“So many,” Charlotte gasped, as she saw the three or four hundred rats held high by the swarm.  Judging by the family’s expressions, they hadn’t known how many rats they’d had nesting inside their home.

Yeeah, most of them stayed hidden, didn’t they? Only some of them braved the open.

Turning to the dad, I told him, “Your rat problem is dealt with, and nearly all of the bugs are gone.  Some of my swarm will remain so I can keep an eye out for any future infestations, but you won’t see them.  Now, if you still want to swing at me, I’m okay to go a round or two.  No powers.”

“Man, I’ve been itching for a good unpowered fist fight ever since I stopped sparring with my teammate.”

His mouth twisted in a scowl, but he didn’t move to attack me.

Walking over to Sierra and Charlotte, I quietly asked them, “Would I be right if I guessed he wasn’t the one who asked for help?”

Heh, ya think?

Did any of them ask for help?

“Yeah,” Sierra said, “She did.”

Sierra pointed at the woman who was protectively clutching R.J.’s shoulders.

“Is this satisfactory?” I asked the woman, raising my voice.  “The dead rats will be cleared out of the area in a few minutes.”

Taylor is implicitly asking them if they’ll stay now. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t – they’ve already packed, and this wasn’t a super immediate problem, so they have quite likely arranged a place to go, which might even be better than what they have here.

“They’re really gone?  They won’t come back?”

“They’re gone, and they won’t come back until someone forces me to move out of this territory.”

That’s a nice way to spin it.

“Thank you,” she said.  She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something else, then stopped.

Hm… Something along the lines of “we owe you”, stopped as she remembered what she was talking to?

And yes, I mean “what”.

“Seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine…”

I knew I wouldn’t quite have enough time to clear out the entire house of the rat corpses, so I cheated by hauling the rats through the walls, into the unoccupied neighbor’s residence and out the kitchen window at the back of that building.

Hehe. It would probably have worked better if you’d successfully gotten the angry guy to do the counting. Counting backwards is usually just a little slower, after all.

On the other hand, R.J. might be relatively slow too because of his age. I don’t know, nothing’s been said for or against that.

The last of my bugs left the sky around the house.  I timed the arrival of the last few dead rats with the end of R.J.’s countdown.

Of course.

“One, two, three…”

I love this.

Only a small fraction of the rats were left.  The largest mass of them had been herded into a corner by the swarm, and in their panic they had done nearly as much damage to each other as they were doing to the bugs.

I guess it does make sense to herd them into one spot if you’re going to be killing them anyway.

Stragglers remained elsewhere, but as good as they were at navigating the nooks and small spaces of the house, the bugs were just as good, organized by my will, and they vastly outnumbered the rodents.

The addition of Taylor practically turns the swarm into a hivemind that is much smarter than the individual bugs, and that makes the swarm incredibly effective at navigating mazelike environments and keeping track of things.

“Thirty-one, thirty-two…”

Before the last of the rats were dead, I began organizing roaches and other sturdier bugs to have them cart the dead rats away.

Ah, okay, so she is handling that. Good.

So we’ve got roach hearses carrying hundreds of rats to the rat graveyard to be rat buried by a rat undertaker.

I filled the corners of the stairs with massed insect bodies, until it was more like a ramp than a set of steps.  I stepped up to the house to open the door and let the swarm start bringing the dead rats outdoors.

I do think there’s an element of showbugship in Taylor’s motivations here. Showing a way she can dramatically make a difference to some of the people living under her care, dramatically. That’s why she came here, that’s why she’s opening the door instead of having the swarm carry the rats out some other way (I’m sure there are some available for creatures at that size, especially with the rat infestation in mind), that’s why she’s not explaining herself. She’s going to let the visual of roaches and other insects carrying rat corpses out the door in droves do the talking for her.

Irritated, I told him, “Count backwards from a hundred.  If you still want to when you’re done, I’ll give you that fight.”

Hehe. By then, she’ll be done with the rats, right?

He set his jaw stubbornly, refusing me the courtesy of a countdown.

I wonder if he’s counting internally, though.

Ignoring him, I looked at a young boy in the group.  Eight or nine years old, “What’s your name?”

He looked up at his mother, then at me, “R.J.”

Oh hey, it’s my dad… Wait, what?

“R.J.  Can you count to a hundred?”

Ahahahaha! She really wants that countdown, doesn’t she!

“Of course,” he looked offended at the idea that he couldn’t.

“Show me.”

Though in this case it seems like it’ll be a count-up instead.

I covered my approach with a cloud of bugs and slow, quiet footsteps.  Nobody noticed me arrive.

Heh, stealth bug. Maybe she’ll sneak into the cloud of bugs surrounding the house, appearing in front of it as the bugs finish their job and clear out?

“Just a minute or two longer,” I said.  Charlotte and some of the family members jumped.

