Snek bit off more than it could chew.


Everybody say thank you to Milarqui on Spacebattles, he made us a TV Tropes page! https (:) (/) (/) (/) pmwiki (/) (/) Fanfic(/) IncenseAndPowderedDiamond (remove parentheses and spaces).

So, uh… I'm not sure what else I've published between last chapter and now, between my muse getting flighty and other stuff finally ramping back up. We'll see when I write the end note, I guess.

For the people who keep asking about why Coil would move so overtly… a couple of reasons. One, he expected Trickster (known Ziz bomb and all around reckless ass) to use subtlety and make it look like she went out for a night away or something, which he didn't. Two… he's actually not as careful as you might think? Like, I get the fandom has made him out to be this memetically competent plotter who operates at three levels of remove and only Contessa can outplot him, but like,,, he's not. He goes after Dinah in both timelines with the bank robbery, and he had no reason to really expect that outing the Empire and blaming the Undersiders wouldn't push Tattletale to fucking him over. His men also got compromised by Tattletale, in presumably a manner slow enough for him not to notice. He's not that good, y'all. Also… well, you'll see.


It was perhaps uncharitable of Taylor for her first reaction to her first date being interrupted to be annoyance. However, that quickly faded away as she realized that there was a genuine emergency, and given the way that Vicky had reacted, it was almost certainly an attack on Panacea, and… well, even if New Wave's healer's powers had become vastly more suited to combat, she lacked the experience using those powers to their fullest and the instincts combat would instill in any cape.

A part of her absently wondered if it was just divine knowledge through one of her domains that let her think on all that. The rest of her was too busy with another thought, much scarier than the rest.

Was this a single attack against New Wave… or were there other targets?

A moment of travel later and Taylor discovered that no, it was not, in fact, a single attack, judging by the forced door and broken mug of coffee in the kitchen.

The sound of wood splintering had Taylor looking around for an assailant until she realized that, in her anger, her hand had closed on the doorjamb, exerting force far beyond what a normal human could, and she forced her fist to unclench.

"Odin," she said, forcing her physical reactions to her emotions away from herself, through the link to the Administrator and the insects it controlled. "Coil's work?" She eyed a small, circular scorch mark surrounding the melted lock, almost as if it had been hit with a laser weapon.

"More than likely," said the mostly-dead god.

Taylor sighed, then clenched her jaw, chainmail and helmet appearing between one heartbeat and the next before she started drawing power into herself.

"This means war, then," she said, ansuz slowly searing a permanent impression into the inside of her eye patch.

"Aye, so it does," said Odin. "Now then, lass, I suggest you meet up with miss Dallon. She's likely to be hoping for your aid in recovering Panacea."

Taylor nodded, absently flicking an instance of odal at the house as she left to repair it before she moved, raido guiding her journey.

As she passed into the Dallons' neighborhood, something impinged on the odd sense of awareness she had from the proprioception of the bugs she could control.

She'd spent far less time working with the Administrator's powers than she had the runes, but she'd spent enough time to be able to use the physical bodies of the bugs to extend her sense of touch, on a crude level. As such, she felt the paper airplane squish a gnat before landing perfectly in her hand.

Taylor paused for a moment to read the writing on the wings. On one, there was an address in the commercial area (or at least what passed for one in Brockton Bay), and on the other, three words, both in the overly perfect handwriting of a middle schooler who'd been teased about it before.

Kick his ass.

"I see the hand of a seer in this," said Odin, brow furrowed. "Act with caution."

"Perhaps… perhaps they were to be Coil's target, and our intercession would protect them from his actions?" Taylor asked. "He targeted a bystander in a way that very few villains would be willing to stoop to, so that might be something they have foreseen."

"Possible, I suppose. Regardless, verify the information before you commit your force to remove him."

"I will, but any lead is better than no lead," replied Taylor, folding the paper airplane on itself and slipping it into a belt pouch before she started running again.

Thirty seconds later, she found herself standing outside the Dallon house, staring at the gaping hole where the door had been.

"Ta- Volur!" Glory Girl came barreling out of the door. "She's gone and the door on her room was forced."

