Fate/In Glory Of (Worm)

[X] Power experimentation – Taylor is going to mess around with her power/prep for exciting part of cape life



It wasn't quite as bitterly cold as the last time Taylor had come out here.

Admittedly, that may have been because she was here in the middle of the day and not late afternoon.

Possibly.

She stared at the giant's hand.

Or lack therefore of.

During the brief engagement with Kage, he seemed to have lost a hand at the wrist.

Normally, this would be a career ending injury for just about anyone. In this instance, it had regrown almost to the knuckles over the past three days.

That was good.

She started to jot down some notes as she watched it regenerate with a morbid fascination. The same motes that signified when he materialized or de-materialized blipped in and out of existence at the hand. If Taylor was a betting girl, she would place money on each point they materialized at being healed or made further whole.

This did raise several questions; what would happen if the giant was functionally killed? Would he just start to regenerate? Was there a way to heal faster? Did multiple wounds slow down the healing? How tough was he?

For the most part, Taylor didn't have any answers for those questions or ways to test them; she (wouldn't)couldn't wound the giant. It felt… wrong. She also was not keen on testing if it was possible for him to regenerate from having a destroyed body. She had seen his lifeblood leak out, multicolour and blinding in its reflections in the white snow. He clearly bled. It was very possible that he wouldn't come back from being turned into nothing. Heck, it was possible he wouldn't be able to heal a lethal wound. Or if he could, at the current rate, it would take weeks for him to be operational again.

Not something that Taylor exactly wanted to test.

What she did want to test was if he could heal faster.

The problem was, she had no idea how to attempt it; she had ideas, sure, probably a way to bend or articulate that trigger within her, but without having done it once, she had no idea how to do it.

At the very least, his hand was coming back at a good pace.

Thankfully, what she actually wanted to test only required one hand.

Opening up her backpack she pulled out two bags.

Marshmallows and bearing balls.

The plan was quite simple.

Taylor had no idea what the giant would equate different directives to; did he differentiate between holding something 'gently' or 'loosely'?

---

About thirty minutes later, Taylor had a mostly empty bag of marshmallows and half a bag of ball bearings… and half a dozen pages of notes.

She had tried every descriptor she could think of, some of them multiple times; firm, gently, tight, loose, hard, soft, quietly, loudly, destroy, break, cradle… The list went on and on.

Mostly what she had found was that to the giant, anything past a certain sophistry was just meaningless. There was no difference between holding a marshmallow softly or gently. There was one for loosely, but that made sense. Conversely after saying holding a ball bearing with anything more than a 'firm' grip made it so there was no more ball bearing. She would have to avoid using those terms if she wanted whatever it was to survive. Or if it was super durable.

It had been rather boring to go down a list but it had been informative. Bonus, there were some marshmallows left over at the end.

Taylor sat on a stump, watching the giant's hand slowly regenerate, eating marshmallows, idly glancing at her notes every so often.

Not a bad day at all.

---

What does Taylor do socially/academically for the rest of the week at school outside of the norm?

[] Get off-campus lunch with Nikki. She has a car. They can go places.
[] Actually try to talk with wheelchair girl. It can't be more of a disaster, right?
[] Vent to her power. Being a teenager sucks.
[] Try to meet actual new people? The horror!
[] Try and get ahead of studying.
[] Finally get around to new reading material.

---

Author's Note: Have another chapter! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

A Giant Friend

[X] Bring Nikki to the wheelchair girl. What could go wrong?



"Would you like to see if that girl in the wheelchair wants to hang out, too?"

Taylor's eyes widened in surprise at the question, as she coughed, water going down the wrong way. Thankfully none of it came out.

She looked at Nikki who was staring back as guileless as ever.

"Why do you ask?"

Nikki shrugged. "She is still alone. Both of us were alone before we decided to hang out. Perhaps we could make another friend?" Nikki offered as an explanation, turning her art pad around to show the girl in a tricked out wheelchair with Nikki and Taylor pushing her along.

"I tried to sit with her. Before." A sour expression tinged Taylor, while a non-mild amount of guilt built up. "It didn't end well."

"You made up did you not?" Nikki asked. "Besides, many suffering from depression tend to try and push others away, and her affliction is relatively recent."

"Recent?" That was the word that stood out.

"Well. Considering the human lifespan, a month or two is rather recent. Especially when it includes life changing injuries." Nikki replied. "From what I know, Joanna Meadows Anders was a very active girl, she loved to play sports. Must be a unique form of torture to have lost function of her legs."

Weird that she knew the girl's middle name, then again, it was Nikki. She didn't exactly operate on a standard metric.

"Yeah. But I made her cry." Shame bubbled up.

"Yes, and you made her laugh when you met her a second time, yes?" Nikki shrugged. "There are no certainties in life, perhaps you will make another friend?"

"Pretty sure the bird made her laugh," Taylor sighed, "I don't think it's that easy to make a friend." She blinked. "There are exceptions..."

"And why would she not be one?" Nikki stopped drawing, reached up and poked Taylor in the side without any form of mercy. "You are making excuses. Go say hello. If she rejects you, then you will have no further issues."

