Mauling Snarks (Worm) (Complete)

[T0PH4T]

Before you read farther, let me assure you I like this story. I like the concept of Taylor with a Jack Slash-esk power, I like the idea of Jack Slash on the side of the angels, and I like the idea of Taylor joining the wards

All that said, there are a lot of problems with the story as-is.

Critical Pieces:

• LOTS of unnecessary information. You can cut it down a lot.
• You do a lot of telling, and it'd read more smoothly if you showed some more.
• AGH! YOU USE SO MUCH FANNON! I can provide details, but the big one is you're overestimating how bad the locker was. Bad? Yes, but not attempted murder. She was in there for hours (like, maybe three), and while she could've gotten an infected cut and died, the key crimes are actually deprivation of liberty, assault, slander, malicious action and theft. When murder is referenced in canon, it is as an additional crime that they don't expect to stick so they can negotiate down to what they actually want. If you want clarification, I can provide.
• Jack Slash does have a Thinker power that makes him understand parahumans, but it doesn't extend to regular people. Maybe he's a trained psychologist that has the magic touch with parahumans? If so, please clarify, maybe by having part of his internal monologue go over how he feels better when treating parahumans.
• Taylor just got out of the locker. She should be 300% more messed up. I get that no one really likes Taylor-Is-Suffering, but canon she was hospitalized for a week because of psychological trauma + figuring out her powers. Have her rave about Snarks and that Panacea needs to feed her Snark.
• Panacea seems WAY too friendly. That, and I'm 90% sure that Panacea ISN'T legally required to tell parents about their kid's triggering. Think about Vista's home life.
• Also, OH MY GOD I LOVE TALKING SNARKS!
• How do the snarks tell Taylor Jacob slipped? Doesn't seem legit… Maybe hear Danny talk about the bullying, go "how'd you know about that?" and boom, details.
• The Unwritten Rules actually are unwritten. My advice would be to have Jacob explain them when he recognizes the tingle he gets when working with parahumans, and she realizes he's a parahuman from his Snark.
• You are grossly misinterpreting the amount of control Jack has over his secondary power. In his words, it's more of an instinctual understanding of what the shards/hosts want. It's doesn't let him actively recognize parahumans: he just really GETS parahumans.
• A quick aside on power-nullification in the Worm-verse: in order to nullify a power, the bond between shard and host has to be blocked. Citrine negated the effects of powers, not the powers themselves. Hatchetface actually doesn't negate powers though, so Jacob wouldn't have any actual powers with him. Maybe old habits die hard?
• In general, you seem to have trouble capturing the voice of the characters. Remember, Jack is confident, Danny is tired, and Taylor is a combination of frustrated and angry. Try re-reading a few arcs of Worm and see how it feels.
• TOO MUCH DETAIL! YOU ARE TELLING US THINGS YOU NEED TO SHOW!
• Contractions. This is a general thing, but it really pulls me out of the story.
• Endbringer fights are never required. Not even full-pay Protectorate members have to go.
• Taylor is too powerful and her power is too precise. Nerf, and in doing so the story will become more interesting.
• Kiddo.
• With the exception of Riley and Ned, the Nine are all pathologically insane. Specificly, they're insane in a way that keeps them from ever integrating in society. Your portrayal of them doesn't really take into account that their trigger events and general disposition do NOT let them be sane, no matter how silver-tongued Jack is.

In the interest of seeing this story flourish, I'd like to offer my services as a beta-reader/editor. I am accomplished with the english language, have study story telling extensively, and am familiar with Worm canon and fanfic. PM me if you're interested so we can hash out the details.

 

[CmptrWz]

Thank you for the positive comments.

All that said, there are a lot of problems with the story as-is.

Critical Pieces:

Click to shrink...

Regarding the "YOU GOT THIS ABOUT WORM WRONG" parts, please direct your attention here, to something I said in the first post:

Which brings me to a warning: This is very AU in certain respects, beyond Taylor getting a different power.

Click to shrink...

I know a number of things do not mesh with canon. This is intentional. THIS IS NOT CANON. It will never be canon. Too many things are different in both blatant and subtle ways for it to be canon. If you want canon, please go read Worm, not my fanfic.

As for my writing, I write the way I do. I know I am not a professional author and thus may not be very good at a number of aspects of writing stories. I administer computers and write code for a profession. I am doing this because the story got stuck in my own head and a few others wanted to see it. Given all of that, if you spot actual errors in my writing feel free to point them out and I will see about correcting those I agree with. If you want to beta-read future chapters then I have been working with people in the Taylor Varga Discord server, poke me for the link to my Google Doc there if you want but understand I may not take your recommendations.

On a couple of other things, the only required Endbringer form was the "if an Endbringer attacks where you currently are you are expected to at least help get people into the shelters" form, which I see as being reasonable. In no way would she be expected to fight the Endbringer itself. The other forms were parental permission to possibly go to non-local Endbringer fights.

And, regarding the locker and Taylor coming out of it: Her short term to long term memory ended up shot before the locker ended up in long-term memory, combined with her power pushing her to get past it. As such she has recovered more quickly than she would have otherwise.

Oh, and as for the "telling Taylor he slipped" bit, Jacob's snark and Taylor's snark are unusually compatible. If Jacob isn't careful Taylor gets actual memory snippets from Jacob via that interaction, which is what happened. Hence Jacob basically doing his best to hold his thinker power back 100% around Taylor after that point.

 

[mp3.1415player]

A few thoughts on your thoughts...

LOTS of unnecessary information. You can cut it down a lot.

Click to shrink...

I would think this comes under the heading of different people like different things? Some people like detail in a story, some just want action with no background.

AGH! YOU USE SO MUCH FANNON! I can provide details, but the big one is you're overestimating how bad the locker was. Bad? Yes, but not attempted murder. She was in there for hours (like, maybe three), and while she could've gotten an infected cut and died, the key crimes are actually deprivation of liberty, assault, slander, malicious action and theft. When murder is referenced in canon, it is as an additional crime that they don't expect to stick so they can negotiate down to what they actually want. If you want clarification, I can provide.

Click to shrink...

Deliberately putting someone into close physical contact with biohazardous waste, which the canon contents of the locker definitely were, and locking them in for an arbitrary period, would certainly count as an extremely serious assault at a minimum. If this resulted in death, which it easily could, it would be manslaughter at the least, and could easily go to premeditated murder, considering that it was a very carefully considered action that took a lot of setup and preparation.

Make no mistake, an assault of that nature isn't something that in real life would just be brushed off as youthful hijinks gone wrong. Much less serious attacks have resulted in the perpetrators being expelled without question, prosecuted, sued, and generally regretting it for a long time. Simply making it public on the internet could result in a massive outcry against the three girls that would ruin their lives and force the authorities to do something drastic. There are any number of cases of things like this resulting in jail sentences that can be found without too much trouble.

My opinion is that canon Worm glosses over quite how seriously the entire thing would actually be considered in a big way.

Taylor just got out of the locker. She should be 300% more messed up. I get that no one really likes Taylor-Is-Suffering, but canon she was hospitalized for a week because of psychological trauma + figuring out her powers. Have her rave about Snarks and that Panacea needs to feed her Snark.

Click to shrink...

Alternate universe. Different power, different result. In canon as I read it the bulk of the psychological trauma was the result of the sensory overload from the insect senses. This Taylor doesn't have that, and she does have a friendly power that actively helps her.

Panacea seems WAY too friendly. That, and I'm 90% sure that Panacea ISN'T legally required to tell parents about their kid's triggering. Think about Vista's home life.

Click to shrink...

AU again, Panacea doesn't have to be a bitch. But I'm not sure about the telling parents part, you might be right. However two things are in play here, one is, was Panacea actually ever involved with Vista? And two is... AU!

Also, OH MY GOD I LOVE TALKING SNARKS!

Click to shrink...

Agreed

How do the snarks tell Taylor Jacob slipped? Doesn't seem legit… Maybe hear Danny talk about the bullying, go "how'd you know about that?" and boom, details.

Click to shrink...

The Unwritten Rules actually are unwritten. My advice would be to have Jacob explain them when he recognizes the tingle he gets when working with parahumans, and she realizes he's a parahuman from his Snark.

Click to shrink...

In an AU, possibly they are in fact written unwritten rules?

You are grossly misinterpreting the amount of control Jack has over his secondary power. In his words, it's more of an instinctual understanding of what the shards/hosts want. It's doesn't let him actively recognize parahumans: he just really GETS parahumans.

Click to shrink...

But then... AU

TOO MUCH DETAIL! YOU ARE TELLING US THINGS YOU NEED TO SHOW!

Click to shrink...

Again, in your opinion. Other people might disagree.

Contractions. This is a general thing, but it really pulls me out of the story.

Click to shrink...

Some people don't use them much. But I agree it's a little unusual, although it doesn't affect me personally that way.

Taylor is too powerful and her power is too precise. Nerf, and in doing so the story will become more interesting.

Click to shrink...

Yet again, in your opinion. Other people might disagree.

With the exception of Riley and Ned, the Nine are all pathologically insane. Specificly, they're insane in a way that keeps them from ever integrating in society. Your portrayal of them doesn't really take into account that their trigger events and general disposition do NOT let them be sane, no matter how silver-tongued Jack is.

Click to shrink...

AU is the operative concept here, I believe...

My feelings when reading fanfic are basically, don't get hung up too much on whether it follows canon all that strictly, as the main thing is whether it entertains you. And it's important to remember that something you like, someone else might not, for exactly the same reason...

And, of course, be thankful that people are prepared to put in a lot of time and effort to entertain others they'll most likely never meet for free. I know I am, whether I personally like any specific story or not. The amount of work that goes into it, regardless of if it's to your, my, or any particular person's tastes should be recognized.

 

[CmptrWz]

Saturday morning Taylor's alarm went off for the first time since the previous Monday. She groaned as she turned the alarm off. She considered rolling over and going back to sleep, but then she wouldn't make it to the hospital in time. That, and Uncle Jacob would soon be coming to ensure she was moving anyway. She amused herself by poking at PHO a little, but didn't really have time to check much there. So she got up and got dressed in the recommended loose, comfortable clothing.

