#may or may not have forgotten to get rid of the fire extinguisher after testing items to go on the boxes lol

[scarfvillager]

Workshop in progress :)

If you see a fire extinguisher shh no you don’t

[journeysintowebcomics]

Worm Liveblog #83

UPDATE 83: Panacea is On the Brink of Despair

Well that sure took a long time. I’m very sorry, everyone. When life gets busy, hobbies are the first ones to suffer. With some luck we’re going back to the usual level of delays and tardiness instead of the extraordinary tardiness this update had.

Last time the teams had managed to get out of the parts where the bombs would explode – except maybe Skitter. She also gained a giant beetle to ride and fly, thanks to Panacea’s powers. It won’t be long before some of Bakuda’s bombs explode. Will it work? Let’s see!

In the time we had remaining, I directed my mount as high as he could manage.  My power gave me a sense of how far I was above the ground.  My range formed a loose sphere around me, and as I made my way skyward, my power covered less and less ground, on a literal level.  It wasn’t long before my power didn’t reach the ground beneath me.

In any other circumstances I’d say this is very dangerous and she shouldn’t be flying so high when she’s just a novice and her beetle doesn’t sound very experienced at flying, but...extenuating circumstances. A small chance of living through doing something risky is better than almost certain death on the ground. Fly away, Skitter!

While she flies, she philosophizes about how she was relying on her bugs so much to perceive the world around her. Not too long afterwards, a plane flies by, dropping the payload of bombs. Huh, so they weren’t already set on the ground already. I see. The target is the parking lot where Bonesaw and Jack were at.

You know, I wonder what’s the public’s opinion about the heroes’ plans. It’s not everyday the heroes literally bomb a place in the city. Not the most heroic maneuver ever, some may think. Also, these bombs seem to be normal – fire and blasts. I think these aren’t Bakuda’s. She was more than capable of making normal bombs, yeah, but I imagine most of them would have some sort of effect. I mean, she demonstrated how varied her effects can be, many arcs ago. Didn’t seem to me like she was stingy about using special bombs. I find believable she may have a cache of normal bombs, and that anything better than those are the trump card the heroes haven’t activated yet, but...yeah. Maybe these are normal bombs.

Now that the explosions started, Tattletale calls Skitter, and informs how things are going. Sounds like they’re safe for the time being. Good, just in the nick of time!

“Any idea if that did anything to Jack and Bonesaw?  Or Crawler?”

Crawler would have loved to stand in middle of explosions, that’s for sure. Jack and Bonesaw...hard to say.  I think that depends if the Siberian reached them in time, something that’s possible.

There’s a possibility Jack and Bonesaw survived by escaping into some place that could be of use. Like the sewers! Or...a bank vault? Last I checked this was in middle of a parking lot, right after being attacked by heroes. Unless there was a very convenient bank vault awaiting nearby, no way they’re there! The sewers are a bit more likely, but I’m not sure how wise it’s to hide underground when there’s bombs falling. A cave-in is a terrifying possibility. So I stand on the theory the Siberian may have reached them in time.

The current priority is find out where people are at. For example! Where’s Crawler? Is he about to pounce from the top of a building to stab people with his tongue? Sundancer will deal with the fire, extinguishing it and making sure they’ll have enough leeway to search for the villain targets. Otherwise Skitter wouldn’t be able to do anything because her bugs continue being extremely vulnerable to fire. Hm. Now that I think about it...

...is her giant beetle resistant to fire? I sure hope so. It’d be awful to lose such a great asset.

“You haven’t seen Legend?”

“No.”

“Then I’d bet he’s still chasing Siberian.  Or minimizing the damage she can do, anyways”

Oh, okay! If Legend is pursuing her, then it isn’t so likely she reached Bonesaw and Jack. That’s good! In that case, then I guess those two really did hide in the sewers.

The situation is evaluated. Skitter takes a moment to answer my concerns and says her beetle is durable, but she’s paying a lot of attention to him anyway, just in case. Wouldn’t want to plunge into a sea of flames! And since her bugs can’t search because...well, fire, it takes her some time to navigate and check around.

Had they died?

I can say without any doubts that they’re alive. It would be incredibly anticlimactic for them to die at a time like this. They’re so alive you won’t believe it. Very alive. It’s also noted the sewers and storm drains are habitable, the chance they slipped in one is feasible. Skitter may want to try to send a few bugs in there.

As expected, Crawler is having a grand time walking into the flames. Can’t be the first time he experiences such a thing, so I suppose he’s doing it simply because he can. The heroes are still on the place where they were frozen in time – well, most of them. Weld is fighting. Quite daring of him to fight in middle of a lot of fire. I doubt that would kill him because otherwise that’s a huge weakness in his power, but it can’t be pleasant.

It’s Mannequin, he’s fighting Mannequin. I had completely forgotten about him. He currently has four arms and is throwing a lot of vehicles at Weld, making him stick pretty close to Cache and Clockblocker. He gets ready to pile more and more vehicles, vehicles that will crush the heroes once Clockblocker’s timefreeze is over.

Worse, Cache was storing a number of the other heroes in his personal dimension.  What would happen to them if he died?

Well, I don’t know much about Cache’s power, but if it’s his personal dimension then it’ll disappear once he dies, won’t it? Fwoop. Gone. Unless he’s actually using a dimension somewhere else that isn’t reliant on him for existing, in which case...the heroes would be trapped there forever. Which isn’t really a cheerier possibility. Weld better not fail at keeping Cache safe or it’ll all be over.

Bad news! The cars piled on top of Weld fall right onto Cache and Clockblocker when Mannequin manages to push Weld out of there, unless something’s done quickly, things are going to get ugly. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Skitter has no way to help here. The beetle is her only possibility and she doesn’t trust it’ll be of much use right now. All she can do is tell Tattletale the situation and hope things will be okay.

Finding Tattletale and the rest was easy enough. Skitter arrives, literally slams her beetle against the ground because she wasn’t able to direct it to extend its legs properly, and gives Panacea compliments about the beetle, as well as a couple suggestions.

