She shook her head.

“I mean, maybe if I hadn’t come out, it wouldn’t have gotten violent.”

“He was working up the courage to shoot me,” she spoke.  “It’s fine.”

Yeah, it might be a bit harder to get yourself to shoot an actual human than a humanoid mass of bugs, but he was getting close.

“What are you going to do?”

“What?”

“I mean, they’re going to come again.  Maybe soon.  Depending on what they say or who they complain to, there might be people with powers the next time around.”

“I’ll manage.”

Seems like an excellent time to accept help. Worth noting that Taylor is talking like it’s not really being offered – maybe she’s adjusting to the knowledge that Rachel would take that offer as an implication that she’s not capable of dealing with this herself.

Which… she might not be able to, but still.

“I know this is your space, I think it’s perfect, but maybe you should consider moving somewhere-”

Nah, she’s not backing down.

She gave me a hard look.  “Do you want to get hit today?”

Hehe. Yeah, that was the wrong thing to say.

I shut my mouth.

“I’m going inside to pick up the shit.  You can help, or you can go back.  Doesn’t matter to me.”

As in the literal shit? The stuff she asked Taylor to pick up last chapter?

The two of them picking up the shit side by side like Taylor said last chapter would be a pretty good way to end this chapter, to be honest. It would be symbolic of the development of a certain respect between them that wasn’t there last time picking up the shit was discussed.

“Leave!” Bitch shouted.

Tom, still mindless with pain and fear, jumped at that command.  He tried to pull himself to his feet and failed, falling to the ground again with a ragged scream.

😀

When he reached out, imploring his friends for help, the skin of his hands and face were almost completely covered in bugs and blood.  It did a lot to help spook the rest into a retreat.  Most of them fled.

Let me guess – bottle man stayed?

The bottle man cautiously moved forward to Tom’s side.  I didn’t move from where I stood/crouched as he bent down to help Tom stand and limp away.

Did he walk away with the limping Tom, or did he help Tom stand up and then Tom limped away on his own as bottle man stayed behind?

“Fuck,” Bitch muttered.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I hope I didn’t do anything wrong by stepping in.”

The former, then. It’s over… for now. As silly as it sounds, Kaiser will hear about this – and then there’s a good chance shit hits the fan. Or at least starts flying in slow motion towards it.

“Shoot, boy!”  The man tightened his grip Tom’s shoulder.

Not gonna help if he keeps aiming for the “chest”…

The teenager obeyed, firing thrice more into the swarm, aiming too high to hit me.  Two more shots struck where my chest would have been.  The third passed through my fake ‘head’.

Getting colder, Tom, much like your blood.

Tom, his eyes wide in alarm, decided to change targets.  He swung his arm to my right to point his handgun at Bitch.

…not good. Bullets aren’t going to pass through her… well, not without hurting her on the way, at least.

I lunged forward, drawing the knife and swinging it in one motion.  I stabbed Tom in the thigh, as Bitch simultaneously evaded to one side.  Through a combination of my attack, Tom having to adjust his aim and Bitch’s movements, the shot went astray.

Niice.

As Tom fell over, I collapsed the swarm on top of him.  Avoiding touching him directly, I pulled the gun from his hand, retrieved my knife, and stabbed the point of the knife down on his palm to eliminate any possibility of him retaliating or grabbing for his weapon.

By not touching him directly, she keeps up the illusion that she doesn’t have a more physical body underneath the bugs.

On an impulse, I drew the knife across his forehead.

Hm. Okay, then.

According to Brian, cuts to the forehead were rarely serious, but they bled enough to looklike they were.

Ah, I see – another piece of intimidation without actually doing serious harm.

It was a fact that people that staged fights often played up, and a technique boxers used to blind their opponents with blood in the eyes.

Interesting. 🙂

“The fuck?” Tom spoke.  I moved the bugs in front of my eyes so I could get a partial look at him, and saw him backing away, gun still raised.

Yep, there we go. The fear is taking hold. Still think you’re tough, Tom?