Taylor made her way downstairs and poured herself a bowl of cereal. She poked around on her phone some more, because why not. She most definitely wasn't thinking about what kind of horrific things Riley might be doing to her later, given some of the ideas the two of them had come up with yesterday. Even if most of them wouldn't apply to her.

Uncle Jacob came down, yawning, and made himself some coffee. He then poured himself a bowl of cereal as well and sat across from Taylor, poking at his own phone. Taylor smirked a little at the fact they were both poking at their phones. Then she lost the smirk when she realized he might actually be doing work or something useful compared to her random browsing of the net. Perhaps the comparison wasn't as apt as she had first thought.

Soon they had both eaten and got ready to leave. Danny wasn't going for PRT security and secrecy reasons, officially. The fact he knew everything that was supposed to be kept secret was beside the point. Once they had locked the house up behind them they got into Jacob's rental and headed to the hospital.

---

When they arrived at the hospital Taylor and Jacob made their way into a secure basement area. Taylor was brought to a room where she changed into a hospital gown, leaving her clothes there. She was told she should keep her phone with her, though. Apparently she may end up using it if she needed to try and communicate while unable to speak? She wasn't sure what the idea was there. Whatever.

She could tell where she was likely going based on where Panacea and Riley were. Still, she was led there by a female PRT officer. She suspected that said officer had no clue what was really going on, though. Once they arrived at what was obviously an operating room with an observation area she was left alone, though she knew that Panacea and Riley were in the next room. In fact, she could feel that even Uncle Jacob was leaving her range, towards what she thought was where the PRT building itself was, leaving just the three parahumans in the building.

Taylor amused herself with a silly little game she found on her phone while she waited for whatever was holding things up. She was very carefully not talking to their snarks, just in case it distracted them from whatever it was they were doing by accident. Ten minutes later Panacea and Riley came in, Riley pulling a cart of tools, and Panacea froze for a moment when she spotted Taylor, but recovered quickly.

"Good morning," Panacea said. "Taylor, was it?"

"Good morning Panacea," Taylor responded. "And good morning Riley."

"Morning Taylor," Riley said, smiling.

"You can call me Amy," Panacea, or rather Amy, said. "Though given what happened to you last week I wonder how you ended up in the know. It may be nice to have someone else to talk to in town about some of this, though."

"Uncle Jacob informed me and my father after I triggered," Taylor responded. Amy raised an eyebrow at that, apparently getting the reference, but opted not to ask too much more. "By the way, have you given any more thought to getting a greenhouse? Your snark would like one."

"You weren't kidding about that?" Amy responded. "Where did the idea even come from?"

"Your snark said it was bored just healing humans," Taylor said, gesturing in Amy's direction. "When I asked it liked the idea of playing with plants. I even asked if it could do rainbow roses and it seemed to find the idea intriguing."

"You…" Amy said, staring at Taylor. "I know you said nothing about that the last time we crossed paths, but the idea has been driving me nuts. How?"

"I assume your snark has been prodding you since I mentioned the idea to it?" Taylor shrugged. "So how is this going to work?"

"You are going to lay back and relax," Riley said. "Amy is going to do her best to monitor you as best she can, aiding me with the healing side of things, as well as being the emergency medical assistance if something goes wrong. Three trusted observers, all female, are watching from the observation area. There are no recording devices beyond our own three phones in here, and I suspect not one of us has turned their cameras on."

"Alright," Taylor said, laying back on the operating table. "Are you going to be knocking me out?"

"I need you awake to ensure I get things hooked back up correctly," Riley apologized. "My methods tend to result in very poor results on unconscious patients. But I have also perfected my device for turning off your pain receptors, so while it will feel odd it won't hurt. With Amy's help it hopefully won't even hurt over the next few days while everything settles."

Taylor gave a little shrug and tried to relax, despite how nervous she was, as Riley and Amy began. On a whim she decided to poke their snarks, not to chat per se, but maybe she could get a running description of what was going on from them as a distraction from them actually doing things?

Hello again you two

[Affirmation] {Affirmation}

[Query]

{Determination}

[Curiosity]

{Excitement}

[Integration] {Integration} <Integration>

Taylor lost her focus on the world around her as things ran through her brain. Biology and technology, enhancements and improvements. More efficient ways to do everything, better structures for the enhancements, improved methods for allowing her to continue to grow despite the changes. Every so often she would contribute an idea, an alternate way to approach something, or a possible issue and the patterns would change.

---

Nine hours into the projected three hour initial operation the three parahumans in the operating theatre finally finished, though how much of that was being done and how much was running out of energy was unknown. Taylor was back together, looking perfectly normal and healthy, but had fallen asleep. Riley was barely functioning as she cleaned her tools on autopilot, though for the most part the spiderbot assistant she had with her was doing the actual work for her. Amy had collapsed to the floor, leaning against the wall, a goofy but tired grin on her face.

Several female PRT officers came in and assisted Riley and Amy out of the room. A transport stretcher was brought in and Taylor was transferred to it. Taylor's clothing was collected and she was transferred to an observation room until such a time as she woke up. For added 'fun' the entire thing was officially a failure as Riley and Amy had almost immediately gone into what looked like a 'tinker fugue' and had worked together seamlessly instead of Amy monitoring Riley and providing minimal assistance. Even more, Taylor herself seemed to do everything she needed to in the way of moving limbs and other tasks without a single word being spoken, meaning she had been involved as well.

Riley lasted about ten minutes before she had collapsed and was brought to the next room over from Taylor. Amy, on the other hand, was alert enough to give a short report and be picked up by her sister. She did, however, go to bed quite early.

---

Early Sunday morning Taylor woke up in the hospital, her father and uncle having fallen asleep in chairs off to the side. She was having trouble remembering just why she was here. She also noted that Riley was nearby, if her snark sense was working properly.

Wait, Riley? Wasn't she going to 'upgrade' Taylor yesterday? Taylor vaguely recalled having laid down on the operating table, and then...and then...why did she know what a quadruplex helix DNA analogue looked like? And how in the world did she know it was just before five AM Sunday morning?

Something had gone horribly something. Right or wrong, well, she wasn't quite sure. She found a call button had been placed near her left hand, so she reached over and pressed it. A nurse came in a minute later and saw that Taylor was awake. She came over and offered Taylor a glass of water, which was gladly accepted. The nurse then whispered that she should try and get some more sleep if she didn't need anything else, otherwise her phone was on the table next to her.

Taylor opted for the phone, starting with confirming that her thought of what time it was had been correct, but she still wasn't sure how she knew. She decided to browse through PHO to see if anything of interest was reported as having happened the day before, but not much jumped out at her. Further, she had made it through a dozen pages on PHO before she first realized that she wasn't wearing her glasses.

"What in the world happened?" Taylor mumbled. On a whim she jumped over to the wiki to see if anything on Panacea there might help her figure things out, as she doubted there was enough information on Bonesaw to warrant searching. Only to get her next shock as just after she tapped on the search box Panacea's name typed itself out. A little more focus and she found that she now had a virtual keyboard sitting in the back of her head, one that she hadn't had before. Next to it were various controls for music and voice, volume controls, mute buttons, a dial pad with a call button.

And seemingly above them all was an information block, stating 'civilian phone' with the time, signal bars, and battery life duplicated from the phone in her hands.

"Since when does my brain come with Bluetooth?" Taylor wondered aloud. "No, wait, we added most of that on at the brainstem. I think? After we found my earpiece was still in my ear and got inspired, I believe. Though we did take a couple of attempts to get the audio linkages working."

Taylor was now in an odd state of mind, wanting to freak out but too fascinated to do so. She was remembering more of what had gone on yesterday, including the fifteen attempts to get her phone to pair to her as they adjusted the programming of the biological Bluetooth system that Amy and Riley had cobbled together. A quick mental check showed that she now had Amy's contact information in her phone, which for shits and giggles she double-checked on her phone itself.

Riley had even taken apart the earpiece and figured out how it handled multiple secure connections, then they had built that functionality into the biological system somehow. Taylor shivered as she realized she was probably quite lucky that they had decided to go with Bluetooth and not, say, building her phone into her directly.

Some more contemplation and she found she had a general idea that her strength had been 'maxed out' in some way, her flexibility and endurance were much higher, and she thought that her skeleton and skin were both now much harder to injure or break? How much so on any of these she wasn't sure. It came to her that she wasn't just able to see clearly without glasses, but that she had improved night-vision as well and her hearing was improved when they figured out how to tie the Bluetooth thing into her ears.

If that wasn't enough, she saw and yet didn't see an alert pop up in front of her, indicating that she had received a text message from Amy. Who had apparently woken up early as well and was trying to apologize via text message. For what Taylor wasn't certain as she felt like it was just as much her fault somehow, if not more so than either of the others. Still, she responded, without having looked at her phone, that she was fine if a little weirded out by being a Bluetooth accessory now.

Huh. 'wait, what? what did we do yesterday?' summed up many of Taylor's initial thoughts too, actually.

A few more minutes of texting back and forth with questions and clarifications ensued before Amy had stated that she would swing by the hospital as soon as she could, if only to double-check that Taylor wasn't going to have a mass organ failure or something else horrible.

Taylor set her phone back down on the table next to her and thought for a bit, trying to dredge up memories of what they had done the day before. Eventually she had fallen back asleep, getting another hour or two of rest.

 

[CmptrWz]

Amy shook her head as she left Miss Hebert's room. A greenhouse, really? To keep her snark from getting bored?

She stopped to make the 'this person has triggered and has been given the documentation they need' markings on the paperwork. To those not in the know it probably looked like a mistake that hadn't been cleared off properly, though. Which, to be fair, probably meant that a dozen different groups who shouldn't be in the know could go through hospital paperwork all over the country and find out who had been found to be a parahuman. But that wasn't her problem.

A couple hours and a couple dozen more patients later she called Vicky for a ride home.

---

A couple of days later she had been informed that there were no patients in need of her care (which meant that there were likely patients that wanted her care, but that didn't actually warrant her visiting). She opted to join Vicky and Dean on the Boardwalk for a bit as a result.

"So what is up with you?" Vicky asked, poking Amy. "For the past few days you have been slightly out of it."

Amy looked over at Vicky and decided that she was unlikely to give up. Even Dean looked interested.

