5.2
Cauldron keeps fucking ignoring me. Dragon hasn't beamed an Abaddon Code into my brain so we can link up and engage in a sinister alien plot of humanitarian aid. The Simurgh dust continues to not let me do exotic shit to it, aside the occasional false hope. Whoopee, I can turn her blue now if I want. Why the hell would I want to do that, and why did it happen in response to a bomb that makes everything in its radius temporarily act like a magnet? Is the Simurgh deliberately fucking with me? Is that it?
Ugh, fine.
Day twenty-two of my goddamn hunt for Taylor to try to... secure her because she's apparently important in most every timeline or something stupid like that. Seriously, why
is that? If fanfics are just less-probable precog scenarios, it's not about getting Queen Administrator! It's actually something about
Taylor!
Christ, it's like I'm in one of those stories where destiny gets invoked so the writer doesn't have to come up with a real explanation for anything.
…. okay, not
really. The equivalent to
that would be for Lisa or Dinah to have dropped this shit on me without explanation and directed me to go rescue Taylor because their goddamn Thinker powers said it's important.
Still feels like it's in the vicinity of a destiny plot, though.
Like, I'd assume she's
also an Abaddon plot, and I'm being directed to think she's important because of
that, but that doesn't really seem to fit the facts. For one thing, the canon timeline has her explicitly getting one of Scion's shards, no ambiguity about it, which would be a weird lie for Abaddon to go out of its way to tell me when it could have just left the point not explicitly answered. More importantly... like, a big part of why I'm inclined to think Dragon is an Abaddon plot is that she's not
just a fixture of importance across fanfics in addition to canon, it's that she's
consistent to an extent that is pretty fucking weird. Like, Emma and Sophia tended to be broadly the same as far as Sophia being Shadow Stalker, both of them bullying Taylor, etc, but in some fanfics Sophia is the primary pusher of the bullying and Emma is just kinda nodding along and smiling as Sophia kicks in Taylor's teeth, in other fanfics Sophia isn't terribly interested in bullying Taylor and it's only because Emma is stuck on Taylor they're still doing it, I seem to recall there actually being one where
Madison was the one who was keeping momentum going...
… vs Dragon being super-consistent, even compared to other characters who had a lot of screentime in canon and who also shouldn't be readily butterflied by alt-power Taylor premises. Brian, for example, whose canon personality was fairly straightforward and consistent aside the second trigger trauma changing him some, and then fanfic tends to make him more of a goofball than in canon, and often just straight-up makes Tattletale the explicit leader instead of doing the canon thing of pretending Grue is Head Undersider but then mostly having Tattletale drive the decision-making process, plus a few other things that are weird. Like that meme about him getting with Purity. I never got that one. It's not like the meme actually depicted them with chemistry- getting distracted.
Point is, Taylor being
not super-consistent is inconsistent with that element. If she's an Abaddon plot, she's... what, one that's very adaptable, changing her abilities and personality to navigate whatever exact timeline actually results? I mean, that's possible and all, but that's less me trying to develop a coherent theory and more me acknowledging edge cases exist.
Whatever, I'm searching. Still no costume, dressed heavier than I'd prefer because it's actually pretty fucking cold right now for whatever exact reason -Brockton Bay is supposed to be warmer than average, according to WoG, but I'm not sure how to take WoG in the context of 'canon and fanfic is probably precog scenarios', so I'm not sure that actually applies, even aside the writer being Canadian and I always felt they completely failed to grasp the degree to which they were projecting Canadian ideas of cold dozens of miles south where it's not appropriate- and carting around a bunch of nonlethals and some lethals.
I'm actually wearing my costume's
mask, because it eventually occurred to me that it's probably better to signal up front I'm a cape rather than looking like a civilian who raided PRT HQ's armory or whatever being covered in grenades causes people to think, but otherwise I'm still not bothering with a costume. Since I cannibalized my old one and my power isn't exactly cooperative on making a new one. How
do most capes get started in that regard, anyway? Canon Taylor had a built-in explanation for most of her costume, but most capes are, what, buying from Halloween stores?...
Anyway, I'm also bringing a stack of sticky notes and a pen. I had the thought a couple days ago that if a place seems like it
might be a spot Taylor is hanging out at, just not at the moment I'm
in it, I can write up a note explaining that I want to link up with her, and... god, I dunno what else I'll write on the note, but it's an idea. Maybe a hideout will seem to be running low on food, and I'll advertise that I'm set for life on food? And just not bother to mention that Cauldron is involved.
Not sure how I'll handle that bit if she does come with. Mind, that's in part because I honestly have no goddamn clue what the Simurgh will have done with Taylor, but honestly even if it weren't for that I'm not sure how I'd go about broaching that topic. "Oh yeah, there's an extradimensional conspiracy, and I helped them with the Simurgh, kinda, not that it helped
that much, and now I have room and board for life even though they won't evacuate me from this hole because it turns out David actually keeps his word."
… huh. That sounds a little less crazy when I think it out than when I was operating on half-formed ideas of how to explain this. And Taylor
does know other dimensions exist...
Regardless...
The amazing thing about combing Brockton Bay for Taylor is how
boring it's turned out to be. I was expecting roving murder-gangs and shit, but it's clear there's really not that many people around, and most of them are hunkering down, trying to not draw trouble. The busiest part of town is Northerly, where the wall has a gate and roving spotlights and what I'm pretty sure are machine gun nests mounted atop towers. I was just kinda question marking at that for a few days until I remembered that the Travelers' arc did, in fact, involve making it clear that people were
eventually let out of Simurgh quarantine, after a lot of therapy and shit, and that this was kinda implied to be normal for a post-Simurgh event.
I've always found that a weird plotpoint, all things considered, but it's at least good to know I might eventually be able to get out without
having to blow a hole in a wall or anything?
