Growing confident in the mechanics of flying, I swooped us down.  We were faster than the others on the ground, and we passed them with ease.  I loosened my deathgrip on the horn to extend one arm out to one side.  A wave, a salute.

Howdy! 😀

That done, I pulled up.

Crawler, still bound, was unable to tear through the silk as fast as the millions of spiders were connecting it.  If there was only a way to stop the bombing, I could do something to pin him down, buy time for the heroes to arrange more permanent accommodations.

I wonder if he’s too big for Cache to pick up.

But there wasn’t.  I could feel the effects as Clockblocker froze Cache in time, then froze himself.  His suit, at least.

Oh yeah, that protection!

It was only the four of them – Clockblocker, Cache, Ursa and Weld.

The bomb was about to hit, and I could only guess if we were going to be out of the blast zone.

I think you’re good, if only barely.

…except that was the end of the chapter. Hrm.

Relating him to a motorcycle helped, giving me the confidence to lean gently into the turns he needed to make in shifting with the air currents.

Nice!

A laugh bubbled out from between my lips, one part hysteria to two parts relief and three parts exhilaration.  I was higher up than some six-story buildings and I’d barely realized it.

Woohoo! 😀

Amy had heard what Grue said about our possible shortage of transportation and my lack of firepower.  She’d supplied something to serve in the time allotted, with the resources I’d provided.  She’d put this together in minutes. 

Amy Dallon is fucking awesome.

“Please,” I prayed.  I swung one leg over its thorax and gripped the horn.  It was an awkward posture, making me feel like I’d fall forward and face-plant on the ground with the slightest excuse.  “Come on.”

I’m imagining Bitch seeing this fusion later and being vaguely offended. “Giant rideable creatures are my thing.”

It ran on the ground, slower than me.  Its shell parted behind me, revealing an overlarge, complicated set of wings.  They began to beat, thrumming with sixty or seventy flaps a second, powered by an efficient machine of what I took to be a combination of biological hydraulics and musculature.

Good fucking work, Amy! 😀

“Come on,” I begged it.

I felt it begin to lift.  I even pushed with my toes, as if that could give it what it needed.

Hehe.

We accelerated, my hair whipping behind me as we gained a dramatic boost in speed.  But our trajectory was almost directly forward, not up.  I kicked at the ground as we landed, as if that could lift us into the air.  It wasn’t working.

Well, at least you’re successfully moving away from the center faster than you were.

Boing. Boing. Boing.

It dawned on me why.

My bugs normally had ingrained knowledge of how to function.  This was a new lifeform.  It had all the necessary parts.  Amy had probably scaled everything up, given it every advantage in design I could want, counteracting all the problems that came with being proportionately larger.

So… you’re saying this thing doesn’t know how to fly with a weight on top?

But at the end of the day, it didn’t know how to fly.

Or how to land, explaining the skidding earlier. Makes sense.

Come on, come on.

We met each other halfway.  Listening to my power, it turned in midair, so its back was to me.  It skidded on the ground.

What does it look like!

Clearly it’s got wings… does it just look like one enormous fly or wasp or something?

Six and a half feet long, five feet across and five feet tall.  A giant beetle.

Close enough and just as awesome!

It looked like she had used a Hercules beetle as a starting point, but built it broader, with larger, longer legs and two forelimbs with what looked like praying mantis style blades.  Sporting a black shell that looked almost ragged, the tips a gray-white, it also featured a single large horn that curved overhand, pointing down at the ground.

This is really awesome. I’d like to see fanart of this!

(Please tell me we’re getting a shot of Taylor flying away from explosions…)

Their chances were about as good as mine.

Amy.  She was turning to run.  The others crossed her path, shouted a warning.

Right, we want her to get out of the way too, yeah.

She used her power on the bug she was touching, making a final, haphazard connection.

Please tell me it’s a fusion steed!

My grip over the relay bugs had been tenuous.  This wasn’t much better.  One bug, and I couldn’t sense enough about it.  I didn’t have that innate grasp of its biology, of how it operated, or the instincts that drove it.

It’s really sounding like it’s a fusion, at least!

It would have to do.

I chanced a look over my shoulder and regretted it.  Crawler was bound tighter than ever, caught by my bugs, but the look threw me off-balance.  I stumbled, nearly falling over.

Whoops.

I managed to keep my feet under me, righting myself, but the movement of my leg made me aware of the strain.

Coddammit, I told you to get that leg fixed!

I couldn’t take the chance it wouldn’t work.

Aww.

Fair enough.

The one minute mark had surely passed.  I was on borrowed time, now, trusting my fate to luck.

Could Genesis form a new body in time?  It took her minutes, and I didn’t have that time to spare.  She would have to find me, too.

Yeah, that’s not very likely.

No.  Genesis couldn’t help.

And the heroes?  I searched in the direction of Jack and Bonesaw.  The heroes were fending off a group of people.  The group was larger than it had been the last time my focus was on them.  She was recruiting civilians?

Of course she is. She’s Bonesaw.

Or, wait, is the point here that she’s still recruiting them? And thus must have gotten them from somewhere nearby?

The heroes were falling back, gathering in formation.  Cache was using his power, if I was judging right.  I felt some of my bugs disappear from existence as he used his power on members of his team.

Looks like they’re packing up. Not much time left.

Putting them in some extradimensional compartment.  The others around him, one member of the Wards, Ursa and Weld.

The good guys were preparing for an imminent bombing run.  Jack and Bonesaw were making a run for it, too.  They’d sensed something was wrong from the way the heroes were acting.

Makes sense. Jack’s a smart dude.

“Run, little girl!”  Crawler’s broken voice carried, a rumble so low I could feel it.  “I’ll get free!  I’ll catch you!  I’ll hold you down and lick your skin until it melts!  I’ll pluck your eyes out with the tip of my tongue!  I have your scent and you cannot ever stop me!  You cannot ever escape!”

And here I was about to mention the possibility of Crawler not caring about Taylor.

Although… it is still possible that he’s talking to Sunny.

Even the practiced motions of running couldn’t take the edge off.  Running had been my reprieve for so long, my escape long before I’d had costumes and the distractions of everything that was involved there.  It wasn’t doing anything to help the panic that was taking hold of me.

Yeeeah, that’s very understandable.

I wracked my mind for something, anything that might serve as an option.  Sewer?  Could I get down into the sewer or storm drain?

Ooh, that might work. Though we’re talking Bakuda bombs, which could majorly fuck up the infrastructure where they hit, even more so than regular bombs.

It was a possibility, though with the structural integrity of the city being what it was, it could just as easily be suicidal.

Yeah, and that’s before considering further damage by the bombs.

My bugs.  Could I lift myself up the same way I’d lifted up the small tools?  More silk, millions more bugs?

Oh fuck, are we actually doing this after all this time?! I’ve been semi-jokingly entertaining this idea since Gestation!

Though I didn’t think of using the silk.

Easier to lie when I was shouting, my face hidden.

Oh.

They picked up Ballistic and bolted.

I was left behind in moments.

Now what, Taylor?