#worm asks

:'DDDD thank you so much turkey !!!!! I am so glad you enjoy my boys, they are so special to me </333

yes get me outta here omg ok but to business. Undersiders, BB Protectorate, New Wave, and BB villains are not gonna happen. too many people scrutinizing them for potential strangers, you don't wanna get discovered on day 2 and end up locked in the PRT's basement for the rest of time

picking a villain from another city and then trying to go to the bay is likely going to draw a lot of heat from the heroes, and picking a hero from another city would make it hard to make it into the story. Which you're (me) probably going to want to do, given that the average person's luck with surviving canon worm is not very high.

Cauldron is Right Out

this leaves us with very few parahumans and a lot of unpowered people. To be fair, you could probably pass off canon knowledge as a low level thinker power or something.

obviously the entities and endbringers aren't allowed cause they're not human but I do think it would be funny to throw an unpowered alien siege weapon into our world lmao.

But when it comes down to it, there is an answer. But let me go over my top 3.

Number 3: Dinah. This would be before Coil, and having futuresight to go with canon knowledge would be pretty useful. Downsides: Coil exists, headaches, at this point in time she wouldn't have many connections outside of Triumph.

Number 2: Piggot. Command over the PRT. Uniquely situated to act on canon knowledge under the cover of being the director. Lots of resources, lots of control. Downsides: Coil exists, headache-inducing job, getting healed might get you thrown in M/S forever (insert Kidney Heist reference), you have to deal with government entities on a daily basis.

Finally, My number one pick. there is one human person, in all of worm, who is uniquely situated in a position with connections to people who are heroes and people who are villains. someone close enough to the plot to make changes for the better using canon knowledge but not so close as to fuck everything up with one bad day. Someone who I don't think it's been confirmed either way if they're capable or incapable of triggering. Someone who's not being checked for M/S every day. Someone who canonically survives all of Worm despite living in the Bay for most of it. Madison Fucking Clements.

Oh she looks... special!

I think I do but she kind of looks uglier somehow

it can be the lyrics or the overall vibe, or both. I don't mind.

it can be songs that in isolation sound like the hero just taking control of their life (like this one) but could in reality be a villain justifyimg their own downfall

please and thank you :D

I showed up in costume.  I didn’t care if they thought it was rude or paranoid, I would rather be capable of surviving having a knife pulled on me than play nice.

I said it last update and I’ll say it again: Taylor’s being really smart while making a very dumb decision

I had caught a bus from the library to my house and put my costume on under my clothes.  Most of the armor panels of my costume were separate pieces, held in place by straps that ran into slits in the fabric of the costume.  Not all of them were, though.

I really appreciate how badass and complex her costume is, having made it 100% herself! It’s probably on par with some professional ones!

I’d made some of the armor part of the bodysuit, I’d made narrow, rigid sections of armor running along the center of my chest, back, shins, wrists, hips and the tops of my shoulders. so that when I strapped the larger pieces on, grooves on the underside of the armor would fit over them and help keep them from flopping around.

And now it seems she has improved it, keeping it both practical and protective. I love it.

I checked myself in the mirror before I left, and didn’t think anyone would notice unless I held a strange posture and they were paying a great deal of attention to what I was wearing.  I wore loose fitting clothes over the costume, – one of my larger pairs of jeans and a sweatshirt, and even with that, I felt painfully conspicuous

So she’s wearing casual clothes over her costume, and the costume is working right now as a kind of bulletproof vest while she goes to meet them, where she will presumably change to being fully suited. And going with civilian clothes and then changing out of view is a good way to protect her secret identity.

Taylor’s showcasing the appropriate amount of caution with this crazy plan.

I changed much the way I had the previous night, finding an empty alley, quickly pulling on my mask, pulling off my outer clothes, and stuffing the clothes into one of my dad’s old backpacks.  I’d hidden the backpack before I went patrolling last night, but today, I opted to take it with me.  I headed out the other end of the alley.

