So yeah.  It worked.

Ahaha

Clockblocker had been in the lead of the group as we’d all headed toward the elevator, and had been delayed by the fallen PRT uniforms and his collapsing teammates.  His costume covered his entire body, preventing the bugs from getting to him, so once he got past his allies, there wasn’t much to get in his way.

Ah, right, there was that whole outfit swap back in Agitation. Taylor’s approach back then wouldn’t have worked without that.

I mean, she could still swarm him and trick him into freezing bugs all around him, though I think he’ll be prepared for that tactic this time. “Fool me once, holy shit my orifices are full of time-stopped bugs somebody help me. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

He charged straight for Grue, and Grue responded by shrouding his immediate vicinity in darkness, though he couldn’t do much else.  One of Flechette’s bolts had nailed the sides of one of his boots to the ground – the other shot had missed, maybe because she couldn’t see his foot and hadn’t wanted to put a spike through his actual flesh.

Ah. I thought for a second that some Imp shenanigans were going on here, but looking back, the narration didn’t actually specify that the second shot definitely hit, and it was reasonable for Taylor to assume it did.

I had discovered that I could use hair spray to coat the abdomens and stingers of my bugs, and then dip said abdomens and stings into some of the capsaicin.

Hah! I was right!

She might not have found a defense, but she did find a way to improve the offense.

With a bowl of each in liquid form and two single file lines of bugs, I could dose a fair number before I went out in costume.  It did wind up killing some of the less durable ones eventually, either through the hairspray obstructing breathing or the capsaicin getting on the bug, but the end result was that I’d stumbled onto a weapon while trying to experiment with defenses.  I had figured out how to use my bugs as a delivery mechanism, smearing pepper spray onto fresh stings and bites.

I love it.

I could jam their abdomens into people’s noses, mouths and eyes to cause intense burning and pain to the point that it made them nauseous.

“Getting bugs in your nose, mouth or eyes wasn’t uncomfortable enough.”
– Taylor Hebert, 2k11

Flechette screamed, falling to her knees, her hands to her face.  One of the PRT uniforms that was holding me let me go to stagger blindly toward the front desk.  I struggled to get away from the other one, but he held me tight even as he bent over, threatening to topple to the ground with me beneath him.

Damn nice work, Taylor.

Also jeez, imagine if she’d done this before the Clockblocker fight in Agitation.

I’d stepped back and let my bugs do the work while I recovered.  After the fight had wrapped up and I’d headed back to a shelter in my civilian guise, I’d been left to consider the fact that my bugs were vulnerable to the pepper spray.

Hm, I see.

By all rights, I should have been alerted to that fact the night I sprayed Velocity at the fundraiser, but I hadn’t been able to keep that many bugs on him, then, and I’d had many, many other distractions at the time.  It had escaped my attention.

Yeah, that’s fair.

While sitting up all night at the shelter, with kids crying and wailing and assholes making noise to intentionally piss off the other hundred people in the room, I’d had time to think.  The next morning, I’d woken up, donned my costume and started experimenting to see if I could protect my bugs somehow.  Pepper spray was only one thing.  I was bound, sooner or later, to go up against someone who used some kind of bug spray or gas on my tiny minions.

Yeah, especially as you and your power get more well-known.

I wonder if Danny has heard of Skitter.

Had I found a solution?  Not so much.

Fair enough… it’s a bit of a tricky task to make defenses for the bugs.

The bugs found their way to Vista, Flechette, and Kid Win, the only young heroes with exposed skin, at roughly the same time as they managed to get beneath the masks and protective clothing of the two PRT uniforms that were holding me.

Nice.

At first the teenaged heroes swatted at themselves and backed away, as was usual.  The ‘fun house mirror’ distortion at the exits stopped spreading as Vista’s concentration broke, and Flechette dropped one of the small lengths of pointed metal that she’d been withdrawing from her belt.

Excellent. Fun house mirrors are one thing, but space actually being warped like that makes things kinda hard to navigate, and it does seem like the Undersiders are trying to get inside for some reason.

Then Kid Win cried out, his words raw and barely intelligible because he was also screaming as he shouted them, “It burns!”

The bugs’ doing, or is Imp doing something involving a firey power?

