“Hmmm,” she replied, “I’m getting the impression you’re a little further along than the rest of us.”

“impression”, you say? 😉

“If that’s the case, then that’s great.  I want to be in Coil’s good books.”

“I want you to be too.  You know I’m here to help if you need it.”

That’s good to know. I hope Taylor needs it often…

“Yeah.  That’s why I’m calling, actually.  I need to find someone.”

Ooh, good thinking. Where’s Bryce?

“Do tell.”

I gave her the rundown on everything Sierra had told me.  She stopped me when I got to the bit about the armbands.

“Those aren’t for rank,” she informed me.  “But you’re not wrong in saying they’re like status.  They’re more like… boy scout badges.”

Oh, huh. You get them for feats, then.

I feel pretty safe in guessing that a lot of those “feats” involve killing people, or worse.

“He’s doing okay?”

“No problems, last I heard.  You?  I saw that cloud of bugs earlier.”

I guess Tattle’s territory isn’t too far away. Though to be fair, the cloud would be visible from a pretty good distance.

“Made a big play.  Everyone here should know this is my territory, now.  

Yeah, a “play” is a good way to describe what she did, even if she does mean it in the sense of a “play for power”, a move in the game of capes.

Merchants tested the waters, I dealt with it.  Remains to be seen if this works out in the long run.”

The biggest problem I see with Skitter’s way of going about this – something I thought of one of these last few days but forgot about before getting around to posting about – is that she needs to sleep. Normally that wouldn’t be that much of a problem as long as her enemies didn’t identify her sleep schedule and exploit that to attack while she herself was off-guard (something which her eventual employees (drones?) might help mitigate the damage from), but here’s the thing: Taylor promised her subjects that she’d keep the insects from bothering people in the ways insects normally do. How is she going to do that while asleep?

To be fair, she has controlled bugs while unconscious before, to the hilarious distaste of John Cleese. But that might just make things worse, depending on what her subconscious gets up to at night.

I’m trying to see if there’s any useful tidbits of info I can pick up, and if there’s maybe a way to fuck with all these guys at around the same time, so they know there’s nowhere left to go.

Of course she wants to fuck with them. 😛

In the meantime, I’m helping Grue out, figuring out where he’s got Merchants hiding in his area.”

Nice.

I dialed Lisa next.

“Hey, Boardwalk empress,” she answered me.

I prefer to call her a queen, for obvious reasons, but empress is also fitting.

“Tattletale.  How’s it coming?”

“It’s not.  I’m gathering intel on the enemies in my territory.  A few have migrated my way in response to what the rest of you are doing, regrouping.

Ah, I guess that’s the price of waiting – the enemies still think it’s a place they can go.

I stood from the armchair, stretched, and pulled on my mask.  I bent down to pick up my mug, then headed downstairs to check on Sierra.  She was still sleeping, but I’d known that. 

Did you have bugs on her?

I’d felt secure about removing my mask only because I had bugs on the girl, to keep track of her.  I’d know the second she stirred.

Of course she did. Not sure why I even wondered about the security of taking off her mask. I really should’ve predicted this.

I went into the kitchen before sending a text to Coil:

Merchant burn victim & other wounded near Sandstone & Harney.  Send medic?

How thoughtful. Plus, helping them out like this could be a bit of salt on the wound. “Hey, I trounced you completely and with ease. Have some medics to help you get over your crushing defeat at my hands.”

No use having the woman die from any complications from her injuries.  Besides, maybe he could get her to offer up information in exchange for her freedom.

Well, this too.

The human shapes were less efficient than a regular swarm, but I imagined the psychological effect was that much greater.

Oh, absolutely. Not much quite like fighting humanoids made out of bugs to give you nightmares.

A swarm of bugs was something you could encounter any day.  An uncannily human figure that you couldn’t hurt with any conventional weapon, who threatened incredible pain if it got close enough?  It was something my enemies would remember, and it was something they could tell others about.

Yeah, sounds about right.