"My dad's gone too," Taylor replied.

"Fuck," said Glory Girl.

"Indeed."

"I don't have any better news. Eric's phone is off, Crystal is plastered, and all our parents are out in Boston, so we're on our own, really."

"Fuck."

"Indeed," replied Glory Girl.

Taylor sighed, then shook herself. "Alright, here's what we're gonna do. You need to call in to, like, the Protectorate, and let them know what's going on. I've got a lead, maybe, and if it pans out we can come down on them like fucking Mjölnir. If not… we'll burn that bridge when we come to it."

"Sounds like a plan."


About halfway between the Dallon house and the address Taylor had, Glory Girl hung up the phone rather angrily.

"Bad news?"

"Definitely. The Undersiders riled up the Empire, so they're running around all dick swinging, and Lung's fighting the Butcher again, so Protectorate forces are all tied up, and the Wards are benched because it's too hot to field them."

Taylor frowned. "Coil has… more resources than I thought."

"Yeah… Hey, what do you want to bet he's got the Travelers moving on someone too?"

"No bet, he's… actually, if he got the Travelers from Accord, he might be using them as a defensive measure to hold his prisoners, since they're such strong deterrents. I mean, between Sundancer and Ballistic, they've got enough firepower that anyone this side of the Butcher would at least hesitate about attacking them, and Genesis and Trickster are both a pain in the ass to handle for different reasons. So… even odds that they're holding territory or in his base," said Taylor.

Glory Girl sighed. "Of course he's got the walking sun and artillery piece in his corner."

"If I could tell you for sure I would, but we're a little outside my sen- oh, gods damn it," Taylor swore, fists clenching.

Before Glory Girl could ask what it was, a pair of figures rose from behind a row of houses, standing on a ragged shape that revealed itself to be a chunk of asphalt as it moved into the light of the downward-facing streetlamps.

One of them was a girl, relatively petite and dressed in a red and black robe that hit a great number of the trappings of a generic magic user while managing to be vaguely menacing in a nonspecific way. The other was dressed in a long gray coat, vaguely reminiscent of a SS uniform, and a gas mask that resembled the older style associated with the World Wars.

"Frau Dallon, Frau Volur," said Krieg, his voice a deep, resonant baritone. "I have heard that you are looking for someone."

"Fuck you, Nazi," snarled Taylor indignance at their stealing the Norse symbols mixing with her general negative feelings for Nazis. "Get out of our way."

Krieg tutted. "Such impoliteness, mein Fraulein." He turned to Glory Girl. "Surely you would appreciate some… aid, shall I say, in retrieving your sister?"

"Fuck off," the blonde snapped, flaring her aura. "I don't need you trying to pull a Fleur on us."

"Ah, such disrespect, for those of us who only wish to aid the community by… securing the safe return of the great healer Panacea. Unfortunate, but given your response to our… community organization… it is perhaps to be expected, if disappointing. I would have thought that such a paragon of the Aryan race to have had better judgment, but we all must have our flaws," said the Nazi, no small amount of smugness in his voice by the end.

"Listen here, níðingar," snarled Taylor, lightning crackling around her right hand. "If you don't step aside, I will go through you, and you can ask the Simurgh how that's going to go for you."

Rune paled, taking a step back, while Krieg's body language changed to be more imposing. "Are you sure you want to make such a… drastic decision? We have many resources that we could turn to the aid of our allies… or the detriment of those who spurn us."

"Anyone who tries to stand between us and the task of finding Panacea is no ally." Taylor raised five fingers. "Last chance. Five. Four," she counted.

"We will remember this," said Krieg, signaling Rune. The girl looked very relieved as the hovering platform of asphalt moved away, and it sped up once they were out of the two heroes' direct line of sight.

"Mom's gonna be pissed, she's the one who insisted that we not commit suicide by trying to get revenge for Aunt Jess by fucking with the Empire." Glory Girl paused for a moment, then chuckled. "She's not here to get pissy, so she can cope."

Taylor chuckled. "That sounds like it's very likely to piss her off."

