Chrysalis 20.5
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| Chrysalis 20.5 | |
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Chrysalis 20.5 is the fifth chapter of Chrysalis. Skitter is outed, Taylor rallies the students,. People unload their opprobrium on the heroes and their appreciation of the villains. A daughter uses a butterfly to say goodbye.
Plot
Dragon publicly outs Taylor as Skitter with an audience of hundreds of students and some faculty present within Arcadia's cafeteria. Weighing her options, Taylor realizes she had been well and truly cut off and virtually defenseless, as Defiant's tinker tech has slaughtered most of her swarm and the remainder would not be enough to mount an offensive, Taylor then recalls Grue's lessons on reputation, and calms herself as she decides to lean on them for posturing.
Taylor admits her identity Skitter (much to the shock of the onlookers and especially Emma) and chastises Dragon, saying that she had believed the tinker knew better than to out her. Dragon replies that she has to follow orders. Taylor then asks if Dragon's superiors were angered by the destruction of her armored suits, which had been deployed by the PRT against the Undersiders with the latter being victorious. Dragon denies this, but is cut off by Taylor, who points that there are rules, and that the heroes violation of them against her flies in the face of what her past contributions against Leviathan, Slaughterhouse Nine, and Echidna should earn her in accordance to those rules. Dragon insists that she had no choice, but Taylor coldly points out that she chooses to follow orders and many Protectorate heroes have already left the organization, offhandedly diminishing the notion of Dragon having agency. Defiant steps in to defend Dragon and their actions at Arcadia, saying that the situation is not that simple. Taylor retorts that it's never simple and denies the logic that motivated their superiors to confront her at Arcadia. Dragon continues to defend the Protectorate, giving assurances of improvements and downplaying the organization's wrongdoing. Taylor reminds Dragon that even if her assessment on the Protectorate is accurate, its regular people who truly suffer for the Protectorate's wrongs, and mentions that she's willing lecture Dragon on her presently skewed priorities in a similar fashion to when the tinker did it to her.
Dragon realizes that Taylor is threatening to reveal secrets, and states that it's not within Taylor's characters to do it. Taylor argues that they'd be surprised what she's capable of, mentioning her more gruesome actions such as mutilations, her near killing of Triumph, and removing Sere from the fight. The two heroes are alarmed by Taylor's takedown of Sere, who they had intended to counter her. Begrudgingly, Taylor recalls her encounters with Jack Slash and adopts certain cues from his behavior such as his confidence, image, and reputation. Using them to retain dominance over the conversation and play on Dragon and Defiant's fears over Sere's wellbeing. Taylor then thinks of Bakuda. Ignoring Dragon and Defiant's demands to be told of Sere's status, Taylor makes a show of asking them why they would carry out their operation against her in a school building with many students inside, and that they couldn't truly be completely confident that she would not hurt hundreds of people she can easily take hostage. To drive her point, and maybe out of some pettiness, Taylor wills a centipede to crawl across Emma's hand, terrorizing her and causing the heroes. She later mentions that Sere is fine, and putting them somewhat more at ease, Clockblocker, Adamant, and Kid Win arrive on scene, with the first former prepared to incapacitate her with his power, and the latter two being possibly ordered by Dragon to locate Sere.
Taylor then outwardly concludes that the heroes were purposefully baiting her to take hostages. Believing that the heroes have contingency plans against such an act, and were planning to use it to tarnish weaken the Undersiders through reputation and the removal of their leader. Dragon denies having concocted the plan and disagreed with its likeliness of success. Her assessment of its probable failure being discerned from observations she made on Taylor's past decisions. Defiant had a similar assessment but his was derived from her powers and versatility. Taylor points out the absurdity of the two heroes carrying out a plan they didn't even believe would work, but Dragon again responds that she's following orders.
Taylor threatens to share with their audience all of the PRT and Protectorate's dirty secrets that she learned over the last few months, which she considered to be fair given how they publicly reveal her biggest one. Dragon steps in, all but ordering Taylor to keep them to herself as the secrets are far too destructive. Taylor refuses Defiant's insistence to converse in a more private space, considering the civilians to be her impromptu jury that she hopes will help in damaging the two heroes reputations in the event she is captured or killed. Taylor's move to sit on a counter in the cafeteria was conscientious, aware that if the heroes attacked her, they would be hitting her while she was down and vulnerable. Dragon tells Taylor that they didn't come to kill her and were in fact ordered to take her into custody, and claims that they had been hoping to speak with her. Taylor finds the idea of Defiant wanting to speak with her strange, noting their antagonistic relationship in the past, and continues to deny their pleas to go with them.
The true turmoil of her situation eventually dawns on Taylor. She realizes how uniquely dangerous Dragon and Defiant are to her, with the former having a grasp on Taylor as a person and the latter as a parahuman. The two were being careful with her, as her actions at Forsberg, the battle with Echidna, and her unexpected victory over Sere indicated that she always had a trick up her sleeve. But she finds that act absurd, being now acutely aware that they both knew she would never be a risk to anyone inside the cafeteria, and that they would lose nothing for their actions there. Facing down total defeat, with her identity freshly outed, Taylor couldn't help but smile.
