2.8 Mandibles

I could feel a shift in the attitudes of both groups. The ABB weren't walking away from this fight, not with Bakuda murdering any who disobeyed her. My group could run, but if we took off, we'd be chased by a group that had no where to go but forward. A group that had already been bloodied and wouldn't be interested in mercy. Moreover, I knew what Bakuda would do if she got her hands on any of us. She didn't have the same respect for life like other villains in the city did. She was too new to the scene and was relying on Oni Lee and Lung for guidance. A recipe for disaster.

Crouched in my side alley, I watched as the group of thugs tried to fight off my swarm and deal with Grue's advancing shadow. It gave me pause when the shadow struck out and a thug reacted as if he had been punched in the face. I felt more than heard Regent snicker.

Coordinated strikes from Grue and Regent?

The thug recovered, but stayed back from the shadow. Of the ten sent out, eight were still in fighting shape. One was dead, but that was by Bakuda's actions. Grue and I had both put one down, but his had scrambled back and rejoined the fray. Mine was… still breathing, but didn't seem to want to get back up again. My bugs were still biting, but I was easing up on them. I wanted the thugs kept busy for now. If we dropped them all too fast, Bakuda might resort to her bombs. This was the lesser of two evils, and time would be needed to neutralize Bakuda. My bugs were already preparing for her attacks, drawing lines of silk above head height between the lockers on the main alley.

Bakuda turned away from the fight and started talking to the twenty thugs she had in reserve. Her words were quick and feverish. Despite not being able to make out what she was saying through the helmet and voice modulator, her orders were clear enough when nine of the reserves moved. They didn't charge in, but headed back to the alley they arrived from, perpendicular to ours. There they split up with one group going left and the other right.

I felt them pausing at intersections. The area was a mess to navigate. Lockers were clumped haphazardly, sometimes forming roads and alleys like the ones we were fighting on. Other times they created little plazas that you had to squeeze between lockers to get into. There were several alleys branching off from the one the flankers were moving through, many ending in a dead end before they would be behind my team. Both groups lucked onto paths that would bring them behind us. Unfortunate for them.

Bitch and I were positioned almost on top of the first group that was still engaged with Grue's shadow clone. We were both just out of sight behind a row of lockers. I signaled Bitch with my bugs, writing 'Hurt' on the wall with an arrow toward the approaching group. Putting action to words, I moved to ambush the would-be ambushers. There were four coming down my way. Another five were moving towards Bitch who didn't seem to be getting my note.

[Five thugs coming from behind,] I said, mentally kicking myself for forgetting Bitch's handicap.

With my swarm, I drew out a rough map of the area and the ambushers' approach, keeping it afloat in front of her as she moved.

Bakuda sent another five goons out who followed the four that were coming my way. I tagged them with bugs to keep track of their movements, leaving them be for the moment to focus on the seventeen thugs that were about to engage us.

[Keep them busy. I need a minute to get set up,] I ordered Regent, Tattletale, and Grue.

"Oh captain my captain!" Regent replied, tripping up another thug who had turned from the shadow Grue in their midst and attempted to charge them.

Positioning myself, I stowed my knife and baton, opting for pepper spray and a stun gun. My pouch was rather full with gear. I envied Faultline for her bandolier of gear and Armsmaster's utility belt. I was making accommodations for gear with my new costume, but that was still a ways from being ready. Making a mental note of alterations I'd need, I tensed, ready to strike.

My four rounded the corner on me and got a mouthful of pepper spray. I ducked low, casting out swarm clones in various directions. Two were hampered while the other pair had avoided a direct spray: one covering his face with his hood, the other stepping back around the corner. I didn't give any a chance to react as I stepped to the side, leaving a clone where I started. Staying low, I jammed my stun gun into the hooded one's groin. He screamed as I simultaneously had my bugs bite the other three. I didn't want his scream to identify where the real attack was coming from.