"I mean, yeah, but on the other hand, Amy's fucking missing and she isn't here. Until I get my sister back, I don't give a shit what she does. She can ground me all she likes for pissing off a Nazi, after we get Amy back." She frowned. "You know, I get the feeling that something might be… a little bit off about her being so weird about the Nazis."

"Think about it later," said Taylor. "Unless Kaiser was dumb enough to kidnap her, but it's almost certainly Coil."

"Yeah, I can't believe that Clausewitz and Victor would be dumb enough to try it, and Kaiser wouldn't go against their strategic guidance that poorly. Even Hookwolf wouldn't do it, if only because he doesn't care about Amy enough," said Vicky.

"That's what I thought." Taylor nodded decisively. "Alright, let's go."

The duo continued, and once they arrived at the base of a skyscraper that Vicky recognized as the Fortress Construction main headquarters, Taylor sighed.

"Good news, the tip I got was right on the money. Bad news, I think there's a fairly high-powered Thinker who's royally pissed off with Coil that might want to have a conversation with us later. I'm not sure how exactly they're going to affect the power dynamics in the city but it's worth keeping in mind going forwards," said Taylor, already scouting out the underground complex that was Coil's base with the Administrator's bugs.

"Coil, then," said Vicky, cracking her knuckles. "What's the disposition of the forces in his base?"

Taylor raised an eyebrow at the language used, eliciting a faint blush from the Alexandria Package, but continued nonetheless. "He's got like twenty mercenaries spread across his base, mostly lightly armed, and a group of people in cape costumes next to a sealed vault I can't get any bugs into- wait, no, they're opening the vault now, and I think Amy's going in now."

"What's in the vault?" asked Vicky. "And, more importantly, where's the nearest entrance to the fucker's base so we can get Amy back?"

"This way," said Taylor, jogging into the parking garage. "And… not sure. I think there might be some sort of weird Case 53? Whatever it is, it's fucking with my bugs something fierce."

"I hope it doesn't hurt Amy before we get there," said Glory Girl, following Taylor approximately six feet off the ground.

"Agreed," said Taylor. Then, after a moment of jogging, she stopped in front of a featureless concrete wall, and a swarm of various bugs coalesced on the wall with a rectangular hole in the center. "Here's the door, feel free to knock as hard as you want."

"With pleasure."

The door slammed into another wall with a loud "WHAM!" and the duo continued forwards, prepared for combat.


Whatever Amy had expected from the capes that had been dumb enough to kidnap her, she wasn't expecting… this clusterfuck.

"So, let me make sure I'm understanding this correctly. You have a Case 53 friend whose power is… broken, and you need me to see if I can heal them, is that correct?" she asked, ignoring Coil entirely to face the draconic projection that had been the one to kidnap her.

"Yeah, you got that right," said the man who had introduced himself as Trickster, the leader of the Travelers.

"Okay, cool. Why the fuck should I help you with this?" she replied, surreptitiously reinforcing her muscles, ligaments, and bones in case she would need to fight her way out.

"Because," said Coil, "if you do not, I will have Mark Dallon and Danny Hebert shot. How would your sister and Volur react when they found out that you caused their fathers' death?'

Panacea pressed her lips together angrily, and she started to construct a biological dart launcher vaguely similar to an animal she hadn't seen before and yet knew intimately in her arm. She took a moment to consider what it should be using before deciding to replicate the sedative that Genesis had used on her even as she produced a counteragent for that sedative in her own body.

"Fine. On your own head be your choices, Coil," she spat. Then, she turned to the girl with a starburst on her helmet who had been sitting in the back of the room, looking to avoid notice, and stood up. "Lead the way, miss."

She made a sound vaguely like a startled kitten, then pushed herself up and seemed to almost flee the room. Amy followed her, and their journey ended at a large, circular vault door.

"Noelle?" asked the girl, tapping at a screen on the wall.

"Mars? What's going on? I thought you guys were out on a job?" came a tired girl's voice.

"We were," said the girl, now identified as Mars. "We just got off the job, and we managed to get Panacea here to see if she can help you."

"Really?" The exhaustion in Noelle's voice vanished behind raw, unadulterated hope.