Unexpectedly, Defiant then apologizes to Taylor for refusing to meet her halfway in the past, in reference to how antagonistic and vicious their relationship became and for contributing to Taylor's descent into villainy. Defiant admits that he largely came to Arcadia to deliver the apology. When Dragon shares what she intends to speak with Taylor about, such as the immediate future, the Undersiders role in the city and the expectations placed in particular for Skitter. Insistent that they came to Arcadia to speak with her above all else. Taylor finds herself conflicted with the way the two heroes carry themselves with the interaction, finding it easier to deal with them when they weren't expressing remorse for their actions against her.Suddenly, Taylor realizes that the two heroes' remorseful behavior still hadn't sense in their motivations to violate the unwritten rules by outing her. She presses them both for information, with Dragon eventually confessing that a precognitive thinker was aiding them in her capture.
Taylor quickly realizes that the precog was none other than Dinah Alcott. News that Dinah had turned on her despite the efforts made into saving the younger girl devastates Taylor, and causes her to experience deeply conflicted and disturbed feelings at this new development. Stirring in her own thoughts, Taylor wonders whether or not the PRT was using Dinah no differently then Coil had, or Dinah had willfully volunteered the information, and can't decide which is worse. Taylor asks Dragon the odds of her being captured, with the tinker revealing a staggeringly success rate in the heroes favor. Taylor than looks upon the crowd, and notices Emma in a fetal position, eyes wide and uncomprehending. Looking upon her former friend, Taylor feels irrationally offended by Emma's presence alone, and inwardly remarks she wasn't a priority to deal with in any practical sense. Regardless, Taylor contemplates lashing out at Emma, feeling that she has little left to lose, but is snapped out of it by Dragon.
At Dragon's address to her as Skitter, Taylor, remarks that she never liked that name that was given to her, and declines Dragon's offer of getting a new one. Defiant reminds Taylor of how powerful Dinah is, and urges her to surrender. He tells Taylor that he and Dragon are willing to speak to the authorities on Taylor's behalf, and is willing to admit partial culpability in Taylor's criminal status. Taylor is not swayed by Defiant's public admission to being partially responsible for what she had become, knowing that much of the fault was her own.
Taylor then addresses the students in the cafeteria, much to the alarm of the heroes. She announces to them that she won't be taking them hostage, and reminds them that she considered them her jury and that she wanted them to vote. Taylor asks those who side with her over the heroes to stand with her and help her escape. Defiant loudly protests to this, but is too preoccupied with preventing a swarm from entering to directly stop her. Of the three hundred students in the cafeteria, nearly a third of that number rose to form up on Taylor and protect her from the heroes. Charlotte and Fern join the group as well. Taylor doesn't fight the heroes with her powers nor does she encourage the students to fight, instead she directs them to head for the exit. When asked what she was planning by Clockblocker, she reminds him that Dragon and Defiant had purposefully planned to put civilians at risk, and that she was now turning the tables against them.
Some of the group break off and hold down Defiant, told by Taylor that he won't hurt them due being a hero, and she also lends some of her swarm to aid them. When Dragon calls out to her as Skitter again, Taylor tells her that she'll be going by her civilian identity before eventually retiring it in favor of her cape one. She cusses at Dragon for outing her, and declares that she will never forget it. Dragon weakly says that it wasn't her plan, but Taylor condemns her as being as as culpable as her superiors. After exiting the school, Taylor's group picks up plenty of distance between themselves and the heroes. Dragon tails them, but instead of pursuing them she turns back. Sere and Adamant would be too far away and Kid Win would not be going outdoors do to being shaken up by the swarm Taylor directed at him. Eventually Taylor tells the group stop, and has them disperse. Before they do, they begin to express gratitude and admiration for her past heroics. It was a lot to take in for her.
Taylor eventually takes position six and a half city blocks away from her house. She realizes her range is longer as well, even though didn't feel trapped, though considers whatever she felt to be similar. Taylor sends a butterfly into the house, finding Danny somberly sitting at the kitchen table whilst in the company of a sizable presence of occupying PRT officers. An officer swats at the butterfly when they notice land on her father. The PRT then realize that Taylor was present, and immediately set out from the house to find her. After they've left, Danny reaches for the butterfly and Taylor wills it to settle on his finger. Taylor is aware of how cliche and overdramatic the gesture may have been, but savored it as it was likely the last time she'd be in any contact with her father. After saying an apology too far away for Danny to hear, Taylor returns to her territory.
Characters
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Trivia
- It is unknown when exactly Taylor saved Fern's father, it has been a long term source of speculation for the reader's.
References
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| Chapters | 20.1 • 20.2 • 20.3 • 20.4 • 20.5 • 20.x • 20.y |
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| Battles and Events | Incident at Arcadia High |