I had to hold the stun gun on him for a count of four to get him to drop. Four seconds was enough time for the one thug who stepped back around the corner to come out again and spot me. She brought down a katana at me, but was still too slow to avoid the darts from the taser I used on her. Ejecting the packet as soon as I was sure she was down, I reloaded and stepped behind the two who had suffered under my first attack. They were blind firing their weapons. Trying to, at least, as I had made sure to jam every gun in the area. I used my stun gun to safely drop one, then the other, counting to five each time just to be sure. The sword looked decent enough for me to take, along with its sheath this time. Tattletale's comment regarding the knives at our warehouse was a fair point.

As I was dealing with this group of ambushers, Bitch was dealing with her party of five in her own way. Brutus had barreled through the group, knocking all save one to the ground. The fifth had an arm held securely in the dog's mouth. My mosquitoes could taste the blood running down his arm. The ones on the ground were still down as Bitch began pummeling them. Brutus turned about in the tight corridor, dragging his victim across the lockers as he maneuvered. Bitch gave orders for him to deal with the ones lying on the ground.

[Don't kill,] I warned her.

"Hurt," she amended to Brutus.

Deciding to take another lesson from Bakuda, I moved forward to flank her and her group. I vaguely remembered something about her having heat vision goggles. Gathering nearly all of my bees to me, I started to work on countermeasures. Japanese honey bees had a defense strategy for dealing with invasive wasps. They would gather into a ball and start beating their wings, generating heat. They could survive temperatures up to 114 Fahrenheit. The American bees couldn't reach those temperatures, but they could still generate heat, hopefully hot enough to act as a decoy.

One by one, the bees started breaking off from me, moving in various directions. I kept them tightly packed at chest height, letting them warm other flying bugs to move out like extremities. I tried to gather a screen of bugs to place directly between myself and Bakuda in an attempt to block my heat signature. I had never tried this before and had no idea how this would look to Bakuda. Hopefully it would be enough.

As I was creating my bee decoys, I was keeping tabs on the third group that had broken off. They had gone in my direction, but moved several alleys past me before turning down to flank my group. They were a few minutes from being a threat to us. The larger concern was still the horde in the alley with Bakuda.

Seven were still dealing with Grue's shadow and Regent's influences. Bakuda, who had seemed content to let this happen, decided to send in the last of her reserves. A mere six, but there were the ones that seemed the most dangerous. All had guns, though only the one with a shotgun had his drawn. They marched forth, blades and blunts drawn. Large men, one taller than Grue, were entering the fray.

[Come back, but stay out of sight. Wait for my order to attack. No killing,] I said to Bitch through my swarm.

"You don't tell me what to do," she growled in response. She followed my instructions anyway.

With the new group approaching, Bakuda barked out more orders. The group seemed to pause a moment before they gave up fighting Grue's shadow. He tried to distract them further, engorging it and swallowing a pair of thugs. More barked orders from Bakuda and the five out of the shadow pressed on, leaving their two companions blind in the darkness. The pair who was swallowed weren't being attacked and had kept moving forward. Grue moved his darkness, keeping pace with them.

[Ease up on them,] I said to my group.

"You better not be hanging us out to dry," Grue groused.

He eased up on his darkness, letting the two he first swallowed out unmolested. Regent tripped up another one of the thugs in the first wave, but his buddy helped him recover. The second wave was also fast approaching, trying to time their attack to coincide with that of the first group. Before they could join forces, I gave the order to Rachel. Her shrill whistle drew attention which coincided with Brutus pouncing on the nearest thug. All eyes turned to him as I gave Grue his orders. He brought his darkness up to cover the whole alley, engulfing all the thugs in the alley along with Brutus.

I could feel the difference in the two groups of thugs. The first were panicked, having seen tangible evidence of what was now with them in the darkness. The vibrations of Brutus pounding could be felt from where I stood, let alone the twenty feet from the dog where the first group was. The second group wasn't as panicked, teaming up with their comrades when they bumped into one another. Little good it did them. It didn't matter if they kept their cool, Brutus was still the size of a truck and bulldozed over them all in the darkness.

