The Skittering Chaos (Worm/Hazbin Hotel)

The Unicorn · Jan 4, 2021

Thread Necromancer said:
I have made some edits, here are the relevant parts of the edits:

Nice.

I load the magazine back in and pull back the slide a few times, letting the bullets fall to the table as I watch the chamber, watching for any feed failures as I empty the magazine.

This Works, especially for a pistol with a small magazine, but not how I'd have done it. If I tried doing it that way I'd end up crawling on the floor looking for bullets that bounced off the table or rolled under the fridge or something.

Then once more I slide out the now empty magazine and pull back the hammer once more to make sure that there are no rounds in the chamber I didn't know about.

Not the Hammer, the bolt, or since you were calling it a slide earlier you can keep using the term.

and there is barely any kind of gunk inside the receiver aside from some lust and lint from being carried inside of Mimi's hoodie pocket all this time.

LOL! I'm pretty sure that's a typo

If it's not I really want an explanation.

I slot in the magazine and cock back the hammer to make sure I reassembled the thing correctly and didn't screw up somewhere,

Hmm...It looks like this might work if the gun is like a Rugar SR22, but not for Rugar MARK III (two of the several different types of Rugar 22 pistol). However I think Taylor should have dry fired the gun, i.e slot the empty magazine in, point in a safe direction, remove/turn off the safety, and "fire" the empty gun(Rugar 22 are double action, i.e pulling the trigger will cock the hammer, so no need to cock the hammer in advance). Then work the slide/bolt and "fire" again, noting the hammer cocks and fires each time.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...22Pistol.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1kbTyaoCYtHQ9mXky7uq8m
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct.../markIII.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3rxBymcLY6axhTnt_0CvyV

"Sounds look to me, I need to check to make sure that the turret won't catch after a few rotations anyways,"

Was that supposed to be "Good"?

whoever was in the turret likely had enough time to sight the target and just blow them away.

Typo, corrected.

part of my probation ~~prohibited~~ in the Wards prohibited alcohol since I was, or rather still am, underage,

Extra word there.

having popped open the van driver door.

Odd phrasing, you seem to be missing something there. Maybe change that to "the van's driver-side door".

And a pact has been made.

Very nice and extremely interesting.

Thread Necromancer · Jan 4, 2021

The Unicorn said:
Nice.
This Works, especially for a pistol with a small magazine, but not how I'd have done it. If I tried doing it that way I'd end up crawling on the floor looking for bullets that bounced off the table or rolled under the fridge or something.
Not the Hammer, the bolt, or since you were calling it a slide earlier you can keep using the term.
LOL! I'm pretty sure that's a typo If it's not I really want an explanation.

Hmm...It looks like this might work if the gun is like a Rugar SR22, but not for Rugar MARK III (two of the several different types of Rugar 22 pistol). However I think Taylor should have dry fired the gun, i.e slot the empty magazine in, point in a safe direction, remove/turn off the safety, and "fire" the empty gun(Rugar 22 are double action, i.e pulling the trigger will cock the hammer, so no need to cock the hammer in advance). Then work the slide/bolt and "fire" again, noting the hammer cocks and fires each time.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiYi6yl44LuAhXHa8AKHS_GB7wQFjAAegQIBBAC&url=https://ruger-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/_manuals/sr22Pistol.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1kbTyaoCYtHQ9mXky7uq8m
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjW_Pb84YLuAhXWMMAKHZo8DksQFjAAegQIBRAC&url=https://ruger-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/_manuals/markIII.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3rxBymcLY6axhTnt_0CvyV

Was that supposed to be "Good"?
Typo, corrected.

Extra word there.

Odd phrasing, you seem to be missing something there. Maybe change that to "the van's driver-side door".
Very nice and extremely interesting.

Alright, I've made some additional edits now, I've addressed the bullets rolling thing by haveing Taylor have her bugs gather up her bullets and keep them in a pile as she unloads the things. I've changed the parts referencing a hammer to be a slide now, fixed the "lust" typo, I think because I mostly do erotic fiction it just slipped in. As for the model, I actually based it off of the Ruger Mark II and was going vaguely off of this one video I found of the disassembly of it.

In regards to the dry firing, I actually did put it in but it was only about one line of words so it was easy to miss. I expanded it a bit in order to try to make it more noticeable.

As for the rest of it, I fixed all that up and thank you for the advice and your superior gun knowledge.

Miller At the Wash · Jan 5, 2021

Thread Necromancer said:
There is no question that in places like Pentagram city and even most small towns in Hell have access to pretty much nearly the full range of chemicals due to the fact that it only takes one chemist, not to mention the fact that these chemists can be homegrown as well considering that there probably are universities and other kinds of educational institutions what with natural-born demons being able to be born in Hell as well as the fact that children and even babies can end up in Hell.

Native born demons, infant and juvenile damned and of course all the bored damned souls who are tired of having their brains scooped out and sold as Canadian ice cream and hope to get an advantage though learning useful skills like efficient assassination techniques (nonono a short sharp twist like this... damnit I lost another one), how best to cook acid (off campus a bit of a trip), beginners pimpslapping (or, you now have a ho what do), looting for fun and profit (pillage then burn), the making of explosives and demo without blowing yourself up (because that shit stings), advanced pole dancing for the six armed, first second and third aid, intermediate pimpslapping (where's my money bitch?), TNT through the ages (taught by professor 'I thought the whole prize schtick would keep me outta hell' Nobel), how to scoop out the recently damned's brains and sell the result as Canadian ice cream (always a full class), MDMA for dummies (glowsticks provided on request), advanced pimpslapping (Ho you don't want me to raise my hand do you?), gunsmithing, and the ever popular accounting for fun and profit (only for the seriously evil).

The Unicorn · Jan 5, 2021

Thread Necromancer said:
I actually based it off of the Ruger Mark II and was going vaguely off of this one video I found of the disassembly of it.

Okay, that's quite similar to the Mark III and doesn't have an external hammer, so Taaylor couldn't cock the hammer specifically.

I've been keeping in mind that none of the characters got taught "properly" how to handle a gun so the lack of safety briefing actually works and they won't necessarily be doing things the way they're "supposed to".

I slot in the magazine and the slide cocks in automatically.

This would be an example of not doing things the "right" way, but thinking about it, I think it actually works both for Taylor and the gun design that this is possible as it would make getting the gun ready faster, although less safe.
I don't think it would actually work that way in a Rugar mark II since the bolt stop would prevent it from sliding forward, but you can always say it wasn't a perfect clone.

As for the rest of it, I fixed all that up and thank you for the advice and your superior gun knowledge.

You're welcome.

Erwidze · Jan 6, 2021

Thread Necromancer said:
I have made some edits, here are the relevant parts of the edits:

I would love some feedback on these edits.

Kinda late, but here're my thoughts about the edits:

Love them, especially the second one. It feels more natural now. The reactions are more appropriate and fitting, and her deciding that she will do better feels nice.

Not sure what really changed about the first one, I guess some gun terminology? I don't remember Taylor telling Mimi that she has an option to leave if things go sideways for them. Or maybe my memory is just bad. Regardless, it was also a nice moment. Would be interesting to see Mimi's thoughts after that exchange, you know, like in the movies when a character gets an inspirational speech and decides to commit to a cause/help/whatever.

Thread Necromancer · Jan 6, 2021

Erwidze said:
Kinda late, but here're my thoughts about the edits:

Love them, especially the second one. It feels more natural now. The reactions are more appropriate and fitting, and her deciding that she will do better feels nice.

Not sure what really changed about the first one, I guess some gun terminology? I don't remember Taylor telling Mimi that she has an option to leave if things go sideways for them. Or maybe my memory is just bad. Regardless, it was also a nice moment. Would be interesting to see Mimi's thoughts after that exchange, you know, like in the movies when a character gets an inspirational speech and decides to commit to a cause/help/whatever.

In the first one I mainly screwed up gun stuff, as for the the Mimi leaving part, thats just Taylor preparing herself for if Mimi wants to leave the Merchants since while she seem to want to help, Taylor knows she can get kind of intense and realises not everyone can handle how things seem to escalate around her. The Wards could barely handle that and there was likely significant push back against her and her intense training of them back in the early days. Theo's friendship with her certainly didn't survive the training with her, not the she knows that. Mimi however isn't forced to be a Merchant so if things get to bad, she could leave. That isn't likely to happen as Mimi can certainly take the intensity, but Taylor doesn't know that.

VisV · Jan 6, 2021

Oh hey! Taylor just made her first deal!

Thread Necromancer · Jan 6, 2021

VisV said:
Oh hey! Taylor just made her first deal!

Kind of like a social contract, but yes she did.

Thread Necromancer · Jan 14, 2021

So I just learned that one of the reasons people end up in Hell for the smallest of things is that Heaven is also overpopulated as fuck, and they don't want to kill people there so they send you to Hell for the smallest of things, and cull people in Hell so that they have more room to send people to hell.

Sounds like God or whatever bureaucrat running Heaven just hadn't anticipated the absolute massive growth rate of the human population that now they have been panicking for the last century trying to slow the tide of people entering into Heaven so they can sort their shit out and stop Heaven from ending up just like Hell.

Granted this came from a post on a different site so I still have to find the source from whatever stream was done to give us this information, but yeah, it kind of adds a bit of reason as to why so many people are in Hell that is far more reasonable than their just bigots. Now they are bigots with an understandable reason as to why they are sending everyone to Hell and slaughtering people there.

Also the update should be coming sometime next week, with the latest hopefully being Thursday next week.

VisV · Jan 14, 2021

Thread Necromancer said:
So I just learned that one of the reasons people end up in Hell for the smallest of things is that Heaven is also overpopulated as fuck, and they don't want to kill people there so they send you to Hell for the smallest of things, and cull people in Hell so that they have more room to send people to hell.

Sounds like God or whatever bureaucrat running Heaven just hadn't anticipated the absolute massive growth rate of the human population that now they have been panicking for the last century trying to slow the tide of people entering into Heaven so they can sort their shit out and stop Heaven from ending up just like Hell.

Granted this came from a post on a different site so I still have to find the source from whatever stream was done to give us this information, but yeah, it kind of adds a bit of reason as to why so many people are in Hell that is far more reasonable than their just bigots. Now they are bigots with an understandable reason as to why they are sending everyone to Hell and slaughtering people there.

Also the update should be coming sometime next week, with the latest hopefully being Thursday next week.

So god is an incompetent authority instead of a malevolent authority...

Pretty sure that doesn't actually help his case.

Vladicus · Jan 14, 2021

VisV said:
So god is an incompetent authority instead of a malevolent authority...

Pretty sure that doesn't actually help his case.

It does. Malevolent authorities are actively trying to screw People over , While incompetents are nowhere near as succesfull at screwing things over

Thread Necromancer · Jan 14, 2021

VisV said:
So god is an incompetent authority instead of a malevolent authority...

Pretty sure that doesn't actually help his case.

In the defence of Heaven's administration, for much of human history we have had less than a billion people consistently until things really started to pick up around just after the 1700s with the population explosion where for millenium before, the human population was somewhere near 650 million by the early 1700s, so Heaven has had literal millenium where they can slowly make sure that the place is well suited for the people who will eventually come to Heaven and they likely had a much higher acceptence rate, up until the population explosion.