Aaand changed! Full costume mode now! The bug girl from the other day is back!

When I was a short distance away from the site of last night’s brawl, I sent a dozen flies out to scout.  I focused on what they were sensing.

I never realized just how excellent bug control would be for scouting ahead and cheking your surroundings.

I get the feeling this serial is going to ruin every other bug-based power in media for me, especially the ones that  use it only for  offense.

Bugs, it probably goes without saying, sense things in a very different way than we do.  More than that, they sense and process things at a very different speed.  The end result was that the signals my power were able to translate and send to me in a way my brain could understand were muted.  Visual information came through as ink blot patches of monochrome light and dark, alternating between fuzzy and overly sharp. Sound was almost painful to focus on, breaking down to bass vibrations that made my vision distort and high pitch noises that weren’t unlike nails on a chalkboard.  Multiply that by a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, and it was overwhelming.  When my power was new to me, I hadn’t been able to hold back. The sensory overload had never actually hurt me, even at its worst, but it had made me flat out miserable.   These days, I had that part of my power turned off a good ninety nine percent of the time.

This is actually really interesting! It seems her power let’s her see and hear through her bugs but doesn’t actually translate it to human terms

As such all she can see through one bug’s eyes are monochrome light and dark patches and all she can hear is distorted noises. And all of that multiplied by every single bug she has which amounts to a kaleidoscopic maelstrom of disruptive imputs that incoveniences more than helps.

It’s fortunate that she can turn that part of her power off, cause it could almost be crippling otherwise!

My preferred method of sensing things through my bugs was touch.  It wasn’t that their sense of touch translated much better than the hearing or sight part of things, but had more to do with the fact that I could tell where they were in relation to me.  I was acutely aware when they were very still, if they were moving, or if something else was moving them.  That was one thing that translated well.

Touch does work well though! So she can basically know where everything surrounding her is, based on where the insects she sent landed on; and she could also theoretically track the movements of people and their positions in relation to her. Not bad!

If she could interpret the other imputs she could have big brother-like control of all of her surroundings! I think this aspect of her power is far stronger than the pure offensive capability her swarm gives her.

So as I sent the bugs out to scout, the twelve sets of compound eyes first identified the trio as blurry silhouettes atop a larger, more defined shadow, backlit by a flare of white that had to be the sun.  I directed the flies closer, towards the ‘heads’ of the figures, and they touched down on skin. None of the three were wearing masks, which I deemed reason to believe Tattletale had been telling the truth.   They weren’t in costume.  There was no guarantee that the three were really Tattletale, Grue and Regent, but I felt confident enough to head around to the fire escape and climb up to the roof.

Huh so they did show up without their costume after all! That at least shows they are somewhat honest, even if it could still be a ploy. Seems like Taylor is going up to meet them!

It was them, no doubt.  I recognized them even without their costumes. Two guys and a girl.  The girl had dirty blonde hair tied back into a loose braid, a smattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose and the same vulpine grin I recognized from the night prior.  She wore a black long sleeved t-shirt with a grafitti-style design on it and a knee length denim skirt.  I was surprised by the bottle-glass green of her eyes.

So this is Tattletale then! Without her costume! She sounds very cute! I love that her vulpine grin is again the most defining characteristic. She changes her hairstyle in her civilian identity huh? That’s such a small detail but a realistic one, cause she is probably the one that has to hide her identity the most! The other ones all had full masks and other things to hide their identity, while she had a domino mask.

The smaller and younger of the two guys – about my age – was undoubtedly Regent.  I recognized the mop of black curls.  He was a good looking guy, but not in a way that would make me say he was handsome.  He was pretty, with a triangular face, light blue eyes and full lips pulled into a bit of a scowl.  I pegged him as having French or Italian heritage.  I could see where he would have girls all over him, but I couldn’t say I was interested, myself.  The pretty boys – Leonardo Decaprio, Marcus Firth, Justin Beiber, Johnny Depp – had never done it for me.  He was wearing a white jacket with a hood, jeans and sneakers, and was perched on the raised lip at the edge of the roof, a bottle of cola in hand.

