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Worm Liveblog #42

UPDATE 42: The Weight of Uncertainty

Last time the fight with Leviathan was over. Scion showed to not be a very nice, uh, person, being rather condescending towards a powerful and useful hero. Skitter’s back is broken, and she is currently chained to a bed from both arms, paralyzed and with a broken arm. Even though the fight with the Endbringer is over, she’s not in a good state, both physically and about her future. So let’s continue.

As you can guess, hanging from a broken arm is not a pleasant experience. She has other matters to worry about, though, like her paralyzed body. Her torso and arms are okay, but her legs are completely paralyzed, she can’t even feel anything. It seems the nerves of her back are damaged, something in her spine was severed when her spine broke.

If my back was really broken, it could mean my best case scenario was surgery and years of physical therapy, years of crutches and wheelchairs. My worst case scenario would be never walking again.

Explaining it to your father will be a nightmare, too. I don’t mean it because it’s not plausible she got hurt during the evacuation – if she says she was at the shelter Leviathan attacked, it’ll be believable – I mean that Dad Hebert’s not going to take it well at all. This is going to break his heart. He’s going to blame himself. He’s going to tell himself he should have convinced Taylor to stay with him, that he should have been with her, that he should have tried to contact her somehow. He’s going to be so distraught he’s going to spend the rest of his life trying to make it up to Taylor for letting this happen, even if it wasn’t his fault at all.

...at least I can rest easy knowing none of that is going to happen, though. Look, Worm’s not an eight-arc story. It’s waaaay longer than that. By now I can deduce it’s not like there’s going to be a change of point of view or anything, because Worm’s not a collection of stories. It’s Worm, not Parahumans. So I’m guessing something will happen that will heal Taylor, heal her enough to continue being the protagonist of this story. I have no idea what could happen, though. I suppose there are many different capes that can have some sort of healing power. Panacea has no reason to help Skitter, given their, uh...bad relationship, so to say. I suppose the rest of the Undersiders can look for someone else to help Skitter.

I couldn’t really believe they were going to arrest me. Like Tattletale had said, there were rules. Largely unspoken rules, but still more important than anything else in the cape community. You didn’t profit from an Endbringer attack, you didn’t attack your nemeses or take advantage of undefended areas to steal. You didn’t arrest a villain that came to help.

...hm. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody’s around to hear it, did it happen? If a villain is arrested and nobody’s around to witness it, did it happen?

What I’m saying is that it’s possible villains have been arrested in the past and it has been covered up, if the circumstances align correctly. How many people know Skitter is alive? Since her bracelet broke, it’s not like anyone can know she’s alive. She could be taken away to the Birdcage in the utmost secret and nobody would be the wiser. I’m not saying this is what’s going on – maybe she’s not being arrested – but it’s not impossible it could happen.

One ominous idea nagged at me, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. It was that I might not get any treatment at all – for my back, specifically – because of grudges against me and capes who could ‘suggest’ that maybe the doctors’ resources could be better directed elsewhere.

That’s rather possible. As I said before, the likes of Panacea don’t have a reason to help Skitter, and Skitter has a lot of heinous stuff. Armsmaster could pull strings as revenge, the Wards are bound to get attention before anyone else and although they’re more likely than other people to care about Skitter and other villains, I doubt they’re aware of the situation, and nobody who was at the party the Undersiders crashed must be happy at all with Skitter. Them’s the dangers of being a villain, you burn a lot of bridges.

Or it could be just that the people here are giving Skitter a hard time because she’s a villain. That’s always possible. A lot of people won’t have any sympathy for any villain no matter what.

Skitter tries her best to make herself comfortable and tries to ignore all the noise and how time passes. She remembers a few of the nightmares she used to have. It was mostly about being powerless, about having to hope stuff out of her control would save her. That’s how she is right now.

I’d done the heroic thing. Drawn Leviathan away from those in the shelter who were still alive. A part of me was proud of myself. The rest of me? Faced with the idea of spending the rest of my life in a wheelchair? I felt like an idiot of epic proportions. I’d bought into the idea of the grand, noble gesture, and in the here and now it felt like I had to convince myself that what I had done mattered. It sure as shit didn’t seem to matter to anyone else.