Not that I've bothered to actually approach that section of town. I don't like waiting in lines when the lines
aren't made of Simurgh-subverted people who may or may not decide they'd like some Soylent Green upon sighting me. I also don't need the supplies I've seen get airdropped in a few times, since Cauldron is handling my necessities for me. And I've already got my boobytrapped motel to hide in, so there being guards ready to gun down crazed zombies or the like isn't really a plus for me, probably a minus given I suspect they'd have an itchy trigger finger regarding me.
Anyway, point is, there is no Worm-esque 'it's been quiet for five seconds, the writer is bored, ROLL FOR INITIATIVE' constant stream of murderhobos for me to fend off. Any given day is primarily spent on searching empty apartments, offices, etc, occasionally being startled by particularly gruesome corpses, and scooping up some more Simurgh dust when I inevitably decide I should turn around and get some rest.
Really, having time to think on it, that makes
sense. Video games stuffing the post-apocalypse with an infinite supply of raiders for you to murder for experience and loot isn't because that makes the slightest bit of real-world sense, it's because it's a goddamn video game where core content is centered around killing things for experience and loot, so the game is going to be designed so you hit that content readily and regularly. By a similar token, stories that do much the same are... well, fucking lazy and ill-thought out in most cases, for one, but my point is that it's narratively useful to take it as a given that you can kick off new plot beats at any time by having assholes show up and do something the protagonist has to respond to. Those are both foundations that encourage filling the streets with murderhobos to interact with.
In reality, though... people were evacuating when the Simurgh hit. Most capes that didn't successfully evacuate would've had their heads exploded for the safety of the world. The region has been sealed off, so immigrating here is hard and also almost no one is going to even want to
try. People keep dying, whether because I freak out and kill them because holy fuck Simurgh
why, or because they're Simurgh bombs and Simurgh bombs do shit like eat people like it's the most natural thing in the world, or because people outside my awareness are getting into fights over limited resources and shit, or because the phasing plague assholes catch a building with people inside.
There's probably still a pretty solid number of people in the city in total just because it was... what, 50,000 or so to start? And 20 minutes is not a lot of time to evacuate -it can take twenty minutes to get from one part of a not-that-large town to the other, by car- even if I assume the Protectorate had capes evacuating people with teleportation and the like. Without an insanely bullshit power I should've already heard about one way or another, there's no way they evaced 90% of everyone in time.
But the
density being way, way down really is the logical outcome, and since I'm avoiding the part of town that has obvious reason for people to crowd it, of
course my experience is going to be fairly sparse on people.
Especially since Brockton Bay is a 'build out, not up' sort of city, so the square-foot density of people is already lower than some places. This isn't New York, as the obvious US comparison point. I'd already kinda assumed that from my memories, and everything I've seen so far has borne that out; there's some gleaming glass spires over in one part of town near-ish the coast, including one that I'm pretty sure has a logo meant to say 'Medhall', but it's just the one corner. Most of the city is dominated by one-to-two-story buildings.
Anyway, with wandering about I think I might know what's going on with the phasing assholes, as far as why they haven't spread to the extent I'd have expected. I spotted one sleeping under a park bench earlier today, and I
know it's a phasing asshole because they sat up
through the bench, looked about with a way-too-wide grin on their face for a few minutes, and then eventually looked disappointed and laid back down, while I crouched against a low wall with one hand on a black hole bomb, ready to throw. I think they're... well, like movie zombies or something, not really doing much of anything unless there's recently been a human presence riling them up. So the plague of them hasn't spread as insanely as I expected because the density of people is actually fairly low, most people aren't wandering around, scavenging, the way I am, and the phasing assholes just... go to sleep if no one is around.
I suspect they're cheating on metabolic considerations, too, since hunting for food really ought to bring them in contact with other people at a fairly rapid clip if they, you know, need to eat. I'd expect them to have all converged on the gate and either died or infested that whole area, given how much time has passed and how food lying around is largely all looted or spoiled by now. This is also consistent with them not mobbing my hideout; they're not constantly on the prowl for people, and prior to looking for Taylor I wasn't actually ranging that far out, either, so I wouldn't have had much opportunity to 'activate' them.
Anyway, searching the city, looking for unnatural bug behavior, yadda yadda. Still keeping an eye out for materials for Tinkering, too, of course. Idly wondering if any Simurgh plots have succeeded through people released from a quarantine zone after being affirmed as adequately sane. My impulse thought is no, since if it was yes I'd honestly expect releases to simply stop forever, but then again Worm has some pretty weird degrees of second chance rubrics, like how people who really
ought to have been executed get Birdcaged, or how Tattletale claims early on it takes multiple serious offenses for a cape to actually get carted off to a serious jail, so maybe it happened a couple of times but people kept right on letting Simurgh victims out after a lot of therapy and all because just killing them all was considered too inhumane?
Then I spot a mass of curly black hair moving behind a window.
I pause a moment, taking stock, checking for threats in the area. I mean, curly black hair isn't unambiguous proof I've found Taylor, but it's more promising than anything else I've seen. And...
maaaaaybe there's more bugs flitting about than average? I might be imagining that, but still, I wanna say there's more bugs in the area than I've gotten used to post-Simurgh.
Okay, no other (apparent...) threats in the area... do I call out to her and hope she doesn't try to kill me? I mean, she should know I'm here already, but maybe the Simurgh made her twitchy about sounds? And, I mean, people tend to find me grating when I talk, I'm in a cape mask, covered in grenades... fuck, I'd probably guess I was hostile if I called out to me.
Okay, let's not call out to her.
