Fanfic / Nemesis (BeaconHill)

Nemesis (Sufficient Velocity link) is a Worm fanfic by BeaconHill where an unusual scenario is explored: Emma Barnes becoming a hero while Taylor is forced to become her Arch-Enemy supervillain.

The Point of Divergence from canon is Taylor not triggering in the locker incident and Emma's entire family dying in a car accident.

It was June 2011, and Emma Barnes was the queen bee of her high school, mercilessly tormenting her lessers. But it wasn't enough. She wanted powers. She wanted to be a superhero, lording over not just her school but her city. When her whole family died in a car crash, she thought it was her chance. But she didn't trigger, and when her friend Sophia – a.k.a. the superhero Shadow Stalker – told her that she probably couldn't, she flipped out. They fought. And then she found Cauldron, offering superpowers in a little silver vial. She jumped at the chance. But she had a little money left over after buying her vial, and she knew exactly what to do with it.

It was June 2011, and Taylor Hebert was out of hope. After two years of bullying, she knew she had no way out, no hope of escape, not with her grades or her family's poor finances. Until one day, a portal appeared in her home, bearing a strange woman with an offer: powers. But the woman asked for one thing in exchange: she would have to be a supervillain, the nemesis to her worst enemy's superhero alter ego. And she wasn't supposed to win, not with her weak vial and the rules of the program stacked against her. But that wasn't going to stop her from trying for her one last chance.

Because, who said the villain had to lose?

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Nemesis has examples of the following tropes:

• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • Sophia admits that some of Bumblebee's antics are funny.
  • Taylor thinks that the in-universe fanfic about Crystalia and Bumblebee being in love is hilarious.
  • During the bank robbery, the employees crack up laughing with how Bumblebee took the pillowcase full of money from the guy that was robbing them first, handed it back to them... and then turns around and robs the bank.
• Adaptational Badass: Besides her canon powers of controlling any bugs within her range and her infinite multi-tasking, Taylor can change any arthropod into any other, including imaginary ones, turn herself into any arthropod(s) of equal mass (whether it be one large bug or an entire swarm), and absorb them into her own body to give herself more mass to work with.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • Cauldron appears to be somewhat more benevolent than their canon counterpart. At the very least, Doctor Mother acts quite maternal towards Taylor, giving her the motivation to prove Emma wrong and encouraging her as she evolves.
  • Sophia is similarly less harsh and impulsive than in canon, in particular being shown to be genuinely in love with Emma and smart enough to recognize when Emma's making mistakes against Bumblebee (not that Emma listens).
• Anti-Villain: Taylor is only a villain because she has to, and as she's become a humor villain, the Protectorate has to be careful around her.
• Arch-Enemy: Emma and Taylor. Unlike the usual, this is Enforced by Emma, who wants Taylor to be her Arch-Enemy just so she can have an excuse to beat her.
• Batman Gambit: Taylor's plan to destroy Emma would fail miserably if Emma was a decent person, and cannot be foiled by Emma as long as she wants to make Taylor suffer. Taylor knows very well Emma is an unstable sadist, so there's little to no risk whatsoever.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Emma wanted Taylor to be weak and easy to crush as her nemesis. Taylor became a bumbling Harmless Villain that is absurdly easy to "defeat" but doing so only gets Emma in trouble.
• Beware the Silly Ones:
  • Bumblebee is a harmless, goofy bee-themed joke by choice. Beneath that mask lies the brains of a very competent and smart teenager that can control thousands of creatures (including herself) at the same time.
  • The Protectorate has to teach its people that just because a joke villain looks harmless doesn't mean they are harmless. Doctor Roboto, a joke villain in the same vein as Bumblebee except with robots, once took over an entire city for three days because someone kidnapped her child. The PRT pointedly pretended the culprit was a completely different villain with vaguely similar powers so Roboto could return to being a joke villain once she got her kid back.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Emma is this. Face to the Wards, she is companionable and nice (usually anyway). She's actually a grade-A Alpha Bitch.
• Bothering by the Book: Doctor Mother could give Emma more aid than she is, but Emma's incredibly belligerent attitude causes her to only give additional aid when Emma actually asks for it.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Unlike Emma, Taylor does her damnedest to study everything she can do with her powers. Since she can create bugs she's never seen in person, she takes the time to study insects and spiders so she knows what they can do. She also takes the time to learn how to fight without her powers, such as having clones fighting each other with knives so she can defend herself against someone with a knife without revealing her hidden powers.
• Catholic School Girls Rule: Implied by Jess and her interest in seeing Taylor's Immaculata uniform.
• Cardboard Prison: Taylor's powers mean that any prison short of the Birdcage is this for her. She breaks into the PRT prison to perform Jailhouse Rock.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: The fight after Emma forces Taylor to mug people ends up in victory for the latter, but Taylor was forced to unveil her ability to teleport by transferring between bees and confirmed she had the ability to communicate with her bees because the Protectorate captured several of her bees and didn't feed them.
• Create Your Own Villain: This is literally what Cauldron offers through the Nemesis program. Emma decides to sponsor Taylor so she will become her villain. Unfortunately for her, Taylor is a lot more competent than Emma thinks.
• Cuteness Proximity: Taylor milks the adorableness of her giant bumblebees for maximum effect.
• Determinator: Taylor, as per canon. The Cauldron doctor points out that she passed her determination tests by running until she could literally not walk - although she says they should have suspected that when Taylor continued even after every other test said she should not have done it.