Through the century the population of the human race had increased by 250 million from it's previous high of 650 million. A 30ish percent population growth rate. Truth be told, that was likely a massive amount but they had probably handled it. Then it started getting even higher, as by 1900 the world population was 1.6 billion, a growth rate of that century being nearly 80 percent from the previous centuries 30 percent growth rate. That's massive, not to mention the massive amounts of wars that had been going on as well as the massive amounts of disasters from people dying due to small pox and the massive colonial enterprises. Hell, a lot of Hell and Heaven probably went tribal for a time during the time of colonialism due to how many tribals were killed through disease and force of arms.

At this point, with the rate of births and just how many people were dying because of wars and many many other things, Heaven at this point likely started to heavily reduce the amount of people coming to Heaven because it was just too much for them to handle it and manage to keep it at least somewhat a heaven for people to live in, since they essentially are probably trying to establish Utopian living standards for everyone who lives there. Thus, more people to Hell.

Then you have world war I and world war II where so many people died that they likely couldn't possibly keep up and at that point, they decided, nope nadda, this is way to much, only the purest of pure get into Heaven now.

And thus the gates of Heaven were shut to those who live anything but the purest of lives on Earth, for their Utopian standards can't even withstand the birthrate of the Heaven-born at this point, considering that the cherubs in Heaven are opening a company for some reason.

At least that's my guess as to the justification on why Heaven's policies are so strict.

I could be completely wrong and they are just as foolish as the Wardens but unless shown otherwise, I like to give them the benefit of the doubt, at least at the moment.

VisV · Jan 14, 2021

Thread Necromancer said:
In the defence of Heaven's administration, for much of human history we have had less than a billion people consistently until things really started to pick up around just after the 1700s with the population explosion where for millenium before, the human population was somewhere near 650 million by the early 1700s, so Heaven has had literal millenium where they can slowly make sure that the place is well suited for the people who will eventually come to Heaven and they likely had a much higher acceptence rate, up until the population explosion.

Through the century the population of the human race had increased by 250 million from it's previous high of 650 million. A 30ish percent population growth rate. Truth be told, that was likely a massive amount but they had probably handled it. Then it started getting even higher, as by 1900 the world population was 1.6 billion, a growth rate of that century being nearly 80 percent from the previous centuries 30 percent growth rate. That's massive, not to mention the massive amounts of wars that had been going on as well as the massive amounts of disasters from people dying due to small pox and the massive colonial enterprises. Hell, a lot of Hell and Heaven probably went tribal for a time during the time of colonialism due to how many tribals were killed through disease and force of arms.

At this point, with the rate of births and just how many people were dying because of wars and many many other things, Heaven at this point likely started to heavily reduce the amount of people coming to Heaven because it was just too much for them to handle it and manage to keep it at least somewhat a heaven for people to live in, since they essentially are probably trying to establish Utopian living standards for everyone who lives there. Thus, more people to Hell.

Then you have world war I and world war II where so many people died that they likely couldn't possibly keep up and at that point, they decided, nope nadda, this is way to much, only the purest of pure get into Heaven now.

And thus the gates of Heaven were shut to those who live anything but the purest of lives on Earth, for their Utopian standards can't even withstand the birthrate of the Heaven-born at this point, considering that the cherubs in Heaven are opening a company for some reason.

At least that's my guess as to the justification on why Heaven's policies are so strict.

I could be completely wrong and they are just as foolish as the Wardens but unless shown otherwise, I like to give them the benefit of the doubt, at least at the moment.

Isn't god supposed to be all knowing? Shouldn't he have seen the population explosion coming way in advance?

He literally told humans to "Go Forth And Multiply" did he underestimate his creations that much?

Fuck, didn't he literally create the universe? Why can't he just magic up some more fucking space?

If he can't even keep his shit together, why call him God?

Thread Necromancer · Jan 14, 2021

VisV said:
Isn't god supposed to be all knowing? Shouldn't he have seen the population explosion coming way in advance?

He literally told humans to "Go Forth And Multiply" did he underestimate his creations that much?

Fuck, didn't he literally create the universe? Why can't he just magic up some more fucking space?

If he can't even keep his shit together, why call him God?

The way things are probably going to happen is that viziepop is probably going to make God either fallible or just straight up absent like the Maker in Dragon Age. Thus, leaving the management of Heaven to the Angels who are fallible.

Hell it could even be an imperium of man situation where Lucifer almost succeeded but failed at the final moment, but managed to take down God or something and that's why everything is shit in the after life.

But it will really depend on the route that Viziepop takes in this.

Wolfboy · Jan 14, 2021

Thread Necromancer said:
The way things are probably going to happen is that viziepop is probably going to make God either fallible or just straight up absent like the Maker in Dragon Age. Thus, leaving the management of Heaven to the Angels who are fallible.

Hell it could even be an imperium of man situation where Lucifer almost succeeded but failed at the final moment, but managed to take down God or something and that's why everything is shit in the after life.

But it will really depend on the route that Viziepop takes in this.

I've said this before but never posted it:
God is neither a masochist nor a sadist. God is a chronic underachiever with a run away science project/experiment.

Take that for what you will or wish.

The Unicorn · Jan 15, 2021

Thread Necromancer said:
In the defence of Heaven's administration, for much of human history we have had less than a billion people consistently until things really started to pick up around just after the 1700s with the population explosion where for millenium before, the human population was somewhere near 650 million by the early 1700s, so Heaven has had literal millenium where they can slowly make sure that the place is well suited for the people who will eventually come to Heaven and they likely had a much higher acceptance rate, up until the population explosion.

That Doesn't work, that REALLY doesn't work.

Unless we're talking about a system with reincarnation (in which case you have a bunch of other issues) that argument fails to consider the fact that souls/people in either heaven or hell don't die naturally. I was going to start calculating how many people in hell and heaven combined there'd be by 1700 but https://www.prb.org/howmanypeoplehaveeverlivedonearth/
did a better job already. By 1750 they'd have close to 90 billion people, if you only count live births, if still births count as well add a few billion to that. The added population since is a fraction of the population they had.

Keep in mind that the main reason population shot up is that people weren't dying as fast so the population of Heaven and hell wouldn't be increasing as fast as RL populations did.

Thread Necromancer · Jan 15, 2021

The Unicorn said:
That Doesn't work, that REALLY doesn't work.

Unless we're talking about a system with reincarnation (in which case you have a bunch of other issues) that argument fails to consider the fact that souls/people in either heaven or hell don't die naturally. I was going to start calculating how many people in hell and heaven combined there'd be by 1700 but https://www.prb.org/howmanypeoplehaveeverlivedonearth/
did a better job already. By 1750 they'd have close to 90 billion people, if you only count live births, if still births count as well add a few billion to that. The added population since is a fraction of the population they had.

Keep in mind that the main reason population shot up is that people weren't dying as fast so the population of Heaven and hell wouldn't be increasing as fast as RL populations did.

Right shit, for some reason my mind went straight to more humans, more death, forgetting about the reason why there was more humans. This is why I am terrible at math.

Night Hunter · Jan 15, 2021

Thread Necromancer said:
Right shit, for some reason my mind went straight to more humans, more death, forgetting about the reason why there was more humans. This is why I am terrible at math.

It's more likely after thousands of years of receiving human souls, both Heaven and Hell are reaching the breaking point that can no longer fully accomodate these souls along with hellspawn and heavenborn beings.

Thread Necromancer · Jan 18, 2021

I've made some edits to Chapter 9:

Thread Necromancer said:
"Fancy yourself an Overlord do ya?" I think about responding with a resounding no, but, that wasn't really true, was it? Despite it being possible to easily connect it back to me and my cape identity, I was asking him to send people our way to join us in at the Merchants. He already knew Sherrel and where we lived, he could easily bring the vigilantes down on our heads, but then, I had already bugged this place along with the other bars that vigilantes went to according to Felix. I would have advanced warning.

Then I pause for a second, realising what I'm doing. I'm moving forward with plans I hadn't even brought to the attention of Adam and Sherrel. I'd done such things many times while in the Chicago Wards, after all, most of the time the PRT and Protectorate would have tried to stop me from doing what needed to be done if they had known what I was about to do, or even actively tried to stop me. I'd never gotten in any significant trouble for it, or at least, anything that actually affected what I was in the Wards to do, restricting my ability to leave the base on anything other than patrols didn't do much to someone that rarely left the base other than to do my job… and to attend a few dinners being thrown by the mayor. He and some of Chicago's officials had actually proven useful in making sure I didn't get much more than a slap on the wrist, as ever since I had been invited to one of their dinners, they had stopped implying that if I continued going off script, they would reconsider my placement in Chicago.

This wasn't the Wards though, I wasn't dealing with the PRT and Protectorate anymore. I wasn't some inconvenient ward that was just politically important enough to let things largely slide, I was now a major part of the new Merchants, and I was going behind the backs of Adam and Sherrel with this. I look to Sherrel, and I see a smile on her face as she sipped from her drink. As she notices my attention, she gives a thumbs up. Well, thats one.

With the bugs I had left at the warehouse, I find Adam, he and Felix are watering the plants on the main floor while Mimi has brought lil' Mark down and is bouncing the giggling babe on her lap. I coalesce my bugs into a sort of orb so that they can speak for me.

"Adam," my bugs buzz, causing Adam to jump, splashing water about as he turns, one of his hands tucked into his jacket pocket when he turns to my small swarm. Seeing the mass of bugs, he blinks a few times before he relaxes.

"Jesus, you scared the shit outta me, so what you want?" remembering how Sherrel acted when he swore in front of Mark, she likely wouldn't approve, I'll have to tell her about it later.

"Sherrel and I have met one of her friends in a bar, a man named Anthony, I was planning on recruiting him to help us get some manpower, he seems decent enough, and wanted to make sure it was fine with you before I did," Adam's eyebrows raised as I buzzed at him.

"Anthony? Yeah sure, if he really wants to, I didn't think we'd be grabbing anyone until we did that raid thing you were talkin' about. Get some moola 'n' shit," I note the second swear, and have my bugs bob up and down in a pseudo nod before I disperse them back to what they had been doing before. With my permission secured, I continue with Anthony.

"I was a Warlord in life. When no one else would, I took charge and fixed my city, why not do the same here?" I ask him, and his smile grows.

Mostly the edits are in the vein of Skitter wanting to show to the Merchants that she isn't trying to subvert their gang to her sole control, mostly because they have been supportive of what she wants to do so far. That and hopefully with his, they will trust her to continue to make good decisions compared to the PRT/Protectorate which kept trying to stop her but continued to fail to do so for various reasons, with one of the reasons being brought up being that the regular police officers, mayoral officials, and the public at large in Chicago pretty much loved how she was doing things while in the Wards.

VisV · Jan 19, 2021

Vladicus said:
It does. Malevolent authorities are actively trying to screw People over , While incompetents are nowhere near as succesfull at screwing things over

I need to address this... no Incompetence is far worse than malice.

Vladicus · Jan 19, 2021

VisV said:
I need to address this... no Incompetence is far worse than malice.

I disagree, incompetence can be fixed in time or mitigated, malice is not.

Unfortunately the most clear examples I could give are kinda political and I'm already on thin ice due to my jokes on the 'Laugh if you're a horrible person' thread.

Simonbob · Jan 19, 2021

Vladicus said:
I disagree, incompetence can be fixed in time or mitigated, malice is not.

Unfortunately the most clear examples I could give are kinda political and I'm already on thin ice due to my jokes on the 'Laugh if you're a horrible person' thread.

I disagree.

Malice requites IQ. Thus, you can redirect them into something a little more mutually beneficial (Usually.) I find the incompedent to be near impossible to get to do anything useful, without leverage.

