Bugs In The System is a Worm fanfiction by mp3.1415player that shows an alternate universe where Taylor suffered a Trigger that led her to be able to control bugs... but due to circumstances the form this control happens gets a bit stranger.
Which somehow leads to a number of very friendly giant mantis-like engineer insects going up and down Brockton Bay fixing broken stuff and making the local Tinkers go crazy.
It can be read on Space Battles here
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Glory to the Tropes! And to the Hive Mother!
- Absurdly Youthful Mother: Taylor is just fifteen when she becomes the Hive Mother.
- Asteroid Thicket: Justified; the one that the Hive ship finds on its maiden voyage is the remains of the last planet Scion destroyed, which hasn't had time to form a proper asteroid belt yet.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Crossing over with Beware the Silly Ones, the Hive is noted more than one to be fairly friendly, and prefer fixing things to breaking them. More than one character gets a little scared at what they might be like when angry.
- Beware the Silly Ones: The Hive is a bunch of human-sized insects that love to help people, while some of them are The Gadfly. They manage to craft a weapon that kills the Endbringers, Eidolon, and several other S-class threats, in one shot.
- Crack Fic: This story was clearly written for fun.
- Creepy Good: The Hive is full of human-sized insects that are very friendly and helpful, but, still, human-sized insects.
- Death by Adaptation/Dies Differently in Adaptation: The Endbringers, Eidolon, Scion, the Slaughterhouse Nine, Nilbog, the Teeth, and several others, die when the Hive fires their weapon.
- Dramatic Irony: Crystal laments that her cousins missed the Hive spaceship because they were on a road trip, not knowing that Amy and Vicky's road trip was in said spaceship.
- Establishing Character Moment: The first member of the Hive that shows up in story is met when Armsmater finds it dismantling his motorcycle. The Hive member promptly shows him how to greatly improve the motorcycle's efficiency, puts everything back together and teleports away. And steals Armsmaster's spare halberd.
- "Eureka!" Moment: When thinking that Taylor would be a great mother eventually, Amy ends up putting things together and realizes Taylor is Hive Mother.
- Gadgeteer Genius: The Hive members have very good engineering skills - enough that they can not only understand Tinkertech, but fix and replicate it.
- Gravity Screw: When the Hive launches their spaceship, the come up from beneath the bay, and their devices cause the water to move out of the way but still act like gravity is pulling it normally.
- Hypocritical Humor: When Kilzen takes Squealer's cloaking unit as payment for fixing one of her engines, Squealer asks if the Hive Mother taught him to steal things. The insect points out that it's funny that she asks that.
- In Spite of a Nail: Even though Emma is Taylor's friend, Sophia still bullies Taylor into Triggering.
- Memetic Mutation: In-Universe, Armsmaster's dealings with the Hive and attempts to take Amy's teleport node make him a walking meme.
- No Kill like Overkill: The Hive wants to be able to reach space without being disturbed by the Simurgh. So they create a weapon that kills it along with the other Endbringers - and Nilbog, the Slaughterhouse Nine, the Butcher, several other S-class threats... and Eidolon in the rebound of what happened to the Endbringers. Admittedly Fess added several of those, but still.
- Open Secret: Taylor suspects that a majority of Arcadia's students have figured out who the Wards at the school are, but simply haven't said anything (ironically, the Wards themselves are apparently oblivious to it).
- Pass the Popcorn: After the Hive reveals their spaceship, and a general gets the idea to try and capture one of them for information briefly, Piggot outright says that this will be how she and her forces will react if he actually tries.
- Point of Divergence: There are two points where the story changed to lead to what it is. The first is that Anette survives the car crash that killed her because the other car swerved just enough. The second is that Lung and Kaiser got into a fight that destroyed Winslow High.
- Since her mother is still alive, and Winslow is not an option, Taylor attends Arcadia with Emma.
- Kaiser was arrested and sent to the Birdcage, while Lung got a kill order on him, making him run away from Brockton Bay. As Bakuda had yet to Trigger, the ABB falls apart.
- As the ABB disappears, Emma and Alan were never attacked. This means that Emma is still tight friends with Taylor, and they never met Sophia - who, as a result of Winslow's destruction, also attends Arcadia.
- While Sophia still causes Taylor's Trigger and she still has her Pest Controller power, having multiple Parahumans nearby causes Taylor's shard to ping on theirs and grants Taylor a greater refinement to her power: she gets the ability to modify bugs from Panacea, Tinkering skills from Kid Win, and a Thinker ability that enhances the synthesis between the other powers from Gallant.
- Shout-Out: When Squealer calls Kilzen insane, he replies that he's not, because the Hive mother had him tested.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: Panacea switches to a sturdier uniform made by the Hive, making her look like a "healing sorceress", as part of her intent to switch how she deals with her cape life, along with a staff. The only person that has a problem with it is Carol Dallon.
- Sitcom Archnemesis: The Hive (especially Kilzen) to Armsmaster. It doesn't help that they keep "borrowing" the latter's stuff.
- Spared by the Adaptation: The first nail of the story is Annette surviving the accident that killed her in canon.
- Squick: In-Universe. When Amy complains about the places she's seen people hide weapons in, she wrinkles her nose in disgust. And, after thinking it over, so does Vicky.
- Stupid Evil: When Sophia was sent to Arcadia, she was warned to "put on her A game and not fuck up."
- Troll: The Hive likes to have fun with Armsmaster, mostly because of his usual reaction to their shenanigans.
- Why Didn't I Think of That?: After showing off his skills by fixing several of the the Tinker's old inventions, Kilzen asks Leet if he could invent a machine that would reset his Tinker abilities and get around his main limitation. Leet drops a Cluster F-Bomb.
- The World Is Just Awesome: The interestellar road trip ends up getting amazing photos of not only the solar system, but also multiple exoplanets and even one of the galaxy.
- Your Head Asplode: When the Hive's weapon destroys the Endbringers, Eidolon's head spontaneously explodes with no warning as a result of the feedback.
- You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Piggot all but drops the trope name in regards to the potential result if a general goes ahead with his plan to capture a Hive member for information.
