The Taste of Peaches (Worm AU)

[Grounders10]

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A Worm Fanfic

The Taste of Peaches

By: Grounders10

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1

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Taylor smacked her palm against the metal back-wall of her locker. "Stupid, stupid, stupid." She growled at herself.

Getting locked in your own locker is one of those things you think only happens in books. The little geeky nerd who would lose a fistfight with a bunny is the sort who gets picked up by the big strong jocks and thrown into his locker before being sealed inside until someone takes pity on them.

Taylor was… A bit of a nerd she'd admit, but one thing she wasn't was little. She was tall and lanky like her father, a build that was thin enough to allow her to just barely fit into the locker. It was really cramped inside the locked and she had, at the beginning, nearly passed out from hyperventilation. It could have been worse, at least it was just her locker and she kept it pretty clean compared to most students.

"On the last day to." She grumbled as she tried to brace herself against the wall as best she could before, for what felt like the millionth time, she pushed against the door with her back. She yelled and screamed incoherently, but the damned thing refused to move because steel was stronger than a 5' 6" fifteen-year-old girl.

"What the hell is that noise?" A voice, old and weathered like rock filtered through the air grates above her.

She stopped. Finally. "HELP!" She shouted, banging against the door. "HELP! I'VE BEEN LOCKED IN MY LOCKER! GET ME OUT OF HERE!"

The response she got was completely contrary to her expectations. The voice did not tell her to hold on while it got some tools, or conveniently have a lock cutter on hand to let her out. Instead, she got…

"Oh hell no." The old voice growled, "I don't care what you ABB fuckers think you're doing but I ain't falling for that trick again. Hell no. YOU HEAR ME YOU DEGENERATES! I AIN'T FALLING FOR IT!"

"THIS ISN'T A TRICK! LET ME OUT!" Taylor shouted after a moment of stupified silence.

"Not listening. Not hearing ah thing! Nope, nope, nope. Lalalalala!" She listened as the old man's voice faded into the distance with disbelief. She was being left to die, in her own locker, because the ABB gangbangers pranked a Janitor?

Her scream of rage rang through the halls of the school. Frustrated and angry beyond reason she slammed herself against the metal door again. And again. And again. With a growl that would have probably sounded inhuman to anyone who might have overheard her, she slammed into the door a fourth time only for there to be, unlike the last three times, a loud screech of tearing metal as the lock on the door was ripped apart and she fell out of the locker.

She landed heavily in the sand and blinked up at the dark cloudy sky above her as a light rain splattered across her face. Waves lapped at her ankles. She blinked and sat up. She was on a beach and floating in front of her, inches above the water, was the open door of her locker. Just the door itself, hanging in the air like a Mobius strip.

"What the hell?" She asked the world as she stared at the floating locker door. The bent open door quivered under her gaze like a nervous dog before it, without her touching it, slammed shut with a screech of tearing metal as the door forced itself into shape before the locker blinked out of existence leaving her with the view of dark foreboding lake and tall cloud obscured mountains in the distance.

And nowhere to go.

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"Where am I?" She asked the world. It, being a place and not a person, failed to respond. She sat there for a moment before picking herself up, brushing the sand from her pants and hoodie as she did.

"It's in my hair." She whined as she shook her long curly hair out as best she could. Little bits of wet sand stuck to it in places. She fiddled with it, absorbing herself in something that made sense for a few minutes before giving up in disgust.

Finally, no longer able to ignore the reality around her, she looked around. She was on a beach, by a lake, surrounded by mountains, on an overcast day. Honestly not that strange. She'd been camping a few times and this didn't look all that different… except for the absolute pitch-black water or the forest of stone trees, minus leaves, not even a hundred feet away.

"Well, this is… weird." She muttered. Was this a cape thing? Did some cape just send her who the fuck knew where just to get her out of her locker? Or… She paused and looked down at her hands. "Did I do this?"

It wasn't impossible, people got their powers somewhere and it wasn't like those who did were ever willing to give interviews about it. Despite her own longtime interest in superheroes and capes in general just finding out when and how people had gained powers was next to impossible. No one talked about it.

Hesitantly she reached out and gave the air a push while trying to think of home.

Nothing happened.

She tried again.

Still nothing.

She sighed. "Probably not me then." She sighed as she looked around. Well, something weird had happened, and this place looked like it might have been the site of a cape battle. Stone trees weren't exactly a naturally occurring thing after all.

"What do I do now?" She wondered worriedly. She had no idea where she was, no food, the water was questionable at best, and a possibly haunted stone forest behind her. Bad was an understatement.

Just as panic was setting in a loud… not quite bark sounded from behind her. She spun in place and stared. "A fox?" She said, confused.

A pure white fox was sitting at the edge of the beach, tongue lolling out as it sat there calm and apparently unconcerned about the stone trees behind it. It 'yipped' at her and hopped to its feet before running back towards the trees. It paused at the tree when she didn't follow, then ran back to the beach and yipped again before running to the trees again. It repeated it a dozen more times.

Moving cautiously, who knew if the cute fox would turn out to be a murderous beast in disguise and this place certainly looked like the home for such a creature, she approached the fox. It yipped happily and went further into the trees, pausing to watch her every few feet.

Taylor stopped at the trees and tapped one of them. It felt like stone, though the bark had the rough-hewn look of something that was once wood. The fox yipped at her. She frowned. On one hand, she had no idea what was going on; on the other hand, she had a fox trying to get her to follow it into a spooky stone tree forest.

Neither were good situations.

The fox yipped at her again. She sighed. "Oh, this is a bad idea." She muttered before following the fox. They always said don't follow strangers, always be aware of the danger of masters and other mind-controlling capes. Who knew what they could do. For all she knew this was a cape in disguise trying to lure her to her death.

It was still better than standing on a beach without a plan or a clue.

The walk through the forest was long, hours long going by her watch. When they finally left the creepy, but apparently completely empty, forest behind it was telling her it was nearly midnight. Her dad was, assuming he had made it home from work, probably going nuts wondering where she was.

She sighed. No point in worrying too hard about that. She could apologize for being late and worrying him after she got home… somehow. First though…

The fox might have led her out of the forest, but it had led her to the base of a sheer cliff face. With stairs. Nice, perfectly carved stairs that led up, and up, and up some more. The cliff disappeared somewhere above the clouds and the stairs followed as far as she could see.

The fox yipped excitedly and started up the stairs. She stared at it. It stopped on the fifth stair and looked back at her. If Taylor had to assign an emotion to it, she'd say it was amused. It knew just how annoyed she was with this entire situation.

She groaned and started climbing. This was going to take a while.

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It was three hours later when Taylor finally stopped for a break. Not because she was, as one would expect after the better part of twelve hours of walking, tired. She stopped because she wasn't.

According to her watch, it was nearly four in the morning. It had been, when she arrived, four-thirty in the afternoon. Somehow the weird twilight had not changed at all. It was still just as bright, just as dark as it had been when she arrived. It was rather strange.

She found a seat on one of the steps. They had started wide at the bottom, but this far up they were only a couple feet wide and a slip would send her plummeting to the ground below.

"Why am I here?" She asked the empty air.

The fox, just as not tired as she was, walked over and plopped its head into her lap. It looked up at her and whined, an odd noise somewhere between a huff and meow. Very strange. Cute, but strange.

She looked down at it and cautiously scratched behind one ear. It made a funny almost purring noise. "Why am I following you? Up a mountain in some… where. What is this place?" Looking out over the side treated her to the view of just how expansive that forest really was. Stone trees went for dozens of miles, most disappearing around outcroppings of the mountain range. The lake stretched for miles and if it might not have been a lake. Even this high up she couldn't see the far side of the inky black waters.

The fox sneezed and stood up. It cantered up a few stairs and then stopped, looking down at her. It yipped and kept going.

She frowned, then sighed. It wasn't like foxes could talk so… She got to her feet and started the long trudge up the mountain. For whatever reason, it wasn't physically exhausting… But god, it was boring.

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The climb through the clouds had been slow and treacherous. While the stairs had widened by a couple of feet there was the issue of visibility. At times she had to practically crawl to be able to see the ground and twice she had nearly stepped off the side. Only the warnings of the fox had stopped her from plummeting to her death.

Above the clouds, there was sunshine. The sea of clouds practically glowed in the sunlight. It was a spectacularly beautiful sight. Only ruined by the staircase that continued to stretch into the distance above her. Still, it looked like there might be an end. She could see something, glittering, in the distance.

As she started on this latest leg of the climb she glanced at her watch. It was eight am. There was definitely something strange about the days in this place.

It took another ten hours of slow, boring, and inexplicably not tiring climbing to reach the top. When she crested the top of the stairs she stopped and stared. The staircase let out onto a plateau. The area around the staircase was a stone plain, open and windswept without a single shred of grass or weed or other plant to name. That was not what had made her stop.

In the distance, though no more than a mile or so, was a a fortress. Vast, with walls the stretched for miles to either side and which stretched hundreds of meters above the plains it shone gold in the sunlight. Galleries littered the outside of the wall It was an eye-searing spectacle.

Between her and the fortress, the plain was… She swallowed nervously and her heart beat a bit faster. It was a warzone seemingly frozen in time. Legions of stone men, wearing stone armour and carrying stone weapons were locked in battle with monsters. Some appeared as though they had sprung from myth. Stone hydras loomed over companies of warriors. Wolves the size of Endbringers chomped on men like candies.