Might just be me, though.

Vladicus · Jan 19, 2021

Simonbob said:
I disagree.

Malice requites IQ. Thus, you can redirect them into something a little more mutually beneficial (Usually.) I find the incompedent to be near impossible to get to do anything useful, without leverage.

Might just be me, though.

Useful for the society, but not towards those the malice is directed at.

Crazael · Jan 19, 2021

Simonbob said:
I disagree.

Malice requites IQ. Thus, you can redirect them into something a little more mutually beneficial (Usually.) I find the incompedent to be near impossible to get to do anything useful, without leverage.

Might just be me, though.

I think malice is worse because malice requires intent. Ignorance is just someone not knowing any better. Malice is actively directed at hurting someone.

ilmncsm · Jan 19, 2021

I don't have much opinion on the matter, besides the fact that in some ways malice can be better, because you can be incompetent at being malicious and fail to cause much harm, but if you all feel strongly enough about the topic you should probably take it somewhere else. It's diverged rather far from the story into a philosophical debate that isn't being related back to the story anymore.

Thread Necromancer · Jan 21, 2021

The Skittering Chaos 10

I'm going to edit the previous chapter to have Skitter ask Skidmark if it is alright with him that she recruits Anthony with her bugs, as it makes sense that Taylor would leave some of her bugs back at the base, and ask Skidmark if it is fine with him to recruit Anthony. Mostly just want to emphasize that Skitter wants to be a team player here rather than what I had previously put having Taylor just recruit him.

Any and all feedback is highly appreciated
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"Want another?" Anthony asks me indicating my empty cup.

"Come on, it's your first time, drink!" Sherrel calls out, raising her glass, along with some of the other patrons. I smile politely, but my head already feels funny. The room isn't spinning or anything, but… there is a fuzziness to it that won't go away no matter how many times I shake my head. It's weird, and I'm not sure I like it. I can almost feel my eyes go bug-eyed so I'm shutting my eyes really tight to try to deal with it and it seems to work.

"I guess I could have one more," I say to them. Anthony nods at me while Sherrel cheers and starts giggling soon after. The sparse crowd that is here at the bar seem like fairly nice people. Not that I have much to go on. But they were generally polite, especially compared to some bars. Through the bugs, I've planted in the other bars some of them were really loud and the people there rather rambunctious. In a few of them gunshots had rung out and the whole place had gone to shit. Whenever that would happen I would frown, but there wasn't much I could do about it at the moment, not with how little of a swarm I had.

Not only that but I didn't really have a way of telling what was fully going on because I didn't have as large of a swarm as when I was alive, though I had made sure that I could listen in on the various stalls, and shifted bugs around the various tables when I could. Many of the conversations were rather mundane, or sometimes, steamy. I had gotten a few tips that were actually useful. Like don't buy the bulky 10-millimetre pistols, they were a bunch of replica garbage base off of some game. Another was to watch out for someone called the "Radio Demon" who was some up and coming big shot in Hell.

"Well alright then, what'll ya have? You could have some more of the Rum and pop, you liked that, you could try something harder, like whiskey, if you're feeling adventurous, or I could get you something lighter," Anthony states, I frown for a second, trying to think of what I might have. Though, I'm already kind of tipsy judging by the weird feeling in my head.

"Something lighter, I'm already feeling it," I lazily continue to fly my listening swarms around the bars and clubs we had bugged while driving around. I note the various weapons that people are carrying on them, most of them being small things, though I have felt a few larger weapons sitting beside people. Despite not really needing to since I'm not going into any of the bars tonight, not while I'm tipsy like this. At this point, it's just a habit to note where all the weapons were and figure out how to avoid them. Right now, don't go into that bar. Anthony brings me a short glass of some kind of light fizzy drink. I look up at him.

"It's some peach cider. I get a shipment of the stuff every few days from New Minos. Moth Demons love the stuff, you love the stuff, so I thought I might as well share it with ya," I nod at him and give my thanks as I accept the glass. I take a sip, it's nice and sweet, and really smooth. I can still tell that it's alcoholic, but even straight it tastes exceptional, even better than the sweet rum drink that Anthony gave me before. I continued to fly my bugs around as I continued to drink. Sometimes, I get my bugs to vibrate or do something that lets me focus on them, away from my tipsy mind.

"-om on Snipes," I blink as I recognize the name. That had been the name of the vigilante that had been gunning for me specifically. I direct my listening swarm back to their table and note where the bar they are in is.

"You've been drinking yourself under the table ever since we lost him, if you keep at it, you'll blow all of our money," slowly, I start to moving my bugs to get a sense of the people around the table. I only had enough to listen in on a single conversation so I begin with the one that had been talking. Positioning the bugs over his clothing and on places where I know, unless someone is paying attention to that particular body part, a person shouldn't notice.

The man that had spoken and was discussing the issues of money was a short man who sounded fairly young from his voice. The young man had on a light and loose-fitting tee-shirt along with some shorts to go with it. He honestly seemed fairly human, though I can't really tell what colour he is due to just using the bug's sense of touch. Another interesting thing was that the man has a large pair of feathered wings that he has folded up behind him. Holstered on either hip are a pair of boxy guns. Judging by the general shape of them, they had to be some kind of Mac-10 ripoff or something similar.

"Fuck off Ace, if we neeeed more moneeeeey, we *hic* can just find a dealer or… something…*hic*," so Arial Ace was a part of the group, Snipe's group, who had been specifically gunning for me. I couldn't really tell by the group chat on the phone I had stolen from Brainiache if he was or not before I got banned from it when Snipes had posted that Brainiache's phone had been stolen. Had I been conscious after escaping Valentino's territory during the attack, I might have had time to try to contact some of the demons in the chat and get their numbers, but alas, a lost opportunity.

Shifting my bugs over to the new speaker, I immediately noticed that the speaker, who was obviously Snipes, was hunched over the table, and judging by the complaints, likely had some kind of drink her hand. Like the picture on Brainiache's phone showed, she was a kind of bird demon who's wings were more like feathery arms than actual wings, though considering that I could shape shift my wings, it wouldn't surprise me if she could do the same.

"That's not the point, the way you're dealing with this is a problem. I get it, he was my friend, and Rollout's too, but even if he's gone, that doesn't mean that you can just sit there drowning your sorrow away with a bottle of booze," I shift my bugs to the last person who is with them. The first thing I noticed is that the man who was sitting by them had a kind of exoskeleton over him and that his arms and legs were massive in comparison to the two other vigilantes. Despite the exoskeletoned demon's massive bulk, the man seemed to be as tall as the other two, meaning he was big but short. He was likely some kind of bug demon judging by the antennae on his head, probably some kind of beetle, as ants weren't shaped like him… but then again, I was less a moth and more a gray girl who had moth-like features.

I begin to spread my bugs out between all of them, giving me a kind of marionette mental image of them as they moved around. Snipes was chugging the last of her bottle down while Arial Ace had his arms crossed as he watched her. Rollout, who she assumed the rotund one was simply sat there shifting uncomfortably. Considering how Snipes had reacted when Adam and Angel Dust had been taunting her over Brainiache's phone, they were talking about Brainiache.

Angel Dust had said that Valentino had flown into a rage when everything was all over. Considering what he had said that Valentino would have done to us had he caught us in that fight, or even just selling drugs to Angel if Brainiache wasn't grabbed, he wouldn't be in a good place. Judging by the tears and the fact that Snipes had been drinking herself to ruin, it didn't seem that they had picked him up before Valentino flooded the place with his magic smoke.

"Hey, let's not fight, come on," the one known as Rollout said, trying to act as the peacemaker. "Snipes, I know you're angry and upset, and that's okay," Rollout reaches over to Snipes and puts a hand on her shoulder, "I'm upset about losing him to, we all are. This wasn't supposed to be like this, but it happened, and things went to shit. We can't do anything about it. But what we can do is keep going. You said it yourself, we can't give up, we need to keep going," Snipes seemed to still herself as she listened to him.

"Hey, Skitty? You alright? You've been quiet for a while now," I hear Sherrel say and I look up to see Anthony and Sherrel looking at me, concerned.

"I'm listening in on some vigilantes at the moment, one of them was the one that nearly killed me,"

"Lemme' guess, you want to go give them a little payback, right?" Anthony asks, however, I shake my head.

"No, I'm feeling a bit tipsy, besides, they're over a dozen blocks away. Instead, I'm going to track them with my bugs and we can take care of them when they think they're safe. I'm going to tell Adam about our next target," I say as I gather the bugs I had left back at the warehouse. Once more, I form them into a ball of bugs that I could use to once more tell Adam and Mimi about our latest development.

"Adam, I found the sniper who shot me. She and some other vigilantes are drinking in one of the bars I bugged, I want to hit them tomorrow when we find out where they are staying," unlike the first time, Adam doesn't jump when he suddenly hears the chittering voice coming from the bugs.

"Already? Damn girl, you work fast."

"Wait, someone shot you?" I hear Mimi ask from where she's bouncing the giggling and gurgling Mark.

"I got better," I reassure Mimi before returning to answering Adam. "Seems they never got their last member back from the attack on Valentino's. Snipe has apparently been drinking a lot since then. I have other bugs listening in but I haven't heard anything suspicious yet from the other bars yet," Adam nods.

"I can see what I can cook up for tomorrow. Say Felix, you said you know how to make guns 'n' shit right? Can you make pipe bombs too?" I move a few bugs over to Felix and feel him nodding.

"Good shit. We'll start getting some of the stuff you might need when we raid those fuckers and show them that the Merchants ain't someone to fuckin' mess with," I can practically feel the manic grin spread across Adam's face. I wonder if I'm a bad influence on the man. He's finally gotten his life back together, and now I'm dragging him back down into being a gang member once again.

He'd said that he had felt nothing while he commanded the Merchants, though was this any different. Sure I wanted to make the places we took control of into better and safer places but did that really mean much to Adam? He and the Merchants he controlled while alive had as he was saying, were just surviving, getting by and leaving nothing but destruction in their path. The way that he naturally fell into commanding Felix to begin making bombs for the raid, what we are doing now must not look all that different from the things he had been doing while he was running the Merchants.

Yet, unlike the Brockton Bay Merchants, we weren't just here to make money from peddling drugs. It was just a means to an end, the same with this raid. We were gathering capital for ourselves so that we could begin to make a push into Pentagram City and start to try to improve things. We just had to make sure not to forget ourselves. This was just like Brockton Bay, and like in Brockton Bay, like in my and the other Undersider's territories, we had to be the change in the city that would make this place better because no one else would.

Even while I talked with Adam and Sherrel, however, the vigilantes had continued to talk.

"Look, he was your boyfriend, the relationship between you two was more than what we had with him, but we knew him too, and do you really think he would want you to be doing this?" Snipe's head jerked towards him as he said that.

"Fuck you! Don't fucking use him against me you asshole, and don't you think I deserve some time to fucking mope? You weren't the one that got him killed; you weren't the one that managed to get a bunch of people to join us in Valentino's territory. I was the one who did that… and… and I was the one that got them all killed or captured or whatever happened to them. It's, it's my fault all this shit happened, and I just want to curl up and die."

"Well at least you know you made a mistake," a vaguely feminine voice comes from near the table. "Mind if I sit down?" the stranger asks them. They shake their heads and Ariel Ace moves over so that the stranger can sit with them. I use some of my bug to get a sense of the new person. They're tall and some of my bugs have already brushed up against a long furred tail. The woman is wearing some kind of jeans and a leather jacket to go with it. She's furred from what I can tell and judging by the cat ears on the top of her head, she's some kind of feline demon. Having all the information of her I could without my bugs being noticed, I pull them back to relative safety while I listen in.