“Its legs work through something like hydraulics.  When it’s flying, it diverts those fluids to the flight system.  Do you know how hard it was to make that thing able to fly?  It’s not like I’ve practiced this sort of thing.”

“It’s fantastic,” I said.  “Really. Thank you.  Do you think you could work on making him a little bigger while I get prepared?  I can supply the bugs.”

I think what Panacea did to create this thing was use the flesh and proteins of countless insects, possibly melting them together or something, and made the entire beetle. That’d mean Skitter has been riding the equivalent of a swarm of considerable proportions. That’s so cool! And weird – the good kind of weird.

Panacea’s immediate reply is a ‘no’. When Skitter tries to offer suggestions on how to achieve it, thinking it was something about physical limitations, Panacea tells her it’s that she doesn’t want to do it. Oh, geez...this song and dance keeps happening in this arc: Panacea says she won’t do something, Skitter convinces her she should, Panacea does it, some time passes before Panacea gets asked to do something again. At some point this cycle will break, I just hope it doesn’t keep happening further than this arc.

Skitter uses the argument that has worked well before: Glory Girl’s wellbeing. Panacea’s immediate reply is that Glory Girl is tough and will be okay, while having an expression that pretty much says she’s scared anything will happen to Glory Girl. Too bad she’s literally defenseless right now.

The plan: throw grenades or bombs, it seems. Kind of funny Skitter will have to resort to continue bombing the place, this time to save the heroes. Ballistic gives her several grenades, Trickster gives her a handgun. Behind her, Panacea caves and fixes the bug, continuing the cycle I mentioned two paragraphs ago. All in all, this may have taken a minute or so. Better hope Cache and Clockblocker are still frozen!

There was some underlying logic, but it wasn’t the same sort of instinctual behavior I was used to.  As far as I could tell, she had set him up to continue whatever I’d last instructed him to do, so I didn’t need to maintain focus to keep him going.

I suppose it’s much different to mess with the brain of a bug than the brain of a human, because Panacea has no qualms with doing that. She rewired the brain to make it continue the last command Skitter gives it, effectively freeing her to do her own thing instead of having to worry if her beetle will stop flying or something.

No, after testing it I didn’t like how slippery it made the navigation feel.  I’d only use it on a case-by-case basis.  Besides, it was something I could do with my power anyways, with greater effect and nuance.  I’d been knocked out once, and my power had continued directing insects by my last given order.

Irritating.

...on Panacea’s defense, I’ll say she has no way of knowing it’d be an inconvenient modification. Or maybe she did know, and this is some form of petty revenge, correcting the flaw like Skitter wanted but bringing an entirely new one. I like the thought of Panacea being petty like that. Too bad it’s unlikely because this could get in the way of helping Glory Girl.

Once Skitter returns, she checks the situation. Is Cache crushed yet? Nope, he isn’t. Weld is getting rid of Mannequin’s pile of vehicles, Mannequin keeps hitting him and there’s still a truck that’d kill Cache. It’s pretty doubtful Clockblocker will be quick enough to notice the danger and freeze it, so...yeah, still a very real danger here.

Carefully, I positioned myself, noted the wind, and then grabbed a grenade from the sash that hung around my neck.

I really shouldn’t be using this without any training, I thought.

No kidding, you really shouldn’t! What if the grenade explodes right when Cache and Clockblocker unfreeze? Things would get really ugly. But it’s either this or a far more certain death under a flaming truck, so it’s pretty obvious what’s the better option.

Wind carried the grenade further than I expected.

This is precisely why training is needed. Luckily, the grenade doesn’t fall too far away from the objective, the blast dislodges the car that was against Cache, that’s a success. Skitter takes a moment to repeat what I had said about what if they had unfrozen right when the grenade exploded, because, just like me, it seems Skitter also thinks outlandish scenarios you’d have to be really unlucky to see.

Now that Mannequin and Weld know she’s there, does that change anything? Weld sure seems glad she’s around, Mannequin...I imagine he’s not too pleased. Besides, they still have to fight each other. With Skitter as support, the fight continues. The problem is that Mannequin is way too agile, and Weld is way too slow. Even with Skitter, it’s a stalemate in terms of waiting for someone to be defeated.

Neeeeevermind, the scales are tilting towards the Slaughterhouse Nine. Crawler arrived. You know, for an attack on the Slaughterhouse Nine, this all sure did nothing at all. All the members are still running around, unharmed. This makes it a failure, doesn’t it? It’s...disappointing. I thought Piggot’s daring move would rock the boat harder than this.

Hoping Weld would deal with the biggest threat while she kept Mannequin at bay, she shouted where Crawler was at, and continued throwing grenades. It didn’t work because Weld had no way of knowing Skitter’s thoughts, he kept fighting Mannequin. The moment he needed to dodge, he did that but was blindsided by Crawler, who’s well-prepared to shred metal into...well, shreds.

Crawler’s claws tore into him, revealing bones in silver, organs in copper and gold.

That’s such an odd mental image. I always thought Weld was a solid and mobile block of steel. Didn’t think he had such things as bones and organs.

There are only two grenades left, and unless she gets lucky, that won’t be nearly enough to do anything. She does throw one at Crawler, who bats it with Weld’s body, and that makes Weld be freed and fall. He manages to close her wounds, but I suppose that means he lost any superfluous material he had right now. Dang, at least he’s doing well enough and...you know, not dying.

Mannequin made a gesture at Crawler, fingertips of two hands all touching, pressed to his ‘mouth’, then he pulled his hands away, splaying his fingers.  Crawler cocked his head and Mannequin pointed at the frozen heroes.  I heard Crawler rumble with guttural laughter.

No.

What could I do?  I was a bystander here, effectively powerless, but for my beetle.  I had the gun, but it wouldn’t do anything to Crawler and I didn’t trust myself to hit Mannequin at this range.  I had a single grenade, and I knew that wouldn’t even make Crawler flinch.

I’m not sure what Mannequin’s suggestion was. At first I thought it was like...’hey, rip them apart’, but the gesture doesn’t really fit. What else can Crawler do—oh, okay, it’s acid. That answers it. Hopefully there’s enough luck to not unfreeze while the acid is still there.