Well, hitting her with a nonlethal grenade seems... bad. Like, trust problems, obviously, but also Taylor's bug control doesn't go away just because you've tied her up or something, right? So not really a solution unless I block her portal, too, and there's... several reasons I'm leery of doing that. Taylor is blatantly offloading some of her cognition onto her shard in canon, and I'd hate to learn that inexplicably includes her autonomous breathing by virtue of whoops killing her. That'd be
insanely stupid... but Entities. I can't discount this degree of that kind of stupidity.
Plus, I still haven't managed to get my shard to cooperate on recreating the portal blocking device. I'm carrying a portal-blocking
bomb, but those keep doing something to me
too, and it's not like that's a long-term solution anyway. They last, like, 60 seconds or so, and no I cannot build a replacement in that time, even ignoring losing time to them myself.
But even if I had the portal-blocking device on me, that seems like a bad plan.
Eventually I sigh to myself and just start making my way to the window, deliberately making more noise than I normally make when walking. My default is sneaky enough I've spooked people unintentionally, and I'm trying to
not have this end in, "Aaaah! Not the bees!"
At the window, I can't see anyone inside. I mean, there's no lights on inside, and the sun is in the wrong position to cast light very far into the building right now, but even as Bakuda I seem to see better-than-average in the dark.
… which might be because my memories are fake and in actuality Bakuda has better-than-average vision in the dark and I have such memories to subtly
prepare me for the body I was made to be plugged into...
… point is, I can see this is a kitchen and that Taylor isn't in it. I'd throw in a qualifier about her maybe being in the cupboards, but they're all open, with not much in the way of dishes and all inside them. The qualifier I
will throw in is that powers make anything possible so she could be inside and just hidden by some weird new trigger. Hell, for all I know Imp triggered during all this shit but with an area-of-effect notice-me-not field.
I'd say my ability to remember suggests otherwise, but I have no goddamn clue how such a power would interact with
fake memories, not even touching on the fact that my cognition may be sitting in a shard that's not fully cooperating with everybody else playing the Scion And Eden Game.
I sigh loudly to myself, less because I feel
that frustrated or disappointed and more as an excuse to make relatively innocuous noise. I wasn't really expecting Taylor to be right there.
Alright, this is part of an apartment building. I
could just climb in through the window, but the window is busted open and for some reason somebody jammed bits of glass into the edges like this window has razor-sharp glass teeth. That's dangerous, and not something I can readily and safely fix without using a bomb, and I'm trying to be
non-threatening right now.
It also suggests that either there's a Simurgh'd asshole wandering around, setting these up for some mysterious precog asshole reason -I'm not even going to pretend she's not an asshole anymore, at this point I suspect she came down to Brockton Bay because I'm an Abaddon missile and she wanted to contain or kill me or something, so I'm doubting she's doing some long game thing for
my benefit, and after that thing with the family hell fucking no on benefit of the doubt- or that somebody is actually living in this apartment. I... doubt it's Taylor living in here. She'd probably go back to her
house, if anywhere, or hang in the Undersider's loft. I'm not
entirely clear what kind of building their loft was, but it certainly wasn't a plain-jane wall o' bricks apartment building.
So probably I just spotted someone
else with a big head of curly black hair.
Great.
Nonetheless, I make my way around to the front of the building. The front door is already open, by which I mean it's been knocked off its hinges and has a big splintered spot in the upper portion of it. A Brute bashed it down, I guess? I check the entryway carefully for, like, tripwires and stuff, but nothing leaps out at me. I'd like to imagine my tinker specialty being traps instead of bombs gives me some kind of edge at detecting traps, but it's not like I've had anything
obvious happen like a trap being highlighted in gold in my vision like I'm in a goddamn video game.
So I still step cautious as I go inside. Somebody made the window dangerous, at great effort. It'd be kind of weird if they didn't do anything equivalent for the front entrance.
Nothing happens, though. I'm just in a foyer place, with a TV sitting in one corner. It's not on or anything, but it looks like it's in good condition? There's also a wall of mailboxes set in a wall on the opposite side of the foyer, to my right. Several of them have had their little door things ripped open, 'ripped' as in 'I can see where the metal tore as it was pulled on by inhuman strength'. Brute power, or a weird Striker power that let them get leverage in improbable situations, or something. Wonder why they were searching the mailboxes apparently at random, though? Mail is one of the things I'd most expect to be ignored in an Endbringer crisis, and I'm having trouble imagining why the Simurgh would cause someone to go digging through mailboxes. Hmmm. Conspicuously weird.
I continue to wander vaguely toward the apartment I maybe saw Taylor through a window of, keeping an eye out for traps of any sort and also just keeping an eye out for weirdness in general. Also feeling paranoid about the phasing assholes, though unless the person I saw
is a phasing asshole it
shouldn't be an issue, because whoever I saw would've woken them up and they'd have done their thing to this building already. But still, walls being nearby means phasing assholes can show up with basically no warning.
God, why can't I think of a horror game using that combination of ideas? It would be tremendously assholish, but horror games tend to think 'be obnoxious to the player' is part and parcel of producing horror, so that wouldn't stop anyone...
I walk past bloodstains against the walls, but no bodies in the area to have left them. No evidence of blood-based drag marks, either. Power? Or the blood dried, and
then the bodies got moved? The wallpaper reverses color in patches here and there, though I'm not sure if that's evidence of weird power mechanics or just somebody having fun with interior decoration. Roaches keep noticing me coming and scrambling for hiding places. Haven't seen any rats, but I've seen fewer in the city than I was kind of expecting, so I'm not sure if my expectations are incorrect or if something weird is happening in the city.
Lotta doors just wide open, too. I keep popping my head in once I think I'm more or less in the right part of the building, but the first three are clearly wrong. The first one has a half-rotten dog corpse lying in the open, the second one is littered with abandoned goods I would've seen through the window and didn't, and the third one has clear fire damage.
The fourth door I go to is closed, and when I turn the knob it turns out it's locked. Suggestive. Also inconvenient; maybe I should've tried to go through the window after all?