Her eyes followed one beast, it's nose pointed towards the sky, and she stared at the statue of a man that floated in the sky above, as though the man had turned to stone mid-flight and physics had abandoned him to forever float in place.

The large beasts weren't the only ones though. Smaller ones swarmed around the larger ones. Men with the heads of pigs, creatures with spindly limbs the looked too fragile to exist, things that simply floated despite being stone. Just round balls with too many eyes on stalks. More, things she couldn't recognize or even hope to describe.

Thousands of these things, tens of thousands perhaps on a plane that stretched impossibly in directions she knew it couldn't. Like back the way she came. She had climbed a sheer cliff, there was no overhang. Yet it stretched back, over where she had come from all the way to the horizon. The only edge was the cliff beside her, off of which clouds stretched in a golden sea beyond the horizon.

"What the hell is this." She said quietly, watching the nearest statues, a group of pigmen, carefully. Everything seemed still, unmoving no matter how impossible their positions.

The fox yipped at her and casually walked up to one of the pigmen. Its bloated form was encased in what looked like a heavy plate. The fox jumped up on its head and yipped loudly its triumph. Slowly the statue tipped and the fox jumped off as it fell over. It shattered as it hit the ground. She jumped nervously, but nothing reacted to her. Everything was still. Everything.

She licked her lips nervously. "It's all stone. Just like the trees." She said to herself. "Just… just stone." Walking slowly she followed the fox through the battlefield. Passed snarling monsters and bizarre creatures. Passed rank after rank of soldiers. Passed a battle frozen in its last moments.

A frozen impossibility.

She reached the gates after a long, and very nerve-wracking, walk. There were three gates, spaced several hundred meters apart. Each one was large enough for a container ship to pass through. On either side of each gate stood statues taller than the gates. Vast men, each a hundred meters tall, with heavy ceremonial armour, large two-handed greatswords, and tusks that stuck out of their mouths. Each tusk looked about as long as she was tall, probably more.

The gates, made from what looked like iron decorated in the entire rainbow of Jade colours, stood open. Through one a legion of men was marching in formation towards the front. Through another, a massive elephant, twice as large as anything she had seen on TV, pulled a train of steel carts.

She looked back at the monsters on the battlefield behind her. What had she stumbled into? This place… These things had to have been real once. A battle of literal mythical proportions, with creatures that had seemingly been pulled from storybooks and myths. Everything was too grand, too massive of scale and scope to be some art project… unless she had shrunk maybe? Was she on someone's art project, just a miniature person running around?

The fox, by the only gate not occupied, yipped loudly at her. She ran after it and tried to push her questions aside, but they were only growing with time.

The inside of the fortress did nothing to calm her. Tens of thousands of men, thousands of rooms, hundreds of hallways. The Fortress was vast in a way she couldn't have imagined. Most of the fortress was frozen in a moment of every-day military life. Soldiers trained, some rested, some performed jobs. Had been performing jobs. All of them were statues.

"Maybe they were always statues." She said. Her voice bounced strangely off the walls of the hallway she was in. They weren't words she believed. There was just… too much. Something had turned these people to stone. All the people, birds, insects, monsters, even plants. It was all stone.

Everything except the fox.

As she followed it deeper into the fortress she had to wonder what it was. It couldn't just be a fox. It was acting too strange. Was it responsible for this?

Was she next?

Regular life, civilian and military, gave way to checkpoints, barricades, and stranger things the further in they went. One hallway, long and wide enough to be the main street through her home city of Brockton Bay, looked like the floors and walls had turned to wax and melted, running together. Tentacles, made of stone like everything else, had burst from walls and misshapen creatures clashed with men in increasingly elaborate armour with weapons that spanned all of history. Bearded axes, khopeshes, jians, gladiuses, weapons from a thousand civilizations were wielded by an army just as varied in appearance.

Through it all, the fox walked. Passed eldritch abominations, between the legs of giants, and around the blocks of soldiers fighting for their lives.

Eventually though, after hours of walking, it came to an end. The Fox led her into a courtyard. Stone bushes lined the sides. Carefully tended flower beds of stone roses and many other flowers were arranged with fountains that still sprayed water. The sound of flowing water was horrifically loud after over a day without anything other than her own feet and that fox.

At the center of the garden, behind ranks of soldiers, was a peach tree. Men and women, dressed as Confucian scholars, Vikings, Greeks, Aztecs, and more stood around it in a circle. There were hundreds of them.

She walked passed them all, into the clearing around the tree where the fox had gone. She found it, sitting at the feet of three statues. A man, dressed as a Viking with a hammer in his belt; a man dressed in a toga with a laurel upon his head; and a woman whose features reflected the sun as though she was born to shine. They stood in a triangle at the base of the tree, their hands clasped together before them, and their eyes shut.

The fox sat directly beneath their hands.

Taylor looked around. Was this it? "What is this place?" She asked the fox.

It looked at her, tilted its head, then looked up. At the stone tree.

Only, it wasn't entirely stone. A single branch, just a small one off the main arms, was bark. Its leaves were gold and from it hung a peach. A golden peach.

She stared for a moment at it. Searching for something to say, or even do. "Isn't it supposed to be an apple?"

The fox gave her a flat look and she shrugged. "What do you want? What is this? Why am I here? TELL ME WHY I CLIMBED A MOUNTAIN!" She shouted. Her body heaved as her worry grew enough to drive her to her knees. Had she just followed a fox down a rabbit hole for nothing?

She looked at her watch. It was approaching two days since she'd started this mess. Two days without water, food, or… "Dad must be so worried." She rubbed her forehead.

The Fox nodded, then stepped back. It leapt up, landing on the hands of the three before leaping again. It landed on the stone branch from which grew the wooden one. She watched, curious as to what it was doing, as it carefully walked down the branch before leaning out towards the golden peach. Its teeth snipped the peach from the tree.

The peach fell, bounced off the head of the viking, and rolled across the ground to her feet. The Fox looked at her, then at the peach, then her again.

"You want me to eat it?" She asked, picking the peach up. It was smooth and felt like it was just perfectly ripe.

The Fox yipped at her.

She looked down at the peach. She swallowed nervously. "This…" She licked her dry lips. "Oh what the hell." She bit into it.

The sun flared to life.

Lightning flowed through her veins.

The clouds below rumbled.

Wind roared through the courtyard.

The water in the fountains surged upwards, defying gravity as the droplets felt towards the sky.

Her glasses shattered on the floor.

The Fox above her disintegrated into golden particles that floated down to her, disappearing with little flashes as they met her skin.

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When the world came back into focus Taylor gasped and fell backwards. The peach, now just a pit, rolled away from her. A sharp pain in her rear shot up her spine as she fell back. It felt like she had just squashed something or bent it.

One hand reached back to massage the pained spot as she sat up. She froze, halfway to sitting up, as it met something that felt soft and she felt an odd touch on… She twisted on the spot to look behind her. "Oh." She said weakly. She had tails. Nine of them, she counted despite her surprise. Nine long flowing tails with hair the same hair as her original curly locks.

"I, have tails." She said, running a hand through a tail. It- she, twitched at the strange sensation. She raised a hand to rub her forehead. She paused as she realized she wasn't wearing her glasses anymore. Where were- oh. She spotted her broken glasses on the ground by her feet.

Her ears twitched with irritation as she picked them up. Those had been expensive for them. Her dad was not going to be… be. Oh god. "What have I gotten into." She asked as she looked around the garden. The world was crystal clear around her, despite the fact that her glasses were lying on the ground broken. Good eyesight was nice, yeah. That was something she take from this.

Sure she'd grown nine more limbs, walked for two days, and eaten a quite possibly parahuman created fruit, but at least she had good vision now? She could see the individual droplet of water in that fountain on the other side of the courtyard. And the scrollwork on that bench on the balcony four floors up. The one written in Egyptian. Or the weird ghosts stepping out of the three statues in front of her.

She blinked and slowly turned to face the three ghosts that had just stepped out of their statues. Ghosts. Oh god, oh god, oh god.

The two men looked down at her. The Viking looked amused, while the Greek had a look of reserved judgement. The woman, whose kimono now shimmered in the sunlight, simply smiled down at her.

A sharp series of crackling pops behind snapped her out of her observations. Still breathing unsteadily she risked a glance behind her. Her tails were tingling, and the reason was immediately apparent. Electricity was arcing from one tail to the next like lightning jumping from storm cloud to storm cloud.

"She'll have much to learn." The Greek said, pulling her attention back.

"She will have time to." The Viking replied.

The woman shook her head. "Judge her later. We have little time." She said, getting a grunt from each man.

"Who are you?" Taylor asked. Their replies sent her eyes wide.

"I am Amaterasu, Goddess of the Sun."

"Thor Odinson, God of Thunder."

"Poseidon, God of the Sea."

"We are the three chosen to pass on a message." Amaterasu, the Goddess of the Sun finished.

"You're gods?" Taylor asked.

"Were gods. We're dead now." Thor said.

"We haven't much time to answer questions. I am very sorry." Amaterasu apologized. She knelt down beside Taylor. "I know this is a bit of a shock, and all very sudden. However, yes we are gods. Everyone here was either a God or one of our servants. Whether spirits or mortals."

"It was here we made our last stand." Poseidon said, "Against a foe one hundred years ago. It came from beyond the stars and attempted to spread its corrupt influence through all the worlds under our protection."

