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Chapter 2 (Worm)
"I can't help but notice," Taylor said one day as she finished practicing her marksmanship skills. "That there are some very conspicuous changes to the decor of the place."
After her initial healing and recovery, I moved Taylor to a beautiful tropical island in my southern ocean and built a cottage for her. She took up residence there, rested for a few days, and then insisted on starting her training.
I obliged and got her started on basic physical training and marksmanship.
"Oh?" I asked, my avatar hovering a couple of feet from her. "What do you mean?"
"Look up!" Taylor waved at the sky. "See that! That thing? It wasn't here when I arrived!"
"How do you know?" I asked quite reasonably. "It might have been invisible."
"Hah! Right!" Taylor snorted. "So give. Why is there suddenly a moon in the sky? Well a part of a moon at least."
The sky now indeed had a moon.
Except that it wasn't a complete moon just yet. Instead, it looked more like the moon above Remnant, with huge chunks of earth trailing away from the partially formed sphere. Both the broken sphere and the chunks trailing away from it glowed with a soft blue light that indicated the presence of massive amounts of magical energy inside them. Just like my core.
"I decided that, since I was planning to go to a world that has creatures like your Endbringers, I need more defenses," I said eventually. "So I decided to make that."
"You're making a moon," Taylor said before shaking her head and sitting down on the sand. "You. Are. Making. A. Moon."
That was the difference between my moon and the moon of Remnant.
That one was once whole and was now broken. This one was being made whole. It was being constructed. The trail of asteroids that led from the moon were flowing into the moon rather than out from it.
"How are you making a moon?" Taylor demanded. "And what for?"
"As to the how, I'm cultivating special living crystals that can generate magic and survive in space. I'm doing this in my southern continent and launching them into orbit," I said. "Then they are fused together into a crystal matrix to make a moon. A moon made out of living crystal."
"Okay," Taylor said slowly.
"As to the why," I continued. "The crystals act as a generator and create the magic that I can then use. Much like the planet itself. Which can then be drawn upon by me at a later date to boost my power."
"A moon full of magic?" Taylor said, still sitting on the ground. "I think you could Death Star a planet with that much power. The Endbringers are dangerous, but I don't think you need this kind of power to deal with them."
"You never know," I said. "And who knows, I might have to fight off invading fleets of aliens one day. This will come in handy then."
"Alien fleets?" Taylor asked.
"Alien fleets," I confirmed. "This galaxy must be inhabited. It's a simple leap of logic. Anyway! Back to the moon! The energy is stored and transferred back from the moon by a method I developed by studying the way you arrived here. I created a permanent dimensional link between the crystal matrix of the moon and the planets core."
"Like a magic door?" Taylor asked. "Like in the fantasy novels?"
"Exactly," I said. "It's important because of two things. One, it gets me one step closer to opening a door to your world." Taylor's face lit up. "And two, I have finally developed a method to extend my abilities beyond the planets atmosphere."
"What? You couldn't do that before?" Taylor asked.
"No," I said. "And I still cant. But I have found a way around it now."
My Indoctrination ability let me control any living thing on my body, but that ability did not extend beyond my atmosphere. So I looked around for another means of extending my reach, and finally resorted to controlling the creatures I send beyond my range via telepathic pulse.
"You control the moon telepathically," Taylor said when I explained. "Why am I even surprised?"
"Yes," I said. "But do you know what this means?"
"What?" Taylor asked.
"I can send probes to the other planets in my system," I said. "Perhaps beyond. I can build and launch spaceships!"
"Oh," Taylor said. "That is amazing."
"Thank you," I said. "I know that one of the moons on this solar system has life, and I've wanted a closer look for a while now. And maybe some samples."
"Wait," Taylor said. "Wait, wait, wait. Are you talking about manned space flight? As in, can I go to space?"
"For now, unmanned space flight," I said. "Eventually we might make space ships that can carry people, but for now, I'd really rather not risk you in the void where I can't help you if things go wrong."
"Yes, I understand," Taylor said with a sigh.
"Good," I said.
"And while all this is happening," Taylor continued. "I'm here shooting arrows at target dummies."
Taylor's training regimen has included running, swimming, climbing, and archery. Over a couple of months the constant activity made her quite fit and more than capable of defending herself.
"They teach you valuable skills that might save your life one day," I said. "And those arrows are more dangerous than any bullet from your world."
Taylor kept looking woebegone.
"Look," I said eventually. "Now that you can defend yourself somewhat, how would you like to help me by testing out another project?"