Ugh, I'm not sure how to approach this while seeming non-threatening. The
situation is threatening, anyone in the city is competition even if they're not a Simurgh bomb, etc. I'm not sure I
can seem adequately non-threatening.
I sigh loudly again, and decide to try talking after all. "Hey, uh, I saw someone in here? You alright? They're doing the supply drops up North, if you're low on food or something that's the place to go." No response. I knock once, and raise my voice a bit, worried that'll get me sounding angry even though I'm not. "Or maybe you need medical care? I assume you've figured out a solution to the running water being seawater when it isn't green shit... unless maybe you've been relying on bottled water and are running low? They're airdropping clean water up North, too." I pause for a moment, realizing I sound like I have an agenda. I mean, I do, but I sound like I have the
wrong agenda. "Uh, not trying to push you to go North, I actually haven't bothered myself 'cause I'm situated and don't want to deal with the crowds, but I was kinda figuring you'd take me offering to shack up with
me as me offering candy while asking you to come into my van?"
… that sounded better in my head. Less sexually predatory, in particular. Maybe I'll get lucky and that thing where it never crosses people's minds to interpret
women as sexual predators even when it's really,
really obvious will still apply in Bet America? Hell, canon Taylor came across bi-leaning in that derpy 'I'm so convinced I'm heterosexual that kissing a girl is a completely platonic joke, honest' manner, so even if it's not normal for Bet America, if this
is Taylor it
still might not cross her mind to take it that way.
I sigh again, irritated with myself regardless. Not going to point out how that sounds, hope it didn't cross their mind to take it that way... assuming someone is actually here. "
Trying to make sure you're okay, is the point."
Still no response. Really quiet in general, still a bit weirded out how quiet Brockton Bay is with the city sealed. Even with having thought out how it kinda makes sense, especially with no cars running about and all, it's still a little eerie to be obviously inside city limits and yet things are
quiet.
Okay, fine, let's go back to the window-
I stop, blink, rub at my eyes, and yes there's still a blob of roaches spelling out
go away on the wall. I can't stop myself from grinning; I
have found Taylor! (Not
necessarily, but very very likely) I mean yeah she's telling me to leave, but I was expecting that. I wave at the roaches in greeting, more or less. "I dunno if you caught any of that, but I was asking if you're okay? You need anything?"
Go away, Oni Lady, the roaches update to.
My smile goes a bit rictis-y, because
come the fuck on I'm not an Oni Lee knockoff with boobs!
… but I take a calming breath. "I can't tell if you can hear me. Are you okay? I can come back with bandages or something." I don't have any bandages, but I might be able to Tinker something up, and for all I know Cauldron will have left behind bandages when I get back. Or I might scavenge some up. Some actually-clean ones, I mean.
I'm fine go away
I frown a little at that. "I'd like to take you at your word, but you know who I am so I assume you think I'm a racist supervillain who threatened to blow up her university over bad grades, so I have to wonder if you're just trying to not let on about problems on the idea I'd jump on weakness or something."
Go away I'm fine
I sigh again. "I'm coming back tomorrow with some supplies, so you're forewarned. And to be clear I'm not expecting you to trust me here, feel free to check them with bugs or something... just, uh,
not roaches, please? Roaches crawl through toilet pipes and literal shit and all, I'd hate for you to give yourself an infection because you were suspicious my bandages were tinkertech bullshit."
Go away
I sigh yet again. "See you tomorrow."
Then I leave, making mental notes of landmarks as I go so I can find this apartment building again.
-----------------------------------------------------------
No, Cauldron didn't conveniently drop off bandages or anything. Not sure if that means Contessa isn't bullshit, or if she is but she doesn't care, or if she is but Taylor doesn't need bandages, or what.
Regardless, I fab up a few grenades with antimicrobial properties. The first three go in the rejects pile, because they're more of those grenades I've already made that also kill gut flora and fauna and all too and so would cause diarrhea and all, but the next couple go into my 'trips outside' pile; these ones explode into a soapy substance that shunts assorted microbial life into some other dimension or something.
Then I really cotton on to what I've just made, go test one of them on one of the rooms I've been avoiding that has a particularly severe roach and mold problem...
… and five minutes later the roaches are upset but sparkling clean (Like, seriously, they're
literally glittering what the hell), and the mold is all gone, barely any sign it ever existed. When I tentatively poke a toe into the soapy mass, the black grime accumulating on it from walking constantly without properly bathing vanishes and there's no pain or weirdness.
Holy shit this is
perfect. Thank you, power, for cooperating for once!
… shit, this is more evidence Taylor is important to Abaddon's plot somehow, isn't it?...
I spend the rest of the afternoon making more of these grenades and deploying them throughout my hotel lair, starting with cleaning up my sleeping space and attendant bathroom (Water running green doesn't make the toilets unusable, so that's been convenient), and then my workshop area in the lobby, and then whatever random rooms are particularly filthy.
Then I collapse, feeling nauseous like I always do when my environment is suddenly a lot less unhealthy for me, and sleep.
----------------------------------------------------------
I knock on the building's fallen front door to announce my presence, though it's probably redundant. I've got a wheelbarrow full of scrubbing bubble grenades, some of the food Cauldron has been providing me, tampons also from Cauldron, some shirts I cleaned with scrubbing bubble grenades on the idea they can act as makeshift bandages if Taylor needs any, and some kinda random shit I picked up on the way, like a toaster, 'cause I really have no idea what Taylor's current situation is.