Bakuda let out a noise I wasn't sure how to interpret. Standing from her jeep, she hefted her grenade launcher, loaded and fired. The grenade traveled half the distance to the fighting groups before abruptly stopping mid air, caught in one of the spider silk nets I'd been preparing. There was a two second delay before I realized the grenade had exploded. Bugs in the area slowed down, almost to a dead stop. I could still feel them, as they hung in the air, suspended in what must have been a time bubble.

Having been advancing on her position during the fight, I didn't give her a chance to reload as I dashed the last few feet to get to her jeep. A quick hop up to the back of the truck bed, I drew the sword and brought it across, aiming for Bakuda's foot. She was just turning as the blade made contact, sinking into her shin, higher than I intended. With a synthesized and hollow scream, she dropped, falling from the jeep. She took her grenade launcher with her, forcing me to change course. Pushing myself to the left, she fired at where I would have been coming from. The grenade sailed high and away from all of us, exploding uselessly in the distance. I drew my taser and fired the darts into her costume at her chest. I kept the taser on for eight seconds despite her going limp after five.

With that done, I stood up and surveyed the carnage. I couldn't see through the darkness, but my bugs let me feel what was going on. It wasn't even a fair fight. Everyone was blind, including Brutus, but where the thugs had to see to be sure they were attacking the dog as opposed to each other, Brutus had no such issues. He was almost prancing about, slamming his body into those around him, whipping his tail across those still standing, and stomping on those on the ground.

Satisfied with the progress, I whipped my head to the camera in the sky. I looked directly at the lens and held my gaze for a few seconds. The camera had stayed on Bakuda the whole time, but was back enough to get a view of the alley we were fighting in. When we showed this video later, I would make sure to cut the tape here.

I turned my attention back down to the cause of all this. Spiders swarmed from me, weaving around Bakuda a web that would hopefully keep her tied up. Setting bugs to scout the jeep for booby traps, I found a large wad of web wrapped around the rear axle. Bugs were put to work unraveling the web and weaving Bakuda up. With a sword nearly cutting through her leg, it would be easy enough to let her bleed out. No reign of ABB terror, no senseless deaths. No suffering of the Asian community as a result of her terror tactics. I couldn't though. I couldn't allow her to die like this. Not yet at least.

As my bugs unraveled the silk from the axle, I gathered the rest of the silk netting I had prepared to catch more grenades with. Clumping them together, I applied them to her leg. Putting pressure on the wound, my spiders wrapped silk around the leg, securing the web bandage. As the axle web came free, I used it to create a tourniquet. Using a stick nearby, I tightened it, then wrapped it again with spider silk.

"Holly shit!" Regent balked. "Is that Bakuda?"

He and the rest of the group had approached after Brutus had finished routing the rest of the thugs.

"Most of her," I replied.

"You do all of this?" Grue asked, a bit of awe seeping through the darkness he was using to mask his voice.

"And you thought she was going to hang us out to dry," Regent quipped. "I can't believe we kicked their asses like that! One minute they have us back against the ropes, then we swoop in like a boss and puts the kibosh on their asses!"

"We need to get out of here soon though. There are still random thugs roving about. A group of five split off from the rest and might be circling back. Grue, get the jeep running. We'll head back to grab the loot and make the drop off. Tattletale, any thoughts on the snitch?"

"There should be a master tracker and a master control," she said the same time Rachel asked "Snitch?"

"She means the camera Uber and Leet use," Tattletale answered, pointing up at it. "Bakuda should have a master tracker on her. The laptop should be in the jeep which will help us get the camera down."

I watched as she picked over Bakuda before plucking a keychain like accessory from the stylized gas mask. She then hopped up into the truck looking for the laptop.

"What happened to her leg?" Rachel asked, having had to warn Brutus back from sniffing too closely.

"I tried to cut it off," I replied. "Her foot really, but I'm not experienced with a sword."

"You're kinda twisted you know?" Regent commented.

"You're going too far-"

"No," I cut Brian off. "She murdered several of her own people tonight on a whim. Her leg is severance. Besides, I patched her up. She won't bleed out anytime soon, so we aren't committing murder, even on accident."

A lie. I knew I was murdering people. Just by letting her live, I was condemning people to die. It took something from me to walk away. It was part of the plan, part of the path I had chosen when I came back.

