( LOCATION ) x An old abandoned house on the outskirts of Chicago. tab ( FEELS ) x Angry with everything.. tab ( WEARING ) xCostume (pictured above), and a utility compartment for storing necessary items, a telescoping baton, and insects in the shape of a spade-shaped armor panel that covers her back.Laura Hebret was sitting on her new recliner, enjoying the calm evening that she so rarely got to have anymore. Things had been busy since she arrived in Chicago. Underground deviant life, especially the one she lived, was hard on the mind and the body. She just had to take it for a little while longer. Get enough money to start a new identity, get her diploma, then hopefully be a normal person for once. Her plan didn't account for the fact that she couldn't really read anymore, the bugs were useful, but their vision wasn't sharp enough to pull words from a book. Maybe she could get those braille books she'd heard about. They were designed for blind people after all. That wa-
Her attention was immediately shifted when some mosquitoes in her radius died outta nowhere. Hit by a car, it seemed. All the bugs in her range scrambled, trying desperately to give her more information as to who, or what, was coming for her.
She counted six SUVs, all probably full with people, pulling in. Before she could pull enough bugs together to do anything about it they had her little house surrounded. Eight people stepped out of each, all armed to the teeth. A quick roll call of her bugs counted 4 million useful insects. Hundreds of thousands of other less useful ones, moths, bugs that couldn't bite, etc. They were attacking her in
her home. Of course she'd be prepared, whoever had sent her, they weren't smart.
Locust took her time to don the costume she'd made. The silk was strong enough to stand up to an x-acto knife, and she'd added some chitin plating to protect from blunt force attacks. By the time she'd finished, they'd formed a perimeter about 20 yards from the building itself, and a man was walking toward her front door. she'd recognized him from her dealings with the Destefano family. This was the guy they sent to deal with people who'd gotten outta hand. He was armed, her bugs told her that much, but that wasn't what worried her. His power was terrifying, if you really thought about it. He was your basic blinker / teleporter. The nasty part, though, was when he teleported he left a clone behind. The clone would fight you for a few seconds then turn to ash. You were lucky if he didn't have 3-4 clones on the battlefield at any time. He strolled up to one of her side-doors with no fear. This, of course, was the guy that when told about her power scoffed and said
"Eh, what can a few bugs do?"If they'd just wanted to talk, he wouldn't have brought this many people. Not this many people that were armed to say the least. Locust walked down the stairs to meet him, before she was in his line of sight, he had the gun trained on the stairs exactly where she'd stop. By the time she'd made it to the bottom, he was aiming directly at her chest.
"If I were anyone else, I'd assume you were here to kill me, but that's just ridiculous! They wouldn't send this many people to deal with with a few bugs."She sensed the movement of his finger a fraction of a second before his gun went off, and tried to lean out of the way. It didn't help, dodging bullets wasn't a trick she'd added to her repertoire yet.
Getting hit, the smallest part of her could only think
costume can’t stop a bullet after all. Except it wasn’t even a complete thought. Just a momentary disappointment as she felt the impact of the bullet passing through her chest to her back. It felt like a sledgehammer had hit her in the dead center of her torso. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t even think in a coherent fashion.
Capsaicin bugs moved in the general direction of the man, pre-prepared cords of thread unspooled from beneath her costume, trailing behind flying insects. She couldn’t think straight enough to orchestrate a smart attack, to tell them to go for the weak points, but they advanced swiftly, biting exposed flesh and forming a barrier between her and her attackers.
He emptied his clip in her general direction, but he didn’t have a bead on her. He couldn’t see, between the cloud of bugs between her and the bugs crawling on his face.
She had flying insects catch the end of his gun with a cord and pull it off target further, and he backed up.. If she could find leverage, someone or something that was moving, and pull them off-target before they shot her down-
He teleported outta the room. The bugs were brought with him outside to one of the SUVs. When he spoke, his voice was raised to be heard despite the rage of insects flying around outside, “Fill it with bullets… no. Scratch that.” He was coming up with counter-counter-plans before she even had a strategy in mind. “…Set her on fire. Her costume is bulletproof, and I want this done. I need to attend to other matters.”
She pressed one hand to her chest, as if she could gauge the damage done, and reflexively pulled it away as she touched something hot. A snarl of metal, embedded in the thickest portion of the armor she'd designed into the chest, and it was hot enough that it hurt to touch it.