Thor nodded. "Aye. We saw it off. It shan't return for at least a thousand years, but it cost us everything." Apparently noticing her horrified look he added, "This is not unusual for gods. Ragnarok, of a sort, comes around every few thousand years. That era's gods see it off and everything continues apace. Why I think we lasted longer than most have."

Poseidon chuckled. "Longer than the Mesopotamian gods. I believe it might even be a record."

The Japanese Goddess sighed. "You're worrying her. Stop." She said before turning back to Taylor. "Taylor. You arrived here by accident I assume?" She asked.

"Y-yes." Taylor nodded. "I was stuck in my locker and the door just suddenly opened to here."

She nodded. "Here is the Land of the Gods. The Divine Plane if you would. The only way you can reach here is if you are a God or work for one." Amaterasu said.

The implications did not fly by Taylor. "I'm not god. I got locked in my own locker not two days ago. What god gets locked in a locker?" She asked.

"I was eaten by my father," Poseidon said, "I'd say a stomach is far more cramped than a metal box. Especially since my siblings were there as well."

Thor nodded. "Well, I would be lying if I said either had happened to me. But I have been eaten by a monster or two. Getting stuck in tight spots is a very godly thing to do."

Amaterasu sighed. "There is no mistake." She said, "You are a god. The first goddess of a new age."

"I can't be-" Amaterasu's hand covered her mouth. She blinked at the older goddess.

"As much as I would prefer to spend time talking sense into you, I'm afraid we don't have time." The Sun Goddess said. "You are the first Goddess of this era. Not some gifted mortal, or cursed fool like those you run about the world at present."

Thor flickered for a moment. "We're out of time." He said.

"Girl," Poseidon said, "If you wish to learn how to be a Goddess, listen to what feels true to you. Follow it to the source and you will know yourself."

What the hell did that mean? Taylor shook her head at the man.

"And, the foe we vanquished." Thor said, "More of its kind have come to Earth. One is already dead, but the other is about. Be wary. These things trade in deceit." More of what did this? What was she supposed to do?

"Taylor." Her eyes snapped to Amaterasu. The older woman smiled sadly. "You are the first. More will come. This is not your task alone. I'm sorry we cannot do more. For now, I will use the last of my power to send you home. This place has nothing you need as of yet. When you are ready to return here. You will know how to open the door."

The three gods stood around her. Together they raised their hands and the world went white.

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She blinked the spots from here eyes. She was in a hallway. She blinked again. She recognized this hallway, it was the upper hallway in her house.

Her tails flicked side to side. Her ears twitched.

So she was a Goddess now? And that was somehow different from a parahuman?

She sighed, the weight of being awake for two days was suddenly hitting her. She felt absolutely exhausted. Even her new limbs were sagging from the effort of staying awake.

"Who are you?" She stiffened as she recognized her father's voice. She spun on the spot, turning to face her dad as he was coming up the stairs.

"Dad." She said as she faced him. His eyes widened.

"Taylor?" He asked.

She opened her mouth to respond, only to frown as the world began to tip. Why was it tipping? God, she was tired. She could just-

She was out cold and dreaming by the time she hit the floor.

 

[Grounders10]

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A Worm Fanfic

The Taste of Peaches

By: Grounders10

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2

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When Taylor woke up she was surprised to find herself tucked under the covers of her own bed. It wasn't that she had expected to wake up in jail, or in the hospital, but after the last couple of days waking up in her bed with the sun pouring through her window was odd. It felt strangely surreal after walking through a battlefield that was literally pulled from myth. Assuming she hadn't just imagined it all.

She tried to sit up, but stopped and slid back down to lie on her side instead when she felt a sharp pain in her backside. She rolled to the side and flipped back her covers.

Nine long and fluffy raven-haired foxtails greeted her. As she watched they twitched and moved in an irritated manner, matching her mood.

She let out an explosive sigh and fell back onto her pillow. "I have a tail, tails." She said to the room. That hadn't been a strange dream. She really had climbed a mountain, explored a battlefield frozen in time, and maybe been turned into a god? Assuming they weren't just crazy parahumans.

She held out a hand in front of her. Her skin tone was normal, her fingers looked normal. Still that wasn't enough to know what her experience had changed. She needed a mirror. Her covers were knocked to the floor as she sat up and swung her legs under her.

The door to her room clicked as the doorknob turned and it swung open before she could stand up. Her dad, Danny Hebert, paused in the doorway. "Taylor." He smiled, "you're awake."

He stood in the doorway, looking awkward. "It is you Little Owl?" He asked.

She grimaced at the doubt, but then glanced back at her tails. In a world of strangers and masters, it was only natural doubt when your daughter shows up after being missing for several days with new body parts. Not that it meant it hurt any less.

Taylor nodded. "Yeah. The last couple of days were, rather strange." She admitted.

Danny hesitated for a moment before crossing the room and pulling her into a hug. "I was so worried." His breath tickled her ears. Her ears?

"Dad." She asked, giving him a tentative hug back. "Um, is there something on top of my head?"

He pulled back looking hesitant. "You don't know?" He said.

She shook her head. "What does it look like?" She asked. It felt like her ears had moved.

He swallowed nervously. "You have animal ears on top of your head." He said, brushing one with a hand.

She flinched and withdrew, her hands going to her head. She quickly found the twin triangles of fur that her ears had become. She gulped and her hands dropped into her lap.

"What happened?" Her father asked.

She licked her dry lips. "A lot." She said. A low rumble interrupted her and they both glanced down at her stomach. She blushed as her father chuckled.

"You're hungry?" He asked with a smile.

"Maybe a bit." She admitted. Two days without food was a long time. Even if she hadn't seemed to need it then, it now felt like all that time was catching up with her.

He patted her on the shoulder and stood up. "I'll get started on food then." He said, "Get cleaned up and come on down."

Taylor paused. "Are you saying I stink?" She asked flatly. Her father merely chuckled as he left the room. She gave herself an experimental sniff and coughed. Well, it might not have been flattering, but she definitely needed a shower. Turned out that two days of walking built up a sweat even if you weren't paying attention.

She shot a glance at her new tails. Could she even fit in the shower anymore? Did she have enough shampoo? She sighed and stood, her tails waved about and for a moment she nearly overbalanced before something clicked and she found her balance. A couple tentative steps proved that she wasn't in danger of falling over… though she did need to learn to control her tails. Her alarm clock was undamaged, but next time it might be something more valuable.

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One awkward shower later, wherein she discovered that yes she did have enough shampoo, just; and that a normal shower was a fairly tight squeeze for a tall fifteen-year-old teenage girl with nine fluffy fox tails about as long as she was tall (the suds had coated everything); she entered the kitchen.

She paused at the base of the staircase. Through the doorway into the kitchen, she could see her dad working at the stove. She could hear the snap-pop of cooking bacon and the smell was heavenly. Her stomach growled and she blushed as Danny glanced over his shoulder at her.

"I was wondering when you were going to come down." He said, flipping some bacon as she entered. "I was about to come and check on you."

"Washing nine tails took a bit longer than normal." It hadn't taken too much longer, but there were nine of them. She went to sit down at the table and paused. Sitting in what was usually her spot was a very familiar fox. It looked up at her and she would swear it was smiling at her.

"Dad, why is there a fox here?" She asked, staring it in the eye. It looked away without a care as her dad came over and placed a plate of bacon, eggs, and toast in his seat.

"Sit, eat." He told her, "And I was hoping you could tell me. It showed up last night and has been sitting here since."

Sliding sideways into the offered chair she frowned at the fox that was eyeing her breakfast. "Don't you dare." She said to it as she piled bacon and eggs on toast. It smiled at her, tongue lolling out of its mouth as it tried to play innocent. She knew better, however. It was a fox, it was far from innocent by default.

"Taylor?" Her dad prompted.

She sighed. "I think it's the same fox I spent two days following around." She said.

"Excuse me?" He asked, "You followed a fox around for two days?"

She grumbled and took a bit of her breakfast. The bacon was a bit overcooked, but the crunch made her mouth water more. She moaned slightly as she ate, one eye constantly watching the fox as it tracked each bite, that same silly expression on its face. Finishing that slice of toast she started piling another one up.

"Taylor."

She paused. "Can I finish eating first?" She asked, looking up at her dad. Without realizing it her tails and ears had both drooped as she pouted at him.

"I- Sure." He said with a smile, before promptly stealing one of her pieces of bacon.

"DAD!" She complained before going back to her food. She paused and counted the bacon. Her eyes slid up to the fox. It chewed twice before swallowing the two pieces of bacon it had stolen. Its tongue lolled out and it yawned smugly before curling up into a ball. "Can I get more bacon?" She asked.

"We've got a little more."

Twenty minutes, three more stolen pieces of bacon, and enough eggs and toast to feed ten people Taylor and Danny retired to the living room. Taylor curled up on the couch, her tails wrapping about her legs like a large fluffy blanket. It was rather cozy. The fox stole the foot stool while he father sat down beside Taylor. She leaned against him and he wrapped an arm about her shoulder.

"How long was I gone?" She asked once they were settled.

"You were gone for two days. I called the police when you didn't come home." He said quietly, "They… they found your locker."

Taylor winced. "Some bullies decided I looked small enough to fit and shoved me in. An end of year prank." There was no way she was telling her dad about who had actually done so. "I'd have been out just if it wasn't for that janitor leaving me in there." Stupid cowardly old bastard. Leaving someone locked in their own locker just because of a stupid prank someone else had done? She scowled, baring teeth as she did.

"They found out about the janitor." Her father said, "He's in quite a bit of trouble as far as I understand it."

