There's a profession that involves making people hurt. Usually handled by thick-necked bruisers with cauliflower ears and granite knuckles – your typical street muscle. Most people see them as walking slabs of meat, gorillas stuffed into cheap suits. But the truth is, the stupid ones don't last long in this business. They might play dumb, but the streets of any city – especially one drowning in crime like Brockton Bay – aren't forgiving to actual idiots.
These guys calibrate violence like a surgeon calibrates a scalpel. Sometimes you break a finger. Sometimes you snap a neck. Sometimes a meaningful stare does the job. Too much violence draws unwanted attention from the PRT, and these guys still need to work these streets tomorrow. Besides, most of their job isn't breaking bones – it's finding the bones to break. And that requires detective work.
How do you find one person in a city of three hundred thousand? How do you ensure your target doesn't slip out the back door while you're watching the front? How do you tail someone without them spotting you? Traditional surveillance needs teams – the jogger, the newspaper reader, the couple in the parked car. But I had something better.
Bugs.
Before parting ways with the trio earlier, I'd planted tracking devices on Madison and Sophia – fruit flies programmed to enter stasis and emit pheromones. In my experience, insects outside my active control revert to natural behavior unless given specific commands. Hibernation is instinctive for most species, so they'd sleep until I needed them awake. Otherwise I'd never risk breeding weaponized ants in my own basement.
Now I stalked through Brockton Bay's night-shrouded streets, following invisible breadcrumbs. Sophia probably lived nearby – her neighborhood matched her attitude: rough around the edges. Madison was the mystery. Her clothes screamed Arcadia money. What was a rich girl doing slumming it at Winslow High?
The answer mattered because I already knew Emma's address. We were "best friends," after all. I'd eaten dinner with her family, slept over countless times. But the other two remained blank spaces in my mental map.
I needed those addresses for leverage. If I planned to survive another day at Winslow, the trio had to be neutralized. Plus, Taylor's body still trembled with suppressed trauma whenever she thought about them. Cortisol and adrenaline had poisoned her system for months. Time to close that particular wound.
But it had to be untraceable. Nothing that pointed to Taylor Hebert or hinted at insect control. When my cape identity eventually surfaced – and it would, they always did – no one could connect some random school "accidents" to the new bug controller. That meant no exotic venoms or suspicious insect behavior.
My plan was elegantly simple: old-fashioned street justice. Catch each girl alone, deliver a reminder that kneecaps were privileges, not rights. Why legs specifically? Simple math. Broken arms meant missed gym class. Broken legs meant missed everything. Two or three months of peaceful education, minimum. For Sophia – assuming she really was Shadow Stalker – potentially longer. Athletes took their injuries seriously.
If she was Shadow Stalker, this would require precision. I'd observed her in PE class when she tripped during track practice. Scraped knee, genuine surprise, no phase shifting. She'd trained herself not to automatically trigger powers – assess first, react second. Smart. But exploitable.
Position myself around a corner. Fruit fly beacon on her kneecap. Strike at optimal moment. Her shadow state wouldn't help with a pre-broken leg. Interesting tactical question: did her clothes phase with her? What about insects hidden in fabric folds? I'd find out soon enough.
The other two presented minimal challenge. Maybe vary the injury patterns – ankle, metatarsals – to avoid obvious signatures. Though part of me wanted identical breaks. Send a message. Start rumors about Taylor's "mysteriously dangerous uncle," some ex-Marine with anger management issues. Fear worked better than evidence.
My rational mind interrupted these pleasant fantasies with an uncomfortable question: How exactly do you plan to be careful while wandering Brockton Bay at night with nothing but pepper spray and a folding knife?
I actually stopped walking. Good point.
But no – the trio needed handling before they escalated further. This was partly revenge for the original Taylor, partly practical self-defense. Let them hobble around on crutches for a semester, learn some humility. I wasn't planning murder, though honestly, permanent solutions were tempting. With fruit fly tracking and real-time positioning data, I wouldn't even need exotic insects. Pipe to the head, just another Brockton Bay statistic...
Speaking of which, my scouts detected fresh blood and urine two blocks north. Someone was receiving an educational beating. I paused, considering intervention, then dismissed the idea. My capabilities were limited, and I couldn't identify aggressor versus victim through insect senses. Probably deserved anyway – this was Brockton Bay.