Can’t say I blame Skitter for thinking this. In my opinion, whether it was worth it or not will depend on if she receives even a little bit of acknowledgment. I don’t mean a ceremony or anything like that, just a ‘nice job’ or a ‘that was good’ from pretty much anyone will be enough to make it worth it. From one of the Undersiders, from a PRT officer, from any lucky survivor from the shelter, from anyone. There are few things worse than doing something good and not receiving an ounce of gratitude from it.

Oh hey, someone’s coming to do her job, apparently! It’s a nurse! And a rather young one, too. Skitter tries to get her attention, begging for some talk. The nurse only budges when Skitter talks about herself, about how she loves her dad, about her hobbies, about Tattletale.

“We aren’t supposed to talk to the patients.”

“Why not?”

“While back, some cape sued the rescue workers after a battle much like this. Hadhayosh, I think.”

Oh! Well that’s a—it’s no surprise they’re not talking to the injured, then! Everybody and everyone fears the ruthless machine of frivolous lawsuits. Leaving that aside, it seems Hadhayosh is an alternate name for Behemoth. For those who don’t know, that’s the name of the primeval ox in Iranian mythology, if I’m not mistaken. A fitting name...I think. For some reason, given Leviathan’s water power and the Simurgh’s wings, I’m kind of associating Behemoth with earth, so Hadhayosh’s not a bad name for that thing.

This nurse here’s not even a nurse yet, she’s simply a student monitoring patients just to make sure they’re not in immediate danger. It’s a bit dangerous to let students deal with this kind of stuff, but when there’s high demand...beggars can’t be choosers, yeah.

The nurse almost leaves, but then she takes pity of Skitter and returns, offering to help her call someone. That’s nice of her...I hope she won’t get in trouble for even offering that. Skitter’s careful nature makes her consider what could happen, though. Someone could track the call, someone could link Dad Hebert to her...a lot of stuff that is unlikely to happen, but that’s worth avoiding, even if it means more heartache for now.

She shook her head, “I was just offering. I don’t know if they’re arresting you. Only thing they said was that I was supposed to fill in the charts for the patients on this end of the room that have the red tags.”

She pointed to a set of plastic tags that were clipped to the curtain rod, so that one large tag hung down on either side of it. Was it to designate the seriousness of my injuries? No, they hadn’t even examined me.

Could mean something, could mean nothing. It’s not worth thinking much about that, there’s too many possibilities and no way to narrow it down. Skitter’s worried, though. She rejects the offer and tries to sound encouraging to this sympathetic nurse student, but it seems the nurse didn’t appreciate the compliment, and leaves.

Once the nurse goes, Skitter tries to ignore what’s going on, and later, in an attempt to calm herself down, summons a handful of cockroaches and makes them do tricks as if those were a team of synchronized swimmers. Well that can’t be sanitary, insect-controlling power or not. She’s still doing this all when someone enters, calling her creepy.

“I’ve heard worse,” I replied, opening my eyes. Panacea was entering my curtained enclosure, shutting the curtain behind her. There was a PRT uniform with her.

Well...hello there, Panacea! I’m not sure if she being here with a third person will make her more likely to treat Skitter or not. Panacea seems to be tired, she has dark circles under her eyes. She already has a hard time having to heal people all the time, if I remember right, having to do it after an Endbringer emergency surely is once another burden on her. Is she ever allowed to rest, really?

Panacea tells Skitter to give her permission to touch her, so they don’t get sued. She has to blindly trust Panacea to heal her. That’s...not going to be easy.

“What was it you said during the bank robbery? You’d make me horribly obese? Make everything I eat taste like bile? What’s to stop you from doing something like that here?”

I’m not sure if it’s good or bad to mention this right now.

“The more horrible a human being you are, the more you’ll agonize over what I might have done to you, with a time delay of minutes, hours, days, years. Yet if you’re a decent person, you’ll be more inclined to think better of me.”

Oh, alright, Panacea’s not going to do anything. What’s more nerve-wracking than uncertainty? I think she’d truly heal Skitter, with no strings attached, but would say or insinuate something that’d make Skitter wonder if something else was done too. That’s devious! It’d be hella impressive if Panacea was a villain, but since she’s a hero it’s really unsettling.

