Butcher's Bill 2.1

"Othello? Is your doppleganger in position? I'm running out of places to set up deadfalls and tripwires covertly. Pretty soon I'm going to have to start being a little bit more obvious with what my bugs are doing, so things could get heated more or less any second." Frankly, I could see why previous Butchers had rarely used their Tinker power. When you're nearly invulnerable and are strong enough to carry around and effectively aim anti-tank weaponry, the ability to set up exceptionally clever snares and tripwires is almost superfluous. With my ability to stealthily manipulate spider silk with my bugs, though, it was downright useful. I had done simple things like tie my opponents to objects before - now I knew that if I set up a fulcrum there and a counterweight there I could use one victim's body weight to send a cord whipping across a room at neck height and hopefully back people into another tripwire there...

Othello nodded, so I started being less subtle. Bugs crawled into shoes, into holsters, jamming themselves suicidally down the barrels of guns and absconding with peoples' phones when their backs were turned. Part of me, and I think I knew which part, honestly wanted to just skip straight to the action and start busting heads, but I suppressed the impulse. I'd survived this long as Skitter by being careful and methodical and by setting the stage for my actions ahead of time whenever possible, and I wasn't going to throw that out just because I had an excuse to act like Alexandria and beat up a room full of thugs while ignoring their retaliations like I had wanted to do since I was eight.

Sure enough, someone saw my bugs moving around and screamed. I turned to the group, said "Go!", and then I let my internal sense of balance finally shift.