"Good."

"They also found that your locker had been forced open from the inside. Then slammed shut hard enough to break steel." Danny continued, "They called the PRT."

"Oh." The Parahuman Response Team was the federal organization responsible for handling all crises involving parahumans. Whether it was as minor as someone with the power to create bubbles from nothing or a murderer who could levitate a car it fell under their responsibility. The moment parahuman involvement was hinted at the police were required to call them in.

The PRT was partnered with the Protectorate, a government sponsored team of Parahumans who operated jointly with the all normal agents of the PRT. Brockton Bay played host to the Protectorate East North-East team, or ENE for short. They were responsible, as Taylor understood it, for the protection of Brockton Bay and a large part of New England.

"They had a team here last night. It was their paramedic that said you just needed sleep." He said with a sigh.

Then they knew she had powers. Even just looking like she did was enough to fall under their jurisdiction. She shifted nervously and hugged a tail to her chest. The fluffy appendage was comforting, like a teddy bear. Her father hugged her tighter.

"Relax. You aren't in trouble." He said quietly, "They've got a team around the house for the moment. Just in case of more trouble. I let them know you woke up while you were in the shower. A representative of the PRT will be arriving in an hour with someone from the protectorate."

She sighed and leaned against her dad. An hour until she had to answer questions. What did she tell them? 'By the authority invested in me by Thor, Poseidon and Amaterasu I am a Goddess, bow down and worship me!'? She snorted at the thought. It was absurd and would only end with her in a nice padded cell eating horrible hospital food. Or the birdcage if they thought she was dangerous enough.

"Hmmm?" Her dad prodded her. "So, how does getting stuck in a locker lead to…" He waved at her then the fox. It continued to watch them passively, but preened for a moment when Danny gestured to it.

Taylor sighed. "Well, it started with me kicking open my locker after the Janitor left me locked inside…" She said, launching into a very abbreviated description of her two day trip. She made sure to leave out the whole 'god' thing. He didn't need to know that. Hell, she didn't know what it meant. When she finished ten minutes later her father was staring at her with an expression she was having a hard time recognizing.

"You ate the peach, because of that." He looked to the fox who yipped.

"Yes?" She said tentatively. It hadn't been the smartest thing she'd ever done that was for sure. Right up there with taking her mother's flute to school. "In my defense I was frustrated from climbing a mountain for two days. I… really wanted there to be a point to the whole thing…" She sighed.

Danny echoed her before pulling her into a hug. "Just- don't do anything that foolish again. If I lost you to- I just…"

She hugged him back. Their lives hadn't been the same since her mother died, neither talked much anymore, but the thought of losing her father as well was… "I'm sorry." She whispered. They stayed that way quietly hugging one another for a few minutes before her father released her and she slowed pulled back as well.

"So…" He paused, then looked at the fox. "That leads to the question of why your guide there is here."

"Maybe it's part of my powers?" She offered. Honestly as far as powers went having pet fox that stole your bacon was far from the worst.

"Or," a third smooth asian accented voice said, "You could ask the fox."

Both of them turned to look at the fox. It smiled smugly at them. "Hello~ Magical Spirit Guide Inari-Chan~ Reporting as needed Desu~!" She saluted.

Taylor stared for a long moment at the talking fox before turning to Danny. "How old was the Bacon?" She asked.

"Kurt brought it over yesterday." He replied absentmindedly. "It should have been fine. Maybe it was the apple juice."

The fox dropped its salute and sighed. "You are not crazy. I, the great and glorious Inari-Chan, am here to explain everything." It paused. "Also the food was delicious. Can I have some more? Especially the apple juice."

"No." Taylor said at the same time her dad said, "Maybe."

She glanced at him. "Dad." She complained.

"Depends on what she has to say." He replied, looking pointedly at the fox.

'Inari' grinned. "How about that your daughter left a few things out." She said.

Her dad turned to look at her as she realized what the fox was saying. "Don't." She said forcefully.

The fox just smirked. "What? You're more than one of these mortals playing with cursed power." It did.

"Taylor, what is it talking about?" Her dad asked. He frowned at Inari. "And why is she saying mortals?"

"I-" What did she say? What could she say that wouldn't sound like she'd lost her mind?

"Just tell him." She glared at the fox, who was still smirking at her. "Seriously?" Inari sighed. "Fine I'll do it."

"Why can't you stay quiet like on the mountain?" She ground out.

"Because if you can't trust your father then who can you trust?"

Taylor stopped, her next angry remark on her lips died before it could be properly vocalized. It was a simple question. No, not a question. It was a statement. Family and trust. This was her dad, the only person she could call family left in the entire world and yet…

When had she stopped trusting him?

"Taylor?" Her dad asked gently, resting a hand on her arm.

She could feel her ears flattened against the top of her head. It was easy to know. She'd complained to herself about how lifeless he was for years now. Ever since her mother died. "I left a few things out." She admitted quietly.

He wrapped an arm around her. "I gathered." He said, "But what did you leave out?" He didn't say it, but she could almost feel him asking, 'and why didn't you trust me with it?'

"Because you'll think I'm crazy." She said, answering the unsaid question instead.

"We're sitting here." Danny said, waving at the room. "You have a bunch of very pretty fox tails." She blushed at her dad's compliment in spite of herself. "And we've just discovered that the fox that has been hanging around all day talks. At this point I'm fairly open to ideas."

She snorted and looked away. "Get on with it." Inari said from her seat on the footstool. "Booooo. More admissions, less stalling."

"Just… just be quiet." Taylor groaned before sighing. "I left out a bit between when I bit into the peach and when I got home." She admitted before telling Danny everything she had left out.

"Poseidon? Thor?" He repeated back to her.

She nodded. "And Amaterasu. I'm not sure where she's from, but I'm guessing mythology somewhere?" She said.

"Shinto, from Japan." Inari interjected. "Amaterasu was the Goddess of the Sun and ruler of the heavens."

"Gods." Danny repeated.

Taylor sighed. "Probably just a bunch of ancient parahumans who thought they were gods without knowing better." She said. No one believed in the classical gods these days. There was a reason they were 'classic'.

Inari scoffed. "A God and Parahuman are very different things." She said, sitting up.

"Oh really?" Taylor asked challenging the fox with a frown.

"I know, because I was a Shinto Goddess before." Inari said before coughing daintily into a paw and waving it in the air. "Now, sit back, relax, and let your Magical Spirit Guide Inari-Chan explain everything."

Taylor frowned, but leaned back against her father who wrapped an arm around her. "Let's hear your explanation for this then." He said. He sounded worried to Taylor. More worried than he had in a long while.

Inari made a noise that sounded like she was clearing her throat, an odd sound to hear from a fox. "The difference between a Parahuman and a God is at its most basic one of internal versus external power. The power of a god is born from their nature and informed by the perceptions of others and themselves." She said. "Their powers can be broken down into those general and domain. Increased durability, strength, speed, intelligence. All gods have these to differing degrees and can increase most of them through time and effort. Magic also falls under here, but not all gods pursue the mystical arts so we'll cover that later."

"Now, domain refers to that which defines a god's personal powers. Things like Zeus and Thor being Gods of Thunder. Both summon lightning and have influence over the sky. Poseidon, who was there as well, is god of the seas and naturally has a great deal of control over both them and anything that can affect them. Storms over the ocean for example. Amaterasu is the Goddess of the sun and if you recall even her ethereal echo glowed like the sun." Taylor nodded.

"She was hard to look at, but the light was so warm and comforting." She admitted.

"Exactly. Now, with Zeus and Thor both are Gods of Thunder, but if you look back at their legends this manifests itself fairly differently. This is because as I said before their powers are informed by their perceptions, and those of others. Others being the culture in which the God originated. Some of this is psychosomatic, personal perceived limitations of a concept. The perceptions of others, however, tend to be more physical in its presence. I, as an example, was the Goddess of Foxes. Part of the reason I shaped this fragment of me as I did. It was one of the earliest Domains of mine that I discovered. Now, being Goddess of Foxes this led to me commanding Foxes and many of my servants were thus Foxes. On the other hand Foxes have a reputation in Japan as tricksters and this shaped how my power manifested. I could shapeshift, taking whatever form I desired."

She paused. "With me so far?" They nodded. Taylor continued frowning. It was interesting, but she was waiting to see how this was different than just any other parahuman. "Good. Well, Domains can be gifted. I set aside some of my own, including my domain of Foxes, and gave them to you last night at the peach tree."

"What?" Taylor flinched as her father jerked forward suddenly.

Inari's ears laid back. "I'll explain later. This is a really detailed subject and we've only got…" She glanced at the clock on the wall. "Twenty minutes before your PRT is supposed to arrive. I'd like to get through this before they get here."

"Dad." Taylor said, taking her turn to calm him. He grumbled, but sat back. She was worried as well. Hadn't there been a cape that had the ability to give temporary powers a while back? Only he'd been sent to the birdcage after it had been discovered it was addictive and he'd been using it to influence those he had gifted.

"Right, where was I… I gave you my Domains of Foxes, Industry, Agriculture, and Fertility." Inari smirked at the last one.

"Excuse me?" It was Taylor's turn to glare at the Fox.

She seemed unconcerned as she did that wiggle thing again. "I'm sure you'll find a use for it somewhere." Taylor hadn't known that Foxes could waggle their brows before, now she could say that yes they could and did.

"Moving on." Her dad said with a tight voice.

