't got.

Lung had a terrible sense of direction and liked listening to the oldies. She drank imported tea and wore designer clothes. One giant fucking lie.

I got played for the biggest idiot on the face of the planet. If tonight hadn't happened the way it did, no one would have known any better. She'd have gotten away with it. Like she'd gotten away with it for years.

I couldn't – I couldn't handle this. Bile was creeping up the back of my throat that I swallowed back down as I took a few steps back. I couldn't even stand to look at her. I had to look at something else.

Up close, the apartment building was even more of a wreck. The wall Lung had tossed Aswang through was completely demolished. The floor above it was crumpling, the concrete base had snapped in half and was hanging down. The only thing that kept it from sliding all the way was the thick twisted steel cables that had been embedded in the concrete. The entire complex was groaning like it was in pain. Glass, brick, mortar and other debris covered the street in a thick layer. I didn't have to send my bugs in to check. I could see a human hand and forearm sticking out of the rubble. It was chalky with concrete dust and it didn't move.

"You killed them." Saying it out loud seemed to make everything more real. I could almost taste the drywall and broken steel on my tongue. I felt numb. "You killed them."

She acted like she hadn't heard me, but I knew she did. She heard me when I was half a block away. She sure as hell could hear me now.

"You're a fucking piece of shit, Lung." I licked my lips. "Or should I say, Noriko?"

Lung blinked. Her hand came up and felt her face and the lack of Lung's customary metal dragon mask. Between her fingers I could see her lips twitch. She shook her head as if in denial. Then she started laughing.

I saw red. I didn't have to give my swarm a conscious order or direction. It simply rose as an extension of me, humming loud enough to be a growl. Lung was not getting taller. She wasn't growing stronger. The bored hole in her side was leaking dark blood and clear fluid. The flesh was knitting slowly over the bones of her ribcage. Too slowly. The bite Aswang had taken out of her neck was weeping rivers. She was unsteady on her feet and her eyes were bloodshot. Bruises were flowering purple on her skin. This was the great Lung, she who fought Endbringers. Any two bit thug could take her now.

All it would take was one good shot, and she would be done. My bugs exploded forwards.

It was a repeat of the first night I had met Lung. The first wave of my insects died abruptly in a swirling flash of flame. When the fire cleared, it was clear that I had finally gotten her attention. Her lip was slightly curled and brows furrowed with slight contempt. That more than anything reminded me of the futility of it all. You do not fight Lung with bugs.

I didn't care anymore.

Even knowing what Lung was normally capable of, it still caught me by surprise. A thin white hot ribbon lashed against my right thigh like a whip. From every angle, it looked like it barely touched me. That was all Lung needed.

Everything went white, then my entire leg bloomed in searing agony that dwarfed the worst pain I had ever felt. My leg gave out and I went down screaming. The pavement was rough and warm. I desperately turned, the half-forgotten stop, drop and roll echoing in my head like a gong. The best I could manage was flopping onto my stomach with my hips still twisted upwards in an attempt to keep my leg still. I wasn't on fire. I had been burned.

My fingers scrabbled at the ground as I tried to force myself beyond the pain. I tried to focus on something else, anything else but every heartbeat sent a wave of agony. I found myself thinking of Kazuo lying on a stained wooden floor with his throat burned shut. As if drawn by the memory, several of my moths landed near me. The rest of the swarm just buzzed.

I could barely hear the sound of bare feet on warm pavement over the blood rushing through my ears. I bit the inside of my cheek, tasting iron as more of my swarm died to fire.

Lung reached down and with contemptuous ease hauled me up. The burn flared and I bit back the scream. Heat seemed to radiate from my thigh all the way up to my head, but the tips of my fingers were going numb. Shock.

"Do not do that again," she said casually. Like she was just commenting on the fucking weather. "Your only warning."

She was holding me up with one hand. Hadn't she been struggling against Aswang earlier? I knew the answer even as I asked the question. She'd been faking it. Her healing was impaired and possibly her ability to be a dragon, but everything else? She exaggerated. Played it up. She noticed the same thing I had. Aswang could only be tangible or intangible. No in between. She manipulated him into thinking he had her right where he wanted her. Gave him a reason to be out of his changer form, and incapable of going intangible.

She gave him a victim and he fell for it. I fell for it. It was all lies with her, wasn't it?

"Look around you," I rasped. Black was creeping in on the edges of my vision. I don't know what I was thinking at the time. Maybe I was attempting to appeal to my own delusion in hopes that it had ever existed. "The island is sinking. And you haven't learned a God. Damned. Thing."