Regent is european! Has a pretty face and a lean body, which seems like it’s not Taylor’s type, but she could understand how other people might fall for him. He’s currently chilling with a cola bottle on the roof which is a mood.

Interesting to see both Tattletale and Regent in such a casual way, after learning they were extremely misterious online.

Grue was startling in appearance, by contrast.  Taller than me by at least a foot, Grue had dark chocolate skin, shoulder length cornrows and that masculine lantern jaw you typically associated with guy superheroes.  He wore jeans, boots and a plain green t-shirt, which struck me as a bit cold for the spring.  I did note that he had considerable muscle definition in his arms.  This was a guy who worked out.

Grue is jacked up! Has a full-on superhero physique and jawline, even though he is a villain. He’s also black and rocking some badass cornrows!

He seemed the most straight-foward and direct of all of them last time, and was the one who approached Taylor.

“And she arrives,” Tattletale crowed, “Pay up.”

Regent’s scowl deepened for a second, and he fished in his pocket for a wad of bills, which he forked over to Tattletale.

“You bet on whether I would show up?” I ventured.

“We bet on whether you would come in costume,” Tattletale told me.  Then, more to Regent than to me, she said, “and I won.”

“Again,” Regent muttered.

Oh they are really fun

Seems like these two are the more playful ones of the group, and Tattle still seems really sharp with her guesses!

“It’s your own fault for taking the bet in the first place,” Grue said, “Even if it wasn’t Tattle, it was a sucker bet.  Showing up in costume makes too much sense.  It’s what I would do.”  He had a nice voice.  It was an adult voice, even if his appearance gave me the sense of a guy in his late teens.

And Grue seems to be the most careful and professional out of all of them.

Also this further supports my theory of Tattletale having some crazy mind power.

He extended his hand to me, “Hey, I’m Brian.”

I shook his hand, he wasn’t shy about shaking my hand firmly.  I said, “You can call me Bug, I guess.  At least, until I come up with something better, or until I decide this isn’t an elaborate trick.”

He shrugged, “Cool.”  There wasn’t the slightest trace of offense at my suspicion.  I almost felt bad.

I like Brian. I think he likes that Taylor is also being very careful. Also, are you really going to call yourself “Bug”?

“Lisa,” Tattletale introduced herself.  She didn’t offer me her hand to shake, but I think it would have felt out of place if she had.  It wasn’t that she seemed unfriendly, but she didn’t have the same aura of geniality about her that Grue did.

Lisa is a good name. Also yeah Brian seems effortlessly friendly.

With how nice they are being, it’s easy to forget these guys are teenage villains

“I’m Alec,” Regent informed me, with a quiet voice, then he added, “And Bitch is Rachel.”

“Rachel is sitting this one out,” Grue said, “She didn’t agree with the aim of our meeting, here.”

Alec huh? He’s still being quite reserved. Also seems like Rachel didn’t really care about meeting new possible members or was even against it.

Seems she really is antisocial, as her page said.

“Which raises the question,” I cut in, “What is the aim of this meeting?  I’m a little weirded out with you guys revealing your secret identities like this, or at least, pretending to.”

“Sorry,” Grue… Brian apologized, “That was my idea.  I thought we would make a token show of trust.”

Behind the yellow tinted lenses of my mask, my eyes narrowed, flicking from Lisa to Alec to Brian.  I couldn’t draw any conclusions from their expressions.

Huh, I initially thought this was a strategic maneuver but now I’m thinking that this was actually genuine.

“Why, exactly, do you need my trust?” I asked.

Brian opened his mouth, then closed it.  He looked to Lisa, who bent down and picked up a plastic lunchbox.  She held it out to me.

“I said we owed you.  All yours, no strings attached.”

Oh, are they repaying her for the accidental favor she did to them the other day??

Without taking the box, I tilted my head to get a better look at the front, “Alexandria.  She was my favorite member of the Protectorate when I was a kid.  Is the lunchbox collectable?”

