A/N: I don't own Worm. It belongs to Wildbow.

"Oh god, not the bees! Not the bees! AAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH, MY EEEEEEYES!"

With an irritated grunt, Coil closed the timeline that included Dinah Alcott Kidnapping Attempt #934 and found himself left with three major thoughts:

The first was that it had become very apparent that he had to ensure Ocean's Crew were all very, very occupied when he made his next attempt.

The second was that he probably shouldn't have let his mercenaries watch Wicker Man before they went out to operate in the same city as Skitter. Also, who knew that girl would take such an exception to armed men kidnapping a little girl? They really didn't make villains with the required lack of moral calibre these days.

The third was that he was really, really getting tired of this nonsense. It had now gotten to the point where his target did not even notice that he was trying to kidnap her before some strange, unfortunate happenstance disrupted whatever plan had been made completely and often left his mercenaries in extremely humiliating positions.

What he needed was an opening, where both Oceans Crew and the Protectorate were sufficiently distracted. His patience was rapidly running out.

Then he got a new report. Apparently, Oceans Crew were now involved in a high-speed pursuit with Armsmaster and several other Protectorate heroes. Apparently, attempt #934 must have run afoul of them on the way to their strike against Armsmaster.

Feeling a wave of giddiness that attempt #935 may finally be the one, he began issuing new orders.

Like all things worth knowing about, it started with an explosion and ended in a high-speed chase through crowded city streets.

Or, at least, that was how her mother and father said the saying should go. Skitter wasn't entirely sure how true that was.

"YOU CAN'T ESCAPE ME NOW!" She winced at Armsmaster's amplified roar as the hero began to close the gap between them. She sent a wave of insects at the hero, but they vanished in a wave of fire through only one wave of the halberd.

"He's gaining on us," she reported futilely to her parents, who seemed entirely unconcerned, with Ocean reading the Brockton Daily News in the passenger seat while Midnight Feline laughed gleefully at the wheel of their heavily-customised convertible, which she steadfastly refused to call 'Ocean's Motion'.

"Don't worry, dear. We have it covered," Ocean said idly as he checked his horoscope, "See? The horoscope says 'If you approach your objectives with enthusiasm and diligence, you will succeed in what you set out to do.' That's as clear-cut as it gets, in my book."

Skitter turned back to see that Armsmaster's bike had now taken off and was flying through the air while arming air-to-surface missiles. "How covered do you have it? Because I'm pretty sure those might be the same missiles he used against Leviathan and I really don't think there's a level of cover that can meaningfully apply for endbringer-killing weaponry oh god oh god oh god-"

While most of the residents of Brockton bay hardly needed context for a situation involving Armsmaster chasing Ocean's Crew, there was, in fact, some context to be had. The tale that led to this exhilarating scene was a long one, and fraught with danger and cunning schemes...

The car pulled up next to him. Turning to look, Armsmaster found himself staring blankly into the domino-masked face that he immediately recognised as belonging to his arch-nemesis and his damnable family.

Ocean threw a firework in the air. Armsmaster tensed, but it exploded harmlessly, only for the sparks to spell out a phrase:

ARMSMASTER IS A NERD

"See you!" Ocean said cheerfully as the car sped off.

Armsmaster let out a roar of rage and gunned his bike.

And that's how it happened.

Coil resisted the urge to open up a new timeline and have a proper evil cackle. While a good villain needed a good evil cackle every now and again, saving his timelines was of the utmost importance when he was this close to obtaining his goal.

The target was strolling home from school, looking entirely unconcerned.

The Protectorate's attention was elsewhere, as was that of Ocean's Crew.

His men were in position. Had he been a more patient man, he would have kept a timeline in reserve, in case this attempt failed like the rest, but, unfortunately for him, being humiliated nine-hundred and thirty-four times had whittled down his patience to the point of being non-existent. This was the best chance he would ever get and he was banking everything, including both of his active timelines, on it working.

He gave the order. "Move in."

0.00% chance I get kidnapped by an idiot today.

Dinah had almost forgotten why she asked herself that question so much. She knew someone was trying to kidnap her, presumably to use her power, but she also knew that whoever that person was, they were apparently so horrifically bad at kidnapping that she would probably be less safe if they stopped trying to get her.