A bullet, she thought. she'd never considered that bullets would be hot. A repugnant smell caught through Laura's bugs demanded her attention.
GasolineThe cocktail crashed through the window near here, exploded, and lit everything in the radius on fire. She experienced a moment of animal panic. The kind of mindless fear that was hardwired into your brain on a basic level, so that we, like a wolf, a deer or an ape would, knew that fire was bad. Smoke was bad. Fire was a thing to run from and she had nowhere to run. A few more crashed through the upstairs and downstairs, she didn't have much time.
She calmed, quickly, and looked at the bigger scene. Just past the perimeter of the fence, there were a dozen trucks and cars surrounding the building, each turned toward the property, their headlights on. Squads of goons stood beside and in front of the trucks, guns raised and ready. Most had SMGs or handguns, bandoleers of grenades and all-concealing body armor. She wouldn't be able to sneak out, not like this.
Laura formed a clone and crawled across the floor to the door, at least what was left of it, and kicked it open. The clone 'ran' like it was making a break for it, and was immediately riddled with bullets. The gunfire prompted most of the other goons to open fire. She was coughing like a madman at this point, the smoke almost overwhelming. Bullets punched through the exterior walls and interior walls both. One clipped through the floor to hit the armor at her back. The impact prompted another coughing fit, worse than any of the ones before. She couldn't just stay here, waiting for a stray bullet to get lucky and nab her.
Her bugs had gathered around the exterior of the building, called to her by her unconscious power, clinging to the roof and outside walls near the room. She took note of the cockroaches, then directed them to the trucks that had the building surrounded.
Cockroaches retained the ability to eat virtually anything. She could have used more, but she'd have to make do. They began eating through wiring as her situation was going from bad to worse. The fire was threatening to collapse the building on top of her, there'd be no escape after that.
Another molotov was being lit, just as the first set of headlights went out, followed by others. Now would be her best chance of getting out.
The goon with the molotov found himself swarmed with bugs, and promptly dropped what he was holding. The explosion was devastating. Every bug in the area was deleted, but she could feel all of the goons turn to look at the explosion. Laura formed a handful of clones and had them rush forward, drawing the gunfire and attention, while she carefully made her way out.
She'd made it out, somehow, she'd done it. She could run now, but wasn't sure how successful that'd be. Where would she go? Then she reconsidered. No, she needed a distraction, and these slow-moving decoys weren’t that. The bugs she still had in reserve swept into the ranks of the soldiers, and she went flat for her own safety, covering her head.
“Behind you,” one collection of bugs whispered to a soldier, her swarm-speak forming the necessary words. He whipped around to see nothing there.
“I’m going to eat you alive,” another swarm spoke, somewhere nearby.
“Crawl inside your body and lay eggs.”
The head's voice sounded over a dozen radios in the area, “She’s playing mind tricks. She’s still near the house, and she’s never killed or tortured before. Maintain the perimeter.”
The bugs continued whispering as they went on the attack, but their attack wasn’t a headlong rush with stingers and pincers. As she lay flat on the ground, arms shielding her head, she took a different tack. She raided. Bugs swept into pockets and pouches, searching the contents. First aid supplies, no. Gun magazines, almost too heavy.
She noticed the bandoleers of the grenades.
The decoys had forced the enemy to spread out gunfire. The goons were further diverted as her bugs tried to divest them of possessions, pushing at the gun magazines and attempting to slowly nudge them free of pouches. Spiders wove silk cords, and she chose her target, a soldier by the fence. Long seconds passed as bullets hit the earth only a short distance from Laura.
At her instruction, flying bugs carried a cord out, connecting a grenade on his bandoleer to the fence. Another connected the same grenade’s pin to the soldier next to him.
“Lose the grenades,” her swarm buzzed, right next to him. “I’m pulling a pin.”
The man next to him heard, stepped away, and the cord went taut. The pin slid free.
The two turned into effectively tomato paste, and everyone else in the area spooked, breaking their formation. Laura used her opportunity to go for the throat. Every bug in the area, 3.82 million in total, swarmed the 61 men left. In the panic, a few dropped grenades, some dropped molotovs. Those unfortunate souls didn't survive. After a minute or two of pure chaos, things quieted down substantially. Laura stood up as the house behind her collapsed into a heap of flame and asbestos. She was the only one standing.
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