I gathered the swarm into a figure that stood next to the woman with the burned feet and her friend.  I drew more and more bugs into the swarm, bloating it and drawing it up to the point where I couldn’t make it any larger, without the bottom half giving way.

I gauged it to be somewhere close to twelve feet in height.

“You gonna keep trying to fuck with us, pal?”

Then I let it fall on top of them.  That polished off group two.

Niiice.

One of her friends finally stepped forward to help her, grabbing her under the armpits and dragging her ten feet down the road to a spot where more water had collected.

Case in point.

Together, they worked to put out the flames, dousing her bundled jeans into the water.  I could maybe have stopped him, driven him away, but my interest was more on spooking them than causing grievous physical harm.

Yeah, that’s fair.

I wouldn’t lose much sleep over burning her with the things she’d intended to use on others, but I wouldn’t stop her from putting herself out.

It’s more about doing it in the first place.

Apparently seeing the woman get set on fire by the swarm had done its job in unnerving my enemies.  The group scattered, and I let them run.

See ya! Maybe soon, if Taylor’s as kind to you as she was to the guy from the eight-person group.

One by one, I took them down by creating the human shaped swarms and then attacking them.  Some fought, others ran, but each of the Merchants succumbed eventually, choking on the bugs or losing all self-control in the face of the pain the attacking swarm inflicted.

Excellent work, Skitter. 🙂

A beetle fluttered forward and touched a match to her jeans.  In an instant, the bundle of cloth at her feet was on fire.

Aaand that’s gonna hurt.

Nice.

She tried to pat it out, but her efforts to remove her shoes had gotten trace amounts of gasoline on her hands.  

Welp.

Her right hand ignited, the insects on it dying, and she threw herself to one side to thrust it into a hole in the road where water had collected, her feet still kicking as she tried to remove her jeans.

At least this happened to her at a time where you can’t move ten feet without getting wet.

Gasoline transferred to the water’s surface and flickered with the faintest of flames.

Smoooke on the waaater! Dun dun dun, dundun dun-dun…

I could picture it.  It would be intimidating:  A sea of bugs acting with a backing of human intelligence, each with their tiny torches.

It’d be scary enough without the distinct sense that the bugs are operating with human intent to hurt you.

Doubly intimidating if a swarm of bugs had made you drop and spill a can of gasoline onto your shoes and the cuffs of your pant legs.

Ahhhh.

Yeah, alright, might wanna take those shoes and pants off.

She successfully undid her belt, then began trying to remove the tight-fitting jeans she wore.  The woman got as far as getting her jeans around her ankles before she got stuck.  Some beetles and roaches took to the air, carrying matches to the ground behind her, cutting off her retreat.  

Really wish you’d worn sports pants, don’tcha.

She screamed at the others in her group, but nobody leaped to her assistance.

Alright, not just her. Got it.

It was a shame it was closer to noon than midnight.  I imagined the effect would have been even more exaggerated in the darkness.

That would’ve been really cool.

The woman stepped away, pulling off one of her wet shoes.  She threw it at the bugs, and it rolled over a few.  A heartbeat later, it burst violently into flame.  It didn’t make a difference.

Nice try, at least.

The swarm that was armed with matches was already too spread out for one shoe and one small fire to slow them down at all. 

Gonna have to try a little harder.

The woman’s attempts to remove her other shoe made her fall over, and she suppressed a grunt of pain as she landed.

First time didn’t work, so you go through the trouble of trying the other one? Sounds like you don’t have a lot of options.

Soo… now I’m questioning whether or not we’re back to the Merchants, again. Is it just this woman right now? Did we perhaps skip Taylor dealing with the rest of the 24-person group?

She successfully kicked off her other shoe, and then began simultaneously fumbling with her belt while trying to crab-walk backwards away from the advancing sea of tiny flames.

Ahh, I see, she’s figured out that shoes are too small, so she’s taking off her other shoe so she can get access to her pants.

I’m not sure baring the skin of her legs while being attacked by bugs is a good idea, but using the larger pants makes a whole lot more sense than the other shoe.