Good for them. Ellie is not pulling an all-nighter, and is in fact hurrying home so that she does not have to.

She dodges across the verge and through the lot.

That may not have been the smartest decision she's made today. 

She's about halfway across the lot when the building explodes with a BOOM that makes her ears ring. She's out of range of the fireball, but the heat from it hits her in the side. Glass shatters; steel warps. Alarms blare. 

She's knocked back, stumbles, falls to the ground.

What in the fuck.

Good question! The universe does not seem inclined to provide any answers.

Instead, it continues to provide mysterious unexpected happenings. For example, the roughly hand-sized object flying out of that window.

The whatever-it-is skids across the asphalt and comes to a halt a couple of yards away from her.

She starts back, then peers at the thing.

It looks like one of those Egyptian scarab amulets, only made out of more modern materials. The side she can see is formed from two smooth blue curves of something that might be metal or plastic. There aren't any attachment points that would suggest how it's supposed to be worn, if it's a piece of jewelry. 

It's smoking slightly, but seems to be undamaged. 

Okay. Probably not going to explode. But something that came out of an explosion is not a thing she wants to mess with. So she's just going to get back up and keep walking. Before anyone gets here. Right? Right.

Well, she might be able to manage the 'before anyone gets here' part. Eventually. 

The scarab abruptly pushes itself up onto its legs and launches into motion, skittering straight towards Ellie with surprisingly realistic beetle-like movements. Apart from its size, someone who wasn't looking too closely might mistake it for a real, living insect.  

It's fast. Faster than she is. Fast enough that it can reach her foot and start climbing up her leg before she has time to get far enough away. 

No no nonononogetoff-

In a word, no. The scarab easily evades her attempts to brush it off, and continues climbing. 

At least it's off her leg now? But now it's on her back, which was presumably not her intention, and burrowing its way under her clothes. The artificial joints make strange clicking noises as it moves.

Nope no not good. It needs to get off her back now.

It does not do that. It does the opposite of that. 

She may feel a slight pinching sensation as it settles down between her shoulder blades and attaches itself to her spine. (This won't hurt a bit...) 

No, actually, that's a lie. It hurts a lot. 

She scrabbles at her back, trying to pull it off-

It's in exactly the wrong part of her back; her fingertips scrape across the carapace but don't have the leverage to pull very hard. Even if she could, it's now firmly attached. 

...the scarab's legs start growing, until they're long enough to curl over her shoulders and around her sides.

It's almost like wearing a backpack, except for how it's really not like that at all.

She throws her back against the ground, hard.

The impact hurts less than she was expecting. This is probably because of the layer of—armor? Which is spreading out from the scarab, and now covers her entire back. It spreads out and round, creeping over her chest, her legs, her arms.

It's quite comfortable, or would be if she was putting it on willingly rather than it being forced on her. Somehow ridiculously lightweight and flexible despite its apparent sturdiness, the armor feels like it would barely hinder her movement at all. 

And then it starts spreading up her neck. 

She scratches, trying to peel the armor off.

No luck. It doesn't really seem like the sort of material that peels off; it's a little too solid for that. 

The armor continues to encase her, scooping up her hair and pinning it out of the way before moving over her face. As a final step, amber-tinted lenses slide in front of her eyes. Just ten seconds from when the scarab first attached itself to her back, the transformation is complete. 

no no she doesn't want this fucking Kord Industries get it off

To be fair, Kord Industries has problems of its own right now, what with the whole 'exploded building' situation.

«Initializing,» says a voice that would probably be ominous even if it wasn't sounding directly inside her head. It has a slightly robotic tone, but otherwise sounds vaguely reminiscent of her own voice. 

«The Blue Beetle is activated.»

What the fuck.

"What the fuck."

«You are not the Daniel Garrett,» the scarab informs her, sounding vaguely annoyed. 

«Identification is requested.» 

"What the fuck are you? Get the fuck off of me!"

«Profanity is unnecessary.» Now it sounds disapproving. Really, it's demonstrating quite a remarkable range of emotion given the circumstances. 

«I am Khaji Da, an artificial intelligence created to control the Blue Beetle» it introduces itself. «The Blue Beetle cannot operate without a host. You are needed for optimal functioning.»

"I don't give a shit about your optimal functioning. Get off." She resumes trying to reach around and pry the thing off her back.

«That is not an available course of action.»

"Is smashing you to pieces an available course of action?" she snarls.

«No.» It doesn't appear to have heard of rhetorical questions. 

«My programming does not permit me to release a host once acquired, nor does it permit me to allow my own destruction.»

"You're not getting a choice in the matter, asshole."

«The scarab unit has bonded to your spine and cannot be removed without causing your death,» it clarifies. 

«If you attempt to destroy it, I must take direct control.»

"What idiot came up with that plan," she snarls. "What the hell even are you?"

«I am the control unit for the Blue Beetle armour.» It ignores her other question. «Your distress is illogical. The armour can be retracted when it is not in use, and should have no impact on your ability to live your life as before.»

"Oh yeah, just some weird-ass techbug irrevocably bonded to my spine. No cause for distress at all."

«Precisely.» The weird-ass alien techbug might possibly be incapable of detecting sarcasm.

«We should perform a test flight to assess function and mobility,» it announces. 

"Or you could give me some fucking details first."

«What information do you wish to know?»