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With a woosh of displaced air, Taylor teleported onto a forest clearing.
"A teleportation wristband," Taylor said. "An actual teleportation wristband that can send me across the world. The tinkers back home will die of envy."
"It wasn't that hard to make," I said telepathically, because for once, my avatar was nowhere near her. "I already had the ability to teleport. Making an interface for you to use it was harder."
The wristband looked metallic, and had two glowing crystals set into it. One green and the other red. When Taylor tapped the green crystal, it projected a holographic map of my surface and the cavern network underneath my surface.
It also showed the thousand teleport beacons I had seeded across my planetary body as tiny points of light. With some swiping and focusing, Taylor would be able to single out the one she wanted and tap it, which would cause her to teleport directly onto it.
If she hit the red crystal instead, she would be teleported directly home.
With another whoosh, she was gone again, this time reappearing on a mountainside near one of my many volcanoes.
"Wow," Taylor said as she stared at the sight before her. "That's……….incredible."
The volcano was spewing glowing blue vapor into the sky, and dozens of dragons were circling it, roaring at each other and breathing streams of fire into the air.
"They converge on places like this," I said. "They've learned to absorb the magic vented by the volcanoes and use it to fly. They learned it all on their own without any help from me."
"It's magnificent," Taylor repeated. "This world is beautiful. Hey," she pointed. "What is that?"
In the distance, a meteor shower was streaking across the sky. Dozens of little rocks, glowing red hot and trailing plumes of smoke behind them.
"Ah," I said. "Remember the moon? I needed to get raw material for that somehow. So I started strip mining the other planets in this system. Those are some of the leftovers of that."
"Huh?" Taylor asked.
"With a combination of telekinesis and teleportation, it's possible to rip parts off the nearby planets and transport them here. Same with any nearby asteroids and comets. Then it's a simple matter of feeding them to my…...processors and converting into raw material."
"Planets," Taylor said. "You can affect other planets with your power?"
"Only the nearby ones," I said. "And not in a massive scale."
"I don't think even Scion did something like that," Taylor said with a head sake. "He certainly didn't make a moon. Or use powers on Mars."
"We'll see soon, I hope," I said. "But for now, be aware that the number of dangers on the planet has increased."
"Right," Taylor said as she pulled out her bow and pulled an arrow from her quiver. "Dragons, magic storms, and now meteor showers."
"Why are you drawing that arrow?" I asked.
"Over there," Taylor said, indicating a dragon that had come into land on the mountainside nearby. The massive beast folded its wings and lay down, no doubt resting after circling the volcano for so long.
"He wont attack you," I said. "He's resting. Not hunting. Look," With a telepathic command, I sent the dragon flying away. "There. He's gone."
Taylor slid her arrow back into her quiver. "Well that was slightly frightening. I really don't want to be a dragon slayer. There will be a lot of fire involved in it. And I doubt even I can live through that."
"Dragons are the toughest creatures on this planet," I said. "But, on the bright side. You can probably deal with anything that is not a dragon quite easily now."
"Well I'd really rather not find out," Taylor said and activated her teleporter again.
Whoosh!
This time she appeared on top of a floating mountain. She gasped for breath as she landed and bent over, taking deep slow breaths.
"You are very high up," I said and formed an air bubble around her. "The air is a lot thinner up here."
"I'm on a flying mountain," Taylor said incredulously. "Seeing it and actually being here are two very different things."
"Don't fall off the edge," I said.
"Ha!" Taylor carefully made her way over to the edge of the plateau she was on and looked down at the landscape beneath her. "Even if I fall, you'll catch me. Look! We're above another continent."
"This is the north western continent," I said. "It's climate is a bit colder, and it snows in winter. And the dragons really don't seem to like it here."
"Are there any other strange animals other than the dragons around?" Taylor asked as she sat down on the edge of the plateau. "I didn't see any so far."
"Other than the dragons? Well, there are the sea dragons, and the animals that live in the caverns underground. But, most of the animals are similar to the ones from your homeworld that you described to me," I said. "The only difference being that they have evolved to deal with magic."
"Can you make any more?" Taylor asked. "You told me you could create new animals if you wanted."
"I could," I said. I still had my spawning pools in good working order. "But I don't quite see the point of it. Working on my other projects is far more important."
"Well," Taylor argued. "How about to fight off an invading army? An army of magical creatures would be quite a deterrent for them. Right?"
"Anyone who can come here will be capable of either, A.) FTL travel, which means they will have laser guns and space marines. And, B.) Teleporting across dimensions and light years, which means they might have reality warping powers," I explained. "So, I doubt a bunch of magical creatures will accomplish much against them."