I’d borrowed a trick from Grue, and figured it only made sense to borrow one from Tattletale, too.

Oh fuck yes. Mind games.

When I spoke, I hissed the words, and at the same time, I had every bug in the swarm make noise: buzzing, chirping and droning in time with my words, doing everything I could to sound less human.  “Guns are not going to work when my body is like this.”

Niiice.

It’ll be even better if they start spreading the word that Taylor can turn into a swarm of bugs. We know how much this story thrives on not only the fact that “knowledge is power”, but also that relying on false information can be even more dangerous than not knowing at all.

Putting my hands on the ground, bringing the upright mass of bugs with me, I crawled forward a step.  I saw almost everyone in their group move away.  Only the man with the bottles remained where he was, and he used one outstretched arm to keep Tom from retreating as well.

It seems someone still feels tough.

My ploy was working.  As Tattletale had done with Glory Girl and Panacea, then again with Bakuda, I could sell the idea I had powers I didn’t to mislead and misdirect.

Excellent work, Taylor.

I stayed quiet, keeping my attention on their group.

Bottle man looked me over, then spoke in a low voice, “Tom, was it?  Would you do the honors and deal with this amateur horror show?”

Wait, I thought you said he was your son? Or was that one of the other guys saying that? These skinheads are blending together a bit.

The teenage boy, turned the handgun my way, pointed at chest level.  He smirked and grinned, “My pleasure.”

The scene with Bakuda and her minions hadn’t been so different.  Only difference was, Tom didn’t hesitate a second when it came to pulling the trigger.

Welp. Taylor’s dead, see ya next chapter as Enoby from “Interlude 2″ takes over as the main character.

So… let’s see. How could this be resolved without Taylor getting shot? My current best bet is on Regent having just shown up and caused Tom to flinch.

The sheer force of the gunshot left me reeling, and it hadn’t even hit me.

I had dropped to a crouch as I stepped outside, leaving most of the bugs where they were above me.  Some had fallen down, but the overall structure had remained more or less stable, each of the bugs gripping one another and spreading out enough to fill in the gap of the vacated head and chest area.

Oh hey, the shadow trick! She did say she needed to remember that after Grue did it in Shell. 😀

From what my bugs had experienced, I knew the shot had passed only inches above my head, around the center of my chest.  The swarm down where I crouched was denser, to support the structure above them, so I couldn’t see through them as easily.  I could only wait with my breath held, hope that the bugs offered me enough cover to hide my real self.

So now this humanoid swarm of bugs that walked out the door will look immune – practically unaffected, even – to “the great equalizer”. That’s a massive bonus to intimidation right there!

I looked out the nearest boarded up window that I could see through, and saw that the group hadn’t moved.  The man with the bottles said something, but I couldn’t make it out.  My leaving to grab the knife and send the texts had carried me out of earshot.

Hm. Still seems relatively calm out there aside from that shot earlier.

I ran back to the front door, keeping to the same half-crouch as before, to ensure nobody saw me through the gaps in the boards on the windows.  I pulled my shoes back on, straightened, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

“Jesus fuck!” a twenty-something skinhead cursed as I moved to Bitch’s side.

A humanoid swarm of bugs just walked out the door. I think that’s very much an appropriate reaction.

I had a vague sense of what I must have looked like – a tower of swarming insects with vague human definition to it, giving the loose shape of a head, with vague indents in the ‘face’ where my eyes were.

Why would there be indents? She’s wearing glasses. If anything, there’d be a visor-like plateau.

Even Bitch’s eyes widened a fraction as she saw me.

“The hell?” she muttered.

Pretty much what she looks like right now, yes.

No immediate reply from the other two.  My phone displayed the time as 1:38.  Close enough to lunch for me to mark it as a continuation of the trend.

Heh. Lunchtime really isn’t treating Taylor well.

So hang on, didn’t 1.1 start out with a comment on lunchtime?

Yes, it did: “Class ended in five minutes and all I could think was, an hour is too long for lunch.“

I was going to develop an anxiety disorder over this.  I texted him directions, informing him to look for the building with the crane.