If I used a grenade, could I clear it away?  Or was it too viscous?  Would I be losing something I couldn’t afford to throw away?

Seeing how it’s the last grenade, yeah, that’d be a waste! Better try to use it in something you know would work! Besides, if it’s so viscous it’d stick together enough to be all blasted away, it’d also be viscous enough to not be blasted away by a grenade. Just saying.

Not that there’s much time to think about it. Cache comes back to life. I can only imagine what he thought, when suddenly everything changes, there’s Crawler in front of you, and you’re bathed with acid that’s likely to kill you in like half a minute. Would Clockblocker freezing him again save him?

And once again Skitter wonders what I was wondering! The part about what Cache may have been thinking, that is. This update she and I really are wondering the same things.

Somehow, Cache stays calm. He doesn’t panic while, you know, he’s possibly being dissolved alive in a sea of flames and acid, and tries to release the heroes, something the two Slaughterhouse Nine members don’t want to happen. Both Crawler and Mannequin attack. Weld goes for Crawler, who just lets it happen. Skitter takes on Mannequin with her handgun.

I’m not really sure how effective a handgun is going to be against Mannequin. His shell is bound to be resistant, a bullet won’t be enough to--

Mannequin fell.

How the hell did I manage that?

...yeah! Yeah, I’m wondering that too! Okay, I doubt he fell because he was injured by that. I bet it was the force of the impact or something like that. Not that it stops Skitter from shooting again while Mannequin tries retreating. Cache lets out a few of the heroes, who seem to have a plan already. Glory Girl gets ready to defend everyone, trying to punch Crawler once he gets close enough, misses, and is showered in acid. Her forcefield protects her before Crawler slams his head against her, disabling it. That’s the same strategy Tattletale and Skitter had back during the bank heist, so...yeah, it works this time too.

I could see her skin turning red, then black, where the spittle had covered it.  Flesh melted away to reveal muscle, then the acidic vomit began to eat away at that.  She screamed, frantic, thrashing, oblivious to the flaming patches of ground that she was rolling into.

...

...

...Panacea isn’t going to like that. You’re getting blamed, Skitter. She gave you a beetle and everything so you’d help protect Glory Girl, and here’s Glory Girl pretty much dissolving in front of you, and also literally rolling on fire. Goodbye, whatever progress was made in trying to get Panacea to stop being so rancorous.

The rest of the heroes are freed, Cache collapses in the arms of one of the heroes. Crawler approaches Glory Girl, no doubt enjoying the situation and getting ready to deliver the finishing blow. Mannequin...I suppose he ran away. No sign of any other Slaughterhouse Nine member, the rest of Skitter’s friends and allies are away. Nothing Skitter can do, either.

Things went south. You know, like usual in Worm. It’s bound to get better because usually it does, the problem is that it doesn’t always end well, so who knows how this will go. I wonder if Glory Girl will die.

It has been so long since I updated last time, I’m not going to stop here and give such a short update! Continue!

Weld makes sure everyone snaps from the horrible sight of Glory Girl dissolving, telling them to start the plans they had discussed about how to deal with Crawler and Mannequin. Skitter checks who is available to fight. Vista and Flechette are here, nice. Kid Win isn’t here – not surprising, he bowed out during the interlude – and Chariot isn’t here, I suppose he ran away after he passed Piggot’s message. There’s also Miss Militia, Assault, Battery, Prism, and Triumph. Not a bad group of heroes, I’ll say. Will they be enough?

Crawler spat, and Vista used her power, reducing the distance the spit traveled to a tenth of what it might have been.  Crawler leaped, and she widened the distance between him and everyone else so he stood in the midst of a clearing.

Sounds to me like Vista may be the edge they need to keep Crawler away! He has no way to counter the spatial manipulation Vista can do, and it doesn’t hurt him. This may be the best trick to deal with him...until they can think of a better strategy. Speaking of hurting Crawler, Flechette can do that, much to Crawler’s joy. He’s enjoying that. Miss Militia shoots at him with a rocket launcher. I’m not sure if that hurts him or not, but it does throw him away. That has to be of some use.

This Prism person is a self-duplicator, always doing it twice. As long as one of the duplicates is alive, she’ll be okay. Prism and Battery are fighting Mannequin, who is being nimble and doesn’t resist the blows. Supple willow and all that. He’s targeting Prism the most, getting rid of two copies and going for the third Prism, Battery saving her life. Meanwhile, the other heroes in condition to fight are attacking Crawler. Glory Girl keeps dissolving.

I wonder if, now that her life is in very grave danger, Glory Girl will let Panacea touch her. It may be necessary. I also wonder if Panacea would take that chance to remove what she had done to Glory Girl’s psyche. She should, she really should, although I think Glory Girl would get very upset once she realizes Panacea touched her brain again.

Skitter tries to get instructions from Weld because this is clearly the best time for that. With some luck the rest of the heroes will keep Crawler so busy he won’t listen to anything Weld says. Weld’s instructions are to throw more grenades on Mannequin. What do you mean you’re out, Skitter, you have one grenade left!

“Then get out of here!  You’ll be one less person we have to protect!  Our front line’s pretty thin!”

That’s not bad advice. Better to have a worry less. Although, before Skitter manages to leave, he takes another look at Glory Girl and determines if she and Cache are left lying around, they’re as good as dead, so he tells Skitter to take Cache and Glory Girl away. That’s going to be really tough. Skitter has no way to carry them, and her giant beetle isn’t going to be able to carry two people at once. Any ideas, Skitter?

Had to think out of the box.  If I could get her out of here, and if the beetle could manage her, I could remotely pilot it to Amy.  Those were two pretty huge ifs.  No, couldn’t pin my hopes on that.

Was she thinking to put Glory Girl on the beetle and send her to Panacea? While she presumably walks nearby? Hm. That sounds pretty unsafe, Glory Girl could fall down at any moment. Cache disappearing from this dimension gives Skitter one worry less, and also gives her ideas. Very, very strange and nonsensical ideas.

“Can she fly!?” I shouted.

