“I’m thinking…” I replied, “I’m thinking everyone knows the Protectorate is falling apart. Legend’s gone, Eidolon’s announced he’s leaving as soon as things get quieter, the head of the PRT stepped down, a whole bunch of rank and file members left, and so did Weld and a lot of the more monstrous capes. Maybe there’s pressure from the top to put one in the win column, remind people why the Protectorate exists.”
And who better to take down than the creepy teenage supervillain who’s leading the team that took over a city?
“But in a school?”
I didn’t have any guesses to offer on that count. I focused on the fighting outside instead of responding.
Getting too close to Sere was killing my bugs just as easily as his long ranged absorption attack. I had to attack him from range, and the rain of dirt and small stones wasn’t doing anything, as far as I could tell.
I turned to a tactic that had crossed my mind while fighting Echidna. She, like Sere, had been tricky to get close to. Unlike Sere, she’d been too big to really tie up.
Spiders drew out lines of silk and formed them into cords, weaving them into one another to form extended lines, fifty or so feet long. With the combined efforts of dozens of flying insects, half gripping one end and half gripping the other, the lines were flown in Sere’s direction, so he was caught by the middle.
The bugs holding the ends then continued onward, keeping the cord taut as they circled him, one group flying clockwise, the other flying in the opposite direction. In this manner, they orbited him, winding him up in a single length of cord.
With five cords being wound around him in that fashion, I soon had him hampered, his arms and legs restricted in movement.
He kept moving forward, attacking my decoys. As he passed a signpost, I hurried to have my bugs wind the remaining lengths of cord around it. Lines went taut, cords constricted around him, and he fell. He struggled, but it didn’t seem he would be on his feet anytime soon.
With Kid Win on the ground, thrashing, that was two down.
The other two, I was pretty sure I could deal with them if it came down to it. I wasn’t sure what Clockblocker’s glove did, but I had a suspicion. Adamant’s armor was just begging to have silk cords wind through the chain links and armor plates.
My bugs rifled through Kid Win’s pouches and armor compartments. Masses of bugs and teams of the larger, stronger bugs working to pull silk cords helped to divest him of various tinker tools and components. His smart phone, a cylinder with a trigger on the front and a button on top, a sphere with a hole through the center, with screw-like rifling and electrical connectors in the interior. There were two devices like tuning forks, too, with tines that wound around one another without touching, and wires beneath the handles. Bugs in his ears helped to work an ear bud out of position and carry it off.
Once he was denied as many of his tools as I could move, I dragged them away. It was only when I was sure that he wouldn’t be able to use them against the swarm or against me that I eased up on him. I let my bugs drift in the general direction my decoys had gone, as though I were leaving or gone.
He stood, gagging and choking. Sere wasn’t in sight, and I’d taken Kid Win’s phone. There was only one place for him to go if he wanted to communicate with the others and touch base. He headed back into the school.
I was ready. Bugs flowed out of his pockets, gaps in his armor and from where they’d clustered at the small of his back. I tied his wrist to the door handle.
It took him a long few seconds to realize the door wouldn’t swing shut until he moved. That bought the remainder of my swarm time to turn around and flow through the open entryway. They headed straight for the guards, and swept into their pockets the same way they had with Kid Win’s pouches.
Keys? Yes.
While Kid Win and the guards were blinded, my bugs fetched the keys.
I stood from the bench of the lunch table. “I think I’m set.”
“Just like that?” Charlotte asked.
I looked at the front of the room, where other students were feeling hunger and teenage appetites overcoming their fear of what was going on elsewhere in the school. Only a dozen or so. Maybe they don’t have a steady supply of food where they are, I mused. There were areas of town which weren’t in good shape.
There’re pizza slices, I noted. It was a reminder of how the day wasn’t going as I’d planned.
“It shouldn’t be a problem,” I said. Get out, then see what Tattletale can manage as far as damage control. “Wish me luck. I’ll send you a message and meet you at the lair after school if everything goes according to plan.”