Oooh new name!! She’s a member of the protectorate, like Armsmaster was! She seems to be a long-time member given that Taylor was a big fan when she was a kid.

Alexandria...makes me think of Alexander the Great or the Alexandrine syllabic meter, or even the library of Alexandria, which all give feelings of past glories and idealized might. It just sounds grand.

“Open it,” Lisa prompted me, with a roll of her eyes.

I took it.  From the weight and the motion of the contents inside it, I immediately had a pretty good idea of what it was.  I undid the clasps and opened the box.

“Money,” I breathed, caught off guard by suddenly having so much in my hands.  Eight stacks of bills, tied with paper bands.  Each of the paper bands had a number written on it in permanent marker.  Two fifty each…

Lisa answered before I had the number totaled up in my head, “Two grand.”

I closed the box and did the clasps.  With no idea what to say, I stayed silent.

Woah that is a lot!

They seem to indeed be succesful if they can throw around these kinds of gifts!

“You have two choices,” Lisa explained, “You can take that as a gift.  A thank you for, intentionally or not, saving our ass from Lung last night.  And maybe a bit of incentive to count us among your friends when you’re out in costume and doing dastardly deeds.”

Her grin widened, as if she’d said something she found amusing. Maybe it was the irony of a villain talking about ‘dastardly deeds’, or how corny the phrase was

Oh fuck Lisa 150% knows about Taylor’s heroic intentions, at least on that night. With how much fun she had at the suggestion of Taylor doing “dastardly deeds”.

Whether she knows about this whole new plan of hers is another story. but this is indeed alarming.

She elaborated, “Between territory disputes, differences in ideology, general power struggles and egos, there’s a rare few people in the local villain community who won’t attack us on sight.”

“And the second option?” I asked.

“You can take this as your first installment in the monthly allowance you’re entitled to as a member of the Undersiders,” Brian spoke up, “As one of us.”

Undersiders huh? Interesting name, very teen group. I imagine it in an urban tag style. I like it.

So her options are to either take the money and leave (and be on friendlier tems if they meet again) or join their group

Something tells me Taylor’s gonna pick number two here, with that whole plan she had. Ooooh boy.

I shifted my gaze between the three of them, looking for the joke.  Lisa still had a bit of a smile, but I was getting the impression that was her default expression.  Alec looked a little bored, if anything.  Brian looked dead serious.  Damn.

That seems very in character with how little we know of them. Lisa the playful, Brian the earnest, and Alec the laid-back.

“Two thousand a month,” I said.

“No,” Brian cut in, “That’s just what the boss pays us, to stick together and to stay active.  We make, uh, considerably more than that.”

o.o Holy shit.

Also they do have a boss!!

Lisa smirked, and Alec chuckled as he swished the contents of his coke bottle.  I made mental note at the mention of this ‘boss’.

Lisaa what are you thinking about!!

Also good on Taylor for catching that.

Not wanting to get sidetracked, I quickly thought through the earlier part of our conversation in the context of the job offer.

I asked, “So Bitch didn’t come because she was against the, er, recruitment?”

“Yeah,” Alec said, “We voted on it, and she said no.”

Yikes, if she joins, Rachel miight be a problem.

“On the plus side, the rest of us voted yes,” Brian hurried to add, giving Alec a dirty look, “She’ll come around.  She always votes against adding new members to the group, because she doesn’t want to divide the money five ways.”

“So you’ve done this recruiting thing before,” I concluded.

“Uh, yeah,” Brian looked a touch embarrassed, he rubbed the back of his neck, “It didn’t go well.  We tried with Spitfire, and she got scared off before we even got to the job offer.  Our fault, for bringing Rachel along that time.”

“And then she got recruited by someone else,” Alec added.

Seems like Brian really wants to recruit more people to their team and they have been trying without much success before.

Spitfire seems like an obvious fire-based power with that name. Seems like Rachel was toxic enough to make her reconsider and join another team.

uuuh considering your history at school are you sure you want to do this??