Certainly not in her current state! Geez! Besides, Glory Girl flying high would have the same problem than draping her over the beetle: she could fall! If she faints, I mean. This can’t end well.

Weld asks something to Glory Girl, there seems to be no response, so he turns his arms into poles, inserts them underneath the prone body of Glory Girl, and tosses her in the air towards Skitter – towards the flying beetle with the hundred and eighteen pounds girl precariously riding it. It’s a surprise she managed to grab Glory Girl instead of plummeting to the ground. It’s a major surprise Skitter didn’t get any deadly acid on her.

Apparently Glory Girl is still conscious. She struggles, trying to get away from Skitter, not noticing this is an attempt to help her. Better get going before something else happens, Skitter! And...you know, not flying too high! Because I sure am not putting much stock on Skitter’s physical strength.

It’s with much effort that she manages to hold Glory Girl up, and she shouts at her to start flying, to rise up, anything that doesn’t involve getting both of them to plummet to the ground. Somehow Glory Girl was sensate enough to hear that, and she does fly. Together they fly towards where the rest of the group is.

My beetle needed a name.  Had to have a better way of referring to it.  A hercules beetle, but bigger, a giant.  I thought about Hercules, about the myth; Hercules had borrowed the burden of the giant who carried the world.  Atlas.

“Come on, Atlas,” I urged him, “Faster.”

Not the best time to be thinking of names for your newfound pet/vehicle/weapon, Skitter. There are hundreds of better moments other than flying over a burning street carrying a woman who is being eaten by acid. That said, I really like that name! Atlas is a good name. It’s better than Hercules – the one I was thinking, because that’s generic for this species of beetle. I’m glad Skitter has more originality than me.

The reactions when everyone sees the wreck that is Glory Girl are what you’d expect. Panacea’s immediate reaction is to rush at her.

“Heal her! Just don’t touch the spots where the acid hit her!”

I have to wonder, what can Panacea do about the acid? Unless it’s removed, it will keep eating the flesh, won’t it? Hmmmm...washing Glory Girl seems dangerous, though. She has several open wounds. Pouring water or any other fluids on it can’t be healthy. I suppose saving Glory Girl depends on what’s quicker: Panacea’s healing or Crawler’s acid. Her chances of survival seem lower and lower with every line I read, I swear.

If Glory Girl was sensate enough to hold herself in the air when Skitter told her to, then she’s sensate enough to reject Panacea, telling her to not do anything, and making sure to demonstrate her point by slamming her good hand against the pavement. It’d kill Panacea if it hits her. Everyone else tells Panacea to do it anyway, which I’m sure she’d love to, if it wasn’t because Glory Girl would kill her as soon as she could.

Amy shook her head, talking over her, “She’s always been emotional, passionate, unrestrained, and she’s channeling all this new emotion into hate, because it’s the closest equivalent.”

You know what people say? That love and hate aren’t that different. She must be pouring all her energy in converting the love she forcibly feels, I figure.

Naturally, everyone has their own opinions and questions. Regent outright claims Panacea mindraped Glory Girl, which is pretty accurate. When Panacea tries to defend herself like anyone would – it was an accident – nobody believes her. Imp even questions how that’s possible. If it wasn’t for Tattletale telling them to stop, they’d have continued grilling Panacea. I’m pretty sure her psyche wouldn’t have taken that well. Last thing she needs is a bunch of villains’ judgment about her actions, even if it’s rightly judgment.

Tattletale tells Glory Girl they’re going to pour sterile water over her, so Panacea takes the chance to knock Glory Girl out. That’s not going to improve the broken relationship at all, but it’s for the better this was done. Time to start fixing this mess!

“So much to do,” Amy mumbled, “Have to counter the acid with some kind of physiological byproduct, have to stop the enzymes from liquefying her entire body, and repair the damage.  Trying to make some kind of firebreak to stop the spread of the venom, withdraw the proteins the venom is using to propagate itself.  There isn’t enough tissue in her body for everything I need to do to fix her.”

It really is like I had said, about who was faster! If Panacea or the acid! Although it sounds like a match Panacea’s going to lose, if there’s not even enough tissue to fix her. Perhaps she can duplicate the cells quickly once the acid has been neutralized? It’d have to be creating new flesh out of nowhere, but it could be the only solution.

Okay, things are going more or less well. The necrotic tissue is being replaced by healthier tissue. I don’t think she’s reviving it, at least. While Panacea works on that, Skitter gets asked if she will return to help. She won’t.

I turned to Amy.  “Do you want me to bring bugs?  Maggots eat only dead flesh, which might be helpful if-”

“No.  I can handle that.”

“Or I could get some of the more useless bugs, like the ones you used to make Atlas, for raw material.”

Amy turned to give me an incredulous look.

It’s a solution. Gross as heck, and I’m sure Glory Girl would hate the thought of having flesh made out of insects, but...it’s a solution – a placeholder while real flesh forms. Panacea doesn’t seem too pleased about this proposal, though, and Regent sure isn’t helping. Maybe Regent is really against mindrape nowadays. No doubt the result of his father and Cherish’s uses for their powers.

There’s Skitter, trying to defuse the situation by defending her suggestion and saying quite correctly that bugs would be a source of materials to help fix Glory Girl. The grossness and the potential unsanitary quality of that – something Panacea can solve, I’d say – are the problems here.

“It was an idle thought, but I was thinking that if we got into a food shortage, I could feed my people with bugs”

Ohohoho, I’d have loved to see that. Skitter would have a hard time convincing his people to eat insects. We westerners have a certain disgust towards this kind of concepts, and although I think in dire situations we’d suck up and accept it’s necessary, that doesn’t mean we won’t complain and try to bargain for other solutions.

Still not helping, Regent! Although bug-borg is a fun word. Skitter gets defensive over her idea of feeding bugs to her people, and even is asked if she has eaten bugs before, to which she replies she hasn’t. Hah! Pretty doubtful. Ants get everywhere, I can guarantee everyone eats ants every week unwittingly.

“Please,” Amy cut in.  “Can you?”