"Someone said some things that made very little sense to me recently," Amy finally admitted. "I think some of it was their concussion talking, honestly. But it got stuck in my head anyway."

"Really?" Vicky said, a look of disbelief on her face. "What could they have possibly said that would stick with you?"

"That I needed to buy a greenhouse so my snark and I could play with the plants to keep from being bored," Amy deadpanned back.

Vicky and Dean looked at her, Vicky had an unreadable expression and Dean looked like he wanted to laugh. No, wait, there was a slight giggle.

"Well, you know," Vicky finally said, a grin slipping by her apparent attempt to control her expression. "You can be pretty snarky at times."

And that did it, Dean was now outright laughing. Amy had to smirk a bit herself, though.

---

Two clothing stores, a pretzel stand, another clothing store, and a shoe store later the group had grown and was taking a break. Dennis had joined them at the pretzel stand, sticking around for the shoe store because he actually needed new sneakers, and Carlos had joined them as they left the shoe store.

As it was, they were sitting outside of a florist, and Amy couldn't keep her attention on the conversation. For some reason she was entranced by the various flowers, especially the roses.

"Earth to Amy," Vicky said, tapping Amy on the forehead. "Come in Amy."

"Wha?" Amy said, shaking her head. "Sorry, I spaced out there."

"Yea, we noticed," Dennis said. "Kind of curious what had your attention."

"Er," Amy said, blushing a bit. "Not sure why, but I couldn't stop thinking about the flowers."

"The flowers?" Carlos asked, looking like that didn't make a lot of sense. "Why the flowers?"

"Not really sure," Amy said, turning back and looking at the roses. "I keep imagining things like the roses having rainbow-colored petals in various patterns."

"That would be interesting," Dean admitted. "Any idea where the idea came from?"

"Not really," Amy admitted. "But I also keep imagining having the oddly-colored flowers in a greenhouse, so maybe it is just my mind running away with that comment."

Of course, Dennis and Carlos hadn't heard that story, and both cracked up when they heard about Vicky's comment about Amy being snarky. Great, Dennis was probably going to run with that for weeks.

---

Amy entered the operating room with Riley, having just finished getting an explanation about what was planned from the younger girl. Apparently a recent trigger was aware of the truth about the Slaughterhouse Nine, somehow, and was getting upgraded to be less squishy. For all Amy knew the new cape was going to be joining the nine due to a problem with the mentality their power imposed, that hadn't been covered.

Amy looked over at the girl sitting on the operating table and froze for a second. Taylor, was it? She was the recent trigger? She quickly pushed down her surprise and got the basic story. Being related to Jack Slash would explain the 'in the know' part, though.

It wasn't long before they were ready to get started. Riley had grabbed the pain inhibitor, Amy herself was prepared to monitor everything. And then the world exploded into a mass of ideas and possibilities, of technology and biology and how to do things with both that she had never even considered before.

Amy was washed away, only barely aware of what was going on, of what she was doing.

---

Wow, what had she done last night, er, or was it yesterday? She blearily grabbed her phone from where she had left it next to her bed and checked the time. Very early Sunday? What happened to…

Amy suddenly came fully awake. What had they done to poor Taylor yesterday? How could she have let herself go like that? How could she ever make it up to her?

She quickly fired off a text message to Taylor (when did she get Taylor's number?) trying to apologize for what had happened, whatever it was. It was only after she had sent the message that she realized that Taylor may no longer be able to use a phone. She hoped that wasn't something that had gone wrong.

It wasn't long before Taylor texted back. Amy stared at the message. "I'm fine, I think I am in one piece, but a bit weirded out that I am now a Bluetooth accessory." What? No, seriously, WHAT?

 

[Sandstone]

"I'm fine, I think I am in one piece, but a bit weirded out that I am now a Bluetooth accessory."

Click to shrink...

That's what you get when you give Ideas to two bio-tinkers. And I'm tempted to find a way to use that quote somehow. Not sure where or how. ^_^
But you know what? I'm liking this. With the AU and the sort of off-the-wall aspects of a few things (the Slaughterhouse being a SUPPORT GROUP?!), it's an interesting world you are building.

Especially if Taylor keeps giving other capes Ideas, since she seems to retain her munchkin status. Oh the possibilities.

Edit: and just realized I skimmed over something I really shouldn't have. Panacea snarking (I regret NOTHING!) about the 'written unwritten rules' being typed, not written. Eeesh. Nice.

 

[Muroshi9]

Other than the mental linkup / tinker fugue this is pretty much what I predicted would happen.
Next up add Blasto, Cranial, and Dragon to the team up to build the ultimate biotinkered biogynoid body for Dragon.

 

[Ace Dreamer]

It wasn't long before Taylor texted back. Amy stared at the message. "I'm fine, I think I am in one piece, but a bit weirded out that I am now a Bluetooth accessory." What? No, seriously, WHAT?

Click to shrink...

There is a big problem with Bluetooth - it has a major security flaw. This is part of the discovery phase, and comes from the issue that there's no way to put a 'shared secret' (like a password) into most accessories - bit of a lack of an input device in most... So, Taylor had better have the discovery part of her Bluetooth interface firmly turned-off, maybe with pop-up warning on going to turn it on, asking whether she is quite sure, and maybe if she's in a Faraday cage with the thing she wants to pair with...

I guess she's got a BCI, now,,,

Bluetooth - Wikipedia
Brain–computer interface - Wikipedia

 

[CmptrWz]

Especially if Taylor keeps giving other capes Ideas, since she seems to retain her munchkin status. Oh the possibilities.

Click to shrink...

Note that she will not get along with all powers. Case in point, next chapter she does not get along with a power.

Panacea snarking (I regret NOTHING!)

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Yea, given that I pulled the same basic thing in the Panacea interlude I can't blame ya.

There is a big problem with Bluetooth - it has a major security flaw.

Click to shrink...

Luckily her capabilities were based on tinker-improved secure Bluetooth devices. They remove most of the major security headaches. Because powers are bullshit.

 

[Ace Dreamer]

Luckily her capabilities were based on tinker-improved secure Bluetooth devices. They remove most of the major security headaches. Because powers are bullshit.

Click to shrink...

I like the theory, but... She'll be safe talking to Tinker-improved devices, and I can guess her BCI will be watching for Bluehacks, but if she talks to conventional Bluetooth stuff she needs to follow the conventional protocol, or they wont understand her. Pretty sure powers can't hack information theory, directly, anyway...

 

[Evonix]

There is a big problem with Bluetooth - it has a major security flaw. This is part of the discovery phase, and comes from the issue that there's no way to put a 'shared secret' (like a password) into most accessories - bit of a lack of an input device in most... So, Taylor had better have the discovery part of her Bluetooth interface firmly turned-off, maybe with pop-up warning on going to turn it on, asking whether she is quite sure, and maybe if she's in a Faraday cage with the thing she wants to pair with...

I guess she's got a BCI, now,,,

Bluetooth - Wikipedia
Brain–computer interface - Wikipedia

Click to shrink...

The other thing is that while it connects to Bluetooth devices that doesn't mean it has anything in common with them anymore, plus the original headset was tinker made for confidential communication. Also it's probably unable to affect Taylor proper in any segneficent way either way, even if it was taken over the worst someone would be able to do would be to disable it.

 

[Ash19256]

The other thing is that while it connects to Bluetooth devices that doesn't mean it has anything in common with them anymore, plus the original headset was tinker made for confidential communication. Also it's probably unable to affect Taylor proper in any segneficent way either way, even if it was taken over the worst someone would be able to do would be to disable it.

Click to shrink...

I'd have said that they could also just keep poking her with alerts to distract her, or use the audio output function to mess with her, but that's not much of an issue. The big problem would be using it to turn her into a mobile microphone, but even then I imagine that while the base level interface might start out using conventional Bluetooth communications protocols, it probably just uses a converter to allow for massively greater security.

 

[T0PH4T]

Thank you for the positive comments.



Regarding the "YOU GOT THIS ABOUT WORM WRONG" parts, please direct your attention here, to something I said in the first post:



I know a number of things do not mesh with canon. This is intentional. THIS IS NOT CANON. It will never be canon. Too many things are different in both blatant and subtle ways for it to be canon. If you want canon, please go read Worm, not my fanfic.

Click to shrink...

That's fair, and I think I may have come across as too confrontational. My bad on that part.

As for my writing, I write the way I do. I know I am not a professional author and thus may not be very good at a number of aspects of writing stories. I administer computers and write code for a profession. I am doing this because the story got stuck in my own head and a few others wanted to see it. Given all of that, if you spot actual errors in my writing feel free to point them out and I will see about correcting those I agree with. If you want to beta-read future chapters then I have been working with people in the Taylor Varga Discord server, poke me for the link to my Google Doc there if you want but understand I may not take your recommendations.

Click to shrink...

Let me re-clarify something: I am ECSTATIC to see more people writing. More to the point, your prose is actually better than 90% of what I see regularly. That and the use of spell checker (WHY ARE THERE EVER SPELLING ERRORS THESE DAYS?!?!?!?) make it unlikely I'll see straight-up errors in your work. I'm thinking of more of stylistic things, 'cause you've got the technical aspect down.

On a couple of other things, the only required Endbringer form was the "if an Endbringer attacks where you currently are you are expected to at least help get people into the shelters" form, which I see as being reasonable. In no way would she be expected to fight the Endbringer itself. The other forms were parental permission to possibly go to non-local Endbringer fights.

Click to shrink...

This makes sense. I was reading it as "all Protectorate employees must go into war zones and try to DO GOOD!" That was apparently wrong.

And, regarding the locker and Taylor coming out of it: Her short term to long term memory ended up shot before the locker ended up in long-term memory, combined with her power pushing her to get past it. As such she has recovered more quickly than she would have otherwise.

Click to shrink...

Even given that, this feels like a LOT of handwaving here. Specificly, enough handwaving to pull me out of the story and think about all the other fics where the trigger event gets walked past over the course of about 15 minutes. I'll stand by this one.

Oh, and as for the "telling Taylor he slipped" bit, Jacob's snark and Taylor's snark are unusually compatible. If Jacob isn't careful Taylor gets actual memory snippets from Jacob via that interaction, which is what happened. Hence Jacob basically doing his best to hold his thinker power back 100% around Taylor after that point.