"Uh, if you don't mind, who are you?" Ariel Ace asks.

"Someone who's been doing this longer than three you, and actually knows what is going on around here, unlike most of you new vigilantes it seems," that agitated Snipes, who points an accusing finger at her, which swayed as she pointed.

"Fuck off, I'm a Ward, I, I know what I'm *hic* doing," the stranger turns her head to look straight at Snipe, and I can guess that she isn't exactly impressed. The stranger reaches over a plucks the drink from Snipe's hand, eliciting a sharp "Hey!" from Snipes who scrambles to get it back, but the stranger is too quick for her.

"And I was a Ward that graduated into the Protectorate, and I've been here for two years already being a vigilante, while most of you got here at some point in the last week or so, isn't that right?" the veteran vigilante turns her head to look at all of them again. They all nod along as she looks at them.

"So you don't have any idea what is going on down here and this is pretty much all new to you," the feline demon sighs. "I guess you can't be blamed for not knowing the first rule in Hell, do not to fuck with the Overlords, especially as new as you guys seem to be," the other three vigilantes nod their head, likely remembering back to their assault on Valentino's and their attempt to kill me.

"What were you even trying to do there anyway?" The hero asks.

"We were gonna *hic* go kill the bitch that started mastering everyone at the end of the world," I frown slightly at that. It wasn't as if there was any other choice. No one would work together, and we would have all died otherwise. It had not been my first choice, but no one would listen or even try to put aside their differences and come together. If it were up to me I would have gladly not subjected myself to Panacea and Bonesaw and thus gotten killed at the end to stop whatever chain reaction they had started when they opened up the connection allowing me to start mastering people.

"So you attacked one of the demon triumvirate's territories so that you could kill a single villain?" it was at this moment that Rollout decided to jump into the conversation.

"Well not everyone. Some of us were there to try to take down this master, other people in the group chat, well, actually, a bunch of them joined to attack the overlord and take him down since there were a couple of teams that were going to come back us up when we went after her. Some were there to take down the overlords businesses and weaken him in general, and there were a few that just wanted to fight."

"Most of *hic* the guys I got to join were already itching for a fight, 'n' Brainiache told me that they were Valentino's territory, so *hic* I said that they could get a good fight in with the Valentino gang while we tried to take out Weaver. We'd help them getaway, and we'd *hic* hit the overlord there. Then more people wanted to come just to help fight one of the gangs… and then some wanted to actually fight the gang leader as well and take him down for good. Things kind of just spiralled from there,"

"I guess it didn't cross your mind how he was able to stay as a demon overlord for decades?" the feline former hero asks, and judging by her tone, she wasn't particularly impressed with the vigilante trio.

"No not really, but we weren't going to really planning on fighting him much, at least, not until everyone started piling on to fight him. We were just after that one villain that was mind-controlling people like Brainiache at the end of the world," Ariel Ace told the hero. The hero nodded along.

"Alright… I guess it wasn't the worst attempt at taking down an overlord; there are a few nut jobs and idiots around here that try it every year. You guys shouldn't be one of those nut jobs just so you know. Nothing good happens to those guys," the feline lifts Snipe's drink and starts to drink it down, causing Snipe to literally squawk at her.

"That's my drink!"

"And you're underage, or did you graduate from the Wards?" the veteran vigilante asks as she finishes the drink off, causing Snipe to sputter indignantly.

"It isn't like we are trying to be like those 'nutjobs'," Rollout complains.

"I get that now, I wasn't so sure when I saw it going on in the news. What you guys need is someone to show you the ropes, help you realise who you do and do not fuck with. I can help you with that, I've been here two years already and I've seen a lot of shit, plus, you guys can show me that vigilante group chat thing you were talking about. It's the first time I've heard of it," the hero says. The others in the group start nodding as well.

"Hey Skitty, what's going on?" I hear Sherrel ask beside me.

"It sounds like they know less than me when it comes to Hell," I say simply while continuing to listen to the conversation. "I'll tell you on the way back," I go to take another sip and realise my cup is empty. I'd been sipping at it while I listened in on the vigilantes. My head doesn't feel significantly different, but then, I'm still feeling a bit dizzy… better safe than sorry.

"Yeah sure, that sounds great,"

"Hey wait a second, *hic* I'm supposed to be the leader, we voted!" Snipe cried out. Fragmentation among the ranks then? The team from the sounds of it is fairly new, and already someone from outside was trying to move in on the leadership.

"Now hold on, I didn't say I was going to be your new leader," the hero declared. "I just want to show you guys the ropes. I get that you guys probably want to stay independent, I get that, I do too, but I wouldn't mind having some allies so that we can back each other up when the big guys start making some moves. You've riled one of the demonic triumvirate up from what I've heard, and when one of them gets riled up, the others get riled up as well," even so, assuming mentor ship over them might cause dissension between them as they look at the more experienced hero's work. Despite what the former hero is saying, mentor ship is still assuming leadership over the group. The Wards technically were being led by Tecton, and myself when we in tactical situations, but we were ultimately under the command of those who were supposed to be our mentors, and their orders overrode our own when it came to the chain of command. Luckily, it didn't happen to us very often, but I've heard during the few times I actually bothered to go to the meet ups to meet with other Protectorate heroes of the problems mentors could cause to the chain of command. Often times when that happened, things devolved into Wards politics, and who was the mentor of who.

"I guess…" Snipes says finally as she twiddles her thumbs.

"Good, I've got a bit of time on my hands now, what with Valentino looking for trouble now. Just give me your address and I'll see you tomorrow morning and I can get you properly informed about what you just fell into," useful… Ariel Ace tells the hero their address, though since I don't know the city that well I relay it to Anthony and Sherrel.

"32nd red walk road? I think that's an apartment building. Whole place is residential. Other than that, I don't know. Not a good part of town, but it ain't bad either. No overlord there either so they likely won't care," Anthony states. I nod and listen back in on the vigilantes. The hero is getting up to leave now, though she turns back to them before she leaves.

"Oh, and I'm Battery by the way. From the Protectorate ENE," Battery. I remember her back in Brockton. Bonesaw had killed her while we were all under the influence of her mind plague, and she'd been the one that had confronted me when I took my territory back in Brockton. How would she react to finding I was doing the same thing here? Would she fight me, like she had wanted to back in Brockton Bay? Likely, even if it was just to settle the score. The PRT and Protectorate had been rather hostile to us back then despite the good work we were doing. While it's possible that she has had a change of heart ever since her death, I can't count on it, especially if she blames me for her death. Assault certainly did. Though, I can track her, and use my bugs to talk to her. I'll have to do it before the other vigilantes tell her about me. Snipe knows that I was Weaver, and Battery knows me as Skitter. She'll likely make the connection. Though with Snipe there to poison the well, I likely won't be able to try to convince her otherwise of my good intentions, not after Colin had spilled to them that I had tried to be a hero first. With how she talked about "my kind" always having an agenda, she might make assumptions.

I leave my bugs on her. While listening in on the bar would prove useful, it was more useful to… Despite not really paying attention to the eyesight of my bugs, mostly because it was a confusing mess, there is a flash of light, and suddenly the bugs are gone. I fly a few bugs out, but can't find the feline hero. I wonder what happened?

No matter, I can still track the vigilantes in the bar back to their place.

"I think we should get back to the warehouse, we need to plan our attack."

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

I look over my gun one more time as we begin to near the apartments that the vigilantes were still in. They were just getting up and were moving around sluggishly inside of their apartment. Snipes was cooking eggs in the kitchen, Rollout was waiting patiently while Ariel Ace was in the main room of the apartment.

With some of the extra bugs, we gathered on the way here I scouted out the surrounding buildings for people. Mostly tenants, and while there were a few feline demons around, none of them were wearing a leather jacket like Battery had been last night. While it wasn't much to go on, it would have to do as I mark each of the felines around the area. Better safe than sorry.

Satisfied once more with my gun, I load the magazine back into it as we are coming to a stop. At the same time, I shift my wings from a nice and comfortable long fur coat to my old Skitter costume uniform, while I shift my antennae into the mask. I've been trying to figure out how to make my mask with the silk I can spit, but trying to sort though it is a pain. I'll likely need a loom or something before I'm able to begin to properly weave my costume again, or I need to find many many more spiders.

"Alright, here's your stop. Make sure to tell us if you need Skiddy to blast the apartment," Sherrel says.

"Don't be shy, any problem at all, you just tell me and I'll get blasting," Adam comments from his seat in the turret where he was looking through the viewport of the tank turret that had been welded on top of the van. I pat the seat that Adam is on.

"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get a chance to blast someone very soon," I comment before stepping out the back door of the van. At the same time, I bring together some bugs to act as a quick way to tell Adam and Sherrel if anything was wrong. Sherrel had parked on the opposite side of the road, just far enough that the turret could fire on the apartment or anything that came out of the main building's entrance. None of the vigilantes are paying attention to the windows of the apartment and the blinds were drawn so they wouldn't even be able to catch a glimpse. The back of the building leads into a dense section of alleyways with a pack of animals of some kind back there seeming to be patrolling their territory.

There are a few people walking around on the streets already, either heading to cars on the sides of the road or just walking down the sidewalk. Had I still had my old power I could have used my bugs to keep them out of the way, but I've only got a large enough swarm to create something of a mental map of the building I'm going into, and to track the people inside of the building. If everything goes to plan, however, this fight shouldn't leave the apartment let alone the building.

The entrance of the building is sparsely populated, and the red-skinned demon manning the lobby counter doesn't even look up from his magazine as I enter the building and walk past his desk. I, like him, do my best to ignore him and the audible sound of too much lotion on a specific body part. I think I saw Angel Dust on the cover too.

Before I head to the stairs, I reach the back door and start laying down some layers of barriers to prevent escape through the back into the alleyway. Adam, Angel and I had been able to escape out the back of a building, why couldn't they? Soon enough, there is a visibly glowing blue barrier with its acceleration heading back into the building. With the back alley being patrolled by territorial animals, there shouldn't be anyone trying to come in.

Turning from the back door, I walk back over to the main lobby, once more ignore the disgusting act at the front desk, and ascend the stairs to the vigilante's apartment. The apartment itself is on the third floor and as far as I can tell from my bugs marking the different members of Snipe's vigilante group, they hadn't really moved much. Pulling out my pistol from a pocket on my wings turned villain costume, I manoeuvre the bugs in the room onto them, a bug for each body part and each joint, giving me a good idea of what they are doing inside. I take aim at the door as I prepare to fire through it at Ariel Ace's head.

I fire a bullet through the door, the thin wood door doing nothing to stop my magically accelerated bullet. With the additional effects that I put onto the fields within the barrel, it accelerated the bullet much faster than it had any right to be while also muffling the bang of its acceleration, meaning I essentially had an effectively suppressed pistol without having to go about buying a silencer for it. I felt the light that was my bug on Ariel Ace's head disappear and felt him slump over. Not wasting time, I used the bugs I had on the inside to unlock the door.