I turned to her.  It took me a second to realize what she meant, after the line of questioning from the others.

Oh. Oh! Oh my god, for a moment I forgot they’re all teasing and messing with Skitter while Glory Girl is lying around, on the verge of death, and Panacea panics over saving her. I’m sure Panacea absolutely loved that. She must have appreciated how their joking and teasing took priority, haha! It sucks to be her.

No, she’s not asking Skitter to start eating bugs, she’s asking Skitter to gather the bugs, like she said she could, so she does. I suppose the placeholder skin plan is a go! This is also how she made the beetle, I think. As soon as she gets the bugs, she dissolves them into their constituent parts and pretty much presses...the resulting mush? Onto Glory Girl. And it’s taken immediately. The process is repeated a few times, and here I am sitting and wondering just how freaking weird the concept of Glory Girl currently having skin made of insects kind of healing her injuries right now. Pretty original stuff, if you ask me.

Glory Girl didn’t look ‘done’.  Scars crawled across her body, angry-looking, surrounded by burns from the acid and flames. Her skin in areas where the flesh had melted away was so new and stretched so thin that it was translucent, and there was little to no body fat to pad the area between skin and muscle.

As long as there are no open wounds then it should be okay. The danger with infections and the such is that infectious agents enter the body. If there’s no place to enter, then there’s no infection. It’s the same principle behind bandages and the such, if I’m not mistaken, and just as temporal. The problem is knowing how long it’ll be before this can be replaced with real flesh.

Tattletale suggests to undo whatever Panacea had done to Glory Girl – to her brain, she means – and leave. Panacea refuses, because Glory Girl will need her attentions in order to heal properly. Unless Glory Girl is kept knocked out for as long as that takes, she’s going to fight that vigorously, and there’s something real sketchy about keeping someone unconscious for a long period of time unless they’re at a hospital or something, and even then Panacea’s going to have to think of a very good excuse to do that. Quite the problem for Panacea.

“That’s her choice.  You saved her life, good on you, but you need to let her make the call.”

She’s not wrong. Really, Tattletale is completely right about this. What I’m not certain is if this is enough to save her life. From what I read during this chapter, Glory Girl was in an awful state. There could be further consequences. Maybe Panacea should call for the heroes to take her sister to a hospital or something and then walk away, but will she do that?

She’s not in a good emotional state right now. The advice Tattletale’s giving her is rejected because she’s a villain and therefore why should Tattletale care about this? She insists and tells her to leave Glory Girl alone after she fixed her mind.

“If she fights me and doesn’t let me finish-”

“That’s her choice.”  Tattletale repeated herself.

“No!  That’s- that’s not her.  That’s the change I made doing the talking, or the aftermath of it.”

I can’t decide if she’s right or not. I mean, of course Glory Girl is royally pissed Panacea messed with her head. Who wouldn’t be? Love or not? So I’m pretty convinced there’s a lot of anger in her. But it’s also possible some of her reactions and extreme vitriol are a consequence of, as Panacea puts it: ‘emotional cocktails and hormonal balances’. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, who knows.

She’s channeling it into anger instead of… instead of love.”

Love. The implications were so fucked up. It was the sort of thing Heartbreaker did.

No comment from Regent at this point. It’s a shame, that’s a missed chance – and it’s not like he’s afraid of saying something at bad times, you know.

“You need to fix her mind now.  For you, not for her.  Maybe she’ll forgive you at a later date, when she’s thinking clearly again,” Tattletale said.  “Maybe then she can approach you, you two can start interacting again, you rebuild that trust over months or years, and you can finish healing her body when she gives you her permission.”

Pretty unlikely, if you ask me. Even if Glory Girl forgives her, I really doubt she’ll let herself be touched by Panacea ever again. Healing the natural and slow way isn’t going to mess with your emotions, after all!

Her conflicted emotions make her blame herself for everything. She thinks what she did ruined Glory Girl’s focus, or made her too aggressive – disproved by Skitter immediately – or didn’t get enough sleep, or her emotions made her not react quick enough...she’s looking for a way to blame herself, pretty much. Because she hates herself that much. Despite that, she has a plan.

Said plan is to patch her up and then leave. Easier said than done. She wakes up Glory Girl and helps her stand up. She will heal Glory Girl, and then she’ll go away and get work, use her powers for something useful...now that she doesn’t have a family to stay with anymore. Dang.

“And the last thing you’ll do for your family is this?  Hypnotizing your sister when she’s already mad at you for assaulting her and fucking with her head?”  Tattletale asked.

...I hadn’t touched that because her plan was more relevant in that paragraph, but yeah, she’s doing exactly that! Great! Like things weren’t bad enough. If Glory Girl remembers Panacea forced her to be okay with her presence and submit to treatment by what pretty much amounts to force, she’s going to get even more pissed off. Goodbye, any possibility of being forgiven.

Skitter tries to intervene because this is wrong, and Panacea isn’t being receptive to the advice they’re giving her. She even says Panacea asked her to intervene and talk when it was time to make the call in tough situations.

“Because you had the experience in making calls on morality in dangerous situations, situations where I can’t even think straight,” Amy said.  Her voice hardened a little, “But I have the impression that you don’t have that same expertise when it comes to family.”

...um...well on the bright side she recognized Skitter is good at that. Nice. But at this point it’s not about family, to me it’s starting to seem more like a matter of what’s right and what’s wrong. Still, that shuts up Skitter.

“I’m trying to fix this!”  Amy raised her voice.  “Why are you making this a thing?  Why do you even care?”

Tattletale shrugged.  “I talked about it with Grue, Bitch and Regent.  We were considering offering you a place on the team.”

...ahaha, wait, what? They actually discussed it? That wasn’t a mere possibility I floated around just because I thought it’d be fun? If Mr. Wildbow had decided to, she could have actually joined the team? Well, I actually didn’t see this coming! A couple things that are worth pointing out...hm, first than all, that Skitter wasn’t consulted. I wonder why. Narratively I’m guessing it was to surprise us readers with this line. In the story, though...I’m not sure why Tattletale didn’t talk with Skitter.