Click to shrink...

I guess that works? Again, I'm not sure how a pair of space whales communicate patterns of neurotransmitters that corresponds to a specific memory that humans would understand. This feels like handwaving and I don't think you needed to do it.

 

[T0PH4T]

I would think this comes under the heading of different people like different things? Some people like detail in a story, some just want action with no background.

Click to shrink...

Well, yes and no. While 'different strokes for different folks' is true, it also misses the fact that no one wants to be stroked with a cheese grater. What I'm trying to do here is take the many different commonalities I've seen in commercial fiction and apply them to fanfiction. Specifically, long rambly pieces of exposition are almost never good, and the exceptions are either old as heck or for a very niche audience that look for authors by name. I'm also focusing on sentence composition here, not narrative style.

Deliberately putting someone into close physical contact with biohazardous waste, which the canon contents of the locker definitely were, and locking them in for an arbitrary period, would certainly count as an extremely serious assault at a minimum. If this resulted in death, which it easily could, it would be manslaughter at the least, and could easily go to premeditated murder, considering that it was a very carefully considered action that took a lot of setup and preparation.

Click to shrink...

IF it resulted in death. Don't get me wrong, in the real world the Trio goes to juvie, then prison, all while Taylor gets that sweet, sweet emotional damages money from their parents. What I'm trying to point out here is that if she doesn't die, attempted murder is simply too serious of a charge to put on this. We are in agreement on the assault charge, though there isn't really a 'serious' assault. The jury just decides how much to punish the defendant based on the severity of the crime. Maybe Wildbow is glossing over it in Worm (the author isn't quite the final say on the story they've written), but canon!Taylor doesn't talk about the Locker like it was Sophia trying to murder her.

Alternate universe. Different power, different result. In canon as I read it the bulk of the psychological trauma was the result of the sensory overload from the insect senses. This Taylor doesn't have that, and she does have a friendly power that actively helps her.

Click to shrink...

This is a good point. I'd offer that her current power still doesn't help her move past the trauma in a meaningful way besides giving her a reason to live, but eh.

AU again, Panacea doesn't have to be a bitch. But I'm not sure about the telling parents part, you might be right. However two things are in play here, one is, was Panacea actually ever involved with Vista? And two is... AU!

Click to shrink...

I'm not saying that Panacea knows about Vista specifically, but Vista can't be the only person to have triggered from a shitty home life (Bambina, maybe?). In light of that, how would you like to subject a new trigger to increased scrutiny of their powers from the very people who caused them to trigger?

In an AU, possibly they are in fact written unwritten rules?

Click to shrink...

AU handwaving (I am stressing the handwaving part of this) is a sign that the author couldn't think up a better way to integrate their differences into the story. Instead, why not have jack explain the unwritten rules? Bonding time, and it doesn't create the awkward legal implications of the government protecting serial killers (Oni Lee) and rapists (Mush or Skidmark, maybe some of the E88r's, and Lung defiantly).

But then... AU

Click to shrink...

The less you use the AU handwave, the more likely I am to accept it. Abuse the hand, though, and you scare people.
Also, canon!Jack is one of the top five characters in Worm. That, and canon!Jack's powers were interesting becuase they were only half the package. Jack using Hookwolf as a "knife?" Awesome, and NOT his shard making the suggestion. By powering up the Shards, you take away from the characters.

Again, in your opinion. Other people might disagree.



Some people don't use them much. But I agree it's a little unusual, although it doesn't affect me personally that way.

Click to shrink...

Again, this is about commonly successful literary styles. Little things that stick out when they're not present, or things that make reading the story more difficult.

Yet again, in your opinion. Other people might disagree.

Click to shrink...

Actually, the less powerful your protagonist is, the more interesting and relatable they are. Think about Worm. Taylor has bug powers, which are strong because SHE is strong. Taylor wasn't scary becuase she could have any three powers, shoot ALL THE LASERS, or be nearly indestructibly while flying. She was scary becuase she got dealt a shit hand and won anyway. While power is immediately satisfying, reining it in is (almost) always better.

Honestly, Taylor with just the talking-to-shards power is more than enough. She doesn't need bat-projection or super-reflexes.

AU is the operative concept here, I believe...

My feelings when reading fanfic are basically, don't get hung up too much on whether it follows canon all that strictly, as the main thing is whether it entertains you. And it's important to remember that something you like, someone else might not, for exactly the same reason...

And, of course, be thankful that people are prepared to put in a lot of time and effort to entertain others they'll most likely never meet for free. I know I am, whether I personally like any specific story or not. The amount of work that goes into it, regardless of if it's to your, my, or any particular person's tastes should be recognized.

Click to shrink...

Okay, let me clarify:

You can put the nine on the side of the angels. I'm okay with that. I'm also VERY, PAINFULLY AWARE of how hard it is to write, and also agree that fanfic writers are slightly below teachers on the list of "jobs that deserve better". What I'm trying to say is that making the nine semi-balanced individuals will stretch disbelief into snapping for a LOT of people. Better to start off with them as a semi-controlled group of psychopaths under Jack, who (with Taylor's assistance), turns them into something resembling a group of former drug addicts that still hit the pipe every second Tuesday. It also opens up future plot lines, like the Mannequin road trip arc, where Taylor does her best to show him how to help people without cutting them up and putting them in spheres.

Speaking of which, Omake:

The fourth day of the Mannequin/Taylor roadtrip:

"Damnit Alan, I told you to stop tinkering on people!"

*gestures wildly*

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY'RE PART OF THE COLLECTIVE NOW?"

*makes a smoking motion*

"You've put them in a perfectly sealed hot box?"

*nods*

"How high are you right now?"

*holds up a small cat and points to it*

"That many?"

*nods and beings to shave the cat while drawing on it's skin*

"Uncle Jack's hearing about this when we get back..."

 

[CmptrWz]

Taylor woke up to the sight of the hospital ceiling for the second time that morning. It took her a minute to realize that a text message from Amy had woken her up. Apparently by poking her brain through her nice fancy new Bluetooth organ-thingy and not through her phone making noise. Still, it looked like Amy had just arrived and would be down as soon as she could clear the security checkpoints.

Taylor looked around the room to find that, as her snark sense had told her, Uncle Jacob was not currently in the room. He appeared to be next door with Riley instead. Her father was drinking from a coffee mug and had not noticed her head moving yet.

"Morning Dad," Taylor said just after Danny had put the coffee mug down, causing him to flinch. "Amy will be down shortly to check up on me."

"Er," Danny said. "Morning, and how do you know that?"

"She just sent me a text message," Taylor responded, grinning internally. Just because she was a little freaked out at 'what had they done!?!?!?' didn't mean she couldn't have fun with it.

"As much as I obviously could miss your head moving a little," Danny said, giving Taylor a look. "I doubt I would have missed you pick up your phone, check your messages, and then put the phone back down. Next to my coffee, that I was drinking."

"Yea," Taylor said. "Apparently at some point yesterday I was turned into a Bluetooth accessory, or had one installed in my head, or something like that. I think it was fifteen attempts before I could pair with the phone. Also, since her text message woke me up I have been following her progress with my snark sense."

Danny sat there, looking at Taylor, before sighing. "I should have thought that instead of asking how you knew in the first place."

"Morning Taylor," Jacob said as he came into the room, Riley trailing behind him. Riley tried to say something, but yawned instead.

"Where's Amanda?" Taylor asked, curious. Her father was here, why wouldn't Riley's mother be?

"Riley does this kind of thing frequently," Jacob admitted, getting a glare from Riley. "Not quite in this way, but often enough that Amanda has stopped worrying about her when it happens so long as Riley wasn't working on herself."

"The infamous tinker fugue," Danny smirked. "Though apparently you somehow roped yourself and another non-tinker into the fugue."

"Honestly I think Amy is as much as a tinker as anyone else on that front," Taylor said, timing her comment for Amy coming into the room. "Speaking of which, morning Amy."

"Good morning Taylor," Amy said, walking over and poking Taylor in the arm. "Well, your organs aren't falling apart, so that is a good thing. Now then, your skeleton has been strengthened...wow, nanotubes? Throughout the skin too? And that is a surprisingly efficient improvement on the muscles. I think your joints are a lot less rigid now, if that is what it looks like in them. Huh, what is that thing attached to the base of your skull?"

"I think that is my Bluetooth module," Taylor said. Riley perked up at that.

"That wasn't my imagination?" Riley said, bouncing over. "We actually got an organic Bluetooth module working?" Taylor's phone lit up at that, and a moment later Riley's phone dinged. Riley pulled her phone out and read the message aloud. "Yes, we did. Weird as hell though."

"That was interesting to watch," Amy said, her eyes focused on something nobody else could see. "No idea how it works. Did we program it with a quadruplex helix structure for information storage?"

"I think some of that also handles the information processing," Taylor said. "But most of that is vague and fuzzy, like I watched a documentary on it while half asleep."

"No, I think most of the processing is through what I think is carbon nanotube semiconductors. And I think it uses your skin as an antenna," Amy continued. "No idea what it is capable of or how to duplicate it, though it looks to be loosely tied into multiple parts of your head, brain and otherwise?"

"I know I can see, without my eyes mind you, the phone status and messages," Taylor replied. "Plus I appear to be able to make and receive calls, listen to and control music and other playback, plus the virtual keyboard in my brain and a couple of other things. I have vague recollections of testing all of those, and I think my call logs show several calls to you and Riley yesterday when we would have been occupied with all of this. I know that you didn't have my number nor did I have yours yesterday morning."

Amy removed her finger from Taylor's arm, shaking her head as if to clear it. "My power is very happy, confused at half of what we did, and impressed that we apparently got your body to maintain all of the modifications for you, though I did check and can tell you that should you have any your kids won't have the upgrades. So congratulations, you are an artificial brute and I have no idea how to classify the organic Bluetooth module."

"I suspect you need to eat a lot more," Riley piped up. "Everyone I have upgraded in the past has, anyway."

"There is that," Amy admitted. "But that is to be expected, and I think it is much less than it might otherwise have been unless you are using the enhanced strength or endurance a lot."

