Some of the bugs flowed out to pass over the PRT forces and the Chosen.

Wait, what is she doing now? Is she attacking the PRT too, or is this saying that the bugs are going past the battle and to the other side?

The thugs started recoiling and slapping at themselves, but Shadow Stalker couldn’t see much reaction from the PRT forces.

Ah, okay.

They were made of sterner stuff, in a way, and their uniforms covered them thoroughly enough that the bugs wouldn’t do nearly as much damage, if they were even attacking.

Yeah, and that’s a big if there.

Skitter emerged from the center mass of the swarm, carrying a bag of supplies from the truck.  It was green canvas, large, not dissimilar to a gym bag.

Wait, she

is

raiding supplies too? Huh.

I guess the PRT wouldn’t willingly provide those resources to Skitter and/or the Undersiders, and it’s tricky to get them even as civilians…

Pulling the strap over one shoulder, she briskly retreated back into the alley, the bugs trailing after her like the tail of a slow moving comet, or the steady trail of smoke from a candle.

I guess you could consider that one bag of supplies her payment for helping to stop the Chosen from taking everything.

It’s worth noting here that Skitter seemed to be working alone. Does that mean she isn’t working with the Undersiders, or just that they didn’t think she needed backup?

Incidentally, Taylor showing up now makes me believe it’s less likely that we’re getting a Chariot chapter, simply because it makes a lot of sense to pull things back to Taylor at the end of the Arc. Which also is part of why I figured we might get a Chariot chapter in the first place – if he is working for Taylor, that reveal would make for a pretty good transition into finding out what her plan is all about.

A feral smile spread across Shadow Stalker’s face, beneath her mask.

Fuck. Skitter is not only a villain in Sophia’s eyes, she’s a villain whom Sophia has personal beef with (re: identity mishaps) and who, last Sophia heard, was on the same team as Grue.

Shadow Stalker resisted the urge to jump down, watched as the shadow of the bug girl’s swarm moved over the Chosen, almost obscuring them from view.  The bug girl drew her combat stick, whipped it out to full length, and dispatched the Chosen one by one.  

Woo, go Taylor!

So what does Sophia think Skitter’s motivations for going against the Chosen are? That she wants the resources for herself and the Undersiders?

Shadow Stalker couldn’t see the hits, between the darkness and the obscuring mass of the swarm, but she saw the splashes and movements of the Chosen as they fell to the ground, clutching their faces, knees, and hands.

Nice work! 😀

On the other hand, Sophia probably knows that Skitter is aware of her secret identity, which could be a problem for Sophia.

Skitter.

😀

…

D:

shit, as far as Sophia knows, Skitter’s a villain, fuck

What?

Then another figure stepped out of the alleyway closest to them.  A girl, skinny, but not in the attractive way you saw in magazines.  Spindly.  Was that the right word?

Like a spider! 😀

Wait, is that word actually associated with spiders in English too? In Norwegian, one of the words for a spider’s web is spindelvev – essentially “spindle weave”.

Hm, looks like “spindle” is at least associated with threads made from fibers.

The girl was hard to make out in the gloom – there were no lights on the street, and the only light was what filtered from the moon and through the rain clouds.

I wonder if she’s in costume right now. If she isn’t, she’s made a bit of a mistake in not hiding better before using her power.

But yeah, Taylor’s costume is well suited for camouflage in the dark.

The girl glanced left, around the back of the truck, then glanced right, where she might have seen Shadow Stalker if she looked up just a little.

Probably the last person Taylor would like to see right now.

The lenses of her mask caught the moonlight, flashing a pale yellow.

Yep, costume confirmed. It was getting a little hard to defend Sophia not recognizing an uncostumed Taylor, even with the latter being “hard to make out in the gloom”.

Good to see you, Taylor. 🙂

The distraction afforded Miss Militia time to prepare and fire a mortar straight into Hookwolf’s chest.