Blinking, she saw some armed men approaching directly from the front. She sighed, wishing that she had some popcorn to see how it would all go wrong this time.

When the first man went down, he did so in a manner that actually shocked her. She had never seen that one before. The second, third and fourth were incapacitated in a less spectacular manner. She wondered where Coil got these guys from and how much he was paying them – she had, of course, long ago figured out exactly who was 'trying' to kidnap her due to the ever-increasing incompetence involved his attempts often somehow giving away vital information about his organisation. She also understood that he had a parahuman power, too – it somehow gave him the ability to try things in two different ways. In the hands of a competent villain, this ability would have been terrifying, but with Coil, it only seemed to give him the ability to fail twice as much.

"Hey, I heard a ruckus, are you okay - holy crap, what happened to those guys?"

Dinah blinked as she registered the presence of a garishly-dressed girl relatively close to her age.

Vista, of the Brockton Bay Wards. Dinah was a fan. She wondered if she might be able to get an autograph. However, more important things first.

"Uh," Dinah scratched her head, "Well, those guys were trying to kidnap me, but then the lead one slipped on a banana peel, and his gun went off and hit the sign above him and… well, it led to that," she waved at the scene of absolute carnage that lay before them, strewn with the bodies of unconscious or incapacitated mercenaries, destroyed garbage and broken objects.

"Slipped on a banana peel?" She almost saw Vista's eyes go wide behind her mask, "Seriously?"

"Seriously," Dinah confirmed, "That's not even the best one that's ever happened."

"They've done this before?" Vista asked her in concern.

"All the time, but they don't seem to be very good at it," Dinah confirmed.

Vista sighed in disappointment. "Oh, man. And here I was hoping for some good action."

Dinah mentally asked herself a question.

100% chance she can kick Coil's ass.

And a plan began to form.

"Maybe if you interrogate them," she suggested lightly, "You'll be able to find their secret base and take on their boss? That will be more of a challenge."

Vista perked up. "Knocking out a supervillain's secret base would give me leg up on the others… but," she frowned as she once again looked at the scene of carnage before her, "I'm not really sure beating up a villain that lame is really worth it."

"Well, uh," clearly, this was the time to peddle some bullshit, "Look, all the other villains except Ocean's Crew left town after Armsmaster beat up an Endbringer, right?"

"Yeah," Vista sighed morosely. It was pretty much true, after all. Lock Master L and the ABB were currently on tour throughout the United States, the Merchants were pretty much entirely in hiding, and the Empire 88's capes and members had systematically abandoned both the gang and the city to the point where the entire organisation now consisted of one particularly slow Nazi named Geoff.

"But this guy," Dinah indicated the mercenaries, "Stuck around. So he must be pretty badass if he thinks he can keep committing crimes in Armsmaster's town, right?"

"I guess, but would a badass supervillain really use guys that crappy?"

"Good point, but..." Dinah thought harder, "Have you ever heard of obfuscating stupidity?"

"I don't think so."

"It's where someone acts really dumb, but it's only to throw their enemies off and hide the fact that they're really badass."

"Oh," Vista nodded eagerly, "Like Clockblocker was doing all that time!"

"Er, yeah, exactly like that," Dinah lied, "Now, just imagine how badass you must be, if you feel the need to cover it up," she pointed at the pair of legs that was sticking out from a dustbin, "With that much stupid."

"He must be a super badass," Vista said in awe, "Hey, what do you think are the chances that I'll get to smack down an S-class threat if I tangle with this guy?"

"100% chance you'll meet an S-class threat if you attack his secret base," Dinah's power brought forth the answer almost automatically.

"Sweet," Vista cheered, "I'll get right on that, then!"

Clearly very happy by the turn of events, the youngest superheroine in Brockton Bay skipped cheerfully over to the still-twitching mercenaries.

Dinah wondered if she should stick around, then decided that the problem was probably going to solve itself now, and headed home. She talked to her parents about her day (skipping out the parts involving supervillains), watched the TV, had dinner, and went to bed.

Then, staring at the ceiling from beneath the covers, she blinked. "Wait, what?"