"Got it!" Tattletale interrupted before anything more could be said. "We are good to go. Grue, you wanna drive while I get this sorted?"

Without further word, we loaded up and headed out to gather the goods, make the drop, then head back to base.

0

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0

"Hey," Brian said, as he approached me.

"Hey," I replied, keeping my eyes on the horizon, seeing the occasional flashes and knowing what I was allowing.

"Oh uh…" Brian hesitated, turning his head away. "Taylor…?"

I was standing on the roof looking out over the city. I wore the bottom of the second costume I was constructing. My chest was covered by a sports bra and the thousands of black widows I was using to construct the top half of my costume from the waist going up. I was rather exposed, but having spent a year and a half with the Wards in Chicago, living, dressing, and showering under constant surveillance, I wasn't so shy about my body.

"You wanted to talk?" I asked.

"Uh, yeah. But do you want to put a shirt on or something?"

"I'm making one, but it will be a while. Just think of it as a bathing suit."

"Right. I, uh, figured you'd be resting, or going back to your dad's after what happened."

"No, I'm not telling him about tonight," I answered. "Besides, I told him I'd be spending the night at Lisa's. If I turned up with a concussion, he'd ask more questions than I want to answer."

Not to mention I had enough to work on here. After the successful drop, there were several new species of my special request bugs waiting here at our hideout. I was working on feeding and breeding the majority of them. Some, like the ironclad beetle and darwin's bark spider, I would use to assist with our costumes. Others, like the titan beetle, tiger moth, and tarantula hawk, were for offensive purposes. All needed time to breed to be useful. From the local stock, I was crafting chitin panels intermixed with black widow silk. Drawing from my two years of field testing and experimenting with my gear, I was crafting new pieces that provided optimum coverage without the loss of mobility. Starting with my claw like gloves, I was adding these to my costume as they were built. I was hard at work downstairs in the warehouse all the while holding a conversation with Brian.

"He doesn't know what you do?" he asked.

"Does your family?"

"I'm fighting my mom for custody of my sister. I'm not about to tell her I run around at night as a villain. My dad, well he's not one for conversations, and if he knew I was a villain, he'd… Probably knock my ass out."

"But your sister knows then?"

"Yeah. I told her about me… and a bit about the team. I figured she has a right to know. You know younger siblings of capes have a high chance of triggering right? I wanted her to know what's coming."

"And how did she like that talk?"

"She was a bit of a bitch about it actually, made a few comments about telling mom to fuck with my case. She wouldn't do it," Brian added hurriedly, "it's more just to fuck with me than anything. She doesn't want to go back to mom and thinks it'll be easier at my place than dad's. That doesn't mean she'll be taking it easy on me though."

"Mmm…"

"You don't think I should have told her?"

"You telling her about who you are? I think that's your business, but did you tell her about the rest of us?"

I could tell by the look on his face he had. Not that I needed to look at him to know, I had found out first hand when we were at his apartment and Aisha had showed up with the social worker. That would be sometime this week. I couldn't remember the exact date, but it was the week after my concussion. Disconcerting how I got another one fighting Bakuda. I wanted events to repeat as they fit with my plans. That didn't include the concussion though. There had been a few other parallels, like the bank job, that had me worried.

"I didn't come out and tell her who you all are at first," Brian amended, interrupting my thoughts.

"At first," I replied. "But she does know."

"Look, my sister isn't stupid," Brian blurted, sounding defensive. "She figured it out on her own. She looked up when I was gone and when Grue was out and about. She made note of the times I came back with injuries worse than I'd get from the gym. She confronted me, and I couldn't lie to my sister."

"Never having had a sister, I can't tell you if you should or shouldn't lie to her, but tell me you didn't give her our names?"

"What? No, I just use cape names when I talk about the team to her."

"Brian, I get that you trust your sister with what you do, but I can't trust her with what I do. Not without knowing her personally. You understand, you and I are the only ones who have family to protect. I don't tell my dad about any of this. I do that to protect me and the rest of the team. If he doesn't know what I do, or who we are, he can't make a mistake and let something slip."