Skitter’s pretty sure she is a good person, even though she is a villain. Frankly...I agree. In the scale of, uh, good to bad, Skitter’s still on the good side. Helping the people at the shelter – people that included Mr. Gladly, mind you – shows she’s not so far gone into the dark side she’s a bad person. Other actions of her have been completely inappropriate for a good person, yeah, but in general I’d say she’s in the good side. It’s not really so simple to decide, though. It’s not like I can whip out an alignment chart for Skitter and update it every time. I’d have to modify it like every three chapters.

So yep, Skitter chooses to get healed and take her chances with Panacea. The thought of having to take the plebian route of physical exams and grueling work would make anyone take their chances with Panacea. It seems Panacea has to directly touch skin to make her power work. Could it stuff like hair or nails confuse her power? Huh...

The magic touch starts healing Skitter. The effects are quick; Panacea tells everything she finds wrong. Brain injury from the concussion...that’s going to take a while, she’s not touching it. Reduced fine dexterity, nerve damage to left hand...yeah, that could have happened anytime. Internal bleeding from several awful-sounding injuries...at least those one will be gone. All in all, Panacea’s actually healing. Good.

Yeah, better not mention the bank robbery again, referencing it twice was risky enough. Soon Skitter can feel her legs again, Panacea tests the nerves, and tells Armsmaster, Miss Militia and Legend are coming soon to talk. About what...uh, I dunno, but Skitter’s thinking it could be to arrest her. It could be, yeah. I don’t like that Armsmaster will be there. It doesn’t seem like a good sign.

“Hey, no. You can’t call yourself a decent person and then leave me here agonizing over details.”

Psh, Skitter, she already said she’d leave you agonizing over if she put some delayed modification into your body. I think it’s clear she’ll leave you agonizing over that too.

Skitter’s not the only one being kept in the dark, and Panacea’s clearly enjoying making Skitter uncomfortable with all these unanswered questions. It’s her revenge for everything Tattletale did to her, all the mindfuckery that happened during the bank robbery. Knowing someone knew your darkest secrets and not being able to do anything about it...well it is scary alright.

Oh, that’s foul play, mentioning only Armsmaster out of those three! Panacea’s getting full marks in mental torture right now!

Not wanting to be around when those three heroes come to maybe-arrest her, Skitter sends cockroaches to take the keys from the PRT guard. Taking the key out of the pouch the guard has was difficult, but soon she manages to do it. Taking the keys to her and unlocking the manacles despite having both hands restrained is as difficult as it sounds, it’s a bit impressive she managed to do it in matter of minutes. Now the problem is to get out of this hospital. She can’t just hide herself...and she has no spare clothes or anything to put on and try to get out by taking off her costume. She’s in a very tough spot right now. Causing panic could lead to some people’s deaths too. What to do, what to do...

There’s a window a few enclosures away. Getting there could be a start. She starts going through the enclosures, trying to make as little noise as possible. When she gets to the last one...uh...

I pushed my way into the next curtained enclosure. Stopped.

Oh.

There were shouts behind me, which might have been someone noting my absence. I was at the point of not caring anymore.

I tried to take a step forward, to move to the bedside or around it, but my newly healed legs gave out under me. I crumpled into a kneeling position.

It seems the person who is here made Skitter not care about escaping anymore. Tattletale? Dad Hebert? It must be someone she personally knows; someone she is close to. Skitter is astonished.

For another, I realized why they’d had me chained up. Kind of stupid not to, in retrospect.

...so she doesn’t see other patients? Is that it?

The bed’s occupant wore Shadow Stalker’s costume, sans mask.

I recognized her. Sophia Hess.

...ah. That’s what she meant. This is why she was chained up.

...

...well, fuck. It’s the Bully Supreme of Whatchamacallit High School, I forgot the name of that place. Sophia Hess is Shadow Stalker. Honestly, if I had to guess one of the bullies was a cape, I’d have said it was Emma, because it’d have been rather meaningful for the former best friend to have gone rogue on Taylor after getting powers. Sophia who? But nope, look at this, it’s Sophia, she is the hero.

Say, now that I think about it, wasn’t Shadow Stalker the hero with bad reputation? Sophia is awful in all ways possible, it seems. Once another example of someone on the hero side being a horrible person. I already lost count of how many like those are. It’s a good thing people like...Miss Militia and Vista exist, they’re the only names I can think of right now that seem to be good people. At least there’s a decent hero in this story.

That’s the end of the chapter. I’m stopping for now.

Next update: in two updates

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