"You're probably right," Taylor said. Then she perked up. "I could use a few of them for training? You know, fight against monsters and sharpen my skills."
"Actually," I said as something occurred to me. "I might have an even better idea. Yes, you can practice against animals. But those animals will take months to breed and raise. I might have a way to move things along much quicker."
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While Taylor was entertaining herself by exploring my continents, I was busy adding to my defenses and working on exploring my solar system.
I remembered that the cyoa had offered the living planets the option to have a number of celestial companions. From a ring, to multiple moons, to dozens of comets, to another sun.
So far, I had gotten myself several concentric rings that now orbited my planetary body. And I was working on a moon that should boost my powers by a ridiculous margin.
Now I started to work on the comets.
I had been telling Taylor the truth when I told her that I wanted to make space ships. I was extremely curious about the one moon in my solar system that had life, and I had long term plans to send probes to other stars.
The problem had been creating something That could survive in space.
It took a long time to create material that could deal with all the issues that a living organism has to deal with during deep space travel. But, I made a breakthrough when I discovered how to make the living crystals that made up my moon survive in space.
From there, I could figure out how to make everything else that I needed.
The living comets I created were spherical in shape, covered in a carapace that would shield the life inside from the void. Inside there was a life support system that would sustain the lifeforms inside for years, as well as sensors that could scan the planets it came near, and a central brain that controlled the entire comet that could be controlled via telepathic signals from me.
The only thing I had trouble with were the engines.
Without the massive amount of magical power generated by my core, I couldn't figure out a means by which a comet could be made to propel itself through space, not if I wanted the comet to traverse the solar system in a reasonable length of time. The power that could be generated onboard simply wasn't enough to reach FTL.
I managed to give them self propulsion through a combination of gravity manipulating and space warping powers. But the speed of the ships were still very low.
So, I resorted to teleporting them as close as possible to their destinations and letting them go the rest of the way under their own power.
In the case of the closest planets to me, the three rocky planets, I could teleport things directly onto their surface if I wanted. It was the gas giants that were further away that were problematic. But, I had the feeling that, once my new moon was fully operational, it wouldn't be a problem for much longer.
Until then though, I was left with really slow moving probes with which to explore the three gas giants that were my celestial neighbors.
I determined to improve my magic generating ability, because this wont do.
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I watched without giving away my presence as Taylor explored an underground cavern by the light of the living mushrooms.
Once I was sure that she was more or less safe, I had stopped babysitting her and left her to her own devices.
As it turned out, she was perfectly capable of looking after herself.
Even as I watched, she fired an arrow into a giant albino lizard that looked a bit like a crocodile that prowled the underground caverns, and the beast was electrocuted to death.
Well, at least she didn't use the explosive arrows.
There would've been chunks of while crocodile all over the place.
All in all though, I was happy with her progress.
Her physical training was coming just fine, and her combat skills were quite good as well.
And the best part? I barely had to do anything.
That girl was remarkably adaptable and quite smart.
Of course, I wasn't entirely truthful with her.
I didn't tell her that I knew about her and her world. I certainly didn't tell her that I was a living planet or of my origins. She believed me to be a Zion like entity inhabiting an Earth like world, and she believed that I had gotten the knowledge of her world from her.
I also may have influenced her by slightly by adding an extra component to her regeneration powers to keep her calm and stable.
Nothing too drastic, I just didn't want her having a psychotic break from the sheer shock of being transported to a new planet in another galaxy. Not to mention what would happen to her mind upon learning that the world she lived in was fictional to someone somewhere, and just what a crappy life she would have had in the canon timeline.
I didn't want to deceive her, but I wanted her ready to do her part to fight Zion, if it came down to it.
Right now, her training took priority over me being honest.
Though, as I watched Taylor skin the albino crocodile with a hunting knife and wrap it up to take home as a trophy. I wondered if I'd done too good of a job.
Still, the better she became here, the better she will be as my agent eventually.
Speaking of, I should start working on the training facilities she asked for.
It was true that I could make magical beasts she asked for.
A werewolf? That would teach her to fight against powerful brutes. Or a siren that hypnotizes it's victims before eating them? That would be good training against masters. Or a sprite that fired laser like energy blasts? That would train her to defend against blasters.
But there was another, better way.
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Weeks later, I used teleport to take Taylor into a massive cavern carved entirely out of stone.
It was rectangular in shape and large enough to hold several hundred people comfortably, and lit by crystals embedded in the roof. There was a single door at the far end of the hall led, the only way out of the room.
