Skitter was looking through her bugs at a pair of real pieces of work that ran drugs for the Empire Eighty-Eight from over two blocks away. They were really badly placed for their drug deals though.

She was starting to get a bad feeling, but only started gather and to move her insects around to try and see if anyone was trying to ambush her. So the impact of a high powered bullet hitting her in the chest was a total surprise. She was knocked back five feet and went down, feeling like someone had kicked her.

Someone like a very angry mule.

From the angle of her insects that had been disturbed by, she had been shot from one of the high rises downtown, over a mile away. Dimly she felt several figures coming out of buildings or cars in the area. She quickly crawled behind the cover of an air conditioner on the roof. While it wouldn't stop a bullet, her chance of getting hit was at least a bit smaller.

So yeah, trap. Time to gather more swarms. Luckily it was March finally, so there were a lot more insects in the air, but that might not be enough to save her. Because she had three people headed her way very quickly.

Hookwolf was leaping from the road to the roof, tearing up tar and gravel as he rushed to her position in under twenty second. Stormtiger beat him, but it was the third one that was trapping her. According to her Paranet profile she shouldn't be able to fly, but Crickett set down behind her from a short flight.

"Skitter. I'm actually surprised you are still conscious," Hookwolf said as he casually walked the last bit almost daintily in his huge, lupine form.

"Is- this the point when you warn me off your gang?" Skitter asked as she frantically tried to figure out a solution to her desperate position. It appeared she would have to use some trumps.

"We're going to put you into the hospital with that warning, yes. Come back and we'll kill you," the enforcer of the Empire Eighty-Eight said smugly.

"I'll extend the same consideration then," she replied as she dropped her gathering swarms on these three and the sniper that she had tracked down. Her pistol dropped into her hand from its concealed compartment on her back carapace as her insects freed it from its threads.

Stormtriger started swearing as he sent bursts of air to swirl around him to decent effect, while Cricket was doing something that knocked the insects closest to her out. The only one really unaffected was Hookwolf, who snarled angrily and then started to walk towards her. He crouched down to leap onto her to finish her off when she pointed a very odd looking pistol at him.

The night rooftop turned to day as the high intensity Bergenholm particle beam shot through the center mass of the enforcer, instantly turning his metal blades into highly energetic plasma and kicked him back thirty feet. Skitter had been very careful to not hit his actual body parts inside, but he was definitely out and not able to fight for at least a few minutes.

"Holy shit? She a fucking Tinker?" Stormtiger shouted out as he saw his immediate commander just get blasted and taken out. He rushed her, ignoring the insects for just a second. It was actually getting hard to see anything as more insects than he had ever seen in his life. He could smell her, but that wasn't good enough to fight blind.

Bugs squished under his booted feet, losing him traction as Skitter slammed her small escrima stick into his stomach. He reacted instantly with twin air blasts, but that only cleared the insects off of her and only staggered her for a second.

Then the bugs returned, biting him everywhere. Cricket was doing better, but she seemed almost as blinded as Stormtiger was.

"Retreat!" Stormtiger yelled, running for the rooftop edge, using his aerokinesis to boost his speed.

Cricket flew out as fast as she could, heading to a safehouse down the street where bug bombs were primed to go off and several gasmasks prepared.

"What's going on down there?" a voice called out from above Skitter.

"Um, I just ran off some Empire Eighty-Eight capes?" Ow, she was still in a decent amount of pain. Luckily she felt no hostile intentions from him as she continued direct all of the spiders in her swarm to truss up Hookwolf. She parted the bugs around her, making a tubular area around her empty.

"Skitter, right? Sheesh, I had no idea you could control this many bugs," Dauntless said as he floated down to the ground next to her.

"And you are Dauntless. Nice to meet you. I'm glad my armor was up to the task of taking that bullet." She ran her gloved hand over her chestpiece, only to blink as she found the large bullet embedded on the right, upper part of her torso. "That's a big bullet."

The other hero leaned forward. "Um, probably .50 caliber. Didn't even break through? That's some very nice armor. What's it made of?"

"Spidersilk, chitin shells and some really tough resins baked to the right temperatures in layers," Skitter lied a bit, as it was made of Carbon Longsynth and very advanced resins in very specific lattice formations.