A blank, disinterested expression stole over her face. That was her only reaction.

She was Madison, who looked pretty and lied expertly. She was Sophia, using her physical strength and threat of violence to get ahead. She was Emma, getting close under the guise of friendship for her own sick amusement. A bully.

That was all Lung was.

In spite of it all, I grinned. When an Asian Giant Hornet stung, it left behind a chemical trail that told other hornets to sting the same target. They would travel up to sixty miles from their hive in pursuit of prey. All it took was one.

My hornet settled lightly on Lung's bare ass. Sting, I thought and let the darkness finally carry me away.

Last edited: May 4, 2016

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May 3, 2017

#2,416

Taylor.

I was in a floating blackness that clung to me. It weighed me down like barbells around my neck in deep water. I clawed my way through it. I was asleep, I thought. A spike of apprehension told me the truth. I hadn't willingly gone to sleep, if I was even sleeping at all.

Taylor!

"Taylor!"

I jerked awake and immediately regretted it as a white-hot pain flared up from my legs. I couldn't swallow my cry of pain.

I heard someone scrabbling at the pavement, gravel and debris, from several angles. There was a strange delay, like my ears had been detached from my head. More vibration and direction, before my brain told me what I was hearing. It sounded like canvas and rubber. That person grabbed me, carefully around the shoulders.

"Taylor?"

I coughed once. I could feel air on my face. My face itself felt raw and flushed, like I had a fever. "Bao?"

"Oh thank god."

I blinked slowly. The temptation to fall back asleep clawed at the back of my mind. "Where's my mask?"

"You – " Bao was looming over me with his face half in my line of sight as I stared straight up. The sky was dark and littered with stars. How long had I been out? Long enough, I thought. Bao looked like he came straight out of a war-torn hellhole. His camo jacket was grey with dust about the shoulders with some in his hair. He was bleeding from his right temple. A red stream curving around his cheekbone to his chin where a drop hung stubbornly.

Aswang hadn't bled when Lung killed him, came the sudden thought. Fire cauterizes.

"Taylor," Bao breathed. He reached for my face and I flinched back before I felt his fingers poke my forehead. Then he slid his hand up and I heard a small snap. When he pulled his hand back, he let me see the piece of what looked a lot like melted plastic in his hand. "You're still wearing your mask."

My hand snapped up and grabbed the plastic from him. It was yellow, the same color as the goggles I'd incorporated into my mask. I tossed it away with a sinking feeling in my stomach. With that same hand, I felt my face.

The only part of my mask still intact was the lower left side. The right; the chitin, the spider web, the plastic was dust and misshapen lumps. It began just under my hairline and stretched down and diagonally. The skin underneath felt badly sunburned. I clapped my hand over my face. It wasn't a perfect fit. My fingers were too long, or maybe it was my palm that was too big.

Take someone with a slightly smaller hand with the fingers splayed, like they had reached down for my face with a heat hot enough to melt plastic and ignite spider silk just from proximity.

Lung.

I swallowed thickly and it tasted bitter.

"Did you think I was dead?" I asked quietly.

Bao flinched back. "What?"

"Did you think I was dead?" I repeated, louder. I wanted to shout. I wanted to scream. "You thought I was dead. You were scared I was dead. You thought Lung killed me, because you know she would."

Looking straight at him on my back, I could see the way his eyes flickered to the side. "She didn't."

He didn't even try to deny it. My fucking hero. I should have known. I should have listened, should have noticed the obvious. ABB was a gang. Its members were criminals and villains. Murderers, psychopaths and rapists.

"That makes it okay?" I was not going to cry. I'm fresh out of tears. Crying had never done anything for me anyway.

Lung had considered killing me. The woman who stood against Endbringers almost murdered me, a girl that controlled fucking bugs because I said strong words and attacked her with bees.

Bao's lips pursed. He searched my face. I don't know what he was looking for.

"No," he said eventually. "It's not okay." He shifted to look below my waist at my legs. "Can you stand, you think?"

In answer to that I forced myself to sit up. The immediate punishing pain from my leg made me snarl.

"You'll," I hesitated for only a moment. "You'll have to help me up. It hurts."

"Yeah," Bao said, subdued. "Yeah, I bet it does. Here." He shuffled closer, looping an arm around me back and under my arm. "On the count of three."