Hauling said wheelbarrow of crap into the building isn't exactly quiet, and even if I'm still not sure whether bug presence in the area is
above-average, there's certainly enough Taylor should've seen and heard me coming through them if she hasn't vacated the area entirely. Which... I kinda am doubting she's left already. The insistence I go away makes me think she wasn't willing, or wasn't able, to leave. I'd expect her to have simply escaped and not let on she was present, if she could leave readily. She was
walking when I briefly saw her, pretty sure, so 'able' probably isn't the issue. I'm not sure why 'not willing' would be the issue, but it seems the most probable possibility.
Hmmm. Didn't Brian have an apartment? I've been kinda going 'why would Taylor be stubbornly sticking to an apartment', but I'd honestly forgotten until literally this second that Brian has an apartment in canon and Taylor gets shown it... pretty early, I think? Maybe she's sentimental, or maybe she's worried Brian is also trapped and is waiting here just in case he comes back?
Or it could just be a random apartment and she actually is injured or something, just something less... obvious. A gut injury or something that doesn't let her walk for long.
Eventually I get the wheelbarrow into the building, sit down for a second because ow that was hard, and then notice there's bugs on one wall.
Go away, Oni Lady.
RrrrRRGH.
Deep sigh. Calm yourself, Bakuda. She's been Simurgh'd, and as far as most people know I'm a racist supervillain who blew up over bad grades -fuck, it just occurred to me that while I blew up her school as a
favor to her, she would absolutely have taken that in some... well, I'm not sure
exactly, but there's no way she didn't find it threatening through some logic or another.
Deep sigh again. Goddammit, this is going to be an uphill thing the whole way, isn't it? Above and beyond whatever dark cloud of social doom hovers over me everywhere I -wait, I was theorizing dogs just notice I'm not right and my memories faked up them hating me so I wouldn't question it, but I also know
humans can be pretty sensitive to shit they don't consciously notice. Maybe my remembered dark cloud of social doom was to psychologically prepare me for people noticing I'm not right and being wigged out by it without consciously realizing it.
…
god, my memories really do make so much more sense if I'm just an Abaddon missile and it's all targeted for effect
Okay! On the
plus side, if that is indeed the issue, Taylor is seeing me through her bugs and so
probably can't pick up on whatever subtly wrong shit I'm doing that makes people go PURGE THE XENO.
… wait, is that why I have memories of 40k, so I'd be prepared for people wanting to kill me with fire for not being A Real Human Being?
Damn. I hope Dawn of War is a real game, at least, I'd hate for one of the best games of my memories to be faked-up nonsense.
Taylor's bugs have updated themselves to
Oni Lady, go away while I was ruminating on how my life makes so much more sense as faked-up bullshit to prep me for my role as an alien sleeper agent that thinks it's human in spite of not being able to pass for one particularly believably. Wait, does this mean I was
wrong when I thought the author was overestimating how off-putting people would find Case 53s? Shit, maybe people
are way more readily wigged-out by not-fully-human appearances than I've historically believed.
Whatever, focus. Taylor is still here, so yeah she either can't leave or won't leave. She's... well, a captive audience. For at least a bit.
I stand up and start hauling the wheelbarrow over toward the door I'm pretty sure Taylor is behind, grunting with the effort. It's a pain, but I also throw in some talking. "Hey, the, uh, yellow pill-shaped things with the pull-tabs are my scrubbing bubble... um, grenades, technically, but it's not lethal or anything it's just how my Tinkering works don't worry about it. I've already tested them on... actually, crap, I never did test on open wounds. Um. Anyway! Point is, they won't hurt your bugs but they'll clear out mold and virii and other such unpleasant shit so you don't have to worry about infection so much. Won't help if you're
already sick, unless I guess you want to ingest one but I wouldn't recommend that I'm pretty sure there's more mass coming out of the grenades than ought to make physics sense, like I tried weighing one, then detonating it and weighing
that but it was kinda messy and I'm not sure I didn't just fuck up somehow but it sure
seemed like there was suddenly more weight from nowhere because powers do that kinda shit-"
I'm almost to her door, and there's another bug message on the wall.
That's nice. Go away.
Oh hey, she's even using punctuation now! Or maybe she was doing that yesterday and I just didn't notice?
"-plus there's some food, there's a toaster or something, there's tampons-"
The bugs
jitter in a weird manner, spreading out briefly like Taylor lost control or something, and after a few seconds draw out a new sentence.
Leave tampons.
Ooooh. I think she has
period cramps. Is... is that why she's not leaving? Is she laid up with period cramps? That'd be kind of weird given canon Taylor never had period cramps, but then again the writer never acknowledged
any female biological factoids of any kind (Well, except Purity's pregnancy in passing in backstory, I suppose), and also she's gone through a whole lot of stress and shit of a brand-new kind. I seem to recall reading once that periods can start early in response to external stressors, so maybe the Simurgh arriving kickstarted her period where canon stress never did? She never did fight the Simurgh in canon, and fanfics tend to shy away from the topi-
-fuck, probably because precogs interfere with each other for perfectly naturalistic mechanical reasons and so memories of stories based on precog can't really touch on her too heavily with any possibility of being accurate. Goddammit, my life
makes so much more sense like this it's ridiculous!
Whatever. Back to talking while I get the wheelbarrow set up to not fall over. "Yeah, periods suck." I feel like I should be saying something else here that will make Taylor interpret me as relatable and likable and friendly, but my mind fails me and it's difficult to stay focused on the topic when it occurs to me that this aspect of my social awkwardness is itself probably an outgrowth of me being a fake personality made by an alien that only
kind of gets human shit. Ugh. Fuck. Whatever. "I was going to leave the whole thing, though, I've already cleaned my space like mad and seriously I'm set for food and shit and ah crap if I knew you were having period cramps I'd have tried to scavenge some chocolate on the way." That's supposed to help with period cramps, from what I've read. Too bad Cauldron hasn't given me any chocolate. It's mostly stuff like cereal or nutrient bars. Even the birthday card didn't come with cupcakes or anything like that.