I crossed the cafeteria, heading for the buffet tables and sneezeguard-protected counters with empty trays waiting to be filled by staff. Emma was at her table, I noted, surrounded by secretaries and teachers. I was joined by other hungry students, eager for their free food, and their bodies helped to block me from the sight of both Emma and the staff.
Confidence, I thought. I stepped around the counter and through the doors that led into the kitchen. Confidence made it look like I knew what I was doing; being furtive would only arouse suspicion. My bugs were still carrying the keys, bringing them along an air vent. I’d need to find a way to open a vent cover and retrieve them, but it was among the smallest of the problems I’d face today.
I found a door to the outside. My bugs clustered on the other side, my hand pressing against my own, separated by an inch and a half of door. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure I hadn’t been followed, then started looking for a way into the air conditioning duct.
The smallest of the problems I’d face today.
There was an impact, heavy enough that the lights flickered. Even the bugs I’d gathered on the door were knocked loose, both by the force of the landing and the flying dust and debris.
Right outside the door.
I didn’t need to move my bugs to search out the identity of this antagonist.
A figure strode through the swarm of bugs. He tapped the door with the end of his weapon, and the breath was knocked out of me. Every bug within thirty feet of the door died, including the ones in the air conditioning duct.
I was still reeling as he pushed against the door. It was deadbolted, but the metal of the door’s surface buckled, and it tore free of the frame.
He was wearing armor, forest green and gold, with the stylings of a lizard’s frills or bat wings on the trim, and a faint etching of scales to the green portions. His spear, too, bore a distinctive design, with an etching like a lizard’s skull worked into the heavy spearhead.
He advanced, his spear point leveled at my chest, and I backed up, maintaining a distance between us. To do otherwise would mean letting him drive the weapon into my chest.
On the other side of the campus, another heavy armored suit touched ground, somewhat more gently.
He stopped when we were at the front of the cafeteria. I kept backing up, knowing it was futile. Dragon had exited the other suit, and was using a jetpack to navigate the hallway, flying towards us with an accuracy and ease of movement that belied how fast she was moving.
I didn’t have an escape route. The woman stopped directly behind me, at the entrance to the cafeteria.
“Dragon,” I said. “And Armsmaster.”
“The name is Defiant,” Armsmaster corrected me. His voice had a funny sound to it.
“Skitter,” Dragon answered me, loud enough for everyone to hear. Her voice was almost gentle. “I’m sorry it worked out this way. My hand was forced.”
20.05
The appearance of the heroine in gleaming power armor had brought the room to a hush. The silence only allowed Dragon’s words to carry, bouncing off the hard floor, reaching the assembled students and staff of Arcadia High.
A low murmur ran through the room like an almost imperceptible aftershock, informing anyone and everyone who hadn’t been in earshot.
I could see Emma too, or I could see glimpses of her, between
the students that were backing away from the front of the room. Already pale in complexion, she was white, now, staring.
I exhaled slowly, though my heart was pounding as if I’d just finished a hard run.
Defiant advanced a step, with the door to the kitchens behind him, while I took a few steps back toward the rest of the cafeteria, putting both Dragon and Defiant in front of me. Some of my bugs flowed in through the gaps around the door he’d rammed through. He’d slammed it shut behind him, but the metal had twisted around the lock, giving smaller bugs a path.
He slammed his spear against the ground. The entire cafeteria flinched at the crackle of electricity that ripped through the air around him, flowing along exposed pipe and the heating ducts in a path to the door. Every bug in the hallway died.
No use bringing bugs in that way.
I looked around me. This wasn’t an optimal battlefield. There were counters all around me, limiting my mobility, while barely impacting theirs. Someone had signaled Kid Win, Clockblocker and Adamant. The three heroes were heading our way. Sere remained tied up outside.