"So," Danny said, looking around the room. "Am I the only one that still wants to know what the hell happened yesterday?"

Taylor, Amy, and Riley all blushed a bit at that, then looked at each other. Finally Taylor sighed.

"Right as they were about to begin I connected to both of their snarks," Taylor said. "At the same time, in a single 'channel'. A conference call, if you will. Which meant that not only could I talk to each of their snarks…"

"But they could talk to each other as well," Jacob finished. "A bio-tinker and a bio-striker having their powers able to directly communicate right as they were focusing on an operation. Wow. I can't wait for something similar to happen again so it can be officially noted."

"What do you mean by that?" Riley asked. "Why wouldn't the PRT note that this happened?"

"Because this was off the books," Jacob replied. "Had it worked out flawlessly the only record would have been a report signed off by Panacea that there were no problems. That, obviously, isn't going to happen as there were problems. Still, Amy, would you be willing to fill out a standard PRT health check for Taylor? She could use it to bypass some questions when she is trying to join the Wards."

"I will be glad to," Amy said, looking at Taylor. "Whatever happened it is like a weight was lifted from me that I didn't know was there. I think my power is content?"

"I told you," Taylor interrupted. "Get a greenhouse, play with the plants, and you and your snark will be happier."

"I...think I may believe you now," Amy admitted. "I thought it was crazy-talk before, though, sorry. And I have no idea how to explain it to Carol."

"Well, we can think on it," Jacob said. "For the time being I think we should ensure that everyone is ok, fill out the paperwork we are going to fill out, and get out of here. Unless anyone wants to hang around the hospital all day?"

They had finished everything in twenty minutes and were out of the building in twenty-five.

---

"So now that we have escaped the dreaded hospital of doom," Riley said, looking around as she pulled on a baseball cap. "What is there to do around here? I'm not leaving till tomorrow morning, so I got nothing to do today."

"Wander the boardwalk and hope no gang idiots decide to jump you?" Amy offered. "Really, most of the time I am dragged out and about with Vicky, and she mostly prefers shopping."

"Wonder what people will think if they see you running around with other people," Jacob mused. "Unless we get you a hat as well. You would be amazed at how well that works, since you aren't in costume."

"Add a light pair of sunglasses," Riley added. "Not really dark ones, just dark enough to obviously be sunglasses. Too dark and you are obviously hiding something and people start trying to figure out what."

A basic plan to keep people from paying attention to Amy in hand they quickly swung by a store to put it in action. Amy and Taylor both picked out sun hats and all three girls got pairs of matching sunglasses.

Thus 'disguised' they made their way down to the boardwalk itself and found that early on a Sunday morning in early January was more boring than usual there. In fact, a number of shops weren't even open until noon. They did, however, find that breakfast was being served at a cafe and, not having eaten in the hospital (or since the morning of the day before in general for Taylor and Riley) they decided to stop in.

The cafe was not busy, and was a tad on the expensive side, but everything was pretty good. For a number of reasons the smalltalk was sparse and covered nothing of importance, one of them being that talking was not eating. After the group of five had consumed enough for nearly ten (the employees being surprised that the three girls each ate as much or more than the adult men) they left, to find that the boardwalk was a bit busier.

They wandered a bit more, ending up in an Arcade for an hour or so, browsed some of the open shops that Amy didn't usually get to see with Vicky, and showed Amy and Riley the out of the way shop that Danny, Jacob, and Taylor had gone to. Amy and Riley each picked up a collapsible baton after Taylor had mentioned hers, figuring that defense was always a good idea and that they wouldn't always have their powers as an option.

A little before noon Amy got a text message from her sister. "Vicky wants to know if I want to join her and Dean for lunch," Amy relayed. "Shall I see if the rest of you can tag along?"

"Why not," Jacob said after a glance at Danny. "We don't have any other plans yet."

A quick back and forth with Vicky and Amy led the group towards a small restaurant just off of the boardwalk proper. As they approached Taylor noticed that they were heading towards two unfamiliar snarks. While she could ignore the snarks that didn't get close, and had been all morning with a few that were also wandering around, these would be harder to do so with. They were also right next to each other, was Dean a parahuman?

"There they are," Amy said as she pointed. They had just come around the last corner before they reached the restaurant and they now had line of sight to the few people already there. Two of them were Vicky, floating a foot in the air, and, presumably, Dean. Unfortunately that was also when things started to go wrong.

Taylor stopped dead in the street as something went off in her head.

[Assertion]

No.

"Taylor?" Danny tried to get her attention. The others had also stopped.

[Determination. Assertion.]

I said no. I will not adore her.

Amy poked Taylor's exposed hand for a quick diagnostic. "Her gemma is going nuts and her heart rate is increasing," was whispered to the others after a moment. "It looks like a panic attack?"

[Determination. ASSERTION.]

I said NO. STOP IT.

"What do you think is going wrong?" Danny finally asked.

"Maybe something just entered her range and is causing problems?" Riley guessed. "Given that her gemma is involved."

[ASSERTION.]

I SAID NO. <Additional Connections Established> STOP IT <Additional Connections Established>

By now the entire group was looking worried but none of them knew what to do. Without more information moving Taylor could just bring her closer to what was causing the problem.

Unnoticed by them, Vicky was also starting to look worried. She was looking around like something was wrong.

[ASSERTION. ASSERTION. ASSERTION.]

I <Additional Connections Established> Said <Additional Connections Established> Stop <Error: Connection Failed: Target has insufficient resources> IT!

Unnoticed by Taylor's group, Vicky suddenly fell to the ground. Unable to keep her balance she tried to latch onto a fence post, cutting her hand in the process.

[acquiescence]

Good. And don't do it again.

<Additional Connections Closed>

At this point Taylor fell to her knees, suddenly gasping for breath. Amy noticed that Taylor's gemma was returning to what she thought was normal and Taylor's heart rate was starting to drop as well.

"Taylor," Danny said, kneeling in front of her. "Kiddo. What happened?"

"Amy," Taylor gasped. "I'm sorry, but I am not sure I like your sister's snark."

"What?" Amy barely held herself from yelling as she spun around. She spotted Vicky over at the restaurant, sitting on the ground, staring at a bloody hand. "What the hell?"

"I told it no," Taylor finally continued after catching her breath. "It kept trying to make me adore her. I kept telling it to stop, screamed at it to stop, and finally it did. But I do not like that snark."

The other parahumans in the group shared some looks, and collectively decided this should probably not be talked about in the open. They helped Taylor up and, after making sure everything was ok for now, finished heading over to the restaurant.

"Vicky, what happened to you?" Amy asked Vicky as they came up to the two. "How did you get hurt?"

"Wha?" Vicky was visibly startled as she looked up. "Oh, hi Ames, nice hat, didn't recognize you at first."

"Yes yes," Amy said, reaching down to poke Vicky. "How did you get hurt?"

"I'm not sure what happened," Vicky admitted. "All of a sudden I got an odd feeling, like something wasn't quite right. It got worse, and then all of a sudden my power cut out. I fell from where I was floating and grabbed something?"

"The fence post," Dean said, pointing at the metal fence post they were next to. An obvious rough point had a small blood smear on it. "I was also suddenly able to sense her feelings. Actually, I still can, normally her aura is blocking that."

"Whatever happened I feel like my powers are all back," Vicky added. "But my aura is, um, reluctant to turn on? Which is odd, normally I have to really focus to keep it off."

Amy healed Vicky up without problem, but knew that suspicions on what had happened could not be voiced here. Basic introductions were made across the group, followed by a largely silent lunch.

After lunch was over Vicky and Dean went back on their own way, resuming their 'Sunday date'. Amy opted not to join them, not wanting to 'intrude on their time'. Or so she claimed. Instead the group went back to the hospital, where Jacob's rental was parked.

"Alright," Amy said, once they were all in the rental, the three girls in the backseat. "Do we know precisely what happened with Taylor and Vicky?"

"I suspect," Jacob said, before anyone else got started. "That your sister's well-known aura attempted to ensnare Taylor. Taylor's own power detected that and Taylor disagreed. But I am not sure what happened after that."

"I think I connected to her snark," Taylor said, quietly. "Over and over and over again, telling it to stop each time, until there was nothing left over for her snark to do what it normally did. Then, and only then, when I could make no more connections because her snark had nothing left to connect to, did it agree to stop."

"I bet that is when her powers stopped working," Riley said after a moment. "You literally forced her power offline, demanded so much of it that it couldn't do anything but listen to you."

"Had she been higher in the air she might have been seriously injured," Danny added. "We are lucky she wasn't, but you may need to find a way to restrain yourself if that happens again."

"I think she may have permanently changed Vicky's power," Amy finally said. "Her aura's behavior changing from 'on unless she forces it off' to 'off and reluctant to turn on' is honestly worrying."

"It may only do that around me," Taylor volunteered. "If it is more afraid of annoying me with it. Or perhaps it has learned that blasting everyone, all the time, can be a bad thing. I guess we will have to wait and see."

"Well, I suggest we drop Riley and Amy off," Jacob said. "I know where Riley's hotel is, where would you like to be dropped off Amy?"

After they dropped Riley and Amy off, Amy providing directions to her home, the remaining three made their way back to the Hebert household. Heading in the three made their way to the living room and collapsed into various seats.

"Congratulations," Jacob finally said, looking at Taylor. "I do believe that when this ability of yours comes out you will get an official boost to your likely trump rating. Not only did you shut Victoria's power down on her you may have permanently changed an aspect of it."

Taylor just dropped her head onto the coffee table.

It was only as she got ready for bed that night that Taylor realized they had not, in fact, tested any of her 'upgrades'. She only knew that the fixed and improved eyesight worked by virtue of not needing her glasses and not needing to turn on her bedroom light. The Bluetooth module obviously worked. But she hadn't noticed any extra strength, and wasn't sure how to test her new durability.

She made note to say something about that in the morning, then crawled into bed.

 

[ironox]

So Taylor's snark haa boojum potential!

 

[globalwarmth]

First time I see a denial of service attack on a shard

 

[Sandstone]

<Error: Connection Failed: Target has insufficient resources>

Click to shrink...