The other two are confused about the sound, though Snipes seems to realise what it is as she pushes herself away from the stove and heads for her weapon on the kitchen table. She's the least likely to be a threat, what with having been a tinker/thinker combo when she'd been alive. Once they all awoke from their "nap," she can be the one that tells them why it's a bad idea to come after us. As I take a few steps into the apartment and aim at where I can feel the bugs on her legs are. I fire two shots and I can feel with my bugs as she crumples to the ground at the same time the bugs I had on her knees vanish from my senses. I hear a shout of fear from the kitchen, and a scream of pain.

Just like I did with Ariel Ace, I aim at Rollout's head through the wall and fire. I feel the bug on his head die, yet, he doesn't fall down. Instead, I feel his arms fly to his face and a shout of pain coming from the kitchen as he nearly gets thrown over and almost falls down. I land a bug on the back of his head this time and fire again. His head flies back and he falls down, his back to the wall of the kitchen. Rather than staying down, he pushes himself forward towards the fridge, and presses his back against it. His armour must be tough, or he's a much more powerful brute than I thought. I fire a few more times, penetrating the wall and the fridge, but unlike when I was just firing through the wall; he doesn't seem that affected by my bullets. His hands are on his head after the first shot through the fridge and barely seems to faze him. The only sign of damage I can feel with my bugs is that he seems to be bleeding badly from his head. I move a few bugs onto him from Snipes onto his head, and feel that his head armour is completely cracked and slit open on the spots where I managed to shoot.

I don't have enough ammo to keep plinking at him through the fridge so I begin to walk through the main room to the doorway into the kitchen. As I pass the couch, I see Ariel Ace slumped over the remains of the cheap coffee table, his weight apparently being enough to cause it to give out. I fire another shot into his head to make sure he's dead. You can never be too careful.

I make my steps to the kitchen slow and deliberate, making sure that Rollout and Snipe can hear me as I walk towards them. It wouldn't be enough to just kill them. They would be up before long and will have learned nothing, especially since they likely didn't even know it was me who had so easily defeated them. We had a plan to keep them down for a while, though I was going to add onto it. For Ariel Ace, he wouldn't know what hit him, but the other two would know who killed them, and being so easily destroyed would harm their morale, and make them think twice before coming after me, and subsequently the Merchants, again.

As I stand near the doorway, I finger one of the pipe bombs that Felix had made. I consider using it against Rollout, it would minimize the danger to me if either of them turned out to be blasters, though the way that Snipe had been trying to crawl to the table before I got close to the doorway, and how Rollout was cowering, it wasn't likely. I take another deliberate step, and the bug on Snipe's head swivelled, showing her looking towards the doorway. Good.

I step through the doorway, my gun already up. I can see Snipe's eye widen as she sees my masked face, showing her the mask of the person she had just down her scope less than a week ago. I see Rollout tense up to try to tackle me, and I adjust my aim slightly to aim at his less armoured knee. I fire once and his tackle dies there as he falls to his side, a pained shout escaping his lips.

"Rollout!" Snipe shouts out, I watch her with my bugs, but she's frozen and no longer trying to get to her gun on the table. I adjust my aim for his head now that he's incapacitated.

There is a surge of magical energy inside of him and suddenly he's growing much larger. I fire my gun at him but all it does is throw his head back and create another divot in the exoskeleton armour on his head. At the same time, I sense with my antennae how he's doing it. I'll have to try that for myself later to see if it works, or even see if I could reverse it to make myself smaller and less of a target. Though it seems he's pouring magic into his body, different than how Angel did to bring out or pull in his extra limbs.

"Grahh!" Rollout shout and he flings himself my way and I skip back while I hit the button to drop my magazine from the handle. I'd run out of bullets, I'd been hoping that I could deal with the beetle-like demon with my last few bullets, but no such luck. He stumbles to his feet and he is significantly bigger. He must have been a Changer in life. He tries to swing at me but I send a blast of magical energy his way, throwing him off balance, causing him to stumble backwards, though not over.

I slot a new magazine into my pistol and begin firing again, though this time he hides his head behind his arms. They're covered in even thicker exoskeleton armour now and while they do penetrate his arms, sending small amounts of blue blood out with the impacts, he doesn't seem phased at all. He charges me and I step back out the kitchen, letting him hit the wall. I raise my gun again into his head, only this time when I hit it, it doesn't fling his head back, but rather more like someone had punched him.

I send a blast his way once more but rather than pushing him off balance he just takes it before he seems to dive at me. I jump out of the way of him but he keeps going, seeming to curl up into a ball and rolls. Rather than stopping his roll it keeps going, only getting faster, then, it climbs up the wall a bit. Rather than fire, I begin to put down some acceleration fields, I can guess that he's going to come back around. His spin rolls around and comes back for me as I expected and I hop through my acceleration field in time for him to impact heavily with the wall, sending dust and debris around. I stare incredulously for a moment as he has gone through the wall and the cabinets.

So much for reducing collateral damage. With my lower arms, I grab one of the pipe bombs and get ready to prime it. The things were made with a fairly short fuse so that Adam could use them in his modified baseball cannon. With the way that the magic that Rollout was using I didn't even need my bugs on him to know where exactly he was, though, whatever magic he was using was turning him into some kind of unstoppable object because I can feel him spin around the kitchen and go right through a chair as he continued to speed up. Once more I begin to lay down acceleration fields to let me dodge with as he comes in for a second pass. I prime the pipe bomb and jump out of the way using the acceleration field, speeding me along to the kitchen entrance again. He comes through the wall again, only slowing down a bit as he comes for where I had just been a moment ago. I duck into the kitchen again as the pipe bomb explodes knocking him off balance and sending him spinning end over end to the side.

I hear a grunt from him through the bugs I have on him, but he isn't dead, not yet. Stepping out of the kitchen again, I begin to unload my magazine at his head. The first three shots connect, and I can even see a small splatter of blood before his arm raises again. It absorbs a few more shots, cracking his arm armour more. Switching tactics I aim for his knees as I had before.

He starts charging again, this time however for the wall instead of me. I fire a few shots, hitting his carapace knee, and it causes him to stumble but he keeps going regardless of the number of shots I put into him. I step back into the kitchen to see him come through the wall for the third time, and I shoot his knee once more. This time his knee gives out from under him and he stumbles to his other knee. Though he reaches forwards… and grabs Snipe. I try to fire again but instead of another shot, I hear a distinctive click. Once more I hit the release for the magazine while my other set of hands grabs my other pipe bomb and chucks it at them. I step out of the kitchen once again and load my magazine back into my gun, sensing him with my antennae and bugs. He notices the bomb and seems to make another dive, Snipes in his arms as he rolls up, holding her tight and rolls toward the doorway I'm aiming at. Then, he bounces.

The bomb detonates, and the duo rides the explosion. Rather than hitting the wall, however, they smash right through the window, glass flying everywhere as they exit the building.

"They've left through the window," I announce to Adam and Sherrel from my bugs in the van.

"Yeah, I fucking see them. Damn that mother fucker's fast!" Adam comments. I step just close enough to the window to look out of it as Rollout rolls out onto the nearly empty road. People are staring and looking in the direction of the window as well as the escaping rolling beetle bug. Rollout continues to get faster as he continues to roll. This was likely where he excelled in his combat style, out in the open where he could build up speed and ram into people. It's barely a few seconds more, as Rollout gets near the end of the street and is likely about to turn when I hear the boom of the van's cannon. The road near Rollout explodes and the both of them are sent flying, Rollout flies out onto the street, while Snipe is sent even further, rolling onto the sidewalk, where she lies motionless. I can't see anything from where I am but I can feel that Adam is reloading the cannon as fast as he can. I can still sense Rollout trying to move with some new bugs on him. The turret readjusts, and just as Rollout finally stands up, Adam fires and splatters the bug across the road.

"Hell yeah! Did you see that! Fucker went splat!" Adam shouted from the turret while Sherrel giggles at her boyfriend's enthusiasm. As I look at the damage to the road and frown slightly. The vigilantes that had come after me had been defeated, but it wasn't a total victory. Not the worst outcome and the crater from the tank shot didn't look any worse than a particularly bad pothole.

Turning from the scene, I move into the kitchen. There are small fires from the pipe bomb I threw, only just starting up. I move to the sink, which was luckily still intact, and pulled the detachable nozzle from its place so that I could spray down the small fires. It wouldn't do for any of the loot that these vigilantes had to go up in flames.

While I'm spraying down the fires though, I feel one of the felines I had marked while they were entering the area, begin to sprint towards the scene. Lightning surrounded her and my bugs were destroyed in an instant as she sped up significantly before my bugs died. Damn it, I'd hoped that Battery wouldn't show up until after we disposed of the bodies and grabbed the loot.

"Heads up, Battery's in the area, coming fast from the left street ahead of you," the tank turret turns to look in the direction that Battery is coming from, but Adam reacts too late as Battery speeds past the corner, and picking up Snipe. With my bugs, I can hear her scream out as lighting courses through her before it turns into something further away as my bugs are incinerated by the lighting cat demon. Adam tries to adjust the turret to hit her, but she speeds off back around the corner she had just appeared from.

"Shit! Don't let her get away!" I hear Adam shout and suddenly Sherrel is taking the van out of park.

"You handle Battery, I'll get the loot," I tell them with my swarm. With whatever she is using to become a speedster is also keeping me from being able to track her properly. If Adam and Sherrel can catch up to them, we could take out a veteran vigilante, it was already too late to consider an alliance now. If she got away we would-be enemies, as Snipe tells her about me, but even if she didn't escape, or we somehow got Snipe away from her, she'd be able to tell who we are by the van, and I don't know that an alliance with Battery is worth throwing away Sherrel's van. Though, considering Battery's head start, and how fast she is moving, unless she ran out of juice after rounding the corner, she could easily escape into the alleyways. Even so, I move my bugs to where Battery had last been, keeping them at around torso level so that I can better track her. Then, suddenly Battery breaks down an alleyway like I had thought she would.

"She went down the third alleyway coming up on your left. Get the turret ready, you've only got one shot," I tell them. As the van approaches the third alleyway, Sherrel brings the vehicle to a squealing stop, lining up the turret to the alleyway. Adam fires, but swears loudly as I presume he misses. I have no more bugs in that alleyway and with how she was going; I doubt the bugs I have would be able to catch up with her now.

I frown over failing to take down Snipe and Battery. That was another enemy we will have to deal with, and this time, I doubt she will be so easy to track her in the future. In the end, though, it wasn't a total loss, and truth be told, while taking out these vigilantes before Battery arrived was one of the objectives, it wasn't the main one. It didn't even guarantee the assistance of Battery, but rather just the opportunity to talk with her. Stepping away from the sink, I pull open the fridge and grab a milk jug from it to pour onto the fire in the main room. It's only just starting, but carpet fires were a serious danger. With that done, I move into one of the bedrooms, the one where I knew they were keeping all of their money and loot.

Alec, if you're still alive, I'm coming.

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I'm curious how people feel about getting a closer look at the vigilantes that helped instigate the attack on Taylor, and how the combat scene feels. Not a 100% success but it certainly went well enough in my opinion, especially with one of the members using the power of friendship *cough cough demonic form cough cough* to nearly let some of them escape before getting smeared across the concrete.

Oh, and Snipe died in the arms of Battery, getting electrocuted to death while getting sped away. Just thought you should know.

I'll also be continuing to polish this for a bit since I wasn't able to give it the proofreading it deserves before I got it out for my self-appointed deadline.