"Where are we?" Taylor asked.
"We are inside a mountain," I said. "The mountain is located in a small island in the northern sea. The northern ice cap is about two thousand of your kilometers away."
"I don't feel cold though," Taylor said.
"Heaters," I said. "There is also a kitchen that is fully stocked and a bathroom that is fully functional. There is also a teleport beacon built into this place you that you can enter and leave here at will."
"And does it have a bed as well?" Taylor asked with a grin. "In case I wanted to spend the night?"
"No," I said. "But I'll put a couch in. But, for now lets move onto the main attraction." I indicted the hall with a wave of my hand. "It responds to voice commands. Say, Activate level one."
"Activate level one," Taylor said, speaking clearly and slowly.
Blue light coalesced in the center of the hall, eventually taking the form of a humanoid body made out of glowing yellow light.
"Defend yourself!" I cried as the yellow figure spun and charged Taylor, fists raised.
Taylor yelled and rapidly drew an arrow from her quiver and fired right into the glowing yellow figure, which exploded into a thousand motes of light and faded away.
A disembodied voice called out, "Level one achieved."
"What was that?" Taylor demanded.
"Hard light hologram," I said. "To take one down, you must hit it with enough force to drop a human. There are one hundred levels. Each one increasing the danger level and numbers of the enemies. And the entire thing is activated by voice commands. There is just one rule. To reach a new level, you must have beaten the previous level. So, to use level two, you must have beaten level one."
"Okay," Taylor said. Then, "Activate level two!"
Yellow light coalesced again and this time formed an opponent wielding a club.
Taylor shot him before he even got going.
"This is easy," she said.
"Give it a few more levels," I said. "The first ten levels are easy."
"Okay," Taylor said. "Activate level three!"
An arrow stuck down an opponent wielding a knife.
"So this is where I practice? Activate level four!"
This time, a sword wielding enemy dissolved into little motes of light.
"Yes," I said as a bow wielding enemy was destroyed. "If one of their weapons hits you, the system will shut down for a full day. Your punishment for loosing is, loosing the ability to practice for a day."
"Hey! Activate level six!" Taylor rapidly drew and fired an arrow at a hard light enemy wielding a pistol. "That's not fair!"
"Life never is," I said as an enemy holding a hard light shotgun was destroyed. "Anyway, this is your training room. Feel free to use it to your hearts content. And remember that once every ten levels, the speed and tactics of your enemies increases. It's the same with their numbers, their numbers will increase every ten levels."
"I get it," Taylor yelled as she fired a pair of arrows into an enemy wielding an assault rifle. "Thanks! This is fun!"
"You're welcome," I said as a hard light wall materialized before Taylor, with her assault rifle wielding opponent crouching behind the wall.
A second later, an explosive arrow blew both wall and opponent to pieces.
"Just don't spend too much time here," I said. "Remember, this is just training. In fact, don't spend more than an hour a day in here."
"Fine," Taylor said as a robotic voice said, "Level ten achieved."
"Good."
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"I wonder," Taylor said as she lay on her back on a mountainside, watching the night sky. "When I will actually go home. And what will have happened there. My dad must be terrified."
You and me both. She has been here for more than six months now. That's well past the first arc of the story. She was supposed to have beaten Lung by now. She was supposed to have faced off against Leviathan by now.
And that's not considering what might have happened to the Undersiders, Coil, or her dad.
What will Brockton Bay be like without Skitter?
Hell, what will have happened to that world?
And if I don't get her back fast enough, is it my fault?
"He must be waiting for you," I said instead. "Parents are like that. They wait for their kids."
"I hope so," Taylor said. "I haven't been a good daughter to him."
"You are a child," I said. "You cannot be expected to be rational and collected when that happened to you." Over the last six months, she had told me about almost all of her life. "You were a victim here Taylor. Don't blame yourself."
"Hmmm," Taylor said and pointed a finger at the night sky. "The moon is coming along nicely."
Indeed, the moon was actually looking like a moon now, the sphere was almost complete. The trail of asteroids flowing into the moon was much smaller now. I estimated another ten days before it was complete.
"Making a moon," Taylor said. "I still can't believe it. In my world, the heroes talked about building cities in the moon. They even had a prototype up at one point. But that was before the Endbringers came."
"It sounded like they're destroying your civilization," I said. "One city at a time."
"Yes," Taylor said sadly. "Despite the best efforts of the heroes."
"These heroes from your world," I said, changing the subject. "You really admire them don't you?"