Huh. A DoS via port/connection limit (resource really, but eh) exhaustion. Woulda called it 'ddos', but there's no distribution there. Showing your roots there in CS, though it kinda makes sense since networking seems to be her shard's primary role (bud of Jack's maybe?). Interesting approach to the aura, and it looks like Taylor has a good reason to not like Victoria or be around her.
Though it would be logical for the shard to realize 'ok, don't connect to her, she'll DoS me again, but otherwise return to normal service' - or not. I can see both, though the second means T's given a fairly high trump rating due to Amy's observation, plus Amy getting cold-turkey withdrawal (or am I in fannon territory? I forget.). The first means she has a lesser trump rating but still can affect powers besides communication, and I'm fairly sure Jack/Jacob will report it or make sure Taylor does when she signs up.
Or Victoria's shard is dumb and will try it again, thus driving a wedge (Conflict!) between Taylor and New Wave. Possibly Amy too if Vicky gets hurt.
Now I wonder how Coil's going to handle a power-sensor in the Wards if that happens, and how 'dead' (cauldron) powers will respond to her. Stealthed because they're 'dead'? Or some other effect? Hmm...

 

[CmptrWz]

Now I wonder how Coil's going to handle a power-sensor in the Wards if that happens, and how 'dead' (cauldron) powers will respond to her. Stealthed because they're 'dead'? Or some other effect? Hmm...

Click to shrink...

I do believe she has already interacted with a Cauldron power. You may have missed it. As for Coil, well, I already started on that path in the yet-to-be-posted chapters.

 

[FaerieKnight79]

Oh lord, Vicky getting hit with a DoS attack cause her snark wont stop trying to force everyone to love her... That is funny.

 

[Czlyydwr Llrngwl]

Jack is in scenes NOT getting curbstomped, and yet I like it? It's good? What is this I don't even--



Seriously though, this is some great stuff. Shows that even the S9 can be made interesting if you throw out their one-note canon caricatures.

 

[Addlcove]

first read, followed, fantastic!

 

[CmptrWz]

Taylor woke up the next morning to a text message, this time from Riley, poking her brain. She was going to have to do something about that. She mentally pulled up the message.

"BTW, since we didn't talk about it yesterday, the PRT watchers told me we tested your upgrades. They worked fine."

Well, that was good to know. She still wanted to test some of them for herself, though. She sent a thanks in reply anyway, then started poking around her mental Bluetooth interface for a don't wake me up button. Which was more difficult than it seemed because her interface wasn't something she could look at and just open everything.

It took her nearly an hour, but she finally found an option tied to the pairing. Apparently she had a power-saving sleep mode? And it would activate when she was actually asleep, she hoped that meant she would just disconnect from the phone when she was asleep. She ensured that it was enabled, re-named the phone to 'personal' instead of 'civilian', and then poked around some more just in case she missed something. Finally she opened her eyes.

Huh, she had been awake for an hour, read and replied to a text message, and searched her Bluetooth options, and all before she even bothered to open her eyes. Tinkers were bullshit, there was nothing else to say about them.

She climbed out of bed and got ready for the day, not that she knew what she would end up doing. Her father was likely to get back to work, but Uncle Jacob would likely still be around. Maybe he would have some testing ideas.

In addition to grabbing her phone Taylor also packed up the little charging cradle for the earpiece that no longer existed. Not like she needed it now, but someone else could probably use a spare. They had spare charging cables (but not cradles) for the phones, after all.

Heading downstairs she found her father preparing french toast. "Morning."

"Morning," Danny responded, flipping the current batch of french toast. "I'm going to head into the office today, but call me if you need anything."

"Will do," Taylor said, setting the earpiece charging cradle on the counter. "Dunno if you want this as a spare, or if I should offer it to Uncle Jacob, but I don't need it anymore."

"That is a disturbingly good point," Danny admitted, looking down at the cradle. "I don't think I need it, as the earpiece is supposed to last eighteen hours or so per charge. Jacob travels quite a bit, though, so perhaps he could use one for travel?"

"I'll check with him when he gets up," Taylor said, then realized that he hadn't been moving on her snark sense. "Speaking of which, did he actually decide to sleep in today?"

"I believe he did."

"Wonders never cease."

"Granted, I did slip him a sleeping pill last night."

"Nevermind, then."

The two ate breakfast together, and Taylor handled most of the clean-up while Danny finished getting ready for work. Jacob started moving shortly after Danny had left, so Taylor ensured that the extra french toast was ready for him to warm up in the microwave if he wanted.

"Good morning Taylor," Jacob said as he wandered into the kitchen.

Taylor was poking through the newspaper, not finding anything of interest. "Morning," she replied, giving up on the news and going for the comics. After some snickering she put the paper down and left her uncle to his breakfast as she wandered into the living room to watch some television.

Half an hour later she had taken a quick look at the news, finding out about a press conference about the Winslow student situation that afternoon and some celebrity got arrested last night. From there she checked the weather to find that it was supposed to be chilly but above freezing, with a chance of rain this afternoon and potential downpours tomorrow. She then tried watching the morning cartoons, only to find them too childish at this hour. Frustrated she turned off the television and pulled out her phone.

"Before you get into that," Jacob said from the door, startling Taylor. She knew he was there, just not that he was about to say something. "I think we should make some plans for the next couple of days."

"Er," Taylor said, putting her phone back in the belt holster she was using. "Ok?"

"To start with," Jacob said as he dropped into the easy chair. "I think this morning we should do some more tests with your upgrades. The PRT watchers observed a number of tests, but given that Riley barely remembers them you probably don't have much recollection either."

"I was wanting to do something about that," Taylor admitted. "Just wasn't sure where or how."

"I arranged for some time at a gym in a couple of hours."

"A gym?"

"In this case it is one of the places the PRT helps get set up where parahumans can do discrete testing and training without drawing attention to themselves. Around here if you don't care about attention you generally wander out to the boat graveyard, but I think we want to be more discreet today. I generally keep tabs of where they are because most of the Nine aren't running around as parahumans most weeks, not that they make them hard to find if you know how."

"Ok, that makes sense."

"After that I think we should grab some of the books and lesson plans used at Arcadia. See if you can study up to 'current'."

"That we don't need to do," Taylor said, getting up. Jacob watched as she darted upstairs, wondering why she suddenly jumped up and ran off, but trusted she had a good reason.

A couple minutes later Taylor returned with a box Jacob vaguely recognized from when he had been searching her room. He hadn't given it much thought as it was all school materials.

"I may actually be ahead of Arcadia's curriculum," Taylor admitted, putting the box down on the coffee table. "I kept hoping I would be able to transfer, so I started a self-study routine back in October. Made it easier to keep up at Winslow too, given how far behind Winslow is compared to Arcadia and how horrible Winslow's books are in comparison."

Jacob poked through the box, then pulled his phone out and consulted a list he had there. Huh, she was right, this was the same basic book set he was planning on getting her. "How did you get all of the books? You haven't had enough of an allowance to afford them."

"They are technically on loan from Arcadia for those looking to get their grades up to try and qualify to attend there. The workbooks are self-study ones they supply for that as well. I was only permitted to take a set home instead of visiting Arcadia on nights and weekends because I had qualified for entry before I started at Winslow, and my grades at Winslow wouldn't matter due to the different curriculums and the horrible learning environment Winslow provided. I was planning on taking their tests this summer to try and get a scholarship for next year anyway, which would side-step the Winslow staff apparently rejecting all transfer applications."

"Does your father know about any of this?"

"Er, I told him I was doing some extra self study, just not how much? I was hoping to surprise him with the good news. Not having to do all the homework helped too."

Jacob flipped through several of the notebooks and a couple of the workbooks, in the latter case comparing every so often to something on his phone. Finally he put everything down and sat back. "Well, that should make entering Arcadia easier. Perhaps we should instead arrange for you to take their entry exams? It will look less odd if you get to doing that before joining the Wards anyway."

"Do you know what they are going to announce at the press conference?"

"A few details, but not everything. I mainly found the details relating to Arcadia. Still, some of it is that they plan on having every student run through evaluation tests before they figure out how to split them up due to 'irregularities' with the record keeping at Winslow. But Arcadia is only intending to allow those that pass their tests to attend either way, even if the city is willing to pay tuition, so it will make sense for you to take those tests instead. Passing them and being accepted would negate your need to take the tests the rest of Winslow students will be taking as well."

"What if some students are able to get into Arcadia, but haven't taken Arcadia's tests?"

"I suspect that anyone that does well enough on the evaluation tests will get offered a run at Arcadia's. Not sure, though. They may cover that in the press conference anyway."

"Alright." Taylor thought for a moment, and decided there wasn't much to add there. "So when are we expected at that gym you mentioned?"

"Anytime this morning, their schedule was clear today when I asked to reserve it. Do you want to head over now?"

"Sure."

---

It actually took them about an hour to get to the gym, in part because Taylor had to change into something more suitable and disposable. She also had to prepare a spare outfit just in case the first outfit had to be disposed of immediately.

As they arrived Taylor looked at the outside of the slightly run down gym on the edge of the docks. It didn't look like much, but that was probably the point. Jacob did not lead them in through the front, though. Instead he brought her down an alley to what looked like an employee entrance next to a dumpster. He then held his phone up to a spot on the wall with a faded Alexandria sticker stuck to it.

The phone beeped a moment later and the door clicked, then the two went in to find a set of stairs going down just after a small landing. They went down a couple of floors worth of stairs to find themselves in a hallway. Doors to several areas were marked, including several generic individual changing rooms. There were also a series of lockers without locks next to where they came in.

"Just so that you know," Jacob said, holding his phone up to show what looked like a digital ID card. "You should be able to do that as well with the 'gym membership' app open. I'll explain more about using the app, how to figure out the secret entrances as the app only tells you the participating gym addresses, and other details later. Oh, and as an added bonus you can use it in the main gym as well to prove membership if you actually want to work out in your normal identity."

"Sounds useful," Taylor said, pulling her phone out and finding the app to make sure she knew which one it was. It even had her name showing on the ID card when she opened it, and the included map showed that they were in one of two participating Brockton Bay locations. The other one was a couple blocks away from the PRT building.

"Note that generally if there are multiple locations in a given town that one is a testing facility, like this one, and the other is for more normal gym activities. Now then," Jacob said, gesturing at the lockers. "I suggest you drop your spare clothes in one of the lockers, then we can get started."