Still, I can at least make things easier and dig out the box of tampons instead of leaving it down near-ish the bottom of this mass of crap. Make it easier for Taylor to get after I've left. So that's what I do.
I startle and jump away when bees or hornets or something buzz in, never liked those kinds of bugs, but I manage to relax a little when I notice they're incongruously carrying spiders and silk is being released. I watch with fascination as, over the course of a few minutes, they arrange to hook up a large number of flying bugs to the box of tampons, and then awkwardly fly off down the hall, I'm guessing to go fly it in via the window I first spotted her through.
That was cool to see in action.
Really cool. Why do people in canon find Taylor creepy, again?
"Oh, right!" I start digging, where did I put the cans?... ah, there we go, some kind of... off-brand orange soda that I've already determined I personally can't stand. I'm not sure if I don't recognize its specific off-brand because Bet wait fuck Omicron probably isn't real that possibility probably doesn't matter at all argh this is going to take forever to properly adjust to. Whatever, I hold the 2-liter bottle up. "I dunno if you've got allergies or something so this particular soda would be a problem for you, but fluids are important, seawater is bad to drink,
contaminated seawater is worse, so I brought this. I mean, I have it on hand because it was on the way and I've been ignoring it because I can't stand this stuff, but different taste buds, different bodily needs."
Go away, says Taylor's bugs on the wall.
I frown a little. "I was planning on leaving soon anyway, but this is kiiinda concerning. I'm having difficulty imagining the bugs are somehow delivering fresh, potable water, and I can tell this building has been pretty heavily cleaned out. You
die if you don't drink anything for, I think it was three days though it has wiggle room? But you're a-" Wait shit don't let on that you're pretty sure you know this is Taylor the teenage girl who most certainly does not have enough fat stored away to survive dehydration particularly long.
There's an awkward pause, and then Taylor's bugs spell out
Go away, Oni Lady.
Hmmm. I don't remember if she'd figured out how to talk through her bugs this early in canon. I recall it was kinda a difficult feat for her, but early canon it also wasn't a super-relevant ability so I don't actually remember when she figured it out. Is she not
verbalizing through her bugs because she hasn't figured out how, yet, or?...
I'm also a bit surprised she's being so
reasonable. I was really expecting to be attacked by now, what with her being Simurgh'd and all. Hmm.
I catch myself pacing, thinking, then wonder why Abaddon would make me a pacer in the first place, then remind myself to not get distracted, only to get promptly distracted by that dog corpse. I'm about to re-focus, except... wait, why
is there a dog corpse here? I'd expect Taylor to feed it to her bugs if only to not have to smell it, or to have had her bugs haul it out of the building, or something, if she's been here even slightly long-term.
In fact, looking closer at it, it's... like, I don't know when it died, obviously, but there's
no bugs on it. No flies buzzing it. No evidence of fly eggs having been laid in it. No roaches checking it out, trying to decide whether blood is food or not. Which normally I'd sort of write off as weird, maybe avoid the body more than usual out of worry that it's infected with something weird, possibly power-based, but I'm almost completely confident I'm dealing with Taylor here, and if I'm not it's certainly
someone who can control bugs.
So the body being conspicuously avoided suggests the controller is
deliberately preventing bugs from chewing on the corpse.
…
That's Judas or something, isn't it? One of Bitch's dogs. That's... a little depressing. I have difficulty imagining Bitch leaving one of her dogs behind to save her own skin. Did she die during the attack? That'd suck, I actually like her.
I wave vaguely at the dog body. "Were they yours?"
There's a long period where I'm honestly expecting to be told to fuck off and leave, but eventually when I glance about I see a wall has bug-text.
Friend of a friend.
I nod vaguely at that. So yeah, one of Bitch's dogs. Dammit. And the fact that Taylor is protecting the corpse... it really suggests to me that Bitch died, that Taylor is kinda indirectly mourning Bitch or honoring her memory or something by protecting one of her dogs. Taylor didn't hate the dogs in canon or anything, but she never connected to them. Even in fanfic I don't think I ever saw Taylor emotionally connect to
any dogs, let alone Bitch's dogs.
I always found that a bit weird, but I guess Taylor is
really not a dog person, pretty much no matter what other stuff happens?
I shuffle awkwardly. I've never known how to react to other people being sad about dead friends and family and all, and if Taylor is anything like in canon that's... even less helpful. My three-and-a-half data points are; her mother died, and this hit her hard, she freaked out when it occurred to her Shatterbird's scream was dangerous to her dad, Regent's death didn't seem to move her at all even though it was played as a tragedy, but then when Alexandria was pretending to kill the other Undersiders she ended up killing Alexandria in response to the ongoing threat. I wanna say what pushed her over the edge was Alexandria indicating she was going for Tattletale next? I remember her getting into contact with Tattletale by having her bugs dial a phone, so she should've
thought Tattletale wasn't dead yet, but I don't remember that part of the story very well.
Regardless, that's... limited data, with absolutely no examples of someone comforting Taylor on-screen. I always kind of took it as assumed that Emma comforted her after Annette died, but, again, it's not actually depicted.
So above and beyond being unfamiliar with it in general, I have no idea what Taylor in particular would find comforting vs condescending vs creepily intrusive, etc. Especially in the context of being a known psycho supervillain. Ugh, Taylor started out being, basically, bigoted against villains, irrationally assuming bad stuff not in the general sense of 'there's gotta be a reason they're labeled villains' but more like how someone who's racist
invents unpleasant explanations for innocuous interactions with whatever ethnicity they hate. I forget when she told herself she was being shitty to the Undersiders and should give them a real chance, but I do recall it took a bit.
So very possibly she's still in that headspace of 'labeled supervillain, therefore everything is an evil plot, therefore be hostile', and would take sympathy as fake or mocking or something even if I was sincere and didn't have the doom cloud of social failure following me everywhere.