“Yeah,” Brian shrugged, “She got snagged by Faultline before we got a second chance.  We’ve made an offer to Circus, too, and she told us in no uncertain terms that she worked alone.”

“Taught me a few new curse words while she did it, too,” Alec said.

“She was pretty vocal about how she flies solo,” Brian admitted.

More people!

We got Circus, who has a potty mouth and likes to operate solo, and Faultline, who also recruits!

Umm, Circus makes me think illusion-based powers? Or like body contortion? Maybe?

Faultline could be earth-based, earthquake related and such

“So you’re going the extra mile, with no costumes as a show of trust and a cash bonus up front, to get me to join,” I said, as the pieces came together.

“That’s the gist of it,” Brian agreed, “Long and short of it is, especially with Lung taken out of action and the ABB diminished by his being gone, there’s bound to be some pushing and shoving over territory and status among the various gangs and teams.  Us, Faultline’s Crew, the remaining ABB, Empire Eighty-Eight, the solo villains, and any out of town teams or gangs that figure that they can worm in and grab a piece of the Bay.  If it comes down to it, we want firepower.  We haven’t screwed up a job yet, but the way us three figure it, it’s only a matter of time before we end up stuck in a fight we can’t win, with Bitch as the only one of us who can really dish out the hurt.”

WORLDBUILDING TIME

It seems that Lung’s defeat caused a power vacuum, and now there are a lot of villain groups trying to fill it.

-Faultline’s Crew, presumably led by the aforementioned Faultline

-The rest of the ABB (Bakuda and Oni Lee I believe? )

-Empire Eighty-Eight, which I have no idea what it is about, but it has Empire on the title so that doesn’t sound good.

-Random Villains

-The Undersiders (with their “boss” leading them? )

It sounds like the events of the other day caused a big mess!!

“I just don’t get why you want me,” I said, “I control bugs.  That’s not going to stop Alexandria, Glory Girl or Aegis.”

More names!!

Alexandria, which makes me even more certain that she’s really really powerful

Glory Girl, which sounds like she’s revered and mighty

Aegis, which probably has some sort of super-defense, based on that name

And yeah Taylor probably wouldn’t do much against a high-ranking hero, to be honest, discounting the fact that she doesn’t want to go that road

“You fucked up Lung,” Lisa shrugged as she spoke, “Good enough for me.”

“Um, not really,” I replied, “In case you missed it, you’re the ones who stopped him from executing me last night.  That just goes to prove the point I was making.”

“Honey,” Lisa said, “Entire teams of capes have gone up against Lung and got their asses handed to them.  That you managed as well as you did is fantastic.  The fact that the asshole is lying in a hospital bed because of you is the icing on the cake.”

Oh what??

I thought she only distracted and weaked his group! He’s in the hospital because of her? Because of the poison?

My reply stopped before it even left my mouth.  I only managed a dumb, “Hunh?”

“Yeah,” Lisa raised an eyebrow, “You do know which bugs you had biting him, right?  Black Widow, Brown Recluse, Browntail Moth, Mildei, Fire Ants-”

“Yeah,” I cut her off, “I don’t know the official names, but I know exactly what bit him, what stung him and what the venoms do.”

“So why are you surprised?  A couple of those bugs would be fucking dangerous if they bit just once, but you had them bite several times.   Bad enough, but when Lung came into custody they had him checked over by the docs, and the idiot doctor in charge said something like, ‘Oh, well, these do look like bug bites and stings, but the really venomous ones don’t bite multiple times.  Let’s arrange to check on him in a few hours’.”

OH GOD

Tayor did you almost poison him to death accidentaly??

This was a regenerative dragon of hell and you almost KILLED HIM!! With bugs

Your power is a lot more fearsome than I thought

I could tell where the story was going.  I put my hands over my mouth, whispering, “Oh my god.”

Tattletale grinned, “I can’t believe you didn’t know.”