Taylor squirmed from the poking as she said nothing. It wasn't like Nikki was wrong.

"Aren't you the one that wants her to hang out with us?"

"I wanted you to try." Nikki stated, poking Taylor again. "You are a good friend, and you deserve more friends." She nodded. "Let's go say hi."

Guilt from a different source welled up. "Fine." She twisted away, failing to dodge away. "Stop poking me!"

Nikki lowered her finger. "Do you promise?"

Taylor eyed the finger. "Only if you come with."

"I planned as such." Nikki replied, her finger holstered.

"So, what, just walk up and say hi?"

Nikki nodded. "We became friends with you doing that, yes?"

Taylor couldn't help but sigh again. She didn't think it would work out how Nikki did.

The girl in question was currently eating outside. In early February. In the snow.

Well, that wasn't completely accurate.

Her wheelchair was pulled up to the closest outdoor table; someone had brushed off the snow so it was cleared. It was still below freezing outside. Taylor looked back at Nikki.

"I'm pretty sure sitting out there means she doesn't want to talk to anyone."

"Or she likes the snow. Or cold." Nikki shrugged. "The snow is very nice here. Clean and white. Fluffy."

"When isn't it?"

"My homeland. It is dirty, and if you get too close to where he showed up it becomes radioactive." Nikki pointed to the snow. "It is not slush. That is nice as well."

Taylor made a non-committal noise. Still not moving.

Nikki stood up, still surprisingly tall, and that only showed as she went behind Taylor. Arms wrapped around Taylor with an iron grip and she was lifted off her feet. "Come on, time to say hello." Nikki said as she started carrying Taylor towards the door.

"Nikki! Put me down!" Taylor was struggling and her friend had no give. "Nikki!"

"Enjoy the mobile hug." Nikki replied as she tilted back, nudging the school door open with her foot, allowing the cold air to wash over the two.

"I don't even have a jacket on!" Taylor protested, as it seemingly fell on deaf ears. This was not copacetic. "Nikki! Stop!"

The giant dutifully followed the two, invisible to all but one.

Eventually the pair came to a stop in front of the wheelchair girl, Joanna. Taylor said the first thing that came to mind.

"Hello."

The girl smashed the miniature snowman she had been making and sent a very acidic glare at Taylor, before melted into a questioning look at Nikki carrying her. "Hi. Why...?"

Nikki set Taylor down before unzipping her jacket and slinging it around Taylor.

...which Taylor dumped back at Nikki.

"Nikki decided that we should be friends." A pause as the girl gaped at her. "The weather is nice today." She sounded stupid.

Joanna slowly scooped her hand across the table before packing the snow together and beaming the two of them with snowballs.

"Your mov-" Joanna flinched back as a snowball hit her with an explosion of slush thanks to Nikki. Then a second one.

Revenge done, Taylor bent down grabbed a handful of snow stuffed it down the back of Nikki's shirt.

Joanna wiped her face off as Nikki jerked away from the snow, turning to Taylor with a raised brow. Taylor stared back. "Should have put me down."

Nikki slowly cocked her head to the side. Then she lurched forwards like something out of a horror film and picked Taylor up – complete with the stupid bit of being unable to escape - tucking her under her arm like luggage.

It was a short walk to the nearest pile of snow before Taylor was dropped into it.

"Alright, you seem cool." Joanna told Taylor as she was trying to get the snow out of her hair. The pun made her eye twitch, though the girl didn't notice it. "Any reason you're out here though? The actual reason?"

Taylor shot a half-hearted glare at Nikki. There wasn't much heat to it. "I wasn't lying. I guess, I can't mess up more, so, why not?"

Joanna nodded. Slowly looking over the two of them. She sighed. "What I'm reduced to." She uttered under her breath. She wasn't even looking at Taylor or Nikki, rather staring at her wheelchair.

"Alright, I suppose I can hang out with you once or twice. Don't treat me like glass though." She told the two.

Nikki straightened Taylor's jacket up, and knocked some snow out of her hair whispering softly "Success."

---

Taylor was in a bit of a bind.

She had a test the next day; that was fine. She was in high-school. Tests were a thing.

The part that was the issue was that she could not find where her notebook had gone. Her notebook that covered the material for the test.

The last time she remembered seeing it was on the bus… so it was possible that it had gotten left there and she would have to try and brave the bus system to find it. It was a daunting task given that it had been half an hour and she didn't even know which bus she had been on.

Another option was to go back to school and grab the textbook from her locker. It would be annoying to try and have to review without lecture notes, but she could do it.

Alternatively, she could reach out to Nikki and see if she had any notes; they didn't share the class, but she might? The problem with that was Nikki had specifically said she was busy tonight. Which didn't happen often. It would be rather rude to interrupt whatever she was doing shy of an actual emergency…

...or she could just go without and hope for the best tomorrow and try to cram in studying at school.

[] Bus hunt
[] After hours school
[] Interrupt Nikki
[] Go to bed early

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Author's Note: I'm sorry for the delay, have a chapter and look at that art. Is very nice!

Also, hehehehehe.