VisV · Jan 21, 2021

Thread Necromancer said:
The Skittering Chaos 10

I'm going to edit the previous chapter to have Skitter ask Skidmark if it is alright with him that she recruits Anthony with her bugs, as it makes sense that Taylor would leave some of her bugs back at the base, and ask Skidmark if it is fine with him to recruit Anthony. Mostly just want to emphasize that Skitter wants to be a team player here rather than what I had previously put having Taylor just recruit him.

Any and all feedback is highly appreciated
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"Want another?" Anthony asks me indicating my empty cup.

"Come on, it's your first time, drink!" Sherrel calls out, raising her glass, along with some of the other patrons. I smile politely, but my head already feels funny. The room isn't spinning or anything, but… there is a fuzziness to it that won't go away no matter how many times I shake my head. It's weird, and I'm not sure I like it. I can almost feel my eyes go bug-eyed so I'm shutting my eyes really tight to try to deal with it and it seems to work.

"I guess I could have one more," I say to them. Anthony nods at me while Sherrel cheers and starts giggling soon after. The sparse crowd that is here at the bar seem like fairly nice people. Not that I have much to go on. But they were generally polite, especially compared to some bars. Through the bugs, I've planted in the other bars some of them were really loud and the people there rather rambunctious. In a few of them gunshots had rung out and the whole place had gone to shit. Whenever that would happen I would frown, but there wasn't much I could do about it at the moment, not with how little of a swarm I had.

Not only that but I didn't really have a way of telling what was fully going on because I didn't have as large of a swarm as when I was alive, though I had made sure that I could listen in on the various stalls, and shifted bugs around the various tables when I could. Many of the conversations were rather mundane, or sometimes, steamy. I had gotten a few tips that were actually useful. Like don't buy the bulky 10-millimetre pistols, they were a bunch of replica garbage base off of some game. Another was to watch out for someone called the "Radio Demon" who was some up and coming big shot in Hell.

"Well alright then, what'll ya have? You could have some more of the Rum and pop, you liked that, you could try something harder, like whiskey, if you're feeling adventurous, or I could get you something lighter," Anthony states, I frown for a second, trying to think of what I might have. Though, I'm already kind of tipsy judging by the weird feeling in my head.

"Something lighter, I'm already feeling it," I lazily continue to fly my listening swarms around the bars and clubs we had bugged while driving around. I note the various weapons that people are carrying on them, most of them being small things, though I have felt a few larger weapons sitting beside people. Despite not really needing to since I'm not going into any of the bars tonight, not while I'm tipsy like this. At this point, it's just a habit to note where all the weapons were and figure out how to avoid them. Right now, don't go into that bar. Anthony brings me a short glass of some kind of light fizzy drink. I look up at him.

"It's some peach cider. I get a shipment of the stuff every few days from New Minos. Moth Demons love the stuff, you love the stuff, so I thought I might as well share it with ya," I nod at him and give my thanks as I accept the glass. I take a sip, it's nice and sweet, and really smooth. I can still tell that it's alcoholic, but even straight it tastes exceptional, even better than the sweet rum drink that Anthony gave me before. I continued to fly my bugs around as I continued to drink. Sometimes, I get my bugs to vibrate or do something that lets me focus on them, away from my tipsy mind.

"-om on Snipes," I blink as I recognize the name. That had been the name of the vigilante that had been gunning for me specifically. I direct my listening swarm back to their table and note where the bar they are in is.

"You've been drinking yourself under the table ever since we lost him, if you keep at it, you'll blow all of our money," slowly, Taylor started to move her insects to get a sense of the people around the table. She only had enough to listen in on conversations so she began with the one that had been talking. Positioning the bugs over his clothing and on places where she knew, unless someone was paying attention to it, a person wouldn't notice.

The man that had spoken and was discussing the issues of money was a short man who sounded fairly young from his voice. The young man had on a light and loose-fitting tee-shirt along with some shorts to go with it. He honestly seemed fairly human, though Taylor couldn't really tell what colour he was due to just using the bug's sense of touch. Another interesting thing was that the man had a large pair of feathered wings that he had folded up behind him. Holstered on either hip was a pair of boxy guns. Judging by the general shape of them, they had to be some kind of Mac-10 ripoff or something similar.

"Fuck off Ace, if we neeeed more moneeeeey, we *hic* can just find a dealer or… something…*hic*," so Arial Ace was a part of the group, Snipe's group, who had been specifically gunning for me. I couldn't really tell by the group chat on the phone I had stolen from Brainiache if he was or not before I got banned from it when Snipes had posted that Brainiache's phone had been stolen. Had I been conscious after escaping Valentino's territory during the attack, I might have had time to try to contact some of the demons in the chat and get their numbers, but alas, a lost opportunity.

Shifting my bugs over to the new speaker, I immediately noticed that the speaker, who was obviously Snipes, was hunched over the table, and judging by the complaints, likely had some kind of drink her hand. Like the picture on Brainiache's phone showed, she was a kind of bird demon who's wings were more like feathery arms than actual wings, though considering that I could shapeshift my wings, it wouldn't surprise me if she could do the same.

"That's not the point, the way you're dealing with this is a problem. I get it, he was my friend, and Rollout's too, but even if he's gone, that doesn't mean that you can just sit there drowning your sorrow away with a bottle of booze," I shift my bugs to the last person who is with them. The first thing I noticed is that the man who was sitting by them had a kind of exoskeleton over him and that his arms and legs were massive in comparison to the two other vigilantes. Despite the exoskeletoned demon's massive bulk, the man seemed to be as tall as the other two, meaning he was big but short. He was likely some kind of bug demon judging by the antennae on his head, probably some kind of beetle, as ants weren't shaped like him… but then again, I was less a moth and more a gray girl who had moth-like features.

I begin to spread my bugs out between all of them, giving me a kind of marionette mental image of them as they moved around. Snipes was chugging the last of her bottle down while Arial Ace had his arms crossed as he watched her. Rollout, who she assumed the rotund one was simply sat there shifting uncomfortably. Considering how Snipes had reacted when Adam and Angel Dust had been taunting her over Brainiache's phone, they were talking about Brainiache.

Angel Dust had said that Valentino had flown into a rage when everything was all over. Considering what he had said that Valentino would have done to us had he caught us in that fight, or even just selling drugs to Angel if Brainiache wasn't grabbed, he wouldn't be in a good place. Judging by the tears and the fact that Snipes had been drinking herself to ruin, it didn't seem that they had picked him up before Valentino flooded the place with his magic smoke.

"Hey, let's not fight, come on," the one known as Rollout said, trying to act as the peacemaker. "Snipes, I know you're angry and upset, and that's okay," Rollout reaches over to Snipes and puts a hand on her shoulder, "I'm upset about losing him to, we all are. This wasn't supposed to be like this, but it happened, and things went to shit. We can't do anything about it. But what we can do is keep going. You said it yourself, we can't give up, we need to keep going," Snipes seemed to still herself as she listened to him.

"Hey, Skitty? You alright? You've been quiet for a while now," I hear Sherrel say and I look up to see Anthony and Sherrel looking at me, concerned.

"I'm listening in on some vigilantes at the moment, one of them was the one that nearly killed me,"

"Lemme' guess, you want to go give them a little payback, right?" Anthony asks, however, I shake my head.

"No, I'm feeling a bit tipsy, besides, they're over a dozen blocks away. Instead, I'm going to track them with my bugs and we can take care of them when they think they're safe. I'm going to tell Adam about our next target," I say as I gather the bugs I had left back at the warehouse. Once more, I form them into a ball of bugs that I could use to once more tell Adam and Mimi about our latest development.

"Adam, I found the sniper who shot me. She and some other vigilantes are drinking in one of the bars I bugged, I want to hit them tomorrow when we find out where they are staying," unlike the first time, Adam doesn't jump when he suddenly hears the chittering voice coming from the bugs.

"Already? Damn girl, you work fast."

"Wait, someone shot you?" I hear Mimi ask from where she's bouncing the giggling and gurgling Mark.

"I got better," I reassure Mimi before returning to answering Adam. "Seems they never got their last member back from the attack on Valentino's. Snipe has apparently been drinking a lot since then. I have other bugs listening in but I haven't heard anything suspicious yet from the other bars yet," Adam nods.

"I can see what I can cook up for tomorrow. Say Felix, you said you know how to make guns 'n' shit right? Can you make pipe bombs too?" I move a few bugs over to Felix and feel him nodding.

"Good shit. We'll start getting some of the stuff you might need when we raid those fuckers and show them that the Merchants ain't someone to fuckin' mess with," I can practically feel the manic grin spread across Adam's face. I wonder if I'm a bad influence on the man. He's finally gotten his life back together, and now I'm dragging him back down into being a gang member once again.

He'd said that he had felt nothing while he commanded the Merchants, though was this any different. Sure I wanted to make the places we took control of into better and safer places but did that really mean much to Adam? He and the Merchants he controlled while alive had as he was saying, were just surviving, getting by and leaving nothing but destruction in their path. The way that he naturally fell into commanding Felix to begin making bombs for the raid, what we are doing now must not look all that different from the things he had been doing while he was running the Merchants.

Yet, unlike the Brockton Bay Merchants, we weren't just here to make money from peddling drugs. It was just a means to an end, the same with this raid. We were gathering capital for ourselves so that we could begin to make a push into Pentagram City and start to try to improve things. We just had to make sure not to forget ourselves. This was just like Brockton Bay, and like in Brockton Bay, like in my and the other Undersider's territories, we had to be the change in the city that would make this place better because no one else would.

Even while I talked with Adam and Sherrel, however, the vigilantes had continued to talk.

"Look, he was your boyfriend, the relationship between you two was more than what we had with him, but we knew him too, and do you really think he would want you to be doing this?" Snipe's head jerked towards him as he said that.

"Fuck you! Don't fucking use him against me you asshole, and don't you think I deserve some time to fucking mope? You weren't the one that got him killed; you weren't the one that managed to get a bunch of people to join us in Valentino's territory. I was the one who did that… and… and I was the one that got them all killed or captured or whatever happened to them. It's, it's my fault all this shit happened, and I just want to curl up and die."

"Well at least you know you made a mistake," a vaguely feminine voice comes from near the table. "Mind if I sit down?" the stranger asks them. They shake their heads and Ariel Ace moves over so that the stranger can sit with them. I use some of my bug to get a sense of the new person. They're tall and some of my bugs have already brushed up against a long furred tail. The woman is wearing some kind of jeans and a leather jacket to go with it. She's furred from what I can tell and judging by the cat ears on the top of her head, she's some kind of feline demon. Having all the information of her I could without my bugs being noticed, I pull them back to relative safety while I listen in.

"Uh, if you don't mind, who are you?" Ariel Ace asks.

"Someone who's been doing this longer than three you, and actually knows what is going on around here, unlike most of you new vigilantes it seems," that agitated Snipes, who points an accusing finger at her, which swayed as she pointed.

"Fuck off, I'm a Ward, I, I know what I'm *hic* doing," the stranger turns her head to look straight at Snipe, and I can guess that she isn't exactly impressed. The stranger reaches over a plucks the drink from Snipe's hand, eliciting a sharp "Hey!" from Snipes who scrambles to get it back, but the stranger is too quick for her.

"And I was a Ward that graduated into the Protectorate, and I've been here for two years already being a vigilante, while most of you got here at some point in the last week or so, isn't that right?" the veteran vigilante turns her head to look at all of them again. They all nod along as she looks at them.

"So you don't have any idea what is going on down here and this is pretty much all new to you," the feline demon sighs. "I guess you can't be blamed for not knowing the first rule in Hell, do not to fuck with the Overlords, especially as new as you guys seem to be," the other three vigilantes nod their head, likely remembering back to their assault on Valentino's and their attempt to kill me.