"Yes, yes. Let's ignore the implications of the last three and focus on the first." Inari said, still smirking. "Foxes. I've already said how my people's perception of Foxes coloured my ability to interact with that Domain. With you it has had something of a more obvious effect." She gestured at Taylor's tense and twitching tails. "Something about modern perceptions has caused you to have a more permanent sign of your divine status as Goddess of Foxes. What else this might have done I have no idea. Time and experimentation will be your friend. At the same time if you recall back in the Peach Garden you showed off some lightning. So you probably have some form of Thunder as a domain."

Inari stretched. "And that is the basics of where a God's powers come from and how they are shaped. Very basic, we can cover more later when we have time. Now, Parahumans. Mhmm, mhm mhm. Parahumans. Mortals playing with power that they don't understand and many never asked for."

"Remember how I said internal vs. external?" The Fox spirit asked. They both nodded. "Excellent. Well, as I've shown a God's power comes from within, growing as they age, experiment, and practice. A Parahuman's power does none of these things because it isn't their power. A parahuman is a conduit for extra-dimensional entities perceive this realm and they grant some form of power to those they connect with. Why? Well I have no idea why the modern ones act like this, but back during our last war, the one whose battlefield you walked through, the Entity we were fighting granted our enemies powers in exchange for acting as it's weapons."

She paused as they digested that. "That Entity failed. It can't provide powers to anyone on Earth, any Earths, because it can't get close enough to make such a connection. Not anymore."

"So where do modern parahumans come from? If they aren't gods, and they aren't natural…" Taylor trailed off. She still wasn't convinced, but… Something about it… Felt right? It was an odd feeling that seemed to tell her she could trust what this strange fox was saying.

"That is connected to why I'm here and you aren't just blundering around blind like every other new generation of Gods." Inari said.

"Why would they be wandering around blind?" Danny asked.

Inari sighed. "Because somewhere along the way leaving cryptic messages to the next generation became the 'thing' gods were supposed to do. Make cryptic references, a little encouragement, just tell them to follow their heart. Sound familiar?" She asked Taylor.

She nodded. That sounded exactly like what the three at the Peach Garden had told her. "Yeah." She admitted, "It does." And by the Gods it had sounded completely useless.

"Yeah, thing is normally there's a bit of a gap between one world ending crises and the next. A few centuries between extraterrestrial incursions. Now, Natural Gods, that is those who are born from mortals, crop up every hundred years or so. Gives them at least a hundred years to figure out what happened, how their powers work and all that jazz." Inari rubbed her cheek with the back of a paw. "That is how things normally go. Get killed, next generation, training montage, beat up next threat, rinse and repeat. This time the next threat showed up seventy years later. And not just one, but two."

"Hold on a second." Taylor's dad held up a hand. "How do you know this? According to you and Taylor this war happened a hundred years ago. How do you know what has been going on?" And that was the thing that Taylor hadn't been able to put a finger on.

"Seeing the future is well within the abilities of the gods. Especially those whose domains are connected to fate, time, or the future." Inari replied.

"Precognition." Taylor said.

"That. Also while I may be just a spirit now, I can still operate the many great machines we left behind. Including those designed to watch for such threats. Two more like the entity we defeated were foreseen to approach the planet. One had a collision with the previous entity we had encountered and then crashed and died on another Earth. I have no idea where the other one is or what it is doing. Unfortunately maintenance requirements became a bit more than a lesser spirit with paws like myself could maintain alone." Inari pouted and sighed. "Still, these parahumans are demonstrating powers like those from the war. This entity seems to pick those who are possessed by great despair and grant to them a power appropriate for the horrific situation they're in. At least from what I can gather. I don't know if some also make deals with it like with the other one, but for all I know this was what the other entity had intended to do after getting rid of us."

"I see…" Inari felt like she was telling the truth to Taylor. Maybe it was the emotion in her voice. Maybe the way she held herself. As much as that applied to a Fox. Danny stood up. "Dad?" Taylor asked.

He ran a hand hand through his frazzled dark hair. "Give me a second." He said, pulling off his glasses so he could rub a hand across his face. "Assuming you aren't taking us for a ride, what now?" He asked after a minute of silent rumination.

"Now I help prep your daughter to save the world." Inari said, "That's why I went behind the old fogies backs and set up this extra contingency."

Save the world? Taylor blinked and sank into the couch. Her? From… Some great extraterrestrial threat? A threat that was somehow behind every Hero and Villain in the world? "I don't… I got locked in my locker by a couple of bullies. How can I save the world?" She asked.

"Taylor..." He dad turned to face her with an anxious expression.

Inari snickered. "By getting stronger. No God starts out as some all power unstoppable warrior. Sure a lot of them spread stories that make it seem that way, but they didn't. I worked my way from a mere demi-goddess until I was, and technically am if you ignore my current state, the most popular God or Goddess in Japan." She rolled over, paws pointed at the ceiling. "I'm not saying you need to go out there, hunt down the bad guy and save the world like you are. You'll need time to learn and grow before you can do that. That's why I left this fragment of me behind. You may not have the traditional century to figure things out, but between the two of us we should be able to get you up to speed in a couple years."

"Still…" Taylor licked her lips. "One of these things fought every god that was alive at once and… he basically won. They all died."

Inari snorted. "We died because we had too many enemies to fight. Rogue gods, creatures that hated us for one reason or another, mortals that just wanted to blame us for one thing or another. We had enough enemies. All it had to do was give them the power and point them at us. We didn't realize what we were fighting until we were already pushed back. The beast itself isn't that tough, but many of its minions were able to throw down with us even without its gifts. With them?" She sighed. "The good news is that I don't believe this one has an army. And I'm sure there are more than a few parahumans who might be willing to help as well."

"Excuse me? They can do that?" Danny asked. Taylor nodded. It seemed ridiculous. Who gave away a power that could be used against them?

"We learned that a gifted power stays until death. Not even that entity could take them away without killing the user first. So, yeah. The Heroes will probably want to help if they learn of it. Though I wouldn't go telling them until you can actually prove it. I mean, extra dimensional aliens granting powers to people just because? It sounds like bad science fiction." Inari laughed.

"And Gods sound so much more real?" Danny asked as he sank back into his chair, glasses held in one hand.

"There's one in this room." Inari said, looking Taylor in the eye.

Was there? She frowned at the fox as she ran one hand through the long hair of her tails. It was calming. This… Why did Inari sound like she was telling the truth?

Because part of her really wanted this to be true. To be something more than just… just Taylor Hebert. Too tall, too thin, too ugly Taylor Hebert. Not being just that Taylor anymore, what would she give for that?

The doorbell ended any further introspection. Danny sighed and stood up, heading for the door and leaving the two of them alone. Inari hopped off her footstool and climbed up on the couch next to Taylor.

"So." The former Goddess said with a wide foxy grin, "You and me. We're going to save the world."

"Yeah." Taylor replied weakly, "Let's do that."

 

[Grounders10]

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A Worm Fanfic

The Taste of Peaches

By: Grounders10

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3

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When her dad returned he was accompanied by a pair of people she had seen before. On the news only though, never in person. The first was a woman wearing a dark-grey and white jumpsuit with neon blue lines running across it like wires on a circuit board. On her head was a helm that continued the blue line pattern. A thick blue visor obscured the top half of her face. She was Battery, one of the local Protectorate Heroes.

Beside her was another hero, a much younger blonde haired girl in green body armour and a green skirt with wavy lines that, when moving, almost made her eyes water. She wore a green visor that obscured the top half of her face. She had to be Vista, currently the only girl on the local Wards team, and about three years younger than Taylor.

When they turned the corner into the kitchen from the entrance way Vista spotted her and space twisted, crunching the distance between them into nothing. "Ohmygod,youdohavefoxearsandtails." Taylor blinked at the sudden deluge of words from the young hero as she appeared inches from her face. In her lap, Inari made a funny chuffing noise. Strangled laughter probably.

Parsing the barrage of words she said, "Erm, I do? I mean yes I do." She flushed red in embarrassment, her ears going flat, drawing an undignified gasping not-squee from the younger girl.

"Vista, enough." Battery said as she crossed the room. The younger hero stiffened, blushed, and stepped back three feet with a distortion of space-time that created a weird sensation to Taylor. Like all the hairs on her arms had stood straight up at a ninety-degree angle only didn't.

"Sorry." She said, blushing. Taylor sighed. Not five seconds and she'd already made a bad impression.

"Sorry about that." Battery said, stopping beside Vista. "I'm Battery of the Protectorate, this is Vista of the Wards. We are here to ask a few questions and see what we can do to help you adjust." Taylor's right ear twitched. She sounded rather sincere and something told her that the hero was being honest. Huh, someone who actually cared? Well, maybe. Trusting vague feelings about people you just met had bitten her in the ass at Winslow a couple of times already.

"Nice to meet you." Taylor said, giving an awkward wave to the two heroes. Vague feelings or not there was no reason to be rude.

"I was starting to wonder if you were coming." Her dad said as he took a seat in his recliner.

"Unfortunately unless it's an emergency even Heroes can get stuck in traffic." Battery said, her dad chuckled. She gestured to the only remaining seats in the room, the love seat. "May we?" She asked.

"Please, take a seat." He said, also making a gesture to the loveseat.

The two heroes took their seats. Vista looked somewhere between mortified and excited, with the occasional bounce in her seat as though she wanted to leap across the room and take another close look at Taylor and her new appendages. Each little bounce was quickly stilled as she tried, and failed, to appear professional. It was rather adorable in Taylor's opinion.