Excellent.

As he collapsed backward, his chest cavity gaping open, her gun shimmered, split and transformed into a pair of assault rifles.  She unloaded clip after clip into the enemy ranks; rubber bullets, most likely.  

I’m rubber, you’re glue
You say ouch as I’m shot into you

The innate issues of the nonlethal ammunition were almost negligible in Miss Militia’s case.  She could reform the gun in a second if a gun jammed.

Pretty handy!

Shadow Stalker watched a crowd of Hookwolf’s Chosen move to flank, moving along the sidewalk, where the crashed truck blocked the view of the PRT forces.

Sneaky little chosenses.

Shadow Stalker raised her crossbow, hesitated.  She could jump down, take them down in close quarters combat.  It had been her entire reason for going out, after having to deal with the irritation of Vista.  She craved that catharsis.

I guess that confirms that the reason she’s doing this is to take out aggression. Not that that was very difficult to figure out, exactly.

She holstered her crossbow, prepared to dive into their midst, and then paused as she saw the Chosen stagger back, lashing out with their hands.

Hm? Did someone else show up?

This… kind of sounds like how someone might react to being attacked by insects that are too far away for the observer (Sophia) to see. Is Taylor around?

One shouted something, which was odd given how they had been trying to be stealthy only a moment ago.

Hm, yeah, something’s definitely up and I think that something might carry the name Skitter.

Instead, she settled for targeting the clusters of Hookwolf’s troops.  ‘Fenrir’s Chosen’.

Oh right, the mundane foot soldiers. I kinda forgot they were there.

Each of the thugs had white face-paint extending from forehead to cheekbone to chin, in a crude approximation of a wolf’s face.  She began dropping them at a steady rate, aiming for the biggest, the most aggressive and the ones who looked like they were in charge of lesser troops, the captains.

Sounds like good prioritization.

As the troops began falling, Hookwolf’s forces became unsettled, hesitating to advance.

Nice.

Hookwolf reared up on two legs, pointing and howling orders, likely demanding they attack.  His words were incomprehensible from the rooftop where Shadow Stalker crouched, but the tone left no mistake that he was threatening them to drive them back into the fight.

Sounds like something he’d do, yeah.

Shadow Stalker crouched at the corner of the roof, loaded her crossbow and fired a shot at Cricket.  It passed a half-foot behind the woman.

If she realizes you’re shooting at her, you’ve pretty much lost your chance to hit.

Her second shot was on target, and Cricket dropped a few seconds later, tranquilized.

Nice work!

Good – The woman’s radar might find Shadow Stalker if she wasn’t in her shadow state, and Shadow Stalker could be far more effective if the enemy didn’t see where she was attacking from.

Especially this particular enemy.

Who else?  Menja was classified as a breaker, the spatial-warping effect that surrounded her made incoming attacks smaller even as she simultaneously made herself bigger.

Called it! Menja and her sister being breakers, I mean.

So the spatial warping makes the attacks objectively smaller, not just relative to Menja? She’s even bigger relative to incoming attacks than she is relative to her surroundings?

The darts wouldn’t even be noticeable to her.  Stormtiger could deflect projectiles by sensing and adjusting air currents.

Hm, yeah, that’d be a problem.

And this leaves Hookwolf. He’s got fleshy bits sometimes, but how susceptible is his biology to tranquilizers?

With the right timing, so her shots came out of the shadow state as they arrived to make contact with him?  Maybe.

That could work. Seems like a very Flechette tactic.

But he was engaged in a fist fight with Assault, and she’d be risking tagging the hero.

Ah. Yeah, we don’t want that.

Hookwolf?  No point.  He was currently in the shape of a gigantic wolf made of whirring metal blades.  Even if the dart did penetrate something approximating flesh, which it wouldn’t, his entire biology was so different that she doubted he would be affected.

Figures.

Seems you’re out of targets, unless there’s someone hiding around here somewhere.