Monarch 16.11

 is the thirteenth chapter of Monarch. Skitter gets shot, but fights on. Coil lights the house on fire, but Skitter fights on. Coil gives up, and Skitter escapes.

Plot
Skitter, unable to dodge bullets like other blind superheroes, gets the bullet resistant nature of her costume tested and confirmed, at first believing the bullet to have penetrated. She gasps for air as Coil withdraws after unveiling his inevitable betrayal.

She then, unsurprisingly, uses bugs to drive back her assailants as best she can, throwing off Coil's aim and preventing a double tap.

Coil gives a running series of orders throughout his withdrawal, presumably using his power and common sense both, in order to neutralize Skitter as completely as plausible. This includes setting the building she's in on fire and saturating it with bullet-fire. Each measure countering her and limiting her options further and further, let alone starting off with being alone, shot, and blind.

Unable to properly breathe or coordinate her thoughts, Skitter responds to the molotov-wielding minions by using her pepper spray as an impromptu flamethrower. Seeing how that went, Coil is sure to warn his soldiers in the next room against using grenades against her, predicting her turning the situation back on them. Instead, they drop a Molotov cocktail and throw the still burning soldier into the gasoline callously, beginning the inferno.

Taylor resolves to get to the door as quickly as possible, even as Coil's soldiers block the door with furniture. She examines the windows and they have been professionally boarded up, with hexagonal slot screws no less to prevent the unlikely situation she had the more common flathead screwdriver. With little else to turn to, with the smoke thickening, she sends black widows after Coil, which successfully bite him before being swatted. Coil then orders the building burned down in ernest, and watches from his limosine at his leisure, Taylor suspecting he'd already taken antivenins for the more dangerous insects in the area.

Taylor resolves to use her concealed pistol to damage the boards on the windows and pull them off, but this draws attention from the soldiers outside that open fire. Taylor takes cover in the rooms corner as bullets punch through the walls and window, even as she calls cockroaches to her aid to eat through the wires inside the truck headlights pointed at the building and gathering them near the window, as the soldiers begin firing on the building in shifts.

Using the swarm to form clones to then draw gunfire, having them recoil from the gunshots and take cover, slowing gaining ground and drawing attention. Eventually, she formed a swarm around herself and jumped from the window, being shot once in the forearm. She knows that Coil is waiting to ensure that in any possible reality, she is defeated, and knows that as her decoys are destroyed she needs a different distraction to escape.

Skitter uses bug ventriloquism in psychological warfare against the mercenaries arrayed against her, distracting them with voices, and then thinks to unpin the grenades worn by some of the soldiers, ironically because Coil is so adamant they not use them, for his plan to work.

Throughout the ensuing chaos she continues her psychological attacks which eventually allow her to approach the fence, where a soldier hears her scream as something impacts her face. Skitter responds by setting off a cannister on the soldier, prepared to kill them but hoping to incapacitate them, with the can releasing smoke, before doing the same for others, providing cover.

At this point, Coil retreats, which gives Skitter a chance without him being actively there to manipulate the future, but concerns her for what he could potentially do to those nearest and dearest to her.

She uses a mobile smoke cloud for cover, allowing her to slip the cordon and disabling one of the soldiers before clambering into one of the trucks. Blind and without any experience driving, she does her best to quietly leave the scene, hoping she is far enough from the cordon not to attract attention.

A while later she pulls over and gives herself first aid as she tries to anticipate Coil's next move from what she knows of his motives and capabilities.

Major Events

 * Skitter escapes from a burning building, has smoke inhalation damage on top of her broken bones and blindness.

Trivia

 * Presumably Coil is trying out multiple strategies on Skitter thanks to his power.
 * Silk is known to have bullet resistant properties, Taylor probably designed her suit suit with an eye towards this.