"What were you even trying to do there anyway?" The hero asks.

"We were gonna *hic* go kill the bitch that started mastering everyone at the end of the world," I frown slightly at that. It wasn't as if there was any other choice. No one would work together, and we would have all died otherwise. It had not been my first choice, but no one would listen or even try to put aside their differences and come together. If it were up to me I would have gladly not subjected myself to Panacea and Bonesaw and thus gotten killed at the end to stop whatever chain reaction they had started when they opened up the connection allowing me to start mastering people.

"So you attacked one of the demon triumvirate's territories so that you could kill a single villain?" it was at this moment that Rollout decided to jump into the conversation.

"Well not everyone. Some of us were there to try to take down this master, other people in the group chat, well, actually, a bunch of them joined to attack the overlord and take him down since there were a couple of teams that were going to come back us up when we went after her. Some were there to take down the overlords businesses and weaken him in general, and there were a few that just wanted to fight."

"Most of *hic* the guys I got to join were already itching for a fight, 'n' Brainiache told me that they were Valentino's territory, so *hic* I said that they could get a good fight in with the Valentino gang while we tried to take out Weaver. We'd help them getaway, and we'd *hic* hit the overlord there. Then more people wanted to come just to help fight one of the gangs… and then some wanted to actually fight the gang leader as well and take him down for good. Things kind of just spiralled from there,"

"I guess it didn't cross your mind how he was able to stay as a demon overlord for decades?" the feline former hero asks, and judging by her tone, she wasn't particularly impressed with the vigilante trio.

"No not really, but we weren't going to really planning on fighting him much, at least, not until everyone started piling on to fight him. We were just after that one villain that was mind-controlling people like Brainiache at the end of the world," Ariel Ace told the hero. The hero nodded along.

"Alright… I guess it wasn't the worst attempt at taking down an overlord; there are a few nut jobs and idiots around here that try it every year. You guys shouldn't be one of those nut jobs just so you know. Nothing good happens to those guys," the feline lifts Snipe's drink and starts to drink it down, causing Snipe to literally squawk at her.

"That's my drink!"

"And you're underage, or did you graduate from the Wards?" the veteran vigilante asks as she finishes the drink off, causing Snipe to sputter indignantly.

"It isn't like we are trying to be like those 'nutjobs'," Rollout complains.

"I get that now, I wasn't so sure when I saw it going on in the news. What you guys need is someone to show you the ropes, help you realise who you do and do not fuck with. I can help you with that, I've been here two years already and I've seen a lot of shit, plus, you guys can show me that vigilante group chat thing you were talking about. It's the first time I've heard of it," the hero says. The others in the group start nodding as well.

"Hey Skitty, what's going on?" I hear Sherrel ask beside me.

"It sounds like they know less than me when it comes to Hell," I say simply while continuing to listen to the conversation. "I'll tell you on the way back," I go to take another sip and realise my cup is empty. I'd been sipping at it while I listened in on the vigilantes. My head doesn't feel significantly different, but then, I'm still feeling a bit dizzy… better safe than sorry.

"Yeah sure, that sounds great,"

"Hey wait a second, *hic* I'm supposed to be the leader, we voted!" Snipe cried out. Fragmentation among the ranks then? The team from the sounds of it is fairly new, and already someone from outside was trying to move in on the leadership.

"Now hold on, I didn't say I was going to be your new leader," the hero declared. "I just want to show you guys the ropes. I get that you guys probably want to stay independent, I get that, I do too, but I wouldn't mind having some allies so that we can back each other up when the big guys start making some moves. You've riled one of the demonic triumvirate up from what I've heard, and when one of them gets riled up, the others get riled up as well," even so, assuming mentorship over them might cause dissension between them as they look at the more experienced hero's work. Despite what the former hero is saying, mentorship is still assuming leadership over the group. The Wards technically were being led by Tecton, and myself when we in tactical situations, but we were ultimately under the command of those who were supposed to be our mentors, and their orders overrode our own when it came to the chain of command.

"I guess…" Snipes says finally as she twiddles her thumbs.

"Good, I've got a bit of time on my hands now, what with Valentino looking for trouble now. Just give me your address and I'll see you tomorrow morning and I can get you properly informed about what you just fell into," useful… Ariel Ace tells the hero their address, though since I don't know the city that well I relay it to Anthony and Sherrel.

"32nd red walk road? I think that's an apartment building. Whole place is residential. Other than that, I don't know. Not a good part of town, but it ain't bad either. No overlord there either so they likely won't care," Anthony states. I nod and listen back in on the vigilantes. The hero is getting up to leave now, though she turns back to them before she leaves.

"Oh, and I'm Battery by the way. From the Protectorate ENE," Battery. I remember her back in Brockton. Bonesaw had killed her while we were all under the influence of her mind plague, and she'd been the one that had confronted me when I took my territory back in Brockton. How would she react to finding I was doing the same thing here? Would she fight me, like she had wanted to back in Brockton Bay? Likely, even if it was just to settle the score. The PRT and Protectorate had been rather hostile to use back then despite the good work we were doing. While it's possible that she has had a change of heart ever since her death, I can't count on it, especially if she blames me for her death. Assault certainly did. Though, I can track her, and use my bugs to talk to her. I'll have to do it before the other vigilantes tell her about me. Snipe knows that I was Weaver, and Battery knows me as Skitter. She'll likely make the connection. Though with Snipe there to poison the well, I likely won't be able to try to convince her otherwise of my good intentions, not after Colin had spilled to them that I had tried to be a hero first. With how she talked about "my kind" always having an agenda, she might make assumptions.

I leave my bugs on her. While listening in on the bar would prove useful, it was more useful to… Despite not really paying attention to the eyesight of my bugs, mostly because it was a confusing mess, there is a flash of light, and suddenly the bugs are gone. I fly a few bugs out, but can't find the feline hero. I wonder what happened?

No matter, I can still track the vigilantes in the bar back to their place.

"I think we should get back to the warehouse, we need to plan our attack."

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I look over my gun one more time as we begin to near the apartments that the vigilantes were still in. They were just getting up and were moving around sluggishly inside of their apartment. Snipes was cooking eggs in the kitchen, Rollout was waiting patiently while Ariel Ace was in the main room of the apartment.

With some of the extra bugs, we gathered on the way here I scouted out the surrounding buildings for people. Mostly tenants, and while there were a few feline demons around, none of them were wearing a leather jacket like Battery had been last night. While it wasn't much to go on, it would have to do as I mark each of the felines around the area. Better safe than sorry.

Satisfied once more with my gun, I load the magazine back into it as we are coming to a stop.

"Alright, here's your stop. Make sure to tell us if you need Skiddy to blast the apartment," Sherrel says.

"Don't be shy, any problem at all, you just tell me and I'll get blasting," Adam comments from his seat in the turret where he was looking through the viewport of the tank turret that had been welded on top of the van. I pat the seat that Adam is on.

"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get a chance to blast someone very soon," I comment before stepping out the back door of the van. At the same time, I bring together some bugs to act as a quick way to tell Adam and Sherrel if anything was wrong. Sherrel had parked on the opposite side of the road, just far enough that the turret could fire on the apartment or anything that came out of the main building's entrance. None of the vigilantes are paying attention to the windows of the apartment and the blinds were drawn so they wouldn't even be able to catch a glimpse. The back of the building leads into a dense section of alleyways with a pack of animals of some kind back there seeming to be patrolling their territory.

There are a few people walking around on the streets already, either heading to cars on the sides of the road or just walking down the sidewalk. Had I still had my old power I could have used my bugs to keep them out of the way, but I've only got a large enough swarm to create something of a mental map of the building I'm going into, and to track the people inside of the building. If everything goes to plan, however, this fight shouldn't leave the apartment let alone the building.

The entrance of the building is sparsely populated, and the red-skinned demon manning the lobby counter doesn't even look up from his magazine as I walk into the building and walk past his desk. I, like him, do my best to ignore him and the audible sound of too much lotion on a specific body part. I think I saw Angel Dust on the cover too.

Before I head to the stairs, I reach the back door and start laying down some layers of barriers to prevent escape through the back into the alleyway. Adam, Angel and I had been able to escape out the back of a building, why couldn't they? Soon enough, there is a visibly glowing blue barrier with its acceleration heading back into the building. With the back alley being patrolled by territorial animals, there shouldn't be anyone trying to come in.

Turning from the back door, I walk back over to the main lobby, once more ignore the disgusting act at the front desk, and ascend the stairs to the vigilante's apartment. The apartment itself is on the third floor and as far as I can tell from my bugs marking the different members of Snipe's vigilante group, they hadn't really moved much. Pulling out my pistol from the inner pocket of my wings turned long fur coat, I manoeuvre the bugs in the room onto them to show me where the various different body parts are. I take aim at the door as I prepare to fire through it at Ariel Ace's head.

I fire a bullet through the door, the thin wood door doing nothing to stop my magically accelerated bullet. With the additional effects that I put onto the fields within the barrel, it accelerated the bullet much faster than it had any right to be while also muffling the bang of its acceleration, meaning I essentially had an effectively suppressed pistol without having to go about buying a silencer for it. I felt the light that was my bug on Ariel Ace's head disappear and felt him slump over. Not wasting time, I used the bugs I had on the inside to unlock the door.

The other two are confused about the sound, though Snipes seems to realise what it is as she pushes herself away from the stove and heads for her weapon on the kitchen table. As I take a few steps into the apartment and aim at where I can feel the bugs on her legs are. I fire two shots and I can feel with my bugs as she crumples to the ground at the same time the bugs I had on her legs vanished from my senses. I hear a shout of fear from the kitchen, and a scream of pain.

Just like I did with Ariel Ace, I aim at Rollout's head through the wall and fire. I feel the bug on his head die, yet, he doesn't fall down. Instead, I feel his arms fly to his face and a shout of pain coming from the kitchen. I land a bug on the back of his head this time and fire again. His head flies back and he dives down, his back to the fridge between us. I fire a few more times, penetrating the wall and the fridge, but unlike when I was just firing through the wall; he doesn't seem that affected by my bullets. His hands are on his head after the first shot through the fridge and barely seems to faze him.

A powerful brute then, though my earlier bullets seemed to damage him enough to get him into cover. I don't have enough ammo to keep plinking at him through the fridge so I begin to walk through the main room to the doorway into the kitchen. As I pass the couch, I see Ariel Ace slumped over the remains of the cheap coffee table, his weight apparently being enough to cause it to give out. I fire another shot into his head to make sure he's dead. You can never be too careful.

I make my steps to the kitchen slow and deliberate, making sure that Rollout and Snipe can hear me as I walk towards them. It wouldn't be enough to just kill them. They would be up before long and will have learned nothing, especially since they likely didn't even know it was me who had so easily defeated them. We had a plan to keep them down for a while, though I was going to add onto it. For Ariel Ace, he wouldn't know what hit him, but the other two would know who killed them, and being so easily destroyed would harm their morale, and make them think twice before coming after me, and subsequently the Merchants, again.

As I stand near the doorway, I finger one of the pipe bombs that Felix had made. I consider using it against Rollout, it would minimize the danger to me if either of them turned out to be blasters, though the way that Snipe had been trying to crawl to the table before I got close to the doorway, and how Rollout was cowering, it wasn't likely. I take another deliberate step, and the bug on Snipe's head swivelled, showing her looking towards the doorway. Good.