Still. Scientific curiosity demanded investigation. I deployed fruit flies and mosquitoes – quieter than house flies, less noticeable. Added two hundred wasps for backup, routing them high to avoid detection. Then, because I was apparently committed to poor life choices, I woke my seventh-generation ant queens. "Catherine de Medici Mark Two" – my masterpieces of accelerated evolution. Ten minutes flight time from home. Fast enough.
I pulled up my hood and melted into shadow, maintaining distance while my aerial reconnaissance painted the scene. Armed group surrounding one beaten individual. At the center, a shirtless man in a half-mask.
My blood chilled. Lung. Chinese dragon of Brockton Bay, the cape who'd fought Leviathan to a standstill. Probably not actually Chinese – Japanese, maybe? The history mattered to them more than us. Either way, a walking natural disaster.
"...just shoot the kids," Lung was saying. "Whoever the target is, just shoot. See someone already down? Put two more in them for good measure. No chances, no cleverness. Clear?"
Kids. My stomach clenched. The beaten gangster was ABB – Asian Bad Boys, Lung's foot soldiers. Internal discipline, probably. But kids? Even in Brockton Bay, that crossed lines. Though "kids" might mean teenagers who'd overstepped boundaries. Lung operated beyond normal law – the PRT couldn't touch him without Triumvirate intervention, and they had bigger problems elsewhere.
Intellectually, I knew Lung while un-escalated was just human. How would his regeneration handle paralytic neurotoxins? Would he lose consciousness or interpret it as attack stimulus? Most importantly, he couldn't identify an invisible attacker...
I shook my head violently. What are you thinking? You're fifteen! You have gold dust worth fifty thousand dollars waiting at home! Buy a laptop, get a phone, live normally!
But my hands were already repositioning the Medici queens, bringing them within striking distance. Just in case. Scientific interest, nothing more. I wasn't actually planning to—
A car arrived. Three more gang members joined the group. Twenty-five armed men total, heading north into the night.
I sighed. "To hell with it."
The darkness concealed my swarm perfectly. Only through my power could I sense their positions, feeling every surface they crawled across, every bite they delivered. I focused on precision control, ensuring each gangster received exactly one Medici queen sting. Paralytic neurotoxin, fast-acting, non-lethal.
The moment I struck, heat blazed across my senses. Flame erupted from Lung's position, spiraling upward and outward. My first wave died instantly.
Shit. Two queen stings hadn't been enough. The moment his fire died down, I committed everything – remaining queens, wasps, targeting vulnerable points. Eyes, ears, groin, armpits. Anywhere skin was thin or mucous membranes exposed. I felt each sting, each death as he swatted and burned my forces.
Then Lung exploded.
Fire in all directions, a nova of superheated air that vaporized everything within thirty feet. Even my high-altitude observers were blinded or crippled. In one moment, I'd gone from overwhelming force to complete defeat.
Well, I thought, emerging from cover, I did what I could. The ABB soldiers were down, and Lung was too busy dealing with toxin effects to hunt mysterious "kids" tonight. Time to go home before I pushed my luck further.
I was scanning for remaining assets when new signatures registered. Large, moving, definitely not human. Capes riding some kind of creatures – this was either the local Protectorate or something worse. I ducked behind a dumpster, pulse hammering.
"You sure this is the place?" Male voice, lazy drawl.
"Positive," female response, getting closer. "Right here, in this alley." Through my remaining scouts, I saw them – four figures, three riding impossible dog-like monsters. No way those were natural.
"Nobody here," the male voice continued. "Lung's still hunting us. Can we just go home?"
"Lung's not hunting anyone anymore," the lead girl said. "He and his people have other concerns. And the reason is sitting behind that dumpster, listening very carefully to our conversation."
My blood froze. Instantly, every insect within a block radius took flight – wasps, flies, hornets, everything.
"Easy!" The girl raised both hands peacefully. "Recall your legions, Lady Bug. I'm not threatening you. Actually, I know you could probably take all of us if you wanted. I just want to talk. Express some gratitude. Girl to girl, you know?"
I remained frozen behind the dumpster, mind racing. They'd found me. Somehow, despite every precaution, they'd tracked me here. The question was: friend or foe?
And what did they want with the girl who'd just taken on Lung and lived to tell about it?