… this is probably why she's constantly insisting I go away and all, isn't it.
Ugh.
I sigh again, and check if Taylor's bugs are spelling anything out, but no, not right now.
I hesitate, wonder if I should be doing something symbolic like leaving a flower at the dog's- actually, does it have a nametag?
I get closer and check.
Bentlee.
I blink a few times, going
what the hell? before I remember that... I think it was Brutus? Whatever their name was, in canon Bitch carves a dog's name, or maybe it was two names, into the Endbringer defense monument, and the audience sees she's not very literate, getting their name wrong in the
small child using phonetics to spell unfamiliar words, and sorry English doesn't reliably do phonetics way. So this would be... well, pronunciation-wise, Bentley? I honestly don't remember if Bitch had a dog named Bentley. I remember Judas, Brutus, and Angelica, and that she had other dogs, but I don't remember their names.
Okay. So yeah,
probably one of Bitch's dogs.
I sigh again, glance at the walls, and ultimately leave, not really wanting to bother Taylor now that I've probably rubbed salt in an emotional wound.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Cauldron
still hasn't contacted me. Aside the stupid smiley face, but I have no idea what that
means.
So I went back to Taylor's apartment, collected a handful of chocolates on the way -candy in wrappers
does generally keep for a while, so I'm not too worried about food poisoning- and frankly was expecting her to have finally vanished, so I was ruminating on the Dragon issue some, like maybe I should make an effort to deal with the Dragonslayers? They were kinda inconsistently written so I
doubt they're an intentional Abaddon plot I'd be fucking up...
… but no, Taylor is still around, as evidenced by a bug text message on the wall when I arrive.
I'm not joining the ABB.
I blink a few times, then burst into goddamn laughter. She thinks I'm trying to
recruit her? I mean, admittedly, that's what the Undersiders did, so I guess it's not completely unreasonable, and I guess it's not even exactly
wrong, but holy fuck into the
ABB? That's
hilarious.
When my laughter is under control enough to talk again, I wheeze out, "Lady, I fucking quit them already."
Then I stop, abruptly realizing I've revealed I know her gender and I'm not sure whether it makes sense for me to know that at this point, panicking for a second, until I remember she took the tampons yesterday. Whew. That's a reasonable-looking assumption on my part from an external view, not me revealing my precognitive info.
It's too bad Taylor isn't in the room so I can't get any kind of read on her response. Her bugs shuffle about for a bit, and if that whole thing about offloading her emotions into her bugs is true I guess that could be an indication she's agitated, but it's not like canon ever delved into what a given emotion translated into, as far as bug behavior goes. Did she notice I freaked for a moment? Is she offended at me laughing? Is she skeptical I actually left the ABB?
No response comes before I get myself together and haul the toy wagon of crap up into the apartment, so I start talking about other stuff. "I managed to snag some chocolates this time. I haven't tried it myself yet, but I hear chocolate is supposed to help with period cramps?" I mean, I'm just
guessing she has serious period cramps, but what I've heard in that regard is that serious misery is very much the default. Bakuda's body just kinda bleeding and me not noticing is... a thing my memories claim does happen, but much less often. And now I'm wondering if me not noticing is shard upload stuff, rather than Bakuda's body having a relatively pleasant period.
Taylor still doesn't respond verbally... textually... whatever... but more wasp-or-whatever+spider shenanigans steal the chocolates away, less awkwardly than with the tampons since they're individually wrapped.
I also notice the wheelbarrow and its contents are gone. So Taylor... brought it inside? Or maybe she dragged it elsewhere, but inside seems more likely. Easier, and if she decided she wanted the stuff inside would be better, whereas if she didn't want the stuff... wait, actually, she might've gotten rid of it if she was worried I had boobytraps or something in there. Hm. Damn. Being a supervillain is actually kinda irritating when I want to try peaceful overtures and crap.
Okay, so, like, Taylor's been thinking I was trying to recruit her for the ABB. That's... honestly, that's fucking bizarre, but even though my gut response is to say it sounds like Simurgh'd irrationality I'm honestly not sure it'd be out of character with canon Taylor. Fanon Taylor probably wouldn't say this particular type of ridiculous thing, but- hm. I've always historically thought of that as lazy, bad writing, where Taylor doesn't say things an audience would find ridiculously wrong because the writers are being lazy and shit, but if it's mostly all precog...
… I dunno. Maybe Taylor is just very consistently in tune with her shard, whatever it is, and it's feeding her more info than she really ought to have? As a reward, I guess? I do seem to recall that the handful of no-power Taylor fics I read
trended toward Taylor actually getting things wrong, so I guess that's not a
crazy theory. It'd potentially also be an answer for why she tends to be weirdly important?
I'm dubious on that theory, in part because canon Taylor was ostensibly really in tune with her shard and
didn't do this 'constantly knowing things she shouldn't know' thing, but not enough to completely discount it right away.
Whatever, back up, Taylor thinks I wanted her for the ABB, even though we're in a Simurgh'd zone and gang politics is kind of a fucking ridiculous thing to focus on in that context. So... great. Me being nice and supportive and trying to help her with her period and shit is probably being interpreted as Sinister Villainous Buttering Up.
God, that aspect of early canon Taylor's mentality was so frustrating.
Oh, Taylor's bugs are spelling something out again.
Thanks for the chocolate. Go away.
I brighten a bit. "Oh, so the chocolates
are helping with the cramps, then?"
The message breaks up, and after a delay some of them form a simple
yes. I'm not sure how to take the pause there. I usually find it ridiculous how much people emphasize the importance of face-to-face conversation, but I can
kind of relate a little here, not knowing Taylor well enough to guess what the delay might mean where I'd maybe get to see fidgeting in person- actually, no, I wouldn't, would I? She'd just be offloading her emotions onto her bugs, she was, like, already doing that habitually at the start of canon, even if canon implied she got more consistent about it as time went on and kinda retroactively pretended like this was new behavior.