Five capes against me. With the bugs that had flowed into the building with Kid Win, I had maybe a thousand flying insects and some spiders. Not nearly enough to mount an offensive. I had neither a weapon nor swarm to give me an edge. I didn’t have my costume, either, but that wasn’t liable to matter.
Once upon a time, I’d had trouble getting my head around what Grue had been saying about reputation, about image and conveying the right impressions. Now it was all I had.
I let out another slow breath. Calm down. I rolled my shoulders, letting the kinks out. There was something almost relieving about the idea that things couldn’t get much worse than they were right now. Let the tension drain out. If they decided to drag me off to jail or the Birdcage, there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
They weren’t attacking. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Were they not here to arrest me, or were they covering major routes my bugs might travel, to minimize my offensive strength?
Or did I have leverage I wasn’t accounting for?
I backed up until I’d reached a counter, then hopped up onto the edge, tucking one leg under me. It was a vantage point that gave me the ability to look directly at Dragon, with Defiant at the far left of my field of vision and many of the students to my right, Emma included.
“Low blow, Dragon,” I said, finally. “Outing me? I thought you were better than that.”
Another murmur ran through the room, at what was essentially an admission. Emma was frozen. Her expression wasn’t changing; eyes wide, lips pressed together.
“I try to be,” Dragon replied. “I’m only following instructions.”
“I guess your bosses are a little annoyed at the armored suits my team trashed? Are they demanding that you make up for it by dragging me into custody?”
Dragon shook her head. “Putting the armored suits up against you Undersiders was a beta test, and identifying major flaws is par for the course. I do wish you hadn’t melted down the Azazel… It was expensive. But that’s not why we’re here.”
“There are rules, Dragon,” I said. “Expectations. I fought Leviathan, I fought the Nine. I was there for the fight against the Class-S threat downtown. I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I think maybe I deserve to, a little. I’ve done my share. You don’t turn around and reveal my identity in front of a crowd.”
“It wasn’t by choice.”
“You choose to follow them. It’s not like twenty or thirty heroes haven’t walked away from the Protectorate, recently.”
“It’s not that simple, Skitter,” Defiant said.
“It’s never simple. But sometimes you have to take the hard road. Sometimes you have to recognize that the people calling the shots don’t know what they’re doing. Because this? Picking a fight in a school? There’s no way this makes sense.”
“The Protectorate is doing what they can to pick up the pieces,” Dragon said. “Things are a little disorganized. The best of us are working twice as hard, with half of the information, or incorrect information. If there are any errors in judgement on that front, I’d hope they’re somewhat excusable, given circumstances.”
“Sure, but it’s the rest of us who pay the price. The last time we really talked, you were lecturing me about priorities. Do you really want to have this conversation? Where I have words with you about your priorities, in light of everything that’s happening with the Protectorate?”
I left the threat hang in the air.
“You won’t,” Dragon said. She stepped closer, and I raised a hand, gesturing for her to stop. I didn’t really think about it. She stopped where she was.
Why? Why was she actually listening when I told her to stop? If she’d advanced on me, grabbed me, there wasn’t much I could do besides kick and scream.
When I didn’t say anything, she added, “It’s not in you, Skitter.”
“You’d be surprised what I’m capable of,” I said. “I’ve mutilated people. Carved out a man’s eyes, emasculated him. I’ve chopped off a woman’s toes. Flayed people alive with the bites of thousands of insects. Hell, what I did to Triumph… he nearly died, choking on insects, the venom of a hundred bee stings making his throat close up. Even Sere, outside at this very moment. He’s not very happy.”
Defiant and Dragon exchanged a glance.
“Your swarm shouldn’t be able to get near him,” Defiant said.
I shrugged. Image, confidence, reputation. I hated myself for doing it, but I was thinking of Jack Slash. He didn’t wear a mask or a costume. His power didn’t make people shit their pants. What he had was his presence, an atmosphere of confidence.