"You know. I always wanted to be a hero," Taylor said with a sigh. "That had been my dream since, forever."
"You told me," I said. "Many, many, times."
Taylor giggled. "I can do that now. With my regeneration and my magic arrows and my teleportation."
"Especially once I figure out how to give you line of sight teleportation," I said.
"But, I don't know if I want that now. I mean, being a hero is cool. But being here is so…….nice. I just want to stay here sometimes."
Oh dear.
It's good that she's becoming loyal to me. But this can't be a good sign. Can it?
It was so difficult to remember how humans worked now. After all, it's almost been a hundred years.
"You are always welcome here," I said carefully as a meteor shower streaked across the sky. "I'll also extend it to your father. But let me ask you something. Why did you want to be a hero?"
"I," Taylor stopped and paused. "I always loved the heroes. I had an Alexandria lunch box when I was a kid. I wanted to be one. Save people, help people."
"I see," I said. Escapism? Was that it. She wanted to be a hero to escape her hated school life?
Well, it was better than contemplating suicide, at least.
"I think I need to have a talk with you," I said. I can't have her resolve so weak if shes to work for me. Especially since she switched loyalty a few times during the canon story. Plus, this might not be good for her mental health. "About your life in your old world."
"Okay?" Taylor said.
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Hours later, I left Taylor sleeping in her cabin and cursed myself.
Taylor's little therapy session didn't go well.
When I brought out the issue of escapism, she panicked, and I had to swear that I would never ever send her away, and that I'd let her move in here if she wished.
Eventually though, she admitted that she was looking for an escape from her bullied life and wanted to change identities by becoming a hero. She even admitted that she should have talked to her father and removed herself from the toxic environment that was her school.
But, such an admission had been emotionally draining, and she had soon had enough and had gone to sleep at my suggestion.
I moved my viewpoint into low orbit and looked down at my surface from high above.
What should I do now?
I really didn't want Taylor hurt.
She had grown on me, and I felt like I had to care for her.
I cannot send her into a fight with her mental health so damaged. But, she would no doubt notice any attempt I make to keep her shielded and safe.
What a mess.
Now I had to play therapist for her as best as I was able.
How was I to do that? I didn't even identify with humans anymore!
To top it all, I was actually making progress in recreating the gateway that brought her to me.
It was the hardest analysis I had done yet, because it was very different from any of the other teleportation techniques I knew of.
It quite literally opened a door that went through multiple layers of time and space, only for an instant, and allowed something to safely pass through. Other than that, it also required a tremendous amount of power to activate.
I had analyzed the magical residue I found at the original site, and going back from there, was getting closer and closer to recreating it artificially.
And then, when I finally succeeded, I had to send an emotionally damaged teenager through it.
I had promised Taylor that I would send her home.
But was I doing her any favors by sending her into that situation?
And was I doing the right thing by keeping her here?
Not an easy choice. And not a choice I wanted to make.
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The day I had to make that choice came a lot sooner than I'd have liked.
"So this is it?" Taylor asked when she entered the massive underground cavern. "It doesn't look like much. Just a stone cavern. I've seen you raise mountains."
"It looks like a normal stone cavern," I said. "But it's anything but. A lot of work went into this."
"Oh?" Taylor asked.
"The entire cavern is sheathed in three feet of steel," I said. "There is a teleportation block on the cavern, to prevent any inference. That's why I didn't just teleport you here. Also, are you feeling strange standing there perhaps?"
Taylor frowned. "I feel a bit dizzy? There are spots in front of my eyes."
"I created a magic free zone in this cavern," I said. "The magic level here is negligible. That's what you're feeling. The lack of magic."
"Oh," Taylor said. "So, this is so that anyone stepping through the gate is not overwhelmed like me?"
"Yes," I said. "It might be a good idea."
"But what about that?" Taylor asked, pointing at the massive arch in the center of the cavern. "How will that work without magic?"
"Magic is channeled into it through the ground," I explained. "It's only the cavern that's magic free. Well, technically magic free. There is still magic in the air, but its a negligible amount."
"So that is my ticket home," Taylor said.
"Yes," I said. "Still want to go home?"
"I don't know," Taylor said.
"Well, at least you're honest," I said. "Come on. Lave the cavern and teleport out. Then we'll run the first test for out dimensional gate."
Taylor obediently turned and walked out of the cavern before activating her teleport wristband and going to her cabin.
I prayed to ROB, gathered my courage, and channeled magic into the gateway.
The gateway energized and shimmering blue light began to coalesce in the arch as I poured more and more magic into it.
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