Or try and stop me.

"Aisha knows better."

"She's what, thirteen? Fourteen?"

"Thirteen."

"Were you that good at keeping secrets at thirteen?"

"Shit. Look I didn't come up here to argue with you, I just wanted to check on you, and… well, I guess I did want to talk about tonight, but now I'm not so sure," Brian hedged.

"You want to know why I did what I did. Why let Bakuda go after everything that happened?"

I had made my decision, remembering what we were doing this for. Events had to repeat themselves to a degree. Chaos, suffering, conflict. These were needed to draw Leviathan. Or perhaps we only needed Noel in the city for him to come. Hard to say. Later analysis had shown a pattern with Endbringers targeting cities with powerful capes. Alan Gramme, Andrew Richter, and Phir Se were a few that came to mind. Each targeted by one of the original three Endbringers.

"It might have been better if I hadn't let her go. To think she did all this?" I gestured to the city. "Of course, hindsight is twenty twenty," I said, knowing full well the irony of that statement. I was glad Lisa was on the phone with Coil in the kitchen. If anything would give me away to her, it would be a statement like that.

"I guess your right. Even still, all this?" He gestured to the most recent detonation. "Not really what I had in mind when I started going out in costume."

"No? Why did you first start going out?"

"I might have told you already, but I got into this for my sister. After I triggered, I set my mind to getting her away from my mom and her boyfriends. My dad didn't want to fight me on it, but my mom was giving me hell. I needed money to hire an attorney. I went out a few times and robbed places here and there. When I got enough money for the lawyer, they told me I needed a steady home environment with provable income, among other things. I was worried I was stuck for a while. I was only able to afford the lawyer in the first place through stealing. I couldn't declare that income on a tax form as a legitimate source of income, so I needed a job I could declare one that brought in enough money to actually support myself."

"Enter our boss," I supplied.

"Yeah, he pulled us all in together. He got me set up with a dummy job, where his checks filter through. The dummy job exists, employees, employer and all. That boss gives me a stellar recommendation to the social workers and helps establish me as a valid guardian figure. It's taken some time, but my social worker needs me to be in this stable position for a bit longer considering my age."

"You know he's just stringing you along?"

"My dad? No he gave me his blessing. He's not about to take that back."

"No, I mean our boss. He isn't going to just let you get custody of your sister. It won't be that easy."

"I get that you don't trust easy, but no. Just no."

"Think Brian, and I mean really think about it. What happens if he gives you full custody?"

"I get full custody."

"And do you stay with the team? Do you keep working for the boss, or maybe start doing your own thing? You said you got into this for your sister, but once you get her, there is less reason for you to keep working with the boss. He loses leverage once you get her, or he works things to keep pressure on you. Maybe you fail a follow up check and you have to go through litigation. Maybe your mom wins an appeal. Really though, what you should be asking, is why don't you have custody yet?"

"I can only go by what the boss has done for us so far. I know you didn't like just handing the money over to them, but every time before now, he has followed through," Brian replied, putting his hands on his hips. "He will follow through with my sister. I'm going through all the steps to get her back and our boss has been helping me all of the way. I trust him with this. It's not like he couldn't have screwed us over in the past. Hell," Brian continued, throwing up a hand and turning his head to the side. "I was where you are when we pulled the casino job. After working hard for that money, to just give it away blindly, I felt the same way you're feeling now."

"Brian-"

"Taylor, really. It's going to be fine. The boss will pay us like he always does. And let me worry about my sister."

"Brian, if the boss could get you custody of your sister tomorrow, would you expect him to? If some loophole presented itself to him that he could exploit, being such a good little minion for him, would you expect him to do it for you?"

"Where are you going with this?"

"Really Brian, how hard would it be for the boss, or us even, to plant drugs on your mom, have cops search her, find them, arrest her, and then have her rights to Aisha denied?"

"I thought about that already. I doubt I'd even have to plant anything on her, she was always using. But I'm not gonna screw my mom over like that. I might not like her, but she is still my mom. Asside from that, my sister could end up in foster care, which would make getting custody even harder."