"Are you okay, otherwise? I can fly you to the PRT headquarters to get looked over by a professional. We are totally discreet and never ask you to remove your mask, of course," the official Protectorate explained.

"Maybe someplace I check the hit myself? Do you need to call someone about Hookwolf? I have him just about thoroughly trussed up right now in spider silk over there," she said, pointing at a section of the roof through her swarms.

"You... captured Hookwolf?" Dauntless asked in shock.

"Well, I shot him first, but that's because he was about to rip me to pieces. My armor might be pretty good, but I doubt it's that good," Skitter admitted.

"Well, damn. Let me call this in."

Skitter finished putting on her armor after checking the pretty hefty bruise she had on her upper right chest and shoulder. That was going to suck later. Luckily, with her mental control, she could just suppress pain of this level.

She opened the door of the private hospital room and stepped out. "Um, I see that some more people have shown up.

Dauntless chuckled as he waved a nurse back to her station. "Some of the Wards were close enough and they wanted to meet you. This is Vista, Gallant and Shadow Stalker."

The young solo hero already knew that, as she'd been keeping track of anyone coming close. Discovering that Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker almost had her seeing red. It took her five minutes to calm down and raise her mental barriers back up.

"Hi?"

"Is that... normal for you?" Gallant asked a bit curiously.

"Is what?" she asked, deliberately obtuse in her question.

"The no emotions thing?" the empath continued on with.

"Oh, I sort of dump my emotions into my insects," she again lied. No need to out herself as a telepath that easily.

The elevator dinged down the hall and around the corner. And around said corner walked the very imposing armored figure of Armsmaster, his halberd collapsed and on his back. "Oh, good. I managed to get here before you left. I understand that we have you to thank for capturing Hookwolf?

"No way? Bug girl captured an A list villain like that? I thought Officer Luis was shitting me," Shadow Stalker said in surprise. She turned and looked back at Skitter with her blank facemask, as if re-evaluating her.

"Really?" Vista asked curiously. "I wouldn't think bugs would do much to him?"

"I tinker a bit. And I have a ray gun for really desperate situations. Being shot by a sniper and jumped by three Empire capes counted as desperate in my eyes," Skitter explained. Shit, Armsmaster had a lie detector in his helmet? "I'm glad I didn't accidentally kill him."

"Glad to hear that. In that case, I would definitely not count it as excessive force. Usually it's quite the other way around," the leader of the Brockton Bay Protectorate explained. "Everyone, if you will excuse us, I would like to have a private discussion here with Skitter."

"Aww, I wanted to chat with the badass girl that took Hookwolf down," Vista complained.

"That's enough, you three. If you aren't supposed to be on patrol, clean up and head home," Armsmaster ordered. "This way, please."

Skitter followed, carefully getting an idea of what was going on with him. Ordered to confront her about being Pupil of Earth? How the hell had they figured that out? Oh, just suspected because of timing. Drat. "So what's going on?" she asked as she followed him into a small conference room that was used by the medical staff at times.

"Just some questions, if you don't mind. The Protectorate and the PRT has been desperately trying to track down a new cape. A telepath, in fact. The one that scared off the Simurgh. We need to find out if he was able to find out any more information. Even just finding out that the Simurgh isn't an actual telepath has helped quite a bit. Instead of trying to stop a nonexistent attack, we can start to develop an actual shield against its powers." Armsmaster was quite proud of his contributions on that project with the other Protectorate affiliated capes. Dragon believed that she would have an actual production model to test the next time the Simurgh showed up.

"Oh, I'm a telepath, I guess. I just use my mind to control my bugs, after all. It's all their physical ability that I'm controlling," Skitter admitted.

"Can you control anything other than bugs?" he asked insistently.

"Well, its kind of stupid, but I can control worms. And crabs and lobsters in the ocean. But I'm pretty sure that's never going to be that handy. I can even perfectly control my spiders to weave spider-silk clothing," she admitted with pride that she didn't have to fake at all. And she hasn't lied at all yet.

That got a rueful shake of his head. "You are probably right about the worms and crustaceans thing. So you are a Tinker, too? I have to admit, that was quite the surprise to us all."