• Everyone Has Standards: For all that they conspire to create new parahumans, one thing Cauldron will never do is to dose someone without their full consent, and if they contact someone to offer them powers, they will not lie to them about information - either they tell them or they state why they can't tell them. Similarly, the Nemesis contract puts limits on the crimes the nemesis can be forced to carry out: actions like murder, as well as anything that could be directly tied up to the nemesis' civilian identity, are completely forbidden.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Emma can't even conceive the possibility that other people would be appalled with her for using potentially lethal force against Bumblebee, and is in fact surprised when people take Bumblebee's side. For example, after her attacks at the museum cause Bumblebee to fall from a height on some bushes, possibly suffering a concussion and potentially killing her, she is surprised that Piggot and the others (and the general public) are raising a stink about it, because she didn't even hit Bumblebee.
  • She's also unable to comprehend how Taylor's mind works. When she learns that Taylor is Bumblebee, she thinks that Taylor will die of shame because of how she dresses - not realizing that, unlike Emma, Taylor can handle looking ridiculous when it suits her purpose.
• Exact Words: Taylor always follows the letter of her tasks as a villain, but never the spirit.
  • When she has to perform an art heist and is explicitly told she has to steal something she plausibly could steal, she first wastes time painting a large statue before attempting to have her bumblebees carry it off.
  • When ordered to attack an elementary school and steal something, she plays with the kids during recess, gives the buses bumblebee stripes, and steals a single sunflower.
  • When ordered to mug people she politely asks to "mug" people for a few dollars and gives her "victims" a bee plushie.
• Excuse Me While I Multitask: Taylor's Required Secondary Powers allow her to control thousands of insects, individually and collectively, at the same time - as well as copies of her body.
• Friendly Enemies: Besides Crystalia, Bumblebee's relationship with all of the heroes ranges from amused tolerance to being outright friendly with each other.
• Gemstone Assault: Emma's powers revolve mainly around the creation and manipulation of pink crystals.
• Genre Savvy: The PRT is well aware of the unique problems that come from dealing with a humor villain, and hold a briefing on proper ways to handle them after Bumblebee debuts.
  • If they actually try to beat her, even when she's in the middle of a crime, they look like the bad guys.
  • Most humor villains are far, far, far more capable and dangerous than they let on, and the worst possible thing you could do is give them a reason to stop holding back.
• The Gloves Come Off: For the fight against Behemoth, Taylor ignores her self imposed limitations and fights at full power, using a Second Super-Identity to maintain Plausible Deniability.
• Gone Horribly Right: Emma selected Taylor's vial because she thought it would be hilarious to see her becoming a giant insect. Instead, Taylor gained the power to transform into swarms of any kind of insect of different sizes - and to control and absorb other insects, as well as transforming them into copies of herself.
  • The Cauldron doctor actually warns Emma that Taylor's results mean that any power vial they give Taylor could become strong enough to beat her. Unfortunately for her, she ignores the warnings and commits herself to it.
• Good Feels Good: Subverted. Emma enjoys the gratitude and adoration she gets from being a Ward, but only insofar as it props up her own ego. If it doesn’t directly benefit her, she couldn’t care less.
• Harmless Villain: Humor villains are villains that set out to make other people laugh, not harm anyone and cause little damage. The Protectorate has to be careful around them, because giving them a beating earns them bad PR, losing to them only brings them ridicule - and there's always a risk that, if they pressure too much, the villain will promptly shed the "Harmless" part and become a nightmarish threat.
• Healing Factor: Transforming into an insect cloud and back instantly heals Taylor of any injury she has suffered.
• Hero with an F in Good: Emma only wanted to become a hero because she wanted to lord over everyone else in the city.
• Hurricane of Puns: Bumblebee makes every bee related pun imaginable whenever she's on the clock.
• Hypocrite: Upon hearing that Taylor has failed Cauldron’s psych evaluation and the brain scan- meaning a higher-than-normal chance of Taylor mutating or even dying from receiving a vial- Emma smugly muses that she “always knew [Taylor] was a psycho.” Coming from Emma, it’s clear she has no room to talk. She is also willing to skirt the unwritten rules by sending an anonymous email to Danny, trying to convince him that Taylor is paying for her school tuition with criminal activity.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: In chapter 14, Crystalia manages to trap Bumblebee then hit her with a pair of containment foam grenades, forcing her to reveal some of her Mover powers when she (using what looks like a magical girl transformation) reforms outside the foam using several of her bee minions.
• I Warned You: After Emma has a temper tantrum over how Bumblebee isn't acting as she should have (meaning do things that will boost Emma's reputation or tank Bumblebee's) Doctor Mother bluntly states that they warned her that the deal she made could backfire on her.
• Ignored Epiphany: Emma decides, after a talk with Sophia, that attacking Bumblebee as she did during the robbery at the art museum is precisely what she must not do, in order to not fall into her trap. Then she learns that Taylor has changed schools to Immaculata (thus preventing her from continuing her school bullying) and promptly decides she needs a fight where she can punch Bumblebee.
  • Played with during the Behemoth fight, when Emma is mortally wounded and waiting for Nirgali (actually Taylor) to rescue her. When wondering what’s taking them so long to save her, she realizes that, were she in Nirgali’s shoes, she’d leave them to die, and assumes that karma is finally catching up to her. This realization is seemingly discarded when Nirgali does finally save her, though that remains to be seen.