Hehe, or that. Her startling people is just as good as badassery, and the other thing I was hoping for.

“You,” a man who might have been the patriarch of one of the families pointed at me, “You did this!”

Yes. Yes she did.

You just don’t know what she’s doing, though.

“Yes,” I answered him.

“Is this some sort of game to you!?  We were prepared to leave, and you keep us from getting our things?  Add another infestation to the one that’s already there!?”

Yeeah, might want to tell this guy what you’re actually up to, Skitter.

“She’s just trying to help!” Charlotte said, with a tone like she wasn’t expecting to be listened to.  I got the impression she’d tried convincing him earlier.  I raised one hand to stop her.

Ah, so they did give more explanation than just “stand back, this could get nasty”. That’s good.

It was better if I handled this myself.

The man drew himself up a fraction, “No reply, huh?  I’d punch you right here, right now, if I thought you’d give me a fair, no-powers fight.”

I kinda like this guy, actually. He’s angry, sure, but from his perspective, he has good reason to be, and he doesn’t let it override his survival instincts. Well, too much. He’s still antagonizing a supervillain and well aware of it, but at least he has the sense to keep it non-physical from his side.

I wonder what Dragon thought of the news about Skitter’s allegedly benevolent reign.

The rats died at the hands of my bugs, thoroughly poisoned or envenomed, or even eaten alive by the ones that bit repeatedly and didn’t even bother to chew or swallow the flesh.

Are we sure this isn’t the Arc that should go by the title Extermination?

Speaking of Arc titles, I suppose it’s quite fitting that Taylor’s exterminating an infestation of rats in the first chapter of Plague. I highly doubt that’s going to be one of the main reasons for the title, but it’s a fun correlation.

I suppose it is possible that we’re dealing with a literal plague of disease and other issues in this Arc, focusing on Taylor’s efforts to rule her territory rather than on the Slaughterhouse plot. Or, more likely, there’ll be a balance of both things.

It wasn’t a fast job, as there were hundreds of the rodents and they were surprisingly tenacious. I wanted to be thorough.

Of course, now they’ll have hundreds of rat corpses in and around their house, unless Taylor takes measures to remove those. I’m not sure that’s much better.

It took me eight or so minutes to arrive, with the roundabout route I had to take to get from my lair to the beach and then back over toward the Docks.  A heavy cloud of bugs surrounded the house, and a group of eight people of different ages were clustered on the far side of the street, watching the scene like they were watching their house burn down.

“It’s a cleansing fire, okay? Or, uh, swarm.”

Did Sierra and Charlotte move on to the next houses on their round?

Sierra and Charlotte stood apart from the huddle, a short distance away.

Apparently not. Hi!

The compartment of armor at my back buzzed, and I reached back to retrieve my cell phone.  It was Grue:

can I come by?

Oh hey! Sorry, Taylor’s a little busy at the moment.

So is that just a social call or more important stuff?

I quickly replied:

On errand.  Don’t come to my place.  Meet me at Bayview and Clover.  Not too far from our old place.

This seems like a nice compromise.

It was only a moment before I got a reply:

got it. am already otw.  close.

So was he already out and went “hey, why don’t I visit Taylor on the way”, or was he already on his way to Taylor’s when he remembered that he should probably ask first?

So he was already on the way when he called?  I wasn’t sure what to think about that.  It suggested it was a social call with the assumption I would be okay with it, which I didn’t mind, but that didn’t really fit his personality.

Yeah, exactly.

I’m glad to see Taylor too give that some more thought, because it suggests I was onto something.

I suspect that something is Brian wanting to warn her about the Slaughterhouse Nine face to face.

More likely there was something that he wanted to discuss with me in person.

Yeah, sounds about right.

No wonder they wanted to leave.

“Tell them to step outside.  If they hesitate, warn them they might get hurt.  They won’t, but it’ll make them move.”

So what are you going to do? Chase out the rodents with painful bugs?

“Okay.”

I hung up, then hurried to pull on my costume, donning latex rubber socks before pulling on the leggings.  At the same time, I gathered a swarm near the rat house.

Oh, are you going out there yourself?

I began a systematic attack against the rodents there.  Bees, wasps, hornets, fire ants, regular ants, mosquitoes, biting flies and spiders gathered and began attacking the rats furthest from the house and began steadily working their way inward.

…but won’t that cause the rats to flee inward? Isn’t that the opposite of what you want?

Though it’s not like you’d want the rodents to spread to other houses, either.

Some rats fought or ran, but more bugs gathered each second.

I hurried out the door and took my shortcut through the false storm drain to the beach.  Drawing a host of bugs around myself, I headed toward the rat house with long strides.

Meanwhile, I’m not sure what Skitter will be able to do in person. Just show herself to establish her responsibility for the rats’ defeat?