"Okay." I steeled myself and started the count. "One – "

Bao stood, dragging me upright along with him. I didn't have time to curse, spit, or do anything except scream.

For a second.

In desperation, looking for an escape from the pain, I fled myself again.

When I had a hornet sting Lung, I knew the chemical trail would make the others attack even without my conscious direction. That was what drones, the warriors and defenders of the hive did. It was instinct for my hive to attack, to sting. Instinct for all but one. The reason the hive existed, the very thing the drones defended.

Along with my dragonflies, my mosquitos, my beetles, my centipedes, my gnats and fireflies, there was a giant hole in my perception. My swarm was lacking, vulnerable. My hive was weak, but not dead. Lung hadn't burned them all.

Buried in my collar against the pulse of my neck, I found the Asian Giant Hornet's queen.

"Shit. Taylor?"

Vibration. The mosquitoes saw the plume of warm carbon dioxide leave Bao's mouth.

"Still breathing, that's good." He shifted, freeing a hand to dig into one of his pockets and come up with a cellphone. The luminous light from the screen tempted a few of my moths to drift closer. "Burns, burns, third degree? D-e-g-r-e-e," his thumb skittered across.

I couldn't read. I could see the small dark shapes of the letters and pictures on the touch screen, but they refused to make any sense to me.

Bao blanched and violently swiped his thumb before tapping three times. He put the phone up to his ear.

"Fucking busy? 911? Are you fucking shitting me?" He shoved the phone into a random pocket. "Can't stay out here, I need – fuck, I – " He crouched again and in one swift motion picked my body up in a bridal carry. I didn't have it in me to feel any embarrassment. I was just numb. On the outside watching from several hundred insectoid eyes.

A catatonic episode. That's what the psychiatric hospital told dad after the dumpster. They kept me there for two weeks with pills for anxiety on the side of every meal tray. They wanted me to talk about it. How I got there, how long I was locked in there, the smell, the feel, the bugs.

I remembered Bao's visit back when I thought I could drop off the face of the earth, and Winslow wouldn't even miss a step. It hadn't been a long visit, or particularly productive. I had a lot on my mind, and wasn't all there, but I think that was the start of this stupid crush.

Bao carried me the nearest intact apartment building. The outer wooden door had been left ajar, probably from people fleeing the site of Lung's clash with Aswang. He shouldered his way in and eyed up a closed apartment door. He grunted dismissively, and moved to the next.

"Okay. One, two." He sucked in a breath as he took a step, brought a leg up and slammed the sole of his steel-toed boot into the door, right above the knob. There was a loud crack. He rebalanced my weight and kicked again. It took a third before the door splintered around the knob. A fourth kick. The door broke. Bao glanced up at the cloud of bugs hovering near him.

"Taylor?"

Sound was just vibrations. Few of my bugs made sounds on their own, like crickets or cicadas, but the hum of beating wings was hard to mistake. How to manipulate that without my bugs suddenly lacking the lift to even fly was something I'd have to figure out later. For now, I just made everything louder in answer.

"You're what? Projecting?"

I buzzed louder again.

Bao let out a low whistle as he pushed the broken door open with his knee. "Cool shit."

He placed me on the couch and dug out his phone again. "Elevate burn, cool it down, watch temperature. Shock." He grimaced and got moving.

I watched him soak dish towels in cool water while he loudly rummaged through the kitchen drawers. I only found out what he'd been looking for when he made a triumphant 'ah ha' and held up a pill bottle.

"Painkillers."

He brought the towels back to me in a bowl and dug through more pockets for both a butterfly and swiss army knife.

"Sorry," he apologized as he cut spider silk and chitin off my thigh. "It's a nice costume."

It was a nice costume.

Why was he doing this? Why was he going out of his way to try to treat the burn Lung gave me? Why was he even here? Had he been looking for me or did he stumble across my unconscious body? Why did he act like he cared?

I wished I knew how to make my bugs speak for me. He yelped when I made the Asian Giant Hornet queen crawl out from under my collar into my hair, but not once was Bao anything but…Bao. Even knowing what I did, it was harder than it should have been applying it to him.

"Not gonna lie, it looks bad." He rattled the pill bottle. "Can you?"

I didn't answer. I wanted to see what he would do when I didn't comply. I wanted to see how he would react.

The answer was nothing. He nodded his head as if I had spoken, set the pills on the ground by the couch, pulled out his cellphone and walked away. I waited longer. His footsteps stopped in the next room over. A few moths saw his outline by the window, an arm up leaning on the glass as he looked out at a smoking skyline, phone up to his ear.