• Insane Troll Logic: Emma engages in some extreme mental gymnastics to justify to herself her belief that Taylor is stupid and weak and should be bullied, even while she's plotting to make her reveal that she's powerful and dangerous to justify the Protectorate taking the gloves off.
• In Spite of a Nail: Taylor still ends up as an insect-controlling villain, and wears a uniform made out of spider silk.
• Internal Reveal: When Emma sends an anonymous email to Danny to tell him that Taylor is paying for her school with gang money, Taylor has to reveal she's Bumblebee in order to fix things.
• Irony: Canon Taylor initially spied on the Undersiders to bring that information to the Protectorate. Bumblebee Taylor spies on the Protectorate to bring that information to the Undersiders.
• Karmic Protection: This is one of the major reasons why the Protectorate has to be very careful in dealing with humor villains. As long as the public is amused by a humor villain's antics and thinks her harmless, the heroes can't use the same level of force against her that they would use against regular villains without looking like incompetent bumblers if they lose and joyless buzzkills if they win.
• Large Ham: Taylor, as the humor villain Bumblebee.
• Lethal Joke Character: Humor villains are normally Harmless Villains that do not attack people and love to make others laugh at their antics. The Protectorate steps lightly around them because A) humor villains are potential PR bombs that can explode in their face if not treated carefully and B) one mistake could turn them into incredibly terrifying villains.
• Loophole Abuse: The Nemesis contract has a set of clauses that must be obeyed by both sides - but this leaves a lot of loopholes they can exploit.
  • The first loophole used is mentioned by Doctor Mother: Taylor may have to fight Emma seven times in ten weeks, but that does not mean that she has to lose any of those times.
  • The contract establishes that she has to be a villain, but not what kind: Taylor decides to be a Humor Villain, knowing that pulling it off successfully will ensure that Emma cannot fight her the way she wants without losing face.
  • Cauldron has to tell Emma about Taylor's demonstrated abilities shown during the initial testing. As Taylor's most powerful abilities (absolute control of other insects, the ability to absorb their mass into her, and body replication) do not show up until after said testing, this means Emma ends up missing critical information that gives Taylor a big edge.
  • The only person forced to be at the Nemesis fights is the villain. Emma decides to take advantage of this by requesting a fight to happen at an elementary school while she and Taylor are attending high school, with no intention to join the fight herself. This risks both Taylor getting reprimanded for missing school or losing reputation as Bumblebee for going after a school.
    • Taylor turns the tables on this, though, by bringing her larger bumblebees to recess and letting the kids ride them, with one bee stealing a flower while another group of them vandalizes the school buses by painting them to look like bumblebees, taking enough time to fulfill the contract while avoiding the police and the PRT.
• Me's a Crowd: Taylor can use her power to create copies of her body that are also her, because her secondary power allows her to be any and all of them at the same time. This, for example, allows her to train her Large Ham antics, establish alibis for herself, and train in hand-to-hand combat.
• The Minion Master: Taylor decides to hide the full extent of her powers and pretends she simply controls bumblebees and can merge them to form larger minions.
• Mood Whiplash: Bumblebee is managing to do some funny bantering with Armsmaster while she's pulling off a bank robbery when the Endbringer sirens start to wail and they get alerts that Behemoth is attacking Denver.
• Moral Event Horizon: In-universe, events that undo a humor villain’s unofficial protected status are called, “killing jokes”- usually someone getting seriously hurt or even killed during one of their pranks. From that point on, they’re just villains, and thus free game; Emma’s current plan to beat Taylor is to try and force her into one of these moments.
• Morton's Fork:
  • Taylor initially believes that whether she takes Cauldron's offer or not, Emma will win. If she accepts and becomes a villain, she will likely have a much weaker power and will be crushed by Emma. If she refuses and stays unpowered, her life seems to be a dead end due to Emma. Fortunately, the Cauldron doctor convinces her to Take a Third Option.
  • Taylor becoming a Humor villain allows her to push Emma into this: if Emma wins a fight, the public hates her because she's beating up a funny Harmless Villain, but if she loses, then she becomes the object of ridicule for losing to a Harmless Villain. Emma could find a way to win without harming Taylor, but her state of mind is such that she is unable to accept anything other than destroying Taylor as an acceptable outcome.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Taylor uses her ability to duplicate herself to train in hand-to-hand fighting - after all, this way she can train attack and defense at the same time.
  • She also forks multiple clones to speed up transcription work when she's spying on the PRT for Tattletale.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Sophia feels guilty because she believes Emma triggered after the fight they had over triggers. When she realizes this, Emma lets her continue believing it.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Emma intended to use the Nemesis program as another way to crush Taylor. Instead, Taylor gets out of her deep funk and becomes motivated into finding a summer job, making new friends - and training so she can ruin Emma's superhero career and turn her into a laughingstock.
• Not So Above It All: Armsmaster, of all people, is able and willing to play off of Bumblebee’s antics by playing the Straight Man to her Cloudcuckoolander.