Battery was much calmer, obviously far more used to these sorts of meetings than the ward beside her. Or at least more able to control herself.

"So," Battery began, "How are you feeling today Taylor?"

Her right ear twitched. "A bit tired, but alright I guess." She said. Walking for two days, including at least a day up a mountain, was exhausting; though she wasn't feeling as tired as she might have expected even after the rest.

"Wonderful." Battery smiled genuinely. "Now, it's fairly obvious that whatever you experienced over the last few days was horrible to say the least." More boring and tedious really, Taylor thought. "However, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask what happened. Anything you can share. Who did it, why etc."

Taylor sighed. Here she went again. "Not much to tell really?" She shrugged, "I got locked in my locker at the end of friday classes. I didn't see who did it, I was too focused on packing my bag." And the hand had been far too large to be anyone who normally bullied her.

"We found the locker." Battery said, "Well the police found the locker. It had been nearly kicked off its hinges and then slammed shut hard enough to jam the corners through the locker next to it."

She shrugged. "That was me, though not the closing part. The door did that to itself." She said.

"Itself? An inanimate steel door slammed itself shut hard enough to wedge itself into the neighbouring locker?" Battery asked.

Taylor sighed. "Maybe I should start from the beginning." She said. She'd share what she had with her dad, the first time anyway.

"Please."

It took an hour and a half. An hour filled with questions, clarifications, and her dad bringing drinks and snacks to them, twice, before she finished. She left out the little bit about being a Goddess again, despite the annoyed noises that Inari was making. She was not going to claim Divinity to the Protectorate. Parahumans who thought they were gods was supposed to be one of the things they fought against.

"Normally we recommend not eating the strange, possibly tinker-tech fruit might run into." Battery said after a moment of jotting down the information in a small notebook she brought with her. "But, I can't say I've ever heard of a trigger event quite like yours."

"Trigger event?" Her dad asked.

Battery hesitated for a moment. "Trigger events are not normally talked about. They're the moment when someone gets powers. It is not normally a pleasant moment to recall. Powers don't awaken without something bad happening first." She said, "Though yours would appear to be an unusually calm trigger all things considered."

Inari snorted. "Of course you haven't. She's a Goddess not a Parahuman." There was silence for a moment in the room and both Taylor and her dad turned annoyed looks to the fox in their midst. For her part Inari seemed to be oblivious. "The Gods don't have to wait to be consumed by despair before their powers can be flexed."

Taylor groaned and leaned back against the couch, wrapping herself in her tails as she did so. This was not going to help things. God, she did not want people thinking she was crazy on top of everything else… Or Narcissistic, which was technically being crazy as well.

"Did that Fox just talk?" Vista finally asked.

"Yes it did." Battery frowned. Oh dear.

"She's been talking like this since she stole my bacon from my plate this morning." Taylor groaned. Downplay the fox. Pretend the fox was crazy. Just make sure they didn't think she was crazy. Not getting pre-emptively locked up just to be safe was nice.

"You weren't eating it." The oblivious fox said.

"I looked away for two seconds!" She snapped, looking down at the fox with a growl.

"Exactly~ You weren't giving your heavenly food the attention it deserves~" She could hear the smug from the fox.

"Two. Seconds." She growled.

Inari patted her on the thigh. "Don't worry, Magical Spirit Guide Inari-Chan~ is here to help advise you~" With a very deliberate act she lifted up several of her tails and brought them down on the fox, burying it in fluff. Inari poked her head out of pile a moment later. "Rude." She paused for a moment and gave the fluff around her a push with her paw. "And I think this is already fluffier than mine used to be." She flopped across two of the tails. "Ooooh, this is comfy."

Her eyebrow was not twitching with annoyance as she turned back to the giggling Vista and desperately trying, but failing, to hide her amusement Battery. "This is the fox I followed up the mountain. She was here when I woke up." She sighed, her cheeks turning bright red with embarrassment. "And no, I have no control over what comes out of her mouth."

"I speak only the truth! I shall not be silenced!" Inari declared without lifting her head from the pillow she had made of Taylor's tails. "All hail her divinity, Goddess of Foxes Taylor Hebert." Another tail was lifted up and dropped across Inari's head, muffling further words from the troublesome fox.

"I- I see." Battery said, stifling her laughter as she made a couple more notes. "Well, it's not unheard of for master's to have semi-controllable projections, though it has been a while since I heard of one… Certainly not one this outspoken however." She closed her notebook and pocketed it in a pouch. "Well then, thank you for your testimony Taylor. Mr. Hebert, there are a few things I would like to talk to you about in private. Vista can keep your daughter company while we talk. If that's alright with you Taylor?"

Taylor nodded, her cheeks still burning with embarrassment. "Sure." What else could she say?

"If you're sure Taylor." Her dad sighed and stood. "This way, we can talk in the office." Her dad led Battery out of the room, leaving her with the enthusiastic and still giggling Vista.

Taylor stayed silent, playing with one of her tails with her hands, while Vista slowly stopped giggling to herself. "S-sorry." The younger girl said after a few minutes. "I shouldn't have laughed."

Taylor's right ear twitched. "I- It's fine. Really." Arguing with a talking fox that was claiming she was a goddess was ridiculous.

"So… Goddess?" Vista asked carefully.

A groan slipped through Taylor's lips. She sent a glare towards 'her' fox. "She's been trying to sell me on that since breakfast." She said.

"You know it's true," Inari said, sticking a head out from under Taylor's tail. She gazed up at Vista with a soulful expression. "Know the truth~ I, Magical Spirit Guide Inari-Chan~ speak only truths."

"You won't even admit you stole my bacon! And eggs!" Taylor snarked as she kept one eye on the young hero.

"You keep mentioning that, but it was also apple juice. Very nice apple juice." Inari rolled over and stared up at the unimpressed expression Taylor was wearing.

Vista's snickers drew a groan from the black-haired fox-goddess. "So, you're powers are that you have a fox?" She asked, trying to stifle a snicker.

"I guess?" Taylor sighed. Her ears twitched in irritation and her tails shifted.

"Not just that. I saw lightning earlier!" Inari said, patting the tails she was partly buried amongst. "Little snaps of lightning jumping between these beautiful fluffy clouds."

Taylor paused. Had there been? Yes… On the mountain when she'd first realized she had tails there had been small snaps of electricity jumping between them. "I thought that was just the peach." She said with a frown.

Inari shook her head. "All you. See~ This is why you need the guidance of your Magical Spirit Guide Inari-Chan~ Desu~" The way the fox loved drawing out her words at times was starting to annoy Taylor. Like, really, really annoy her.

"So it knows more about your powers?" Vista asked before sighing. "Lucky. Most of us don't exactly get a user's manual. I mean somethings are instinctive, but not everything." The younger girl got up from her seat and walked over. "So, what are your plans now?" She asked.

She leaned against the armrest of the couch and sighed. "I'd say enjoy summer, but…" She waved a tail in the air. "Not exactly inconspicuous anymore." Vista nodded. It was public knowledge how valuable even seemingly useless capes were often treated as by gangs. Sure most weren't exactly going to get kidnapped off the street to fight if their power was something like a talking fox, but with the tails and ears, she was… exotic, like a rare pet. Sure she still had the same too wide smile and all the shapeliness of a 2x4, but her nine white-tipped black tails were exotic in and of themselves.

"Well, you could join the wards," Vista suggested. She must have seen Taylor roll her eyes since she continued, "Hang on. Hear me out."

Taylor waved her on with a gesture. Joining the wards was an option that just screamed more drama to her, but...

"Look, the wards is meant to help with things like this." Vista gestured vaguely at all of Taylor.

"Things like me?" Taylor snarked.

"Yes, no- You aren't a thing. I mean, ugh…" She sighed. "Things like being in danger because of your powers. You've apparently got a talking user's manual, but back at the rig, they have rooms that are meant for testing and training powers. You might not have the room here, and you definitely don't have the tools regardless of what it is you can do."

That… was a good point. She spared a glance at her tails. If that lightning had been created by her, then well… what was she going to do? Shoot the walls of their basement? Go outside and down to the docks and try zapping wrecks from the shoreline until she was jumped by gang members?

"And she'd have companions to help watch over her, right?" Inari asked, looking up at Vista.

"Of course. That's kinda the point. Meeting people who can relate with what you're going through. People who can help you." Vista said.

Taylor sighed and toyed with her tails. The wards could offer her resources to learning her powers, but… people. She had been let down by people a lot over the last year. People, teenagers, meant pointless melodrama, meant-

"Hey." She looked down at Inari. The Fox smiled gently up at her. "Give it a shot. Even Gods need companions."

She ignored Vista's mutter of "Again with the god thing." and considered that. Thor and Poseidon were both merely gods amongst much larger pantheons. Even though Poseidon basically ruled the seas himself he did have those who served him as well. Friends, allies. She didn't know as much about Norse Mythology but she would bet Thor had people to turn to as well.

But… "I'll think about it." She said eventually. She would think about it, even talk to her dad about it. She'd bet that her dad was getting a much more in depth pitch from Battery.

"It'd really be nice to have another girl onboard." Vista admitted. Space crunched and she shifted the footstool so that she was sitting a couple feet from taylor.

Taylor tilted her head. "Wasn't there another girl?" She asked. There had been someone announced a few months ago. What was her name? Trill?