"So why didn't we come here when I wanted to hit things?" Taylor asked as she closed the locker she had thrown her bag into. "Instead of being out in the open?"

"Three reasons," Jacob said, leading Taylor to a door with what looked like a saw blade on it. That was disturbing. "The first is that they don't like parahumans engaging in potentially destructive to the facility testing here unless you are already a member of the Wards or Protectorate. Even then they prefer you do that in the PRT building or in the Protectorate headquarters out in the bay, at least if it is possible for you to get to either. Next up is that they prefer that non-parahumans only get informed that these locations even exist if they are employed by the PRT. Finally, I didn't want to have to explain how a prepaid for five years cell phone could include a gym membership."

"They aren't even paid up, are they," Taylor added, grinning. "They would have to be on a plan, probably yours."

"And that is just another reason you should have no problem at Arcadia. Don't tell your father, either he honestly has no clue or he is being willfully ignorant. Now, let's see how cut-resistant you are, that is why we came to the poor man's power testing facility after all."

Over the next couple of hours Taylor was exposed to blades (only the most serious got more than skin deep, but they still stung), flames (burns still hurt), lasers (burns again, ouch), bullets (small caliber only, they stung but didn't penetrate her arm), and was just finishing up blunt impacts.

"Note to self," Taylor mumbled as she picked herself up off of the floor after having been slammed into by a large weight. "Even if I can survive it, getting hit by a car will hurt."

"Yea, I don't recommend it," Jacob quipped. "So, all that is left is some basic strength tests."

Jacob led Taylor to a room filled with a large number of weights as well as several wall-mounted targets. Some of the weights were sitting on racks or what looked like marked spots on the floor, others were attached to cables.

"First up, work your way down the free-weights," Jacob said. "Do your best to figure out where your limits are with one hand first, then switch to both."

Taylor made her way down the line of weights, eventually stopping at the 70 kg weights with a single hand. Using both hands she made it up to 110 kg.

"Very good for your muscle development. If I understand things correctly that will only go up. So, lesson time," Jacob said, pointing at one of the vertical cables labeled 90 kg. "Pull on that, would you?"

Taylor walked over to the cable and, after getting a good grip, pulled herself off of her feet because she didn't weigh enough and then fell on her ass because her footing had been unstable and set her swinging.

"There you go," Jacob said as he helped Taylor up from where she had fallen. "Object lesson complete. For some reason most people who trigger as brutes with enhanced strength don't actually need to worry about footing, or the fact that they are moving things that are more massive than they are. Artificial brutes like the two of us do. If you don't have decent footing or something to brace against your strength is much less useful."

"I get that, yea," Taylor said, giving Jacob a slight glare. "So, what are the targets on the walls for, given that we have already used pretty much everything else?"

"Punching," Jacob said. "Speaking of which, let's go do that. Er, you do know how to throw a punch, right?"

"That depends," Taylor replied. "Does what the dockworkers taught me count?"

"Just don't grip your own thumb," Jacob sighed. "Even if it likely could take the abuse."

After showing Taylor how the punching pads worked and adjusting one to the correct height for her she went at it. Twenty punches, alternating hands.

"Average of about 700 pounds there," Jacob said, whistling lightly. "I usually only average 750, so good job kid."

"I would congratulate Riley and Amy, honestly."

"True, true, still good on you. By the way, how are those burns from earlier?"

"Er," Taylor mumbled, feeling the points they had used in the flame and laser tests. "They feel fine actually. What the hell? Shouldn't they hurt like hell still?" She took a good look at the skin. "Or, you know, look like I had been hurt?"

"I think you've got some enhanced healing that nobody bothered to mention. I suspected it when I noticed the deepest cut we got on your arm had already closed up by the time we got started on hitting you with carefully calibrated baseball bats. In fact, right now it looks like it didn't even scar."

"Huh," Taylor poked at where said cut had been. Nothing but clean, unblemished skin. "That should help keep Dad happy."

"Kinda hoping Riley knows how to do that," Jacob admitted. "I would like the upgrade, given that the normal methods involve patching most of us up afterwards or, for the much rarer serious injuries, visiting someone like Amy."

"Might have been Amy's doing, probably was for that matter."

"Kinda hoping it wasn't. I doubt she would give me the upgrade then."

"Yea, I suppose you are ugly enough to refuse."

"What?" Jacob stopped and stared at Taylor for a moment, stunned at the sudden joke. He stayed that way just long enough for Taylor to slip out of the room. "HEY, GET BACK HERE!" Even though the grin on his face did not look like an angry one Taylor still led him on a merry chase throughout the various rooms of the facility. As a side bonus, she discovered that her endurance lasted longer than his did.

---

"Wooo, that hit the spot," Jacob said, patting his stomach. "On a related note, this is our second Fugly's meal in a week. We may need to stop by the hospital to have them check for clogged arteries."

"You may have to," Taylor grinned over her milkshake. "But I got cleaned up since my previous visit, so I think I am good for now." Taylor's phone beeped, a common thing over the past hour, though she did not remove it from her holster. Several other patrons had noticed and thought it was wonderful seeing a teenager able to ignore her phone. Pffft, if they only knew. "I think Dad would like a number four for dinner."

"Well then, let's get him a number four and be on our way."

"Have you heard back from Arcadia yet?" Taylor asked as Jacob started his rental a few minutes later, the light rain that had started thankfully not heavy enough to have soaked them.

"Why would I hear back from them?"

"Next time you don't want me to know you are sending a message don't hold your phone up in front of a mirror while squinting and poking at it."

Jacob thought back to earlier when he had messaged Arcadia to arrange a testing slot for Taylor. He had been leaning against the mirrors in that room, and the stupid web form wasn't as mobile friendly as he would have liked, so he had held his phone up to get a better look…

"Your eyes are apparently much better than mine," Jacob finally said. "And no, I haven't heard back from them."

"Their logo on the top of the screen was the biggest hint. The rest you just confirmed for me."

"Sneaky, and I suppose their logo is rather distinctive. I'll let you know when they do get back to me. You should probably still spend some time every day studying, just to be safe."

"We going to tell Dad or surprise him?"

"I vote we surprise him. Then he isn't disappointed if you somehow don't make it in on your own merit."

Taylor described most of what they knew of her durability and strength to her father while he ate his dinner, only mentioning the burns in passing by virtue of stating they had already healed. Danny was obviously conflicted, disliking that Taylor had been injured at all, yet happy that she had not been seriously injured and had already healed.

---

The next morning Taylor woke up on her own. She lay there for a moment before feeling something happen. A moment later she suddenly knew that she had two text messages and a software update waiting on her phone.

Taylor grinned and grabbed the phone so she could start the software update, having to do that from the screen. She then quickly reviewed the text messages. One was apparently informing her of the software update she already started, the other was from Riley informing her that they had finally made it home early this morning.

Huh, she had no idea where Riley lived. That might be intentional, though.

Not in the mood to get moving yet Taylor watched the software update install, unable to do much more while that was happening. Maybe she should have started that after she amused herself online? Still, the update didn't take long. The changelog said that it fixed a problem with the tinkertech NFC system, whatever that was.

Checking the weather first she found that the rain she could hear coming down outside would continue to do so for most of the day. Unless the temperature dropped low enough that it changed to snow. Huh, thinking about that, with her improved strength and endurance shoveling would probably be more tedious than tiring now. Next up she checked the news, finding a summary of the press conference they never checked up on yesterday.

Reading over the summary she found that Winslow students would get a letter by the end of the week with a test date and location. Students were required to attend their test date unless alternate accommodations were made. Test results would then either place the student into a specific school based on 'curriculum compatibility' or trigger a second test date for private school acceptance. Some students could be back to attending classes by the middle of next week, everyone should be by the start of February even if they ended up needing multiple test dates.

This was also all supposed to be a temporary solution until a new school could be built, though students would have the option of not switching schools again if their grades were good enough and they had no disciplinary issues. If you qualified for Arcadia those were pretty much conditions for attending anyway, so anyone who pulled that off would be golden.

Switching to PHO one of the things that jumped out at her immediately was a thread wondering what had happened to Glory Girl. A quick read-through revealed that she seemed almost afraid to fly yesterday? Several people also commented that she no longer seemed to inspire awe just by being in her presence. They even had pictures of her looking very unsure of herself outside of school. No word from anyone at New Wave, though.

On a whim Taylor sent Amy a text message, asking about how Vicky was doing. Hopefully Vicky would recover, even if her snark was obnoxious.

Beyond that nothing much was grabbing her attention on PHO, so she decided it was time to get up. Twenty minutes later she finally made it downstairs, finding that today Uncle Jacob was waiting for her. She supposed her father had already left for work.

"Morning Taylor," Jacob greeted as he read the paper. "By the way, your father said I could have the earpiece charging cradle you left on the counter?"

"Morning," Taylor returned. "And yea, I guess I forgot about that. I don't really need it anymore after all."

"Yea, I still find that a bit creepy. You see the news we missed regarding Winslow students?"

"Saw that online before I came down. I would feel sorry for everyone having to run through hoops if, you know, it hadn't been the culmination of the bullying campaign against me they were ignoring."

"That is a good point. At any rate, just before you came down I got a response from Arcadia. Your tests are Thursday and Friday, you will be in a different room than the other Winslow students taking the standard exam there but they will show you where when you give your name. Oh, and we are to ignore the letter from the city telling you to be at Clarendon instead, you apparently were in one of the first groups assigned a test location."

"Awesome, but that means I am going into study mode for a couple of days."

"Yep. Lucky for you the weather is perfect for staying indoors."

"Yea yea." Taylor poured herself some cereal, as it looked like nobody had cooked this morning. Once she had finished that she filled a water bottle for sipping and headed back up to her room. She pulled out her box of Arcadia study materials and started revising. She might grumble a bit, but she did want to get into Arcadia.

---

Around lunchtime Taylor took a break to make a sandwich and ended up trading text messages with Amy while the cell repeaters were enabled in Arcadia. Apparently the sudden loss of her powers, and subsequent change of how her aura acted, had scared Vicky into thinking her powers were failing or something. Amy thought she was slowly recovering, but only time would tell.