• Not the Intended Use: Doctor Mother explicitly states that what Emma is doing to Taylor is not the way the Nemesis program is designed to work, and that Emma is forfeiting many of the advantages she would usually have. Cauldron cannot implant Taylor with the usual post-hypnotic triggers (which is presumably why they're using a contract and payments in the first place) or select a Nemesis whose powers Emma is especially suited to defeating, all they can do is give Taylor a vial that is likely to produce weak powers and get her to agree to throw a handful of fights by contract.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Taylor acts like a scatterbrained, naïve girl while playing Bumblebee, when she's actually a very smart girl with good tactical/strategic planning ability, a well-developed control over her powers, and what might possibly be the most efficient parallel processor ever in her brain.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Few people know how it happened exactly, but the Undersiders managed to get rid of Coil and took over his criminal empire.
• Oh, Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us!: There are boatloads of In-Universe fanfics of the Wards. The Wards are not shy about writing - Kid Win writes one where he suggests that Crystalia's obsession for Bumblebee is because she's secretly in love with her. Crystalia goes volcanic when she finds out - which is when Clockblocker begins to read it out loud to her.
• Omake: Despite being only a dozen chapters long, the story has over two hundred omakes written for it. Most are lighthearted, much like the story; but some are either more action focused (such as Endbringer fights) or tragic (such as an omake where Taylor becomes a Case 53).
• Psycho Lesbian: Emma. She's a Sociopathic "Hero" With An F In Good who wants to crush Taylor as an extension of her previous bullying of her and has no trouble trapping Sophia into a toxic relationship by making her believe she caused Emma's trigger.
• Psycho Pink: Emma’s crystals and primary color scheme for her Ward costume are a dark pink color, and she is far and away the most mentally-unstable member of the cast.
• Punch-Clock Villain: For Taylor, being Bumblebee is pretty much a job - thanks to the Nemesis contract, she gets cash for carrying out acts that increase her notoriety.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: Taylor's determination test results are stated to be beyond index as she ran until she was physically incapable of moving.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Doctor Mother gives Emma a deceptively-mild version of this when she tries to complain about the “fairness” of the Nemesis program thus far, pointing out that it’s Emma who has created most of her own problems:
  Doctor Mother: With respect, Cleopatra, that is not our problem. […] We have been warning you about this Nemesis arrangement from the moment you proposed it, Cleopatra. We warned you that essentially none of the typical anti-upset safeguards would be in place. We warned you that Bumblebee tested above the IQ limit and had a determination score beyond index. We warned you that we could not predict what her power could be, and that it might be more than a match for your own. And we warned you that you would receive no refund in the case of an upset, or in case of many other unexpected events. You accepted all of those warnings, and proceeded anyway. We gave you those warnings for a reason, Cleopatra. This reason. You ignored the warnings and accepted the risks. Now, the consequences are yours. It is entirely possible that, under the contract terms you negotiated, you will not be able to successfully defeat Bumblebee, and there is nothing we can or will do about that fact.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: What settles Taylor's choice on her alter ego is how adorable and harmless an enlarged bumblebee looks. She does however make sure to edit out the stingers.
• Second Super-Identity: For the fight against Behemoth, Taylor crafts a second identity named Nirgali, which can do the same things as Bumblebee but with moths (to perform search and rescue), giant sized Mantises (to fight) and a host of other insects. Almost certainly a Paper-Thin Disguise.
• Sexier Alter Ego: Bumblebee serves as this for Taylor. Taylor wears concealing clothes compared to Bumblebee's mini-dress, lack of sleeves, and plunging neckline. She also cleans up her skin, gives it a tan, and has a padded brassiere so her cleavage looks more impressive.
• Shapeshifter Baggage: Taylor can change into insects of any type, number, and size, but she cannot increase the mass of insects beyond her actual weight. Fortunately, when she leaves Cauldron, she discovers she can control and absorb other insects around her, giving her an incredibly high limit of mass^note Arthropods, all of which she can control, make up half of the animal biomass in the world. Given enough time, Taylor's limit would be equal to roughly sixteen times the combined mass of every person on Earth.
• Ship Tease: There's definitely some teasing between Taylor and her friend Jess.
• Shout-Out: The term used for events that cause humor villains to lose said position is called "killing joke".
• Slave to PR: The PRT and Protectorate. They both give a lot of leeway to Joke/Humor villains and have special rules about how to handle them. If the Heroes beat them into the ground, they look like the "bad guys", and if they lose it's completely humiliating. If they push a villain who's been sandbagging too far, they can also effectively create a far worse problem.
  • Taylor and Emma to a lesser extent as well. Taylor is exploiting the PRT and Protectorates's above inclination, and Emma is trying to use Taylor's defeat as a PR boost of her own.
• Smug Super: Emma has an extremely high opinion of herself and has no problem letting others know, especially when it comes to how strong her powers are. When she sees Taylor studying a book on insects, she snorts and thinks that anyone who needs to study for their powers must have lame powers.
• Sociopathic Hero: For a value of "hero". When Emma's family died, one of her thoughts was that she would finally trigger and become a parahuman. She also shows a marked interest in having Taylor as her Arch-Enemy only so she can have another way to beat her down. If she's told she can't do something, whether because it's too dangerous, illegal, or simply bad for PR, her thoughts are that she can still do it so long as she isn't caught. One notable example is when the other Wards freak out that she tries to impale Aegis with hundreds of razor-sharp crystals and Emma promptly fantasizes about doing it to Taylor.
• Sore Loser: Emma can't stand losing against anyone for any reason. Besides being outright furious whenever Bumblebee defeats her directly or indirectly, she nearly Shatterbirds Aegis during a spar because she was pissed that she couldn't defeat him.