Second, does that mean Regent Grue and Heckpuppy accepted? They’d have welcomed Panacea to the team? Color me surprised! I imagine Heckpuppy may have approved simply because she didn’t care enough to fight back, but she wouldn’t have been happy about it anyway.

Third, ‘were’? That means it’s not an option anymore? Oh well. Sucks for Panacea. I don’t know what direction her story in Worm will take, but I’m pretty sure it’ll end being wildly different to whatever would have happened if she had joined the Undersiders. Kind of looking forward to finding out.

Amy scowled, “As if.  You’re such hypocrites.  Regent mind controls people all the time!”

“Regent mind controls the monsters, the bad guys,” I said.

“Taking advantage of bad people for selfish ends.”

Technically she’s right. Not that it changes anything.

“What you’re doing is selfish,” Tattletale cut in.  “You think you’re doing it for her, but you’re only doing it to soothe your own guilt.”

Once another thing that’s correct. Then again, it’s not like what Tattletale and the others were suggesting wouldn’t soothe Panacea’s guilt. The only difference was that with their more sensible-yet-still-not-ideal suggestion, Panacea wouldn’t be anywhere near Glory Girl. That’s the problem, in Panacea’s opinion.

Before she leaves, she turns to Skitter and reveals she made all the bugs in a manner that meant they’d starve to death after like a week. Welp. I should have guessed there’d be a catch. She wouldn’t help a villain just like that. I should have known. You know what’s the part I feel bad about? That the giant beetle will die. Seriously, that’s a pity. It’d have been nice to have that. Without giving any space for arguments, she and Glory Girl turn around to leave. So long, Panacea, until next time.

I was pissed off enough that I wanted to hit someone.  I couldn’t even articulate the entirety of why I was so angry.  I’d gone out of my way to be nice to her, to empathize, to save her sister, and save both of their lives.  And this was how she repaid me?  A slap in the face, a final gesture to make her distrust for me as blatant as possible?

After this, I’m pretty convinced she’d have done it in any situation. In fact, maybe it’d have been a sign of extreme desperation if she hadn’t done such a failsafe to prevent Skitter from having a useful tool for too long. She doesn’t trust anyone at all.

Seeing how distraught Skitter was over this betrayal, Grue offers to take a look and try to use his powers to help. There was a risk he’d accidentally wreck the beetle because he’s not Panacea, but it’s better than doing nothing and letting it die in a week anyway so...yeah. He covers Panacea and Glory Girl with his power, and shifts the beetle’s insides around until the heroines are out of his range. Whether it was successful or not remains to be seen.

“The only thing I have any knowledge about is myself.  I don’t know if it’s going to work, but he has a human digestive system. Or something close to it, that worked with his body.  Near as I can figure, everything connects to what it’s supposed to.”

...oh. Oh, delightful. And totally not weird at all. This is far weirder than Glory Girl having patches of skin made from insects. Great. And now I’m kind of picturing that, and I feel squeamish and I absolutely loathe you for making me think about this, Mr. Wildbow. I didn’t want to spend any time of my life thinking about insect guts. Thanks a lot.

It’s a good thing Skitter has good knowledge of insects and the such, I trust she’ll take good care of Atlas. Maybe he’ll be okay despite everything.

Now that this conundrum about the beetle’s impending death was solved, it’s time to decide what to do. Grue tells Skitter to go and scout the area, do something because she’s restless. Regent suggests she searches for Jack and Bonesaw so they can kill them. Yeeeeeah, no. Not going to happen.

I shook my head.  “They disappeared.  Literally. I’m not sure if they’re dead or if they found a hiding spot.”

Good rule of thumb: if you don’t see their corpses and you don’t confirm by yourself they’re not dead and you haven’t separated their heads from their necks, then don’t even dare to think they’re dead. That’s my personal thought about these two. Sure is going to be hard to convince me they’re dead if anything happens, haha!

There’s a short discussion of where they could have gone. The Siberian was going towards a specific place, and it seems to have been to a different place than Bonesaw and Jack. That said, Tattletale seems to know where they may be.

“Then I think I know where they went.  It’s quite obvious when you think about it.  A place they could have researched in advance, unoccupied by anyone of consequence, capable of withstanding hits from virtually anything, supplied with food and water…”

Only when I reached the part about supplied with food and water I figured where it’d be. A shelter, right? Still, I imagine they won’t stay in there for long, so the food and water part isn’t important. I’m guessing it’s the ‘withstanding hits from virtual anything’ part. What better place to hide from a bombing? Not that I think the heroes would bomb a shelter, but it still is a line of thought I’d get to.

“The emergency shelters for Endbringer attacks,”  I finished for her.

Really strong shelters. There must be several in the town, but they know in what direction those two went. That’ll narrow things down. I suppose that means the next chapter will be searching for this shelter. Will there be a confrontation? It sure feels early for such a thing, so my guess is that there won’t be.

That’s the end of this chapter, so I’ll end the update here. I apologize for how long it took!

Next time: in four updates

[everlarkvalentinesgifts]

I Can See Your Halo

“Is there a halo over my head?”

Katniss looks up to see Peeta Mellark smiling beatifically at her. “What?” she asks dumbly.

“Is there a halo over my head?”

Words fail her yet again as his guileless blue eyes stay locked on hers and his smile sparkles impossibly brighter.

Back in high school she avoided him. But ever since running into him at the first mixer (and discovering that not only are they in the same college but in the same dorm) she’s allowed him more and more of these frozen-in-time moments that leave her thinking Yes, Peeta. Yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes…

RA Johanna Mason’s uninhibited cackle splits the air and breaks Katniss free of the trance she’s in.  She was actually scanning his blonde curls for a halo!

“No! Of course not,” she scowls, her face and neck suddenly on fire.

Leaning in, he murmurs, “Well, I must be an angel, if I’m this close to you but keeping my hands to myself.”  Slowly he blinks once and it’s like he’s blowing her a kiss with his ridiculously long lashes.