Vista snorted. "For like two months, then she transferred to Pittsburgh when her family moved." She sighed. "Girls never seem to stick around here. Here for a few months, then they graduate or move. Just me and a bunch of immature annoying boys."

Taylor couldn't help it, she laughed at Vista's tone of resigned despair. One of her tails came up and covered her mouth as she tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle the laughter. "That bad?" She asked after getting her breath back.

Vista giggled. "Well, to give you an idea Clockblocker…" The next hour passed with Vista sharing stories of things that had happened in the wards. Inari would pipe up occasionally with some comment or other, but it was mostly Vista and Taylor. At the end of that hour Battery and Danny came back into the room and the two Heroes left.

Vista's bye had hardly faded when Danny sat down in his recliner heavily. "Well, that was…" He breathed out heavily, one hand rubbing his forehead. "Did Vista pitch the wards at you as well?" He asked.

"Yep." Taylor picked Inari up from where she was still cuddling amongst her tails.

"Oi!" The fox protested grumpily, but quieted as Taylor lay down on her side before hugging the fox in her arms.

"Battery talked a lot about the benefits, but some of the requirements. We'd be signing away a lot of control at the same time." He sighed.

"Like?" Taylor prompted.

"Papers are in the kitchen. We can go over them later. Right now I just want to relax. How does pizza sound for supper?" He asked.

"Fine… With pineapple?" She prodded. Her dad normally 'forgot' to get pineapple when he ordered.

"I'll order two then." He said, leaning back in his chair.

Inari slipped out from Taylor's grip and hopped off the couch onto the footstool. "What kind of things were they asking for control of?" She asked.

Danny sighed. "Things like control over looks, rights to any name she might take while with them. The stack of papers in the kitchen is two inches thick. We can look it over together later." He said.

"Well, assuming nothing is really objectionable I think you should accept." Inari said, stretching like a cat.

"Because even a Goddess needs companions?" Taylor asked as she adjusted the throw pillow under her head. One of her tails swept up to replace the escaped fox in her grasp.

"Exactly~" Inari pointed at her. The fox was grinning. "You're young for a Goddess. It'll take time for you to learn your powers and grow in strength. What you need right now is people to rely on, companions to watch your back in the days ahead."

Taylor grunted non-committedly and hugged her tail harder. It still meant she'd have to deal with other people her age… though a few of the wards did look kinda cute… She hummed thoughtfully to herself.

Her dad, probably unaware of the direction her thoughts had taken, sighed. "That is what the Wards is for. That and training. Which you need. God, you can't just hide your tails and pretend not to have powers can you?" He asked.

Taylor blinked and considered it. "I… don't know?" She said slowly, looking down at the tail in her grip. She tried to imagine it vanishing and just wound up staring at the white tip for a long moment. Nothing. "I have no idea." She said finally as Inari snickered.

"We'll talk practice later then." Inari said before jumping back onto the couch and curling up within the mass of Taylor's tails. "For now, a nap sounds good."

Taylor yawned at that. Yeah, she still felt a bit tired from the days before. More sleep would be great. She closed her eyes and tried to drift off as her dad turned on the TV. She cracked an eye open. "Daaaad…" She whined.

"You do have a bed." He pointed out.

Taylor considered that for a moment. She rejected that option. It would have meant moving and she was comfy. Instead, she closed her eyes again and tried to tune out whatever TV show her dad had turned on. Something about mutant crocodile hunting in Australia. In five minutes she was out cold.

-0-0-0-0-0-​

The office of the Director of the PRT ENE was spartan. No awards or pictures hung from the walls. There were no decorations on the desk, or potted plants in the corners. The room was like its owner, dedicated solely to the task at hand. Seated behind the office's desk was Director Emily Piggot. She was a short obesely overweight woman with short bleached blonde hair.

Her lips were pursed as she examined the notes written down in the pad on the desk. "So," She began, directing her words to Battery who was seated across from her. "A talking Fox projection."

"Yes Director." The heroine nodded.

The other woman frowned down at her notes. "That is telling her she's a goddess."

"Yes Director."

Director Piggot sighed. She dropped the notepad on her desk. The thunk of paper on wood reverberated in the quiet office. "Well that is a wonderful mess. And she might have additional powers as well?"

Battery nodded. "Yes, Vista said the fox had mentioned electricity from Taylor's tails." She said. And hadn't that been a bit of a surprise on the way back from the Hebert's home. "However, she doesn't seem to be aware of them herself if she does have them."

Piggot grunted. "A possible trump them. A master/changer at the minimum." She flipped to the next page of the notepad. "And that thing calls her a Goddess. Wonderful, just what we need. A trump/master with a god complex."

"With respect Director," Battery said, "Neither I nor Vista saw any sign she believed the claims of the fox. If anything she seemed annoyed by them." And very uncomfortable, with the fox and them.

"It's not her current thoughts on the matter I'm worried about." The Director replied before turning to the other two people in the room. "Armsmaster, Glenn, your thoughts?"

Armsmaster was Battery's boss, the head of the Protectorate East-North East, and a tinker of exceptional skill and talent. He was standing off to the side, refusing to sit due to the weight of the blue power armour he wore whenever he was on duty. His signature halberd was leaning against his shoulder.

Armsmaster cleared his throat. "She is potentially a potent asset, but without more information there is no way to tell how much of one. On the low end we're looking at a master with a fox shaped projection and maybe tasers for tails. On the high end, well it's far too soon to say." He said, "The God issue is worrisome, but not unmanageable. Therapy and socializing can hopefully alleviate the dangers."

"Which is part of the reason for the wards program in the first place." The last person in the room said. Glenn Chambers was, to Battery's eyes, a living contradiction. The Head of Image for the entire PRT, he was responsible for managing the images of every single Protectorate Hero and Ward in the country. It as a part he did not look even remotely qualified for. Nearly as obese as the Director his clothes were, everytime Battery had seen him, wrinkled and ill-fitting. His glasses were these ugly rectangular frames that only served to make him look more like he was squinting. Atop everything was his hair. He didn't have a mohawk technically, but the way he gelled his hair certainly suggested the shape of one. It was disgusting how he could be so good at managing others, yet never seemed to spend a second thinking about how he looked.

The obese man picked a piece of paper from the folder open in his lap and held it up. It was a picture of Taylor taken from Battery's bodycam and blown up to size. "This here," He waved it, "is probably the most photogenic cape I've seen in years. Getting her on board would be a potentially amazing PR windfall. I can already think of several potential costumes for her. Battery, is she interested?"

"Her father was." She replied, "A bit worried about some of the clauses in the papers though."

"You did make sure to point out that nearly all-" Glenn started.

"All the points were negotiable. Yes I did. Not the first time I've done this." Battery finished.

"Of course." Glenn nodded, "And Taylor herself?"

Battery frowned. "Vista thinks she made a decent impression, but she's shy. Nervous. Like I said earlier, she has trust issues." That much had been clear almost from the beginning. The nervous shifting, flattened ears, and the way she had gone from cheerfully talking with Vista at the end to shutting up the moment she saw Battery and her father. It had hurt in a way, but no natural parahuman came without issues. It was just the nature of powers.

"Well, I say let's try and make this as sweet a deal as possible." Glenn said, "She's getting bullied right? I know her situation with no secret identity makes things awkward, but we should still be able to manage that local school? What was it.. Uuuh…"

"Arcadia." Piggot said.

He pointed the photo in his hand at the Director like a baton. "That's it. They deal with New Wave all the time, a Ward shouldn't be an issue."

"Should they inquire about the Wards then we can see about talking to Arcadia about the possibility." Piggot said, as she tapped her pen against the desk. "Anything else?" The three shook their heads, their replies all along the lines of no. "Very well. Battery, write up your report for tomorrow. Make sure to include everything, even Vista's speculations. Glenn any ideas you have you run by me first. Glenn, Battery, dismissed. Armsmaster, stay. We need to have a talk about why I'm receiving reports of you being involved in a running battle through a public bathhouse."

Departing an unwelcome scene in a hurry was, in Battery's opinion, one of the few useful lessons she had picked up from her husband. It was a skill she put to excellent use as she not-quite-jogged her way out of the office.

 

[Grounders10]

-0-0-0-0-0-

A Worm Fanfic

The Taste of Peaches

By: Grounders10

-0-0-0-0-0-

4

-0-0-0-0-0-​

The kitchen was silent except for the rustling of papers. Finally, Taylor groaned and let the papers fall to the tabletop before rubbing her forehead with two fingers. "This makes my head hurt." She groaned.

Her father chuckled as he scribbled something on a notepad. "I think we're going to need to get an opinion from an actual lawyer." He said, setting aside the notepad. "I don't like some of the phrasing in this."

"I can't even tell what most of it means." Taylor said, leaning against the back of the chair. Well, it was the back of the chair but due to her many tails she was sitting sideways making it more the 'left side' of the chair.

It was late, very late, despite them having started going over the stack of papers right after dinner, a nice spaghetti carbonara Danny had whipped up while she had been sleeping. There was simply too much to read. Inari had originally tried to help, but had eventually gotten very bored and fallen asleep on one of the other chairs, curled up in a little ball of fluff.

Danny tapped the pen against the table, then glanced at the clock on the wall. He sighed. "I think it's getting late. I'll ask Alan tomorrow if he can recommend someone with experience in this sort of parahuman law.."