(Who’s Imp again?)

Capsaicin was the chemical that made hot peppers burn your tongue.  It was also the active ingredient in pepper spray.  I’d used pepper spray a few times, myself, and I’d had it accidentally used on me when I’d been out in costume, rather recently.

Ouch.

So what, did you have the bugs bathe in pepper spray before going out to sting or even just walk on your enemies?

At the time, I’d stepped in to help fight back a crew of the Merchants up near the old Boardwalk.  They’d been aiming to loot the stores, and a contingent of people who’d created an armed force in the ruins of the upscale shopping district had stepped up to fight them off.  One of the defenders had sprayed a looter, and caught me in the effect as well, maybe intentionally.

Hm. I have a feeling this isn’t the last we’ll be hearing of that armed force. I’ll be more certain of that if they get a name, though.

I’d known I wouldn’t be able to bring many bugs, and that it would be difficult to get more on site with a clean, sturdily built structure like this one.  I could gather a swarm, but it would be a few minutes before the bugs arrived en-masse.  I might have started sooner if I hadn’t been so concerned about alerting someone and giving us away.

Ah, yeah, if they arrived too early, it might set off some warning bells.

The nine hundred and seventy bugs that poured forth were roughly equal numbers of bees, wasps, spiders, mosquitoes and cockroaches.  It was a smaller number than it sounded like, and their deployment was slower because of the way I had them arranged, stingers and abdomens carefully kept out of contact with one another.

So about 194 of each. Yeah, considering how quickly bugs tend to get roasted or otherwise killed en masse in this story, that’s not all that many. Fortunately, Clockblocker is the only Ward with a good way to take out lots of bugs, and I’d imagine he’d want to be careful to avoid a repeat of what happened last time he fought Skitter.

I hadn’t come without a plan.

Naturally. Whatcha got in mind?

We did it, guys.

We finally found a major character you can’t blame me for forgetting things about. 😉

Then it slipped from my recollection, and I was distracted by the fact that Flechette was disarmed, her weapon broken.  How had that happened?

Nice, it is a continual effect.

Wait, what is?

I couldn’t afford to worry about it.  I had to focus on contributing.

I released the bugs from beneath my costume, drawing them out from beneath the panels of my armor and the compartment at my back where I kept my equipment and weapons.

Whoo, let’s get swarmy in here!

It did seem a little odd for Taylor to describe Imp as “a girl in black clothing with a horned demon mask and black scarf” in the middle of battle, even though we knew perfectly well who that was.

We did?

So, Taylor, how much do you know about Imp’s powers? You sounded like you had some superficial knowledge, at least, enough to say that you couldn’t connect her not sleeping to one of them.

The Wards recovered fast enough.  Vista was working to distort the ends of the hallway, the front doors, and the elevator at the end of the hall into impassable terrain.  Flechette fired a shot at Grue, pinning him to the ground, quickly loaded and fired a second, rooting his feet to the ground.

Gotta admit this is nice work on the Wards’ part.

Flechette was loading for a third shot when a girl in black clothing with a horned demon mask and black scarf struck her weapon with a fire axe, splitting the metallic string and knocking it from her hand.

Hm, now where did the fire axe come from? Did she summon it somehow, or was it just around here as a genuine piece of fire safety equipment?

I don’t know what Imp is capable of, so I can’t discount the former off the bat.

The girl with the horns was on our side, wait- I could almost remember her.  Some relation to Grue.

…

Daamn. Imp has the power to be forgotten. (Wait, who’s Imp?)

So if she uses this power continually, that gives her a perpetual element of surprise. It makes her a blind spot to the oh-so-crucial element of information – no matter how many notes you have on her (if you can even remember her enough after the battle to take notes), once you’re actually in battle, you won’t remember she even exists, let alone what her strengths and weaknesses and tactics are.

This is incredibly powerful, especially in a story that puts so much emphasis on the importance of knowledge.

Of course, it does seem to have the weakness that it’s not targetable. Imp can’t specify that only her opponents forget her. Also, it’s not a total wipe, as evidenced by the way Taylor’s already starting to remember.

Also, I think that last part is confirmation that she’s Aisha. Nice. 🙂