“But he regenerates!” I protested, dropping my hands, “Toxins aren’t supposed to be even one percent as effective against people who heal like he does.”

Oh my fuck did you go absolutely ham on him because he “could regenerate”?

This is lowkey hilarious. You almost stomped Lung accidentaly! Granted you almost died later buuut..

“They’re effective enough, I guess, or his healing stopped working somewhere along the line” Lisa told me, “By the time they got to him, the big guy was just beginning to suffer from large scale tissue necrosis.  His heart even stopped a few times.  You do remember where you had the bugs bite him?”

I closed my eyes.  I could see my reputation going down the tubes.   One of the spiders I had been using was the brown recluse.  Arguably the most dangerous spider in the United States, more than even the black widow.  A single bite from a brown recluse could make a good chunk of the flesh around the bite blacken and rot away.  I’d had my bugs biting Lung in the more sensitive parts of his anatomy.

“Let’s just say that even with the ability to heal several times faster than your average person, Lung is going to be sitting down to use the toilet.”

Okay first off:

BROWN RECLUSES ARE A BIG FUCKING NOPE. Thank god I don’t have any over here

Second:

DID YOU JUST ROT HIS DICK OFF??

“Okay, that’s enough,” Brian stopped Lisa before she could go on, “Lung is going to recover, right?”

With the look Brian was giving Lisa, I thought she might lie, regardless of the truth.  She shrugged and told me, “He’s already recuperating.  Slowly, but he’s on the mend, and he should be in good working order in six months to a year.”

“You’d better hope he doesn’t escape,” Alec said, his voice still quiet but bemused, “Because if someone made my man bits fall off, I’d be out for blood.”

Oh god he’s gonna be so pissed.

If he ever escapes you would have a giant scaly dragon wanting nothing more than to turn you into ashes.

Good results for your first night out!

Brian pinched the bridge of his nose, “Thank you for that, Alec.  Way you two are going, our potential recruit is going to run off to have a panic attack before the idea of becoming an Undersider even crosses her mind.”

“How do you know this?” I asked, within a heartbeat of the thought crossing my mind.  When Brian turned my way with an expression like he thought he had said something to offend me, I clarified, “Tattletale, or Lisa, or whatever I’m supposed to call you.  How do you know this stuff about Lung… or about the fact that I was at the Library, or that the cape was on his way, last night?”

Yess, tell us about your precognitive or psychic abilities Lisa!

“Library?” Brian interjected, giving Lisa another dark look.

Lisa ignored Brian’s question and winked at me, “Girl’s gotta have her secrets.”

“Lisa’s half the reason we haven’t failed a job yet,” Alec said.

“And our boss is a large part of the rest,” Lisa finished for him.

Huh! so the boss is also a factor for success.

Interesting

“So you say,” Brian grumbled, “But let’s not go there.”

Lisa smiled at me, “If you want the full scoop, I’m afraid the details on what we do only come with team membership.  What I can tell you is that we’re a good group.  Our track record is top notch, and we’re in it for fun and profit.  No grand agenda.  No real responsibility.”

Huh so they are keeping the full details for when she’s an active member of the group. That’s smart of them.

Also are they really just a group trying to make money out of petty theft and heists. No hidden agenda? Not even of the boss? Hmmm...

I pursed my lips, behind my mask.  While I had picked up some info, I felt like I had a lot more questions.  Who was this boss they mentioned?  Was he or she setting up other teams of highly successful villains, in Brockton Bay or elsewhere?  What made these guys as effective as they were, and was it something I could steal or copy for myself?

The theory that their boss is playing sponsor to a series of low-level criminal groups could be true actually! I got a feeling that there’s something to this boss beyond what these guys said.

Also you’re already looking how to minmax their way of working into something that can work for you? You’re very good at finding uses for everything.

It wasn’t like I was signing the deal in blood or anything.  I stood to gain so much.

“Alright then, count me in,” I told them.

Oh god Wildbow was there a way to make that first phrase any more ominous?