"What's the Blue Beetle. Who created you. Why do you need to be on my spine. How are you talking to me."

«I—do not know,» it admits.

«There are gaps...my data banks have become corrupted. I was due for maintenance three thousand seven hundred of your years ago.»

"So not only are you invasive and disrespectful of personal autonomy, you're a useless dipshit."

«The Blue Beetle can perform a wide variety of functions!» it protests. «It can adapt its shape to suit any purpose.»

The armour around her right hand and forearm starts...growing? Expanding into a new shape, which looks like—is that a cannon? That looks suspiciously like a miniature cannon attached to her arm. 

«A demonstration.»

"Now what are you doing?"

«A demonstration of this unit's capabilities,» it repeats.

«You will choose a target.» 

"First tell me what the fuck will happen to the target."

«It will be destroyed.»

There's almost a hint of emotion in the words—satisfaction, maybe? Pride? It doesn't feel like a boast, though, simply a statement of fact. 

Oh whatever. She picks a random chunk of debris and points her arm at it.

The end of the arm-cannon starts to rotate, picking up speed before it emits a beam of crackling blue-tinged energy.

Energy beam, meet this innocent hunk of exploded building. 

BOOM.

The bit of building is now a small cloud of dust, which settles into a tiny dust heap. 

Well. That just happened.

"...What else can you do?"

The scarab is so glad she asked! 

It can fly, but she knew that already. It can make plasma cannons and sonic cannons. Bigger cannons than that one, for bigger booms, are possible but take more energy and therefore can't be used as often. Also, the same nanotechnology that makes the suit and the cannons can also make other things, including detachable objects. These can be shot as projectiles if the situation calls for it. This, again, isn't an unlimited ability, so if she wants to build a pyramid out of suit material it might take a few decades. 

It can also create holograms and perform a variety of scans including the standard infrared, ultraviolet, electrical and radio waves. It can scan the life-signs of living creatures and analyse people's voice patterns to detect lies with 82.6% accuracy. Oh, and it can translate languages, including ones not spoken by anyone on Earth. 

"Where does the material come from? Why do you know alien languages?"

The suit and its weapons are nanotech. It can duplicate itself to make more material—such as bigger guns—and destroy itself just as easily as it destroys anything else.

«I am not of this planet. I speak the languages programmed into my databanks.» 

"Rrright. Can you make yourself not cover my entire body?"

«Such a course of action would reduce the protective function of the Blue Beetle armour,» the scarab protests. 

"Unless you're going to explode another lab, I don't need your 'protective function' right now."

This seems to do the trick.

«When not in a combat scenario, the Blue Beetle armour can be fully retracted.» It demonstrates. The exoskeleton retreats whence it came until the only visible portion is the scarab on her back. That part apparently doesn't 'retract'. 

"Great." Now to get out of here, inconspicuously, before emergency services show up.

Emergency services are only just beginning to appear. Some neighbor or passer-by must have finally realized that no-one else had called 911 yet. They'll be sufficiently distracted putting out fires and searching for survivors that Ellie can slip away unnoticed. 

...She might have to start wearing a jacket. For now, she's going home, where she can think about what the hell she's actually going to do about this in relative peace.

The scarab is quiet. If it wasn't for the palm-sized lump over her spine, she could almost forget it was there. It's relatively easily hidden by regular clothes, although anyone who touches her back will notice unless there's a lot of fabric in the way. 

That'll make school easier. Classes are, as usually, incredibly boring. The topic of the day is last night's explosion and it seems like everyone has their own stupid theory on what experiment went wrong. She participates as much as she usually in these sorts of gossip sessions, which is to say she doesn't. Though she does listen more carefully than usual.

After school she needs to swing by the mall to pick up some supplies for a group project. Her plan is to get that over and done with before dinner. The mall is far from her favorite place to be.

She's only part of the way through her list of supplies when the explosions start.

A thuggish guy in a hockey mask strides through the mall, carrying a tennis ball in one hand and a racket in the other. Seemingly at random, he stops and takes aim at a potted plant. He hits the ball in its direction...it bounces once...and explodes on impact with the plant pot.

Shoppers scream and run. 

He pulls another ball out of his pocket and weighs it thoughtfully in his hand as he looks around for another target. 

«The human is weak,» the scarab scoffs in Ellie's head. «His weapons are toys. We are far more powerful.» 

It begins listing off ways they could kill hockey mask dude.

"Considering that Superman exists, let's maybe not jump straight to disintegration," mutters Ellie as she ducks for cover like everyone else. "I'd prefer to not be hunted down by the Justice League at this point in my life. Can we just knock him out or something so I can finish buying my damn posterboard?"

«Non-lethal administration of sedatives requires precise knowledge of the target's body mass,» the scarab hisses back. 

...it supposes they could restrain him with extruded nanotech. That would be boring, though. 

"A thousand ways to kill someone and you don't have any sort of bullshit scanning that can read mass remotely. Wonderful." She needs to get somewhere out of sight before the scarab extends its suit again.

There's a counter she could duck behind? Or she could slip into that disabled bathroom just there if she wants more guaranteed privacy at the cost of a small delay. 

The man in the hockey mask continues to terrorise shoppers, and the mall is rapidly emptying around him. It doesn't look like anyone's been seriously injured yet, but some people have been hit with broken glass and the like. 

Bathroom it is.

"How does this extruded nanotech work?"