I step through the doorway, my gun already up. I can see Snipe's eye widen as she sees my masked face, showing her the mask of the person she had just down her scope less than a week ago. I see Rollout tense up to try to tackle me, and I adjust my aim slightly to aim at his less armoured knee. I fire once and his tackle dies there as he falls to his side, a pained shout escaping his lips.

"Rollout!" Snipe shouts out, I watch her with my bugs, but she's frozen and no longer trying to get to her gun on the table. I adjust my aim for his head now that he's incapacitated.

There is a surge of magical energy inside of him and suddenly he's growing much larger. I fire my gun at him but all it does is throw his head back and create another dent in the exoskeleton armour on his head. At the same time, I sense with my antennae how he's doing it. I'll have to try that for myself later to see if it works, or even see if I could reverse it to make myself smaller and less of a target. Though it seems he's pouring magic into his body, different than how Angel did to bring out or pull in his extra limbs.

"Grahh!" Rollout shout and he flings himself my way and I skip back while I hit the button to drop my magazine from the handle. I'd run out of bullets, I'd been hoping that I could deal with the beetle-like demon with my last few bullets, but no such luck. He stumbles to his feet and he is significantly bigger. He must have been a Changer in life. He tries to swing at me but I send a blast of magical energy his way, throwing him off balance, causing him to stumble backwards, though not over.

I slot a new magazine into my pistol and begin firing again, though this time he hides his head behind his arms. They're covered in even thicker exoskeleton armour now and while they do penetrate his arms, sending small amounts of blue blood out with the impacts, he doesn't seem phased at all. He charges me and I step back out the kitchen, letting him hit the wall. I raise my gun again into his head, only this time when I hit it, it doesn't fling his head back, but rather more like someone had punched him.

I send a blast his way once more but rather than pushing him off balance he just takes it before he seems to dive at me. I jump out of the way of him but he keeps going, seeming to curl up into a ball and rolls. Rather than stopping his roll it keeps going, only getting faster, then, it climbs up the wall a bit. Rather than fire, I begin to place done some acceleration fields, I can guess that he's going to come back around. His spin rolls around and comes back for me as I expected and I hop through my acceleration field in time for him to impact heavily with the wall, sending dust and debris around. I stare incredulously for a moment as he has gone through the wall and the cabinets.

So much for reducing collateral damage. With my lower arms, I grab one of the pipe bombs and get ready to prime it. The things were made with a fairly short fuse so that Adam could use them in his modified baseball cannon. With the way that the magic that Rollout was using I didn't even need my bugs on him to know where exactly he was, though, whatever magic he was using was turning him into some kind of unstoppable object because I can feel him spin around the kitchen and go right through a chair as he continued to speed up. Once more I begin to lay down acceleration fields to let me dodge with as he comes in for a second pass. I prime the pipe bomb and jump out of the way using the acceleration field, speeding me along to the kitchen entrance again. He comes through the wall again, only slowing down a bit as he comes for where I had just been a moment ago. I duck into the kitchen again as the pipe bomb explodes knocking him off balance and sending him spinning end over end to the side.

I hear a grunt from him through the bugs I have on him, but he isn't dead, not yet. Stepping out of the kitchen again, I begin to unload my magazine at his head. The first three shots connect, and I can even see a small splatter of blood before his arm raises again. It absorbs a few more shots, cracking his arm armour more. Switching tactics I aim for his knees as I had before.

He starts charging again, this time however for the wall instead of me. I fire a few shots, hitting his carapace knee, and it causes him to stumble but he keeps going regardless of the number of shots I put into him. I step back into the kitchen to see him come through the wall for the third time, and I shoot his knee once more. This time his knee gives out from under him and he stumbles to his other knee. Though he reaches forwards… and grabs Snipe. I try to fire again but instead of another shot, I hear a distinctive click. Once more I hit the release for the magazine while my other set of hands grabs my other pipe bomb and chucks it at them. I step out of the kitchen once again and load my magazine back into my gun, sensing him with my antennae and bugs. He notices the bomb and seems to make another dive, Snipes in his arms as he rolls up, holding her tight and rolls toward the doorway I'm aiming at. Then, he bounces.

The bomb detonates, and the duo rides the explosion. Rather than hitting the wall, however, they smash right through the window, glass flying everywhere as they exit the building.

"They've left through the window," I announce to Adam and Sherrel from my bugs in the van.

"Yeah, I fucking see them. Damn that mother fucker's fast!" Adam comments. I step just close enough to the window to look out of it as Rollout rolls out onto the nearly empty road. People are staring and looking in the direction of the window as well as the escaping rolling beetle bug. Rollout continues to get faster as he continues to roll. This was likely where he excelled in his combat style, out in the open where he could build up speed and ram into people. It's barely a few seconds more, as Rollout gets near the end of the street and is likely about to turn when I hear the boom of the van's cannon. The road near Rollout explodes and the both of them are sent flying, Rollout flies out onto the street, while Snipe is sent even further, rolling onto the sidewalk, where she lies motionless. I can't see anything from where I am but I can feel that Adam is reloading the cannon as fast as he can. I can still sense Rollout trying to move with some new bugs on him. The turret readjusts, and just as Rollout finally stands up, Adam fires and splatters the bug across the road.

"Hell yeah! Did you see that! Fucker went splat!" Adam shouted from the turret while Sherrel giggles at her boyfriend's enthusiasm. As I look at the damage to the road and frown slightly. The vigilantes that had come after me had been defeated, but it wasn't a total victory. Not the worst outcome and the crater from the tank shot didn't look any worse than a particularly bad pothole.

Turning from the scene, I move into the kitchen. There are small fires from the pipe bomb I threw, only just starting up. I move to the sink, which was luckily still intact, and pulled the detachable nozzle from its place so that I could spray down the small fires. It wouldn't do for any of the loot that these vigilantes had to go up in flames.

While I'm spraying down the fires though, I feel one of the felines I had marked while they were entering the area, begin to sprint towards the scene. Lightning surrounded her and my bugs were destroyed in an instant as she sped up significantly before my bugs died. Damn it, I'd hoped that Battery wouldn't show up until after we disposed of the bodies and grabbed the loot.

"Heads up, Battery's in the area, coming fast from the left street ahead of you," the tank turret turns to look in the direction that Battery is coming from, but Adam reacts too late as Battery speeds past the corner, and picking up Snipe. With my bugs, I can hear her scream out as lighting courses through her before it turns into something further away as my bugs are incinerated by the lighting cat demon. Adam tries to adjust the turret to hit her, but she speeds off back around the corner she had just appeared from.

"Shit! Don't let her get away!" I hear Adam shout and suddenly Sherrel is taking the van out of park.

"You handle Battery, I'll get the loot," I tell them with my swarm. With whatever she is using to become a speedster is also keeping me from being able to track her properly. If Adam and Sherrel can catch up to them, we could take out a veteran vigilante, it was already too late to consider an alliance now. If she got away we would-be enemies, as Snipe tells her about me, but even if she didn't escape, or we somehow got Snipe away from her, she'd be able to tell who we are by the van, and I don't know that an alliance with Battery is worth throwing away Sherrel's van. Though, considering Battery's head start, and how fast she is moving, unless she ran out of juice after rounding the corner, she could easily escape into the alleyways. Even so, I move my bugs to where Battery had last been, keeping them at around torso level so that I can better track her. Then, suddenly Battery breaks down an alleyway like I had thought she would.

"She went down the third alleyway coming up on your left. Get the turret ready, you've only got one shot," I tell them. As the van approaches the third alleyway, Sherrel brings the vehicle to a squealing stop, lining up the turret to the alleyway. Adam fires, but swears loudly as I presume he misses. I have no more bugs in that alleyway and with how she was going; I doubt the bugs I have would be able to catch up with her now.

I frown over failing to take down Snipe and Battery. That was another enemy we will have to deal with, and this time, I doubt she will be so easy to track her in the future. In the end, though, it wasn't a total loss, and truth be told, while taking out these vigilantes before Battery arrived was one of the objectives, it wasn't the main one. It didn't even guarantee the assistance of Battery, but rather just the opportunity to talk with her. Stepping away from the sink, I pull open the fridge and grab a milk jug from it to pour onto the fire in the main room. It's only just starting, but carpet fires were a serious danger. With that done, I move into one of the bedrooms, the one where I knew they were keeping all of their money and loot.

Alec, if you're still alive, I'm coming.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

I'm curious how people feel about getting a closer look at the vigilantes that helped instigate the attack on Taylor, and how the combat scene feels. Not a 100% success but it certainly went well enough in my opinion, especially with one of the members using the power of friendship *cough cough demonic form cough cough* to nearly let some of them escape before getting smeared across the concrete.

Oh, and Snipe died in the arms of Battery, getting electrocuted to death while getting sped away. Just thought you should know.

I'll also be continuing to polish this for a bit since I wasn't able to give it the proofreading it deserves before I got it out for my self-appointed deadline.

Goddamnit this is too good.

ANOTHER!!!

I wonder why taylor was dizzy tho? Side effect of the deal on her magical senses?

She doesn't seem to notice that she got stronger either.

Get fucked Snipe, she saved multiverse you ungrateful bitch.

Thread Necromancer · Jan 21, 2021

VisV said:
I wonder why taylor was dizzy tho? Side effect of the deal on her magical senses?

She's tipsy and a god damn lightweight when it comes to alcohol. I was even thinking of including a scene where she falls out of her chair but Taylor doesn't seem to strike me as the type to go overboard on the drinking for her first time.

Blackenedthorn · Jan 21, 2021

All Skitty has to do is find Assault, lead him to Battery and leave the duo to reconnect.

Night Hunter · Jan 21, 2021

Thread Necromancer said:
"32nd red walk road? I think that's an apartment building. Whole place is residential. Other than that, I don't know. Not a good part of town, but it ain't bad either. No overlord there either so they likely won't care," Anthony states. I nod and listen back in on the vigilantes. The hero is getting up to leave now, though she turns back to them before she leaves.

"Oh, and I'm Battery by the way. From the Protectorate ENE,"

Guess this is what happens when make a deal with the devil, metaphorical sense in this case, and she was planning to let one psychotic mass murderer get way and kill the other instead of killing both, this was probably what dammed her to hell.

In another note I was expecting Taylor be somewhat surprise she is in hell, then again a lot of people have skeletons on they closet.

The Skittering Chaos (Worm/Hazbin Hotel)

Well worn.

Creator of "mean" and/or "excessive" things

Experienced.

Well worn.

Not too sore, are you?

Creator of "mean" and/or "excessive" things

Lost in the Dungeons of My Mind.

Creator of "mean" and/or "excessive" things

Creator of "mean" and/or "excessive" things

Lost in the Dungeons of My Mind.

Sage of reason and incomplete information

Creator of "mean" and/or "excessive" things

Lost in the Dungeons of My Mind.

Creator of "mean" and/or "excessive" things

I trust you know where the happy button is?

Well worn.

Creator of "mean" and/or "excessive" things

Know what you're doing yet?

Creator of "mean" and/or "excessive" things

Lost in the Dungeons of My Mind.

Sage of reason and incomplete information

Really? You don't say.

Sage of reason and incomplete information

Could be wittier.

I trust you know where the happy button is?

Creator of "mean" and/or "excessive" things

Lost in the Dungeons of My Mind.

Creator of "mean" and/or "excessive" things

Too many ideas, so little time

Know what you're doing yet?

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