• Straight Man: Unlike Emma, Armsmaster is well prepared to deal with a humor villain and plays the straight man role with Adam West like aplomb.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: Emma is so sure about her future victory against Taylor that she doesn't follow Cauldron's suggestions to study her power, she hangs up on her Cauldron contact before she can tell her about Taylor's abilities, and constantly underestimates how powerful Taylor actually is.
• Superpower Lottery: Taylor's combination of her canon powers and insect shapeshifting are immensely powerful, make her near-unkillable and have massive non-combat utility.
• Sweet Tooth: Taylor's first villainous act is to go to an ice cream parlor and steal the money in the cash register, a lemon cookie ice cream cone and a half-full tub of orange ice cream for her bees - which are still technically her.
• Take a Third Option: Taylor's specialty. At the start, Taylor can either accept superpowers and become a villain to be crushed by Emma, or remain a powerless nobody who's bullied by Emma at school. She instead becomes a humor villain who constantly humiliates Emma while being more popular than many of the heroic capes in town.
• Teleportation: Taylor can move her consciousness to any mass of bugs of sufficient size within her range and use them to create a new body if she desires. Given just how many bugs live in a city, she can functionally teleport across the entire city in seconds.
• Underestimating Badassery: Emma is literally unable to conceive the possibility that Taylor is powerful and potentially dangerous. Taylor knows this and uses it against her.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Crystalia aka Emma ranks a Shaker 8 or 9, making her an incredibly powerful parahuman. But all she actually does with her crystals is launch them at her target or occasionally use them as a shield.
• Villains Out Shopping: Taylor's second outing as Bumblebee has her and her bumblebees play around with a Fris-Bee, along with those people who join in the fun - which includes Gallant.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Invoked and Inverted all as a part of Taylor's plan. She deliberately sets herself up as a beloved public figure... who happens to be beloved for being a villain. Joke/Humor villains are also treated with kid gloves by the PRT, who don't want bad PR or to make the villain escalate, and Taylor exploits this to the best of her ability.
• What Could Have Been: In-universe; Jess is incredulous that Crystalia got the power to make pretty pink crystals, and went with a “dark queen” aesthetic rather than something more fun and approachable, like a Magical Girl.
• World of Pun: If there's a "bee" pun to make, Bumblebee not only knows it - she is already planning on how and when to use it.
• What You Are in the Dark: When Crystalia gets injured during the fight with Behemoth, the only person that finds her is Taylor through her moths. Taylor could have easily left her to die and free herself of the contract that way, but she chooses to quickly send her transport moths to evacuate her.
• Xanatos Gambit: Taylor choosing to become a humor villain. If Emma uses violent tactics against her, she'll look like an incompetent bumbler if she loses and a psychotic buzzkill if she "wins" (and Taylor's particular powerset makes her very nearly unkillable without extreme measures). If Emma tries to use her previous social bullying against Taylor, she'll be caught on camera and look a complete jackass. And even if Emma controls herself enough to play along or refrain from engaging Taylor at all, then after seven fights or ten weeks the contract expires and Taylor is free and clear with a wildly popular public persona, a solid bank balance from all her notoriety bonuses, and powers strong and versatile enough to make her a major player on the parahuman scene.
• You Didn't Ask: Dropped by Doctor Mother when Emma demands to know why they didn't make Bumblebee steal something like a computer from the elementary school.

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Tropes in Omakes

• Apologetic Attacker: In the Butcher Bee omakes, Amy Dallon is very remorseful about attacking Bumblebee, but still uses her powers to painlessly kill her. Unlike most examples, she does so because the end result is Bumblebee taking her powers and giving Amy a new body.
• Bad "Bad Acting": In the "Phoning It In" omake, Taylor decides to "phone it in" by doing her villain act in a very cheap costume while openly reading all her dialogue from cue cards (including Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud) in a monotone while giving absurd praise to Crystalia.
• Bait-and-Switch: The casino heist omake series seemingly has Bumblebee run off with two of Bitch's dogs in the middle of the Undersiders robbing the same casino she was casing, leading to a very convoluted chase scene involving four different parties. In reality, Bumblebee was actually working with the Undersiders and the whole thing was filmed and uploaded to Youtube, which almost earned as much money as the actual heist.
• Batman Gambit: When faced with a Morton's Fork in "The Path They Rightfully Fear to Tread" over whether she should keep her cover as Bumblebee or help as the far more effective Insecticide against Leviathan, Taylor shows up as both and has Bumblebee be obviously terrified so she's sent away to a shelter.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • In one Taylor in Name Only omake, Taylor loses her memories which allows Emma to get the full nemesis package with her. Doing so causes Emma to undergo a Heel Realization and the only hypnotic command she uses is one that undoes all the other hypnotic triggers. Emma ends the omake comforting the amnesiac Taylor while admitting to herself that "she was the monster here".
  • In another, Taylor acts as the massive threat Emma wanted by pretending to be a fourth Endbringer, which looks like a colossal cicada which splits into more giant bugs when damaged, that becomes known as Swarmbeast.
  • In the "Nightmare Scenario" series, Taylor's Bumblebee is a far more serious villain who manages to completely break the Empire-88, including eating Victor and ripping apart Hookwolf, in only two weeks. Doctor Mother passes on an I Warned You to Emma regarding her desired nemesis.
• Boxed Crook: One omake sees Bumblebee forced to continue her career as a humor villain because it's excellent training for the Wards and does more for the city than having an additional Ward would. She's less than happy to learn she finally got out of her Nemesis contract, only to be functionally placed into an indefinite one.