Her mortification is complete when the gush released between her legs is trumpeted by an audible gasp through parted lips that turns Peeta’s cherubic face feral before her eyes. She thinks this is the moment she’s finally going to get her first kiss when out of nowhere a bubbly blonde bombshell lunges at Peeta knocking him onto one of the many overstuffed sofas in the rec room.

“Peeta! You handsome devil, I’ve been looking for you!” Cashmere drunkenly giggles as her mostly exposed breasts jiggle in front of Peeta’s face much like a photographer jingles keys in front of a baby to get his attention.

Katniss cannot bear to watch this again. Every gathering has been exactly like this – he attracts beautiful, openly affectionate women who know exactly what to say, with their words and their touch. They’re everywhere: Cressida, Bristel, Clove, Delly, Bonnie, Portia, Maysilee, Madge…the list goes on. She can’t compete with any of them. So as Cashmere settles onto Peeta’s lap, Katniss decides to call it a night. Her first midterm is in two days, this party is a bad idea. No one even acknowledges her as she makes her way past revelers.

…..

Midterm week flies by. She’s done nothing but study since the party.

From her dorm window the sky looks pregnant with snow adding to the unease Katniss feels as she shoves extra tampons and her keys to the bottom of the travel bag. She scans the contents of her backpack for her calculator, paperback and fare before zipping it up. Most students already took off for the long weekend break, but she has one last midterm starting in 35 minutes. Her alarm beeps. Leaving now allows her 10 minutes for ID check-in and setting up at her assigned computer terminal. “Ready or not,” she whispers into the quiet as she shoves her fists into her favorite but too-small mittens before picking up her bag with her left hand and adjusting the backpack over her right shoulder. Yanking the door open, she rushes out, only to collide with a solid body.

“Ooph! Peeta?” She surely would have fallen had his big hands not grabbed her. Behind her the door slams shut and the lock clicks loudly.

“Um, um, sorry! I was just putting something in your box,” he blurts out, clearly nervous at being caught.

Katniss turns her head to the Lucite box mounted at eye level on the wall next to her dorm door. Everyone has one though they are rarely used. Her roommate Cashmere decorated theirs with pink hearts and photos, but Katniss could see that the box held more Valentine’s greetings that Cashmere must have missed by leaving for home yesterday. It hit Katniss fast and painfully, like the stab of a knife – she had caught Peeta leaving a Valentine!

Katniss’s fists push into the center of her chest where she felt that knife jab stab her heart. Forcing all emotion from her face, Katniss snatches up every red envelope and pink paper heart from the box and thrusts the mail into a side pouch. “I’ll make sure she gets your love letter with the others!” she bites out to a Peeta who is too stunned by the encounter to move or speak before she’s flying off like a bat out of hell.

At the test center, Katniss sees Cashmere’s twin brother, Gloss. “Here, give these to your sister,” she orders, slapping the handful of paper pain down on his workstation and turning away without another word.

Two hours later as everyone makes to leave the test center, Gloss hands her an envelope with her name on it. “What’s this?” she demands, fearful of the excitement threatening to bubble up in her chest at the thought that he – that anyone – was giving her a valentine.

“There’s one for you. I guess there really is someone for everyone,” he smirks before turning to go.

Katniss’s defenses go up immediately. Was Gloss fucking with her? Did Cashmere put him up to it? Was it from Peeta? Enraged by the thought that she was being punked, she madly scans the room searching for the culprit behind this practical joke. But no one meets her eye. She stomps out the building tossing the letter into a trash can just outside thinking that would put an end to her discomfort.

She must have just missed a bus, she’s been waiting 20 minutes, but she doesn’t notice the time or the snowflakes as she fumes over that letter. Another 5 minutes pass when she hears the bus before she sees it. It rolls to a stop and the doors open, but Katniss spins around and practically sprints all the way back to the trash can.

Once more holding the envelope between her fingers, relief washes over her – anything might have happened to it!

Shit, she fell into their trap with both eyes open. If she opens it, she won’t ever get over the humiliation of what’s inside. Everyone will know she fell for it by the look on her face that she won’t be able to hide.

She stands there warring with herself as though she has a tiny angel over one shoulder and a tiny devil over the other. “Open it, Katniss,” urges the tiny Prim angel. “Don’t be an idiot!” shouts the Gale devil, “Get rid of it, now!” From a branch overhead, snow plops onto her shoulder extinguishing the Gale devil’s voice. She checks the time. Shit! She’s going to miss the next bus to the station if she doesn’t hurry!

A few hours later, she’s on the train home. She’s eaten, written her daily journal entry, read another chapter, called to check in with her family.

She can’t allow the letter to invade the sanctity of her home. She’s going to open it now, then rip it up and leave it behind. By the time she goes back to school, she would have forgotten all about it. And if asked, she’ll say she must have lost it before reading it.

It’s sealed with red wax. She can’t help but admire the effort put into this prank just for her. She should be pleased they knew not to half-ass their practical joke. Katniss Everdeen deserves the effort.

Then she notices the wax is stamped with a flower, but not just any flower: Peeta Mellark gave her a dandelion. That son of a bitch! How could he? Her eyes well up with hurt. She presses her hands to that spot on her chest that always seems to ache because of Peeta Mellark.

Rip off the band-aid, Katniss. Nothing inside this envelop can hurt worse than him using that symbol against you (not unless he’s put a loaf of raisin nut bread in this envelop, she thinks angrily). Open the envelope, get this over with, and then throw it and Peeta away forever.

Her hands shake slightly as her eyes take in the heavy linen paper and marvel at the hand-decorated garden of dandelions lightly painted in watercolors and outlined in fine black ink. Elegant script dances across the sheet like a fancy wedding invitation. She admires the breathtaking beauty of the work for several long minutes. This is no joke. It can’t be. She checks the envelope to confirm it’s her name on it. After a few more moments to appreciate the artistry, she’s ready to read the message hopeful that it’ll be as lovely a gift as the artwork surrounding it. It looks like it may be a poem.

Alas, though separated by time and distance

Neither moments nor miles can steal my vision of you

For though reunion lies several days away

I still relish in your image

Gift of my memory

i.e. thinking of you

Always,

Peeta

After that, they spent all their breaks together.