I didn't know how to retreat into my body. I compressed my attention to just one bug, my hornet queen. She was tired, and strangely skittish. It was like she knew her hive was gone. I made her relax. My head was warm, and my hair blocked out the light enough to feel like she was in the nest.

When she fell asleep, so did I.

I woke to the sound of Bao snarling at someone. I was myself again. My face felt like it had been scraped raw with a steel sponge and the less said about my leg, the better. The less I could feel from it, the better. I leaned and scooped the bottle of aspirin from the floor. I jammed three into my mouth as Bao passed the open doorway, still on the phone. He growled, looking at it like he was about to throw it, before violently dialing.

He caught sight of me. His eyebrows raised as he hung up. At some point, he'd bandaged the cut on his head.

"Hey."

I nodded. "Who was that?"

He frowned. "You're shivering."

I didn't feel cold. If anything, I felt uncomfortably warm. Bao disappeared deeper into the apartment before clomping back with blankets and a tiny electric heater.

"I'm not cold," I pointed out.

"That's even worse," he said as he tossed a blanket on my face. "Pile these on, doctor's orders."

"Who, you?"

"Don't disrespect Dr. Google."

I did as asked, grinding my teeth at every bump my burned leg endured. It didn't hurt as badly as before. I could only assume the wet towels had leeched some heat from the burn. It looked terrible through the giant cut tear in my costume's legging. It was a neat line across my thigh, burned brown. The skin around it was inflamed with blistering, peeling and weeping sores. Third degree, I thought. It was going to leave a scar.

Maybe that's what Lung wanted.

A reminder.

"Should have been paying more attention," Bao muttered as he angled the heater at me, balanced on the end of a coffee table. "Feel any better?"

"I don't hurt as much," I admitted. "You're not going to tell me who was on the phone, are you?"

Bao turned away from me, running a hand through his hair. Then he turned back. "Xuan, one of the responsible guys. I needed – I was confirming something."

"Bad news?"

He sighed. "Yeah, bad."

My bugs were crawling all over the walls by my couch. The apartment was a modest one with cheap furniture and a few wall hangings made of rice paper. The linoleum floor was mostly white, but it yellowed around the edges from age. It smelled of cigarette smoke.

"How bad?"

"It wasn't just us." My stomach clenched at his use of 'us.' He meant ABB. "A few explosions downtown, E88 territory. Tried getting a hold of fucking Peter." Bao blew out an explosive breath. "He was supposed to protect you, I told him – "

"From Lung?" I interrupted.

Bao went quiet. He opened his mouth, then closed it shaking his head. "Hospital was hit too. Min said Amy's not answering her phone."

The hospital. Amy. Lisa.

Coil.

"Where's Lung?" I demanded.

"I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?" I laughed and it came out harsh. "Hard to miss a fucking dragon."

"I don't know!" Bao snapped. "Oni Lee doesn't know. Kali doesn't know. Snake isn't answering, I don't fucking – " He spun and slammed a fist into the wall. "Fuck!"

He breathed heavily, leaning into the wall. His forehead hit it with a light thump. "Just – fuck."

The last time I saw Lung, she looked badly hurt and wasn't healing nearly as well as I knew she could. Something about the bomb that had drilled into her side. Something Aswang did. Something Coil did. She had played at being weak, but she couldn't fake the bleeding. Lung got bigger, got stronger in a fight. What if she wasn't fighting? What if she was just laying low, licking her wounds now?

She could break and enter a random home, grab clothes, hide among the crowd as just another injured face.

Because no one else knew who Lung was underneath the mask.

"We need to find her. We need – "

"I know where she is," Bao said. His voice was slightly muffled from the wall he was leaning against. "Lung's, gone, Taylor."

He straightened and turned towards me. He ran a hand down his face. He looked exhausted, I realized. Dead on his feet.

"Heroes came. She didn't fight, okay?" He shrugged one shoulder. "She didn't fight."

You don't fight Lung with bugs. You don't fight Lung, period. I had never considered, hardly even acknowledged it was possible, that Lung would be the one that chose not to fight. Lung in custody? Captured? The woman who stood against Endbringers? Who once took on the entire Brockton Bay line up of heroes and walked away? That Lung? I opened my mouth. To say something? To protest? To express disbelief? I don't know. Whatever it was, it didn't come out.

Lung was ABB.

For the second time that night, my world had turned upside down.

166

Shujin

May 3, 2017

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