• Brought Down to Normal: In the "Butcher Bee" omakes, Bumblebee accidentally kills the Butcher. Rather than become the new Butcher, she creates clone bodies for each previous Butcher sans any powers. She repeats this feat against the Teeth when they try to kill her then later against Panacea when Amy uses her to remove her own powers.
• Cardboard Prison: An invoked variation. An emergency room in Empire 88 territory has a room for villainous capes where the wall leading to the adjacent patient room is made of cinderblock, but the wall to the outside is mere plywood. It allows the villains to "escape" easily without risking harm to patients and is extremely cheap and easy for the hospital to repair afterwards.
• Christmas Episode: The Christmas omake features Bumblebee leading her bees in singing Christmas carols. Gallant and Kid Win join them and both parties pretend they were always planning on showing up rather than just stumbling across them.
• Don't Make Me Destroy You: Any omake where Bumblebee gets serious, besides Endbringer battles, has her give a hint of just how powerful she is while warning her opponent to back off.
  • In one extreme example, she sobbingly begged Emma not to make her fight... then surrounded all of the present capes and PRT members with a massive swarm of giant bugs^*Including dog-sized black widows and car-sized praying mantises and warned Armsmaster that not only can none of them kill the entire swarm before she kills them all, but that she can teleport several blocks away and have another swarm created before they reach her.
  • In a more comedic example, Taylor creates ten more joke villain identities, all bug themed, which the PRT takes as the warning it is. Bumblebee doesn't need to escalate to destroy them; Taylor can just make more villains to do so.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: If Bumblebee shows off even a fraction of what she can really do in an omake, expect either Piggot or Alexandria to explain to all capes that she is not to be messed with.
  • When Bumblebee not only solos Leviathan but does so with zero casualties, Alexandria tells everyone that "If she wants to be a joke villain, you bring your own joy buzzers and play along."
  • Similarly, when Aunt Arachne creates a swarm of spiders, some of whom are so big that their legs are mistaken for trees, Piggot flat out tells the Wards that if they spot Bumblebee robbing a bank, they politely ask her if she needs someone to carry her bags of loot.
  • In the omake "That Day" and the followup "On the Same Page", where Bumblebee engages and kills the entirety of the Slaughterhouse Nine by herself, the rules of engagement against her become "Be very polite and never use any force at all." Piggot outright states anyone who disobeys the new procedure to never use any force against Bumblebee has a backdated kill order waiting for them.
• The Dreaded:
  • In the "That Day" omake, Clockblocker admits to sleeping with the lights on and that he'll probably need to buy "a really cutesy nightlight that projects Disney characters on the ceiling" because he doesn't feel safe in the dark. It's specifically noted that not even Shadow Stalker or Crystalia mocked him for it.
  • In the "Nightmare Scenario" series, Taylor's reign as Bumblebee not only completely breaks the Empire 88 in only two weeks, but gets a kill order in that same time. Assault remarks that those two weeks felt more like two years due to the constant terror they were in. Due to the belief that Bumblebee can explode anyone within her range into bees and has an observed range of at least four blocks, Assault nearly wets himself upon realizing that she was last spotted only two blocks away from him.
• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • In one omake, Madison starts creating a video diary about how she believes Emma and Sophia are serial killers. Besides the things they did to Taylor, which even Madison admits were way over the line, Taylor suddenly disappeared one day and never returned. Not to mention that Emma's family allegedly died in a car accident, but a mere month later, Emma is happier than ever. Both girls also have friends who contact them at odd hours, resulting in them suddenly leaving without explanation. Finally, the pair are open about their relationship in a school filled with racists and homophobes. As such, Madison is convinced that they killed Taylor and Emma's family, and that they flaunt their relationship to find new victims or that Madison herself might be next given how they've drifted away from her. In reality, Taylor transferred to a different school, Emma gained powers, and she and Sophia are both Wards.
  • In an omake, Assault mentions to Bumblebee how Flechette keeps getting attacked by a cape that is seemingly obsessed with her, with the implication that he believes she and Crystalia are in a similar situation (with Crystalia being the one that is obsessed with Bumblebee).
• Everyone Has Standards: Sophia eventually realizes (particularly in the many omakes) just how Ax-Crazy Emma really is. In various omakes, she steps in to stop/undo Emma's more extreme actions, such as participating in the I Am Spartacus moment when Emma outs Bumblebee's civilian identity or calling an ambulance after Emma maims several gangsters who'd already been beaten.
• Everyone Hates Mathematics: An Omake has Bumblebee steal an elementary school's math homework, and when Crystalia returns the stolen homework, the students get mad at the PRT.
  Math homework was the one thing a supervillain could steal, in which the theft thereof would improve their relations with the general public.
• Exact Words: In the omakes, she took the order to rob a school and did things such as:
  • Steal a pen as part of an elaborate scheme where she pretends to be lured there under false pretenses to take part in a spelling bee.
  • Participate in a tee-ball game with the children and steal home during the game.
  • Steal a desk from an abandoned school building that's still legally considered part of the elementary school.
