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. 🙂

Weld and Flechette were variables we hadn’t planned for.  It was unfortunate, but Weld in particular was also very well equipped for the task of keeping us from retreating back to the front door.

Oh, he’s very well equipped, is he now, Taylor? 😉

Weld swung at Shadow Stalker, but his club passed through her.  Fearless, she stepped close and punched the metal arrowhead of one of her crossbows into his right eye.

Sheesh, this story and eye attacks… What’s that, the third one, after Taylor setting bugs into Lung’s eye in Gestation and later carving his eyes out? Although I guess the eye is also made of metal, so I’m not sure this is gonna be very effective.

He stepped back a few steps, one hand going to his eye, and she threw herself at him, bringing her knees to her chest and then kicking out.

Oh right, metal arrowhead! It doesn’t pierce anything, but it gets stuck there!

Her feet slammed into his chest, and pushed him further back.  Weld only staggered back a short distance, and it was Shadow Stalker who landed hard on her back.

Sorry, Regent, Isaac Newton bested you this time.

Kicking a five-foot-nine-inch block of metal had to hurt, but Regent doesn’t exactly have to be careful with Shadow Stalker’s body.

Whereas Weld does. That’s one hell of an advantage to Regent.