[gruvu]

Still Alive: Chapter 2

Chapter 2: the girl with the fire extinguisher

Virgil moved quickly along his thankful that he had not answered Nigel's question. However almost immediately he thought of a test subject.

Yet to him, she wasn't a test subject, technically she was. A forgotten piece of old aperture, that he found, his Olympian. He missed her. Virgil made sure that Her would never know about Mel. Deleting certain security video feed, getting rid of that portal gun. Some part of him wished he have gone with her. 

Her face was imprinted in his memory banks, how she put her hand on the glass, confused only why he wasn't coming. Then that realization that...this was good bye.

Virgil slowed down, the memory hurt. That was probably the best way to describe what he was processing. He shook himself from the moment and continued to the testing chamber. The test chamber itself was old fashioned, Virgil could appreciate that,  with the goo and lasers and the faith- "What the?!" He optical shrank in shock, as he saw the faith plate. It had been pulled up from the panels, like a weed, and it was in utter shambles. Not shambles, that would conclude that something smashed the machine. No this was taken apart, pieces were taken out, carefully. Wires were frayed and some of the larger parts of the faith plate were on the floor. 

As the maintenance core got closer, he saw something on the edge of one of the larger parts. Something red... And there was more of this red liquid trailing out of chamber. 

Virgil had to know. It was a sign. 

Rails were very confining if one wanted to follow a trail. Trail of what? He had a pretty good idea of what, but he didn't want it to be true. He strategically followed the trail, shifting to different rails, using his Wi-Fi to move the rails like how one would move train tracks. He found himself soon in a dark crevice, following a walkway. His flashlight shined dimly the way, then the trail stopped. Just suddenly. Virgil looked around then saw it, on the walkway hand railing. It was a partial red...hand print. "Oh no." Then he heard something clang on the metal walk way behind him. He whirled around, in repsonse. If he has moved even a centimeter forward, the Aperture grade fire extinguisher would have shattered his optical.

Virgil found himself zooming back, nearly getting hit again. A battle cry sounding off from the welder of the fire extinguisher.

"WOAH WOAH WOAH WOAH!" He yelled at every swing, he kept trying to move backwards to keep himself from being a baseball. 

"CALM DOWN!" He ordered, as another swing came at him. He realized yelling wasn't the best way but he was not in the mood of being slugged off his rail. The sphere moved further back quickly with each swing. Till the fire extinguisher was thrown at him. That's when he screamed and zoomed back. 

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" He screamed at his attacker, whom was trying still get after him. Luckily the rail kept going and the walkway didn't. Well it was lucky for him...not..

"STOP!" Virgil yelled, "THE WALKWAY."

Amazingly the attacker had listened, barely catching her self before she fell into the dark bowels. She flapped her arms almost like she was trying to fly a bit. It was successful in regaining balance.

Now they were a few feet away from each other. Virgin's dim flashlight, revealing his attacker fully.

She was breathing heavily, her dark navy blue shirt was covered in blue, orange, black stains and sweat. The orange jumpsuit she had on, bore similar stains and to match she had long fall boots. The girl's dark red hair was a mess, it was unruly and dirty strains stuck her forehead. Her brown and green eyes were glaring at him, like he was going fight her and boy she looked ready for it with her fists clenched. 

Overall she looked horrible. The dark circles, scraps and bruises, that cut on her lip. The grease on her hands confirmed she was the vandal of the faith plate. 

"Are you alright?" Virgil asked breaking the intense showdown they were having. Humans were fragile things, often needed to give them times to recover or they don't work properly for testing.

The question had caused the girl to be taken a bit back at surprise,  but she didn't trust Virgil. She raised her firsts slightly, ready to fight him.

"Peachy." She spat out.

Virgil blinked, it had to be awhile since he heard a test subject speak. Besides screaming, test subjects were not exactly known for being the chatty short. He moved closer, wary, this...oh what should he call her? 

She had too be one of the youngest test subjects he had seen in Aperture, which just made it worse if you would think about it. However she could still swing a mean fire extinguisher, he should be careful.

"I'm not going to do-"

"Test me?"

"Turn you in." He corrected. 

"That sounds fake, but okay." She snorted, she glanced over to the hole in the catwalk, like she was calculating something. 

Virgil wasn't exactly the king of first impressions. First time he met his Olympian, he pretended to be someone else. In his defense, it was his way to not freak her out and dying from that freak out. Yes it could happen.

"I'm Virgil."

"And I don't care."

Wow, okay. She was just a ray of sunshine. 

"Obviously you're a test subject, sadly from the-"

"Paint gun testing-"

"STOP that!"

She crossed her arms, smirking a bit like she was enjoying annoying him. So not only did she had assaulted him, she found joy in annoying him. 

"LOOK, you obviously don't understand what the situation is, you are in grave danger."

"Obviously you haven't been through high school."

Virgil wish he had hands, to strangle her or at least rub his haul. This girl was a headache. 

"Please I'm trying to help." He pleaded slightly for her to work with him. If anyone else had found her, she would be in a word..Screwed. Virgil was literally the only core able to help her. He didn't have that programming, he may have slightly enhanced the truth about upgrading himself. He had...reasons.

"Oh I'm sure, like Nigel." She had taken a couple steps back,  seemingly to size Virgil up. 

"I'm not-" He was cut off suddenly as she charged at him and leapt into the air, grabbing into him, the momentum had made him slide down the rail, sparks flying as the two zipped at a decent speed, to her. Not Virgil. Virgil screamed.

She swung herself to the other walkway and landed with a bit of a stumble, Virgil applied his brakes, squealing to a stop. "Nailed it."

Virgil was making raspy, hard, loud breathing for effect, she was crazy. "What is WRONG WITH YOU." 

"So many things, honestly I can't believe that worked." She smiled a crooked smile, "WELL it's been fun but I need to go. Science to do, cores to punt, things to burn." 

Before Virgil could stop her, the last thing he saw was the fire extinguisher... He hadn't seen her go for it, nor hide it behind her back. 

And that was the beginning of a wonderful friendship.

"We do what we must... Because, we can."