Hm. That actually makes me feel better and oh goddammit I just realized this could explain my own befuddlement at the focus on facial expressions et al. If I'm supposed to somehow Abaddon at Taylor, who is a cape who, even in fanfic,
tends to heavily obscure her face when in costume and, in canon, has feelings shunted out of her face in general, then it's disadvantageous to be a normal human who thinks faces are the most important thing ever, because I'll horribly misread Taylor. For that matter, I'd just recently learned about prosody when this happened, and Taylor's swarm-speech probably lacks prosody or has really fucked-up prosody, so I'm better-prepared to take swarm-speech at face value instead of getting caught on 'tone' or lack thereof.
God, at this point I'm
hoping it clearly turns out I'm an Abaddon missile just so it stops being
unpleasant to discover the latest way it makes sense for my memories to be fake and my fake life carefully engineered to prep me for this job. Having it be a plausible-but-not-remotely-proven theory is downright
painful, as there's that nagging doubt I'm a transplant or something and just engaging in confirmation-bias to produce tremendous self-doubt about stuff I'd never previously questioned and never thought I'd have
cause to question.
Then a buzzing flying bug beans me on the head and I flail, waving at it while trying to lean away from it, and end up falling sloppily on my butt. "
Don't do that," I hiss out. Fuck, I
hate it when buzzing bugs fly at me.
Then I notice there's words being spelled out. Whoops, got too into my thoughts.
What are you angry about?
Angry? I don't remember- oh, um. I was momentarily frustrated by not being able to get a read on Taylor, and my memories claim people inexplicably tend to read me as ragingly angry when I'm maybe a little miffed. Hm. My first thought is that Taylor sensing it is an indication I'm a lot more blatantly angry-seeming than I interpret myself as seeming, in body language or something, but it occurs to me canon never explicitly addressed antennae. Maybe she's sensing human anger... smells, I guess. And, if canon is anything to go by, not realizing she's reacting to such.
Or- no, I'm pretty sure- let's just ask. "Do you mean when you bumped me with a bug, or before, or-"
Before.
Oh, okay, I did guess that part correctly. Um, how do I explain this? "There was a delay in your response, and I realized I didn't know how to take it and got frustrated. I wasn't mad, not really, certainly not at you. If it helps any, people have a long history of thinking I'm really mad when I'm not particularly?"
There's another pause, and I'm inclined to take it as meaningful when her bugs spell out,
What, like at Cornell?
Ugh. "Quick confirmation; you're being sarcastic, right?"
Duh.
I blink in surprise at that and kinda squint at the bugs as a proxy for squinting at Taylor. Taylor using 'duh' weirds me out. She didn't have a
formal diction in canon
or fanon, but she tended to stay away from... teenager-ese, I guess. Then I remember the actual context this is in, and kinda wave at the bugs. "Okay, like, first of all sarcasm isn't 'duh' if you've not got tone, not unless you're constructing your sentence
really obviously, and sometimes not even then. Words on a page, or wall in this case, don't carry the thing people do with voices and expressions." I pause for a moment feeling weird about explaining this to someone who I
know has familiarity with internet forums and all, but also waiting to see if she'll respond. The lack of a response stretches long enough I decide she's not going to answer, so I keep going. "Cornell-wise, I honestly can't tell you what happened there." I was intending to keep talking, but then I realize I have no idea how I want to talk around this and stall out.
There's a very long pause, and then Taylor's bugs spell out,
Go away, Oni Lady.
I roll my eyes, then shrug, turn to leave, and then have a thought cross my mind and look over my shoulder at the bugs. "You doing okay on defenses? Like, the city is less of a madhouse than I was expecting, but the phasing assholes are dangerous and, y'know, Simurgh means you can't trust people." I pause, consider saying I'm an exception, then decide no because that's manipulative BS and not necessarily true anyway. I don't
feel Simurgh'd, and kinda have reason to think I might be immune at this point, but I'm honestly not sure how I'd tell for sure. So instead I continue with, "Like, I doubt you'll take some of my spare munitions, but I'm not sure how you'd stop one of the phasing assholes."
There's a very long pause, so long I shrug and start to turn to leave, when suddenly Taylor's bugs flurry into words. Oh, okay? I wait, kinda wondering if she's agitated, 'cause the bugs
seem jittery to me, taking a while to get into formation, but still not sure how to take any given bug behavior. Eventually, she manages;
I already killed two.
I grin and enthuse. "Oh, wow, that's good! I think they're the..." The message breaks up, which isn't how she's been handling this so far. She normally only breaks up the message once I'm done talking. No new message forms, and I trail off. "... most dangerous things here?"
There is a very, very long pause, and then it crosses my mind that people often feel that killing people is bad even when it's in self-defense against actual attempts on their own life and whatnot, and that Taylor in particular was, in canon, starting things out thinking things like that she was going to hell for leaving people terrified but unharmed during a bank robbery. I mean, fanfic tends to make her alarmingly heartless from step one, and Taylor did inure herself to such stuff relatively quickly in canon, but, uh, I think the first step in that process was cutting out Lung's eyes during Bakuda's rampage. The one I didn't engage in.
I think Taylor might have been trying to reach out for empathy and emotional support because she felt horribly bad for killing people, so desperate for such that even though she was
just bringing up me being the Cornell Bomber she reached out to me anyway, and I promptly went 'great job!' over the thing she was moping about and wanting atonement or something for.
Fuck.
I wait a long, long minute to see if Taylor is going to write out anything else. Nothing is forthcoming.
"I'll... come back tomorrow," I say, already backing out the door.
The bugs don't do anything before I'm out of sight.