"I have this ability see designs that I can build in my garage. It's pretty interesting, but I don't have a lot of the equipment I need for some of the better stuff I think I can build." Damn, this was hard to have him only ask obliquely so she could safely never have to admit to being a Telepath. She was starting to sweat from the mental effort.

Armsmaster frowned as he picked up a lie on her first sentence. Why lie about anything like that? Ah, his smart system weighed it 80 % probable that she was lying about location. "Well, that's part of why we try to recruit tinkers into the Protectorate, Wards and the PRT when possible. We have a lot of resources that help Tinkers like you and I."

"I don't think I'm cut out for the Wards right now, sorry. I might join the Protectorate when I turn eighteen," Skitter replied truthfully.

"We can get you an official PRT issued phone. In case we need to contact you?"

"I've got a phone that I use just for patrolling. How about I give you the phone number for that?" she countered. She did not want to owe the PRT for anything.

"That could work. I think we have that one. For some reason, it's address is listed here at the PRT headquarters. Don't worry, we didn't do much more than verify it was a prepaid phone, but you should see about getting an unlisted one at some point. Even phone purchases could be traced by the unscrupulous," he pointed out, still trying to press the issue that they had something to offer her.

"I'll take it under advisement," Skitter said flatly.

That was when there was a knock at the door. A thin man in a dark suit that just about screamed 'G-Man' stood in the door. "Armsmaster? We have a situation."

Skittered blinked behind her goggles. Director Piggot had just committed suicide with a gun in her office?

"Go ahead," Armsmaster said stiffly. He really couldn't afford to be interrupted right now.

"It's about Director Piggot. She's..." The PRT agent looked at the girl for a moment, then turned back to Armsmaster. "...dead. I think you need to come and check out the situation personally."

"Thank you very much, Agent McCune. I'm sorry, Skitter, but this really does sound critical. Here's my business card. I'd like to talk to you in the future again." Armsmaster was already halfway through.

"Well, that was a thing," Skitter muttered to herself. They both seemed quite shocked by the turn of events. With a sigh, she realized she needed to get home before her dad noticed her being gone.

She was so glad she could nap out for a perfect two hour sleep during the day. Mental powers were the coolest, she thought to herself.

Armsmaster stared at the lifeless body slumped in her office chair. She had been rather thorough, he noted in dispassionate shock.

"Master/Stranger protocols are in place. No one would have thought she would commit suicide. She just about lives for her job," McCune explained. "I've got some of my people talking to her friends, family and doctors. Did you know she was diabetic and on dialysis?"

"I did, but I thought it was under control," the leader of the Brockton Bay Protectorate said softly.

"If you are on dialysis, it's not really under control anymore. I had my uncle passed away six months ago due to complications. He got an infection from one of his sessions. It was a really painful way to go," the young agent explained, sounding quite upset at the memory.

Armsmaster nodded. He turned to look at a new figure that was entering the office. Ah, one of Piggot's administrators. "Agent Ormand."

"Armsmaster. Such a shame," the dark-eyed woman said. "I called Calvert, let him know I'm going to need him to fill in for my position while I take charge."

That just got a grunt of acknowledgement.

"He's not that bad, even as a consultant. And he's incredibly effective at tactics," Ormand said. "And since we're going to be working together, please call me Galatea."

"We need to get out of the way of the forensics team," he replied bluntly. "And I need to make a report to Legend about an important matter."

"Anything I should be aware of?" Galatea asked curiously.

"Just some Protectorate business that he asked me to attend to privately," Armaster said stoically.

She nodded in return. The intelligence behind her dark eyes considered the matter of the 'telepath' for just a second, but decided that it was almost certainly just another one of these Entities granting its own powers for their purposes.

Gharlane of Eddore had no real worries. The changes that had happened to this world in the last fifty years were unprecedented. Unprecedented headaches and opportunities. The way these 'Entities' traversed the alternate universes was quite different from the way that his race, the Eddorians, had developed in their quest to discover any universe where the natural laws of physics would have planets form around almost all suns in the universe.

Now they had not only this universe to conquer, but potentially a near infinite number of near duplicates of this universes. Their lust for conquest and battle, domination, would never be slaked.

Galatea Ormand just nodded and smiled to Armsmaster.