"Yeah, really." Mars tapped the screen one last time and the vault door slowly, ponderously swung open.

Then, she turned to Panacea. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. I told them not to try this, but Trickster insisted."

Panacea gave the girl another look, this time allowing her power to expand from her body and cover the other cape to better assess her. Her body language was… mostly tired and downtrodden, but there was a certain degree of apology in her eyes, under her helmet. Furthermore, her neurochemistry was all off- stress hormones indicative of chronic stress, hormones associated with fear, and an odd deformation of a number of regions in the brain that either decreased or increased their function in a way that suggested a Master effect.

"I accept your apology," said Amy, mentally recategorizing Mars from villain to Master victim in her head and abruptly un-deforming the other girl's brain. Then, she walked into the vault, the red-and-black-clad girl following behind her.

Then, she stopped, gobsmacked, as she saw the girl in the vault.

A writhing pile of heads, limbs, tentacles, and other fleshy protuberances sat in a far corner of the vault, visibly paying attention to the two new entrants. On top of the chimeric body was a relatively attractive woman with straight brown hair, who waved upon seeing her.

"Hi. I'd offer to shake your hand, but, uh… I'm not sure that touching you would be that great an idea, given what my other half does."

"Well then," Panacea said, pinching the bridge of her nose, "let's see what we can't do."

As it turned out, quite a bit. While she couldn't deal with Noelle's power mutating her body, since that was far beyond her domain, she could probably clear away the influence of whichever Master fucked with her head, and maybe deal with the ravenous hunger of the separate minds in her lower half. Ideally, she could bind the brains of the things in her lower body to those in her upper body, but that was exploring mostly-unexplored territory (while there were species with distributed brain networks, both on Earth and wherever the god her power came from had been, but never to this degree).

She took a moment to marvel at how recent events had altered her relationship with using her power on brains- even a month ago, she wouldn't have been willing to even touch half of the issues that Noelle had.

Once Panacea had relayed the information to Noelle and Mars, the pair readily agreed to allowing Panacea to use her power on her to fix things.

For the first five minutes, everything went okay. The Master influence on Noelle's human brain was easy to clear away, relatively speaking, but the hunger for flesh was abiological, and Panacea had to manage multiple different brains at the same, hardening them against interference from Noelle's corona in order to discourage the hunger from being acted upon.

Then, at almost the same time that something above went "thump", something else took over the lower half of Noelle's body, and things went to shit.

Before Panacea could freeze the body, two tentacles lashed out and wrapped around both her and Mars, paralyzing them somehow (not biologically- maybe tactile telekinesis? some small part of her mind said) and yanking them into the fleshy body.

A brief aside on why this is the timeline Coil kept.

Ordinarily, Coil would have kept a timeline where he kept Amelia Dallon from Noelle Meinhardt, and in fact he did. However, in this case, he had managed to step on the world's premier biokinetic's buttons enough that she used conotoxin instead of a sedative in the dart that she inevitably launched at Coil. As such, his other timeline collapsed, and once he split timelines again, he didn't have the chance to call Panacea away from Noelle before she was consumed.

Returning to Panacea, in any other situation, she would have brought her considerable power to bear against Noelle's lower body and paralyzed it completely.

As it stands, however, she was too busy watching Vicky bleed out in front of her, in various situations one after the other after the other, for the shard connected to the Division vial to pump out copies of Amy Dallon.

They weren't stronger than her, by any stretch of the imagination, but they were connected to her divine power in a way that would allow their own power to grow (which would in turn grow hers, which wouldn't help her now), and that was perhaps more concerning.

Either way, when the mutated clones of both Sundancer and Panacea started to exit the vault through the still-open door, it was already an A-class threat on its own merit, and Coil swiftly sounded the alarm to evacuate the base.


And that's that!

So, as it turns out, I didn't finish any of my plot bunnies. I did write an omake for Inheritance, but no plot bunnies.

Also, the last part of the chapter kinda blew up on me, lol.

Remember to check out the gay wormfic discord! https (:) (/) (/) gaylor (remove spaces and parentheses)

That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!