  • In her most elaborate version, she created a body and deliberately made it become severely dehydrated then had her bees bring it to the elementary school where her dehydration and seeming concussion along with inside information cause everyone to believe she's a former student who's delirious. She steals the school nurse's teddy bear by refusing to let go of it when she's taken to the hospital via ambulance^*This is unarguably the most effective method as the paramedics and doctors, along with Panacea who chooses to cover for her, conclude that Bumblebee suffered a concussion from her fight with Crystalia a week earlier and her bees tried to care for her until eventually bringing her somewhere her delirious mind believed would make her better: her elementary school nurse. The end result: Crystalia looks even worse for how badly she injured a Harmless Villain while Bumblebee receives large amounts of sympathy.
• Failed a Spot Check: One omake had Bumblebee robbing a Merchant front casino. While doing the pre-job reconnaissance, the Merchant staff are too stoned to notice that half their customers were giant bees in trenchcoats and fedoras. The Undersiders, who were independently casing the place for the same reason, did notice, and found it simultaneously hilarious and infuriating.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: Emma ends up in one during one omake, where she's looping for the entire contract period of ten weeks. While she fails countless loops due to trying to simply "crush" Taylor, eventually she starts playing along with her Humor Villain routine and enjoying herself. Sadly, while she undergoes a Heel–Face Turn, Taylor always refuses to keep their rivalry going and be "Crystalia and Bumblebee forever" once the contract runs out. Emma eventually ends the loop by waiting until Taylor takes her vial then choosing a vial she knows will give her a non-combat power and cancelling the contract since she "can't fight". It still takes over a year of both of them being Wards for them to actually reconcile.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: In the fourth Butcher-Bee omake, Bumblebee confronts Nilbog and states that either she kills him and brings his corpse in to the PRT or he kills her and she brings him in to the PRT. He decides to call her bluff by having his minions kill her, only to realize too late she wasn't bluffing. The end result is Nilbog is left a powerless old man and Bumblebee has control of all his minions.
• Hurricane of Puns:
  • In one omake, Taylor creates ten more cape identities which all have names based on insect puns such as Army Auntie or Dragonfly and Damselfly.
  • In another, Jess becomes the hero Caterwaul and she and Taylor trade bee and cat-based puns whenever they fight.
• I Am Spartacus: In the "We are Bumblebee" omake, Emma "accidentally" outs Bumblebee's identity at a PR event, only for every single person present to claim to be Bumblebee, including Clockblocker, Vista, and Sophia.
• I Warned You: The "Nightmare Scenario" series starts with Mother Doctor calling Emma to say that Taylor has officially established herself and that while it won't be what Emma wanted, she was warned against her plans.
• Implied Death Threat: Insecticide, later rebranded Stingerman, in the "The Path They Rightfully Fear to Tread" omake acts as one for Bumblebee. Even those who didn't string together that Stingerman is actually Bumblebee, the fact he's a swarm of giant wasps and previously had been a giant mantis with a swarm of other bugs around him, lets everyone understand the message of "Play nice or else".
• Intimidating Revenue Service: Played for Laughs. In an omake where Bumblebee's merchandise gets licensed, giving her legal income, she goes to the local tax office to file her taxes. As the agent's office has a large picture window, she plays up her worry to make it seem like he's almost bullying her on filing her taxes, which the local news runs with, saying that "Bumblebee has finally tasted defeat at the hands of the IRS." The agent in question is a perfect example of the Straight Man, not remotely reacting to her antics but perfectly setting them up, though even he laughs when he realizes she accurately puts down her appointment as performance art once she draws his attention to the news crews and Protectorate outside.
• Kayfabe: During a fight against Bumblebee and Wasp, Armsmaster is dropkicked by the former. Given he weighs twice what she does even before accounting for the several hundred pounds of Power Armor he wears, Armsmaster has to help sell the attack by leaping backwards at the moment of impact.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • An Omake has Emma force Taylor to steal drugs from the Merchants, fully expecting to be able to make her look like she takes or sells drugs and giving her the excuse to beat Taylor. Taylor brings a bee that has eaten heroin to the BBPD and then convinces them (and Armsmaster when he shows up) to help her stop the Merchants. The police, Protectorate, and PRT carry out a quick operation that ends with all Merchant capes arrested, along with many of their dealers... and Bumblebee openly "steals" a brick of drugs that she announces she will throw into the sea to destroy it, and asks Miss Militia for a ride so she can act as an unbiased witness.
  • In an omake on Sufficient Velocity, Taylor notes that the modified nemesis contract enforces all penalties on the sponsor regardless of who violates said contract. Though before she can exploit it, Doctor Mother lets Emma know about said loophole, causing Emma to exploit her own... by simply cancelling the contract. Emma loses her deposit but it's far less than what Taylor would have cost her.
  • During the "Phoning It In" omake, Taylor checks that while she can't state Crystalia is paying her to be her nemesis, she can imply it. So, she uses Bad "Bad Acting", including reading blatant cue cards, to make it obvious to everyone that she's not remotely invested in her crimes and causing them to conclude on their own that she must have been hired to do them.
• Mood Whiplash: In the Here the Sun Can Rise omake, Armsmaster gives an impassioned speech about how Bumblebee's presence has caused him to realize things aren't as dark and hopeless as he'd assumed for years and that hope itself is actually making him a better hero. Then Assault throws a containment foam grenade at him, assuming him to be mastered.
• More Expendable Than You: The "Don't Go" omake has the Wards, including Shadow Stalker, insist that Bumblebee is far more important than them and thus she can't join the Endbringer fights. They might be heroes, but she's the one who brings actual joy and laughter to the city and her death would hit far harder than that of just another hero.