I would’ve guessed the Undersiders knew where the doghouse was – especially considering Brian didn’t ask – but it’s entirely possible they don’t. Rachel doesn’t seem like the type to tell them if she didn’t see a reason to, and Taylor is quite possibly the first to have successfully negotiated her way into visiting.

That said, I’m fairly sure Brian would want to know where she goes in case trouble came up. Y’know, like it just did.

Enough bugs had gathered to cover me, with plenty to spare.  I’d wanted to be absolutely sure I was covered, so I piled them on top of one another, several layers deep.  It was stifling.

Yeah, I can’t imagine this is particularly comfortable.

I was forced to breathe through my nose, and my vision was obscured by the bugs that had collected on my glasses.

The fact that she’s covering her glasses like this kind of forces her to use other senses, including her power, to navigate. Is she going to look through the eyes of a bug on the glasses?

More than that, it was hot in the midst of the dense swarm.  Still, I was happier enduring it than risking being identified.

Yeah, it’s a necessary evil.

I’d need a shower after this.  Ten showers.  And I’d pay to use a gym or pool or something, so I didn’t have to endure the craptacular shower at the loft while I scrubbed my skin raw.

Hehehe.

Ninety percent of my rationale for designing a costume that covered my entire body was for this exact reason, damn it.

That’s good thinking. Shoulda brought it with you, though!

Why hadn’t I brought my costume?  Why?

To be fair, you had no expectation that you might need it. Happens to a lot of heroes from time to time – though really, you should start bringing it everywhere when you’re hanging out with the Undersiders.

I flinched at the deafening roar of a gunshot.  Waited with my breath held, until I heard the murmur of conversation at the door again, Bitch’s voice.  A warning shot?

Maybe Tom’s aim is as bad as his father’s, perhaps for the same reason. Not sure if that’s a good thing if it’s true.

I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket and sent a text out, selecting Brian, Lisa and Alec as the recipients:

Half a dozen skinheads here.  At least one gun.  Need backup.

Yes, good move. Get everyone in on this if you can.

My phone vibrated with a reply a few seconds later. Brian:

Omw.  was headin home.  will take minute.

I guess this implies that Brian’s home is in a similar direction as the doghouse? Since it seems like it took more than “a minute” – even in the imprecise metaphorical sense – to get here from the base. Or it could mean the exact opposite and Brian means it’ll take a minute to get back to the Undersiders’ base before he can start heading to the doghouse.

I didn’t wait to hear the rest of the dialogue.  There was no way this wasn’t going to come to violence, now.  I pulled off my shoes, then ran in my sock feet across the concrete floor, keeping as low as I could.

Welp. Yeah, honestly, this has gone too far to sit back and do nothing but watch. I’m still not 100% sure Bitch won’t find a way around this, but it’s not looking good.

I found the knife that Bitch had used to open the bags of dog food, then stuck it in my back pocket.  Still nothing I could see that would work as a mask.  I wasn’t even wearing a sweatshirt or enough extra layers to use a piece of my clothing for a mask.  It had been too warm a day.

Which left me one very unpleasant option.

Hm…

Barring the idea of using the one layer of clothing she has and exposing herself more than she’s comfortable with, and more than I’d expect from this story that so far doesn’t play out like an ecchi anime… I guess she could cover her head with a swarm of insects? That would make a lot more sense anyway.

I exerted my power, and was glad to find that the grassy field and the half built building had a fair supply of bugs to work with.  Grasshoppers migrated my way, and I emptied a wasp nest that nestled in the wall above the unfinished second floor.  Blackflies that had been enjoying the copious amounts of dog waste flew my way, and innumerable ants and spiders formed the remainder of the swarm.

Hiya!

All together, they streamed my way to gather on my skin, crawling up my legs and torso, some turning downward to cover my arms.  As one, they covered every inch of my body, even creating a mass over my mouth and glasses to obscure everything.  It didn’t tickle as much as I thought it might, but I did shudder.

She’s not even stopping at “mask” – she’s making an entire makeshift bug swarm costume!