Weeks or months ago, I might have had a hard time wearing that confidence the way Jack did. The history, the long sequence of events and conflicts where we’d come out ahead in our respective teams, it could just as easily be a burden, the accumulated weight of the various precedents we’d set, but we’d made it into our armor, something to make our enemies hesitate at a critical juncture.
“I’m guessing you’re trying to contact Sere somehow,” I said. “And it’s not working.”
“Is he hurt?” Dragon asked.
I didn’t have to give a response. Fear was a tool I could use, here, and I could achieve that through uncertainty and the unknown.
I’d been thinking of Jack Slash before, but now I was thinking of Bakuda. She’d been the first one to introduce me to that concept.
“You’ve got me thinking,” I said, ignoring the question, “Why set me up like this? You two are too smart to put me in a desperate situation with this many hostages in arm’s reach.”
“Is Sere hurt?” Defiant growled the words.
“You put me in a room with three hundred people I could theoretically take hostage. Why? You can’t be that confident I wouldn’t hurt someone…”
Emma was sitting to my right. She hadn’t budged from her position, safe in the midst of several of the school’s staff. I directed a centipede to crawl across her hand, and she shrieked. In her haste to get up from the bench, she fell. She scrambled to put distance between us. Both Dragon and Defiant tensed.
I raised my hands in a placating gesture, assuring the heroes I wasn’t taking it any further. “…or you wouldn’t be worrying about Sere right now. You wouldn’t have reacted like you just did. Sere’s fine, by the way, though I’m not saying he’ll stay that way.”
Defiant relaxed a fraction. I could see Adamant, Kid Win and Clockblocker entering the room behind Dragon. She turned to say something I didn’t catch, and both Adamant and Kid Win retreated. They’d be going to find Sere, I could only assume.
I met Clockblocker’s eyes, then looked to Dragon. “This is bait, isn’t it? You or the people who are calling the shots want me to take hostages. Because you have an answer handy, something that will stop me before they’re put in any serious danger. I take hostages to try to secure my release. You… I don’t even know. You gas u
s, or use some kind of controlled charge, like Defiant’s bug zapper, and every bug in the room dies. You get to be the heroes, I go into custody, and word gets around that the Undersiders aren’t so benevolent. The villains who own the city lose both their leader and the trust of the public, all at once.”
“It wasn’t our plan,” Dragon said. Her voice had a faint accent, just barely filtering through the sound filter of her mask. “I’ve studied your record. I suspected it wouldn’t work based on the decisions you’ve made to date. Defiant agreed, though he based his judgement on your powers and versatility.”
“But you went ahead with it.”
“Orders,” Dragon said, again. “And because we discussed the matter, and neither of us really believe you’ll do any serious harm to any hostages.”
“You seem to be giving me a lot of credit, assuming I’ll play nice. And you seriously expect me to keep my mouth shut about all the dirty little secrets I’ve picked up on over the last few months, after you’ve played your last card and revealed my identity? An identity you found out because I helped?”
“That wasn’t how I discovered it,” Dragon said. ”And you will keep quiet, because you know how important it is.”
“Maybe,” I answered her. “Maybe not. If I’m going to die or going to jail anyways, why shouldn’t I scream what I know to our audience, here?”
“Because you won’t,” Dragon said, “And you can’t.”
“Why don’t we move this conversation somewhere else?” Defiant asked. He shifted his hold on his spear to a two-handed grip, threatening without being threatening.
“Out of earshot of all of these people?” I asked, extending an arm in the direction of the gathered students. “I don’t think so. If nothing else, I’m entitled to a jury consisting of my peers. I’ll settle for you two taking a hit to your reputation if and when you attack or kill me.”
Which was why I was sitting on the counter. I was less mobile, less able to get out of the way if they attacked, and that was a good thing. A detail that our audience wouldn’t consciously register, but they’d take something away from the fact that my opponents were being aggressive while I was so defenseless.
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