She also checked the mail and found her letter from the school system with instructions to report to Clarendon on Thursday and Friday, so apparently Arcadia was well in the know. Jacob had sent the alternate instructions for Arcadia to her phone, and was going to bring her anyway, so her father should be left clueless until the results came back from Arcadia.

After lunch, and the apparent shutdown of the cell repeaters and thus losing contact with Amy, Taylor returned to her studying. She only had a couple of days, after all, so she needed to get as much studying in as possible.

---

Taylor spent most time she was not eating or sleeping studying the following day as well, with some text message conversations with Amy and Riley. She had found that the lack of information on where Riley lived was, in fact, intentional for Riley's protection. Should Taylor prove to be personally trustworthy in other matters she would eventually be allowed to know.

She also got around to playing with the music and headset modes of her Bluetooth organ. Being able to hear the music or person on the phone without any actual sound in the area was odd, as it seemed like her ears were on a different mental 'channel' than the Bluetooth audio. She also quickly learned that she could 'sub-vocalize' and the Bluetooth microphone worked just as well. There was even a toggle to let the other end hear what her ears did instead. Most of this was learned while discussing classes with Amy while she rode the bus to the hospital after school on Wednesday.

---

Thursday morning eventually arrived. Taylor wasn't exactly certain what Uncle Jacob had been up to over the past couple of days, beyond the fact that he had apparently arranged to drop off her Wards application today while she was testing. Her father had apparently been working with several others to try and secure some of the work tearing Winslow down for the union workers, or so he said at dinner the night before.

"Good Luck," Danny said, rubbing Taylor's head as he walked by her as he headed for the door. "Do your best and don't give your uncle any trouble."

"Thanks Dad," Taylor said before returning to her bacon sandwich. Why Uncle Jacob had insisted on two pieces of lightly toasted bread with bacon between them for breakfast Taylor didn't know, but she also wasn't going to be complaining. Eventually, though, breakfast was over and it was time to leave.

The instructions for both Arcadia and Clarendon indicated that lunch would be provided, so Taylor didn't have to worry about that or for any discrepancy being noticed by her father. Actually, both schools also indicated that even things like pencils would be provided, Taylor was supposed to bring pretty much nothing with her regardless of which one she arrived at. The only difference was that Clarendon's instructions stated that cell phones may be collected before the exams began while Arcadia's explained that they would be inoperable in the building except during lunch.

The drive over to Arcadia left Taylor quite nervous for multiple reasons, including that there would be a collection of Winslow students in the building. She was sure she was going to screw something up, or maybe reveal her parahuman status, or something.

"Relax," Jacob said, patting Taylor's shoulder as they waited for a red light. "You will do fine. Just do your best, that is all anyone can ask of you."

Taylor did her best to relax, did not succeed in the least, and was dropped off by Arcadia's main doors. She felt several snarks in the area, but Amy, Vicky, and Dean were the only ones she knew personally and they were over in another part of the building. She figured she shouldn't waste any time and headed in, following signs that had been put up.

Ten minutes later she was sitting in a room, alone. Apparently she was literally the only Winslow student that had made the effort, directly or otherwise, to apply to Arcadia instead of going through the normal testing.

"Now then," the exam proctor, Miss Johansson, said. "As you are the only one taking Arcadia's test instead of the generic one you will be permitted to move on to the next subject early. With any luck you can skip needing to possibly come back for a few hours Tuesday morning for some of the classes you requested."

"Thank you," Taylor said, doing her best to be polite. She had, to help avoid distractions, even switched her snark sense to line of sight.

"Well then," Miss Johansson said. "You have forty-five minutes on this one, you may begin when ready."

Taylor opened the test booklet, losing herself in the exam.

---

Outside of a quick back and forth text message conversation with Amy at lunch, which had been brought to Taylor to avoid issues with the Winslow students in the cafeteria, Taylor spent pretty much the entire day taking exams with short breaks between them. She did not notice, but she had finished every exam early and thanks to the offer to allow her to start additional ones sooner had completed thirteen exams in a day only eight were originally allocated in, and still got to leave ten minutes early.

Jacob swung by to pick her up, and upon asking how she felt found that she felt burned out. He didn't ask how things were going, given that it was day one of two (though he didn't realize that there had originally been a need for a third session Tuesday). In fact, his goal was to keep her mind off of things.

"So, I hear you have figured out a few additional things about your little Bluetooth upgrade," Jacob said. "In particular, Riley said you were happy you found a way to not have it wake you up?"

"Yea, that is nice," Taylor said, smiling. "I just had to enable power saving sleep mode. When I go to sleep the thing turns off and disconnects from the phone. I do get pings if I wake up for any reason as it reconnects, though. Sucks when I just get up to relieve myself and some alert is waiting."

"I can see how that would be the case. How are you doing on the use of your power?"

"I kept snark sense in line of sight mode during the exams, might have to do that in classes in general, not sure yet. I am probably going to want to hit some things soon, apparently my snark isn't actually satisfied with lightly tapping everything in a room with a pencil. Though I think that is because it got bored with it. Probably the same as I did, really."

"That sounds disturbingly like my own power. Just less obvious."

"I did find out that I can, apparently, erase text with a pencil's eraser from a distance. It just leaves almost pure graphite sitting there that doesn't wipe away well."

"That makes some sense in some ways and no sense in others."

"Snarks apparently have that effect."

Dinner that evening did include some discussion of the exams, in vague terms. Taylor slept quite well.

---

Friday morning was almost a repeat of Thursday. Get up, eat breakfast, drive to Arcadia, take exams. Taylor finished her seventh just before lunch.

"Congratulations Taylor," Miss Johansson said as she collected the exam packet. "You have completed all twenty exams. You can either stick around and have lunch or leave, your choice."

"What? I'm done?" Taylor said, a bit stunned. "Wow. I guess I will head home?"

"Since you are the only examinee being graded by us your results will likely be available Tuesday. Enjoy your weekend."

"Thank you."

Taylor was able to send Jacob a text on her way out, or rather she queued it for sending and it sent as soon as the cell repeaters activated. She let Amy and Riley know that she had, apparently, finished her exams early, getting out of the school building itself shortly afterwards.

Her uncle showed up, a bit surprised to be picking her up early. "I think I can say good job, given that you finished early."

"Yesterday they implied I would need to show up Tuesday for the last few exams," Taylor said. "Yet today I finished the last of them. I crammed two and a half days of exams into one and a half days, apparently."

"If you did well it will reflect even better on you. If you did slightly poorly it will make it seem like you rushed yourself, which may be seen as needing a little work but will probably not hurt your chances. Either way, unless you bombed an important exam somehow you are probably all set."

"And now I can't help but wonder if I did bomb one of the important exams. Thank you so much," Taylor deadpanned.

"Moving on, as you know I filed your paperwork for joining the Wards yesterday. I hadn't known about the potential Tuesday exams and potential studying for them, so I had told them you could show up for initial stuff Monday. You still good for that?"

"That works for me. My exam results may be ready then too, if they can get them early."

"Well, we will have to see how things go. For the time being, though, I doubt you had lunch, so I think I will treat you to an actual restaurant today."

The two of them had lunch, and then headed back to the Hebert household. Taylor entertained herself for a bit using random things in the basement as blunt objects to hit other random things in the basement, followed by making her way through PHO posts and various random videos online.

At dinner Danny was very tired, having apparently spent the day running around town chasing people down to chat with them about the Winslow work. He was still happy to hear that Taylor had finished her exams. He informed her that Jacob had let him know about the Monday visit to the PRT, so he would be available.

All three of them ended up going to bed a little earlier than usual. Taylor was burned out mentally, Danny more physically, and Jacob was just plain bored enough to think sleep the better alternative.

 

[ExquisiteTopHat]

This chapter was quite slice of life-y, but it was also clearly establishing further points of change for the AU itself. The set up for future events in this chapter was evident, but not particularly heavy handed. Overall, I believe it was a good read.

The graphite erasing bit was fairly amusing too.

 

[John-Smith]

The graphite erasing bit was fairly amusing too.

Click to shrink...

Could be a nice bit of foreshadowing too. We know that no trace of the weapon is left on her target but the target reacts as if being stricken by the weapon's material (thus graphite is left on top of paper, but no rubber) and that it's not just a forwards strike but a continuous precise strike (otherwise it'd cause either a whole or tear in the paper). This leaves a lot of options.

Writing in sand/snow, typing while wearing gloves, using touch-screens with the winter touchscreen gloves (or a stylus pen), all at a distance are all a given once she's got some control.

Depending on her limitations, she should be able to fake basic telekinesis.
If she can have the strike hit without line-of-sight then she'd also be able to hit an object with a lot of force from the back, pushing it towards her faking 'Pull'. Either way she'd be able to fake 'Push' by hitting it on the side towards her in the direction she wants it to go.

If she can rapidly throw several strikes in series before they hit, she'd fake a basic 'Shockwave' (especially if you have an object with a large surface area facing opponent).

If her precision is good then she can make a devastating 'Slam' by using a hammer-like object throwing a strike upwards with the 'thin' side between someone's legs then using the 'wide' side throwing a downwards strike. Hopefully they'd get lifted off the ground then smashed down hard.

Not sure her maximum force or the size of her strikes or her precision, but she could potentially use gloves to slap bullets out of the air, push them to the side, or worse case just add a bit of force pushing them backwards (if she can't stop them it might let her survive being hit with larger rounds).

Contact poison might work (given that the graphite on paper got erased by the rubber eraser which wouldn't happen if it was stricken by anything else) but it'd have to be ultra-fast acting (less than a second) since the 'poison' would only be in contact during the strike then disappear.
A normal taser wouldn't work, but maybe an electrified glove or flat surfaced weapon (if Reagent's mace worked with internal taser, then a hammer should work too). But depending on how the strike transfers it might only transfer the material property (so metal) not active properties (electrified metal).

Normal stuff like precise strikes at weakpoints too if her precision is good enough. Gloved punch to the throat, knockout blow to back of head, uppercut punch, etc... Lots of (kick)boxing strikes would be really effective since we know he strikes multiply her force and punches/kicks are all 'blunt force' so they'd all work but be even better since she hits from a distance and thus 'safe'.