"Then how about the easier method. Bribe a judge, or a social worker. Social workers don't make much, hell I bet it would even be cheaper than paying your lawyer fees. For the social worker at least. The judge might cost a bit more."

There was a long pause and as it drew out, I resisted the urge to turn back and face him.

"Tell me you haven't thought about that?"

"Fine, you win, I didn't think about that," he said a little vexed.

"Why not?"

"I don't know Taylor, maybe I'm not as smart as you?" he said, the statement tinged with sarcasm.

"I'm sorry to piss you off, but I just thought you should know how the boss is manipulating you."

"Great! Fine! So I'm a fucking tool. So where do you fall in all of this? Why are you working with us then? What does the boss have on you that has you with us?" he replied, clearly frustrated.

"He has something I need."

"Could you be any more cryptic?" he disdainfully replied.

"You've been open with me about your family and I appreciate that, but I can't trust you with this. Not if you 'can't lie' to your sister."

I could feel him flinch at that. Good. I loved Brian, but at times he was naive. Either that or I was far too cynical.

"You can't tell me."

"No."

"But Lisa knows."

Not a question, but a statement.

I didn't answer.

I let the silence stretch between us.

I wasn't going to say yes.

That would be a lie.

I wouldn't say no either.

I couldn't tip her hand.

"I think your silence is telling enough," Brian spat.

"Mmmm," I replied noncommittally, watching the blue-green fires from Empire territory burn in the night sky.

"The real reason I came up here was to talk about tonight," Brian said, trying to reign himself in after his outburst. "You pulled some shit tonight I'm not cool with. Going in when I said not to. Staying to fight when I said to run."

"We came out with a win."

"That's not the point."

"The point is," I said, pausing, "that I gave orders to the team when you feel that's your job."

"You're too new at this. With us," he amended before I could correct him.

"I'm good in a fight," I said. "My powers puts me in a position to see the whole battlefield. I can make calls for the group to attack or retreat better than you because of that. You're good at what you do Brian. I'm just in a better position power wise to lead during combat."

"I remember you almost taking a grenade to the face," he replied, in a condescending tone.

"We all make mistakes. I underestimated Bakuda. It didn't happen a second time. It's why Rachel and I were positioned out to the sides. Did you ask Rachel about the guys that tried to flank us?"

I paused for him to respond.

"Bakuda sent out three groups to try and flank us. I tracked them and sent Rachel to take out one, while I dealt with the other."

"And the third?"

"They just left the fight. They might have tried to circle all the way around, but if they did, they either got lost, or took too long. Either way, without me calling the shots tonight, they would have gotten the jump on you."

"We could have run."

"She had a jeep. She would have caught up to you. If you would have tried to lose her in the lockers, she had the snitch in the air tracking your movements. She would have caught you, or just tagged you with a grenade. Look, I'm not trying to be mean. I like you Brian. I don't want to see you get hurt out there. That's why I took charge. I made the tough calls that got us through. Not just through either. Outside of my concussion and Lisa's twisted ankle, this victory was flawless."

I felt him standing there behind me. I could feel his shoulders rising and falling as he breathed. I never turned from the edge to face him. Not when he had argued with me. Not now as he turned and walked back to the stairs. Nor as he paused at the door, hand on the handle, and sighed.

It wasn't until Lisa came up that I took my eyes from the devastation I had wrought on my city.

"So how was the rooftop serenade?" she asked.

I turned to face her and could see the smile falter for an instant.

"We argued. He left."

"And you stayed," she replied, looking out at what was now a battle between the local heroes, Empire capes, firetrucks, and the raging blue-green fires in the distance.

"And I stayed."

"Wanna talk about it."

"I need your help with a job."

"So that's a no I take it? And what kinda job are we pulling?"

"Not the team. Just you and me."

You found something interesting at the bank."

"No, you did and it gave me an idea."

"Coil."

"No, another name. Several others actually. I'll need help dealing with them."

"And you need my help specifically to do this."

"I do."

"Great, so what's the plan?"

"I'll need to make a few calls, but we'll be looking at using the heroes."