• Morton's Fork: In the "Nightmare Scenario" series where Bumblebee is a more serious villain, Assault states that he very much hopes she was lying about not being able to turn people into bees because the alternative for how some of her more known victims disappeared and left behind only clothes is that her swarm ate them. As he put it, either they have an extremely dangerous villain who can turn people into bees at will, or they have an extremely dangerous unstable villain who's completely disassociated from the fact she's been eating people.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In the "Butcher Bee" omakes, the Butcher is killed by Bumblebee, only to learn that they can't take her over. Instead, Bumblebee creates new bodies for each Butcher which have no powers while she keeps their powers. The Teeth capes got offended by this and attack her, each one "killing" Bumblebee only to become a cloned body with no powers as Bumblebee takes their powers. In the end, the Teeth wipe themselves out.
• Not So Above It All: Some of the omakes feature the more serious heroes and villains willingly participating in Bumblebee's antics, such as Rune and Armsmaster participating in a Mario Kart-themed race against Bumblebee, Uber, and Leet. Or Lung acting as a wise but cryptic dragon to advise "Samurbee" on her quest.
• Odd Friendship: In the "Wasp with No Name" omake series, Shadow Stalker becomes good friends with one of Bumblebee's minions, Nightstinger. The projected wasp is so good for Sophia that she ends up getting two awards, one for Ward of the Month and another she shares with Nightstinger for managing at least 125 successful arrests in one month, and is told that if not for a few minor disqualifications she would be on track to become leader of the Wards.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Armsmaster deviates from his norm and is both cheerful and hopeful in the Here the Sun Can Rise omake, Assault throws a containment foam grenade at him, assuming him to be mastered.
• Plausible Deniability: In many omakes where Taylor creates a more serious Second Super-Identity, the PRT officially recognizes the "new" cape and Bumblebee as two different people, but unofficially they know that the serious cape is a Bumblebee who's not messing around.
  • In the "The Path They Rightfully Fear to Tread" omake, none of the PRT or Protectorate come out and say it, but everyone's aware that Insecticide is Bumblebee. They use Leviathan's attack on Brockton Bay as their cover story for why an incredibly powerful local cape that no one's ever heard of suddenly appeared, citing that Insecticide probably triggered upon hearing the Endbringer sirens.
• Pyrrhic Victory: An omake where Bumblebee actually shows just how dangerous she really is, to the point that every heroic cape in Brockton Bay surrendered without fighting, has her insist that Emma finally beat her. Now that everyone knows what she's capable of, Bumblebee can't be a joke cape anymore. She's proven right when heroes who previously enjoyed her antics flinch away from her touch.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: Bumblebee's attempts to disguise herself (as opposed to Taylor using her Changer powers to actually disguise herself) are so terrible that she's been issued a Stranger rating of negative two. In other words, she's actually more obvious when she tries to hide than when she doesn't.
• Second Super-Identity: Several omakes feature Taylor creating a more serious second persona in order to keep her reputation as Bumblebee but still helping with serious threats. In some omakes, the heroes genuinely don't know that the other persona (such as Aunt Arachne) is Bumblebee. Other times, they're fully aware but willing to pretend so Bumblebee continues to be a Harmless Villain while also helping against things like Endbringers.
• So What Do We Do Now?: One omake takes place shortly after Bumblebee kills Leviathan. As Crystalia died in the battle, she's free of her contract but has no idea what to do now, especially as she can hardly continue as a joke villain after showing off so much of her abilities.
• Straight Man: In a few omakes, Armsmaster is fully aware that his role with Bumblebee (and sometimes her spinoff identities) is to play the overly serious character who sets up punchlines for her. He actually refuses to engage Phobos because he knows he can't play that role against her due to her different modus operandi.
• Success as Revenge: Before their contract is finished in Definition of Victory, Crystalia ends up arrested, leaving Bumblebee to have a long successful career as a humor villain to the point that "That crystal girl" is barely a footnote that most don't even remember.
• Take a Third Option: In various omakes, Taylor is given the option to either maintain Bumblebee's reputation as a Harmless Villain or help people with the full weight of her powers, such as during Endbringer battles. More often than not, she creates a Second Super-Identity who pretends to have a variation of Bumblebee's powers more suited for serious battles.
• Unknown Rival: An unusual variation in one omake occurs when Emma takes so long to decide on her costume and cape persona that all Doctor Mother can tell Taylor about her nemesis is that they're "a redheaded Ward roughly her age". Taylor comes to the conclusion that Clockblocker is her nemesis and has no idea who Crystalia is.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The omake where Bumblebee robs the same ice cream shop every day at the same time sees the cashiers casually have the money ready when she walks in, even making small talk at times.
• Villains Out Shopping: One omake sees Bumblebee filing her taxes at the local tax office. Though the Protectorate and PRT show up to make sure she doesn't commit any crimes, Piggot point-blank refuses to let them arrest her, citing that Bumblebee is currently following the law and isn't endangering anyone.
• With Catlike Tread: The aptly named "With Bee-like Tread" omake sees Bumblebee and her minions very obviously "sneaking" into a bank by wearing fluffy socks, taking extremely exaggerated tip-toeing steps, and hiding behind objects less than half their size. Everyone plays along out of amusement.
• Worth It: In one omake, Crystalia is forbidden from going near the ice cream shop Bumblebee regularly robs. Clockblocker freezes her so he can take a photo of her face, and considers the reprimand he got to be completely worth it.

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