Taylor frowned, then nodded. Alan Barnes might have been the father of Emma, but whatever had gotten into Emma hadn't gotten into her father, at least not yet. She glanced up at the clock on the wall and winced. She might have been fairly awake, but it was now approaching one o'clock in the morning. She wasn't feeling tired, between sleeping for twelve hours and spending most of the afternoon napping she felt fairly awake.

"Bed I think." Her dad said as he took back the papers Taylor had been going over.

"But-" She trailed off at the look he gave her. The forceful, yet worried, look in his eyes was something she hadn't seen in years. "Okay." She sighed.

Her dad smiled. "Try and get to sleep, you had a long couple of days." He said before glancing at the fox on the chair. "And take her up with you."

Taylor stood up, her tails brushing against the wall as she did, and walked around the table to Inari. The former-goddess/strange fox mumbled something about rabbits as she gathered her up. Her dad pulled her into a hug as she headed for the stairs.

"Sleep well." He mumbled through her hair.

She smiled and hugged him with a couple of tails since her arms were full. "I'll try. Not feeling too tired." She said before he let her go and climbed the stairs. Each step seemed to jolt the fox in her arms and shortly the talking animal was looking up at her groggily as she crested the staircase.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh." Inari smacked her lips and licked her nose as she yawned. "Oh, that was a good nap. So, what're we doing?"

"Going to bed."

"But I just woke up."

Taylor rolled her eyes at the protest as she pushed open her room's door with a foot before tossing the fox across the room to her bed. She let out a surprised yelp, but somehow managed to keep from landing upside down or on her head.

"Oi!" Inari complained before yawning again and slowly tipping over to crash onto the clumped and wrinkly bedding. "Oh, this is soft.

Taylor peeled off her top and pants before rummaging through her dresser for her pyjamas. The clothes were quickly found and pulled on as she ignored the fox on her bed who was wiggling around in her blankets making odd noises. She sounded happy if nothing else, so Taylor tried to tune her out.

It was harder than she'd have liked to ignore a fox going, "So comfy." over and over again.

She paused as she caught sight of herself in the mirrored doors of her closet. She frowned at the ears and poked out of her hair. They had been standing relatively straight before, now they were lying flat. Probably in response to her mood. She could feel them twitch and move, but trying to control them has proven to be frustratingly difficult when she'd tried to do so in the mirror after her shower.

Her eyes dropped from her ears and hair, which seemed a bit glossier than normal but otherwise was the same, to her face. Her frown deepened. "Inari." She said, getting the Fox's attention.

"Hrm?"

"Why do I look like I've been airbrushed?" She asked, leaning in to take a closer look at her nose. While she had never had bad skin, she had had her fair, or unfair in her opinion, share of pimples and other incidents that had left their marks. Like that time with the stairs at the Barnes place. There should have been a small scar, nearly unnoticeable, along the bridge of her nose.

"What's airbrushing?" Came the confused response from her 'guide'.

"Airbrushing, photoshopped, whatever you call it." She snapped, practically putting her face against the glass. Her mouth was as wide as ever, but was it just her or did her lips seem a bit… fuller? She frowned at the mirror.

"What does photoshopped mean?" If anything the fox sounded even more confused.

Taylor sighed. "Nevermind." She said, turning back to her bed. She considered grabbing a book from her shelf before just walking over to her bed and flopping down on the bed. Inari yelped as she dodged out of the way.

"Hey! Watch it!" Inari complained as Taylor rearranged her blankets, pulling them over herself. Her tails hung out of the blankets over the edge of the bed.

Taylor hummed and stifled a yawn that appeared from nowhere. She blinked sleepily, then yawned again. Beside her Inari grumbled and found a spot to curl up.

"Tomorrow." Inari said, getting what little attention Taylor had left.

"Hm?"

"Tomorrow, I'll teach you the basics of calling up your p-p-pooowers, oh this is comfy." Inari yawned.

Taylor didn't reply, she was already asleep. Inari snorted softly and rested her head on her own tail. Sleep sounded good, especially with how comfy the bed was.

-0-0-0-0-0-​

Danny Hebert, yes that was his full and proper name, pulled his truck into the parking lot of the building where the law firm Benjamin & Baker Associates in Law had their offices. His old friend Alan Barnes had worked for them ever since he had graduated from university years before. The small parking lot had a few cars which made it easy for him to spot Alan's Mercedes parked halfway down. He pulled into an open spot closer to the door.

He turned off the engine and popped open the door. As he stepped out he grabbed the briefcase in the passenger seat before locking it and turning to the building. It was a fairly well maintained building just off-center of the downtown core. He paused by the entrance as a thought occurred and he dug into his coat pocket, pulling out a wrinkled roll of one dollar bills. Taking one he slipped the rest back into his pocket before walking into the building.

The building's foyer was well maintained, with green ferns in pots on either side of the door, and unlike some other places he had been to over the years he knew from experience that the elevator was in perfect working order. Not that he was going to use it. This wasn't the first time he'd been to see is friend at work. Taking the stairs beside the elevator was usually quicker.

He stepped out of the stairway into the second floor hallway a few moments later and strode passed the elevators to the office directly across from them. Gold lettering on the glass windows of the oak doors proudly proclaimed Benjamin & Baker, Associates in Law since 1967. Beneath them were their hours of operation, which he was only just within. Hopefully Alan would have some time right now to help and he wouldn't have to wait.

The doors were unlocked and he gently eased them open before stepping inside. As he glanced around it would appear luck was on his side today. The man he was looking for was behind the receptionist's desk discussing something with the pair of young women who manned the desk.

Alan glanced up as the door clicked shut. "Danny?" He said surprised, shutting the folder in his hands. "What are you doing here?"

Danny smiled and walked over to the desk. "Well," He sighed, "I could use some advice."

Alan snorted. "Not mine surely? My specialty isn't exactly applicable to you anymore." Danny spared a glance at the receptionist before simply holding out the dollar bill to his friend. Alan stared at it for a moment before slowly taking it. "Like that huh? I've got a few minutes before my nine o'clock gets here. My office."

The receptionist beside him glanced up. "Shall I hold any calls for you?" She asked.

"Only if we can afford it." Alan replied before ushering Danny down the hall to his office. As the oak door shut behind them Alan took a seat behind his desk and gestured to him to take the seat across.

"Jesus Danny, a nominal retainer? What's so important you feel the need to invoke attorney-client privilege?" His friend asked.

"Taylor's a cape." Danny replied softly.

Alan stared at him for a moment before running one hand across his face. "God… Danny I'm so sorry. I've heard of what it takes to get powers and… fuck. How is she?" He asked.

"Could be a lot worse." He replied, setting the briefcase on the table. "You know she was missing right?"

Alan nodded. "I asked Emma, said she hadn't seen her since lunch." He said.

"Someone locked her in her locker and the Janitor left her for dead. She triggered and just disappeared." Danny said, deliberately leaving out the long story his daughter had shared. It, especially the 'goddess' part, wasn't relevant. "Showed up night before last. Quite literally appeared out of thin air in the upstairs hallway before collapsing from exhaustion. She was fine after a good night's sleep. Spent most of yesterday napping though."

"Well that's good to hear." His friend sighed, "Still, I'd keep her identity quiet without this." He waved the one dollar bill in the air.

"The PRT stopped by. They made a Wards pitch." Danny told him, unlocking the briefcase and opening it. He spun it around to face his friend. "I've got a lot of experience with contracts, but I know nothing about parahumans or this stuff."

Alan raised an eyebrow as he leaned forward to look at the stack of paper within the briefcase. "That is a lot of paperwork. Even around here. Still, you're considering the Wards then? Dangerous job. Wouldn't let Emma do it myself."

Danny frowned. "I'm not exactly fond of the PRT either Alan. God knows they barely manage to do the minimum required. Last time we had to call them it took half an hour before their first responders showed. A half hour. Those merchants ran off before the PRT showed up. Five men in hospital…" He sighed. "I don't really have a choice in this." He dug into his pocket searching for something.

"Don't have a choice? Don't tell me Taylor is in legal trouble Danny." Alan groaned.

"She's not. Here." He pulled a digital camera from his pocket and handed it over. "Take a look at the most recent pictures." He'd snapped a few while Taylor was napping on the couch the day before. At the time it had been a spur of the moment thing, now it could help explain the issue at hand.

Alan powered on the device and navigated to the photos. He blinked dumbly before glancing up at him. "She has tails?"

"Nine foxtails." Danny said, "Two fox ears in place of her original ones. Doesn't need glasses anymore thankfully. I don't even want to imagine the price of the custom frames I'd have needed to pay for otherwise." He chuckled nervously.

Alan chuckled as he flicked through the pictures. "She's grown up since last summer. Looks more like Annette all the time." He said.

Danny smiled. "She does."

Alan finished flicking through the photos and passed the camera back. "I take it she can't hide those." He said.

Danny nodded. "Unfortunately no. Doesn't leave me with many options. She can't even leave the house right now. God, Alan what do you think the gangs would do if she was spotted out there?" He asked.

Alan winced. "I'd rather not think about it. I don't doubt you'd garner plenty of attention from both the E88 and the ABB. Even if she can't do anything…" He grimaced.

"My thoughts exactly. The Wards can protect her better than… then I'll be able to." Danny sighed, "I can't…" He ran a hand over his face. "God damn it."

Alan nodded. "Well, I'm not the right person to show this to. I'm a divorce lawyer Danny, not a parahuman one. If parahumans are involved with my clients it's normally escalated beyond a civil settlement." A very polite way of saying one of the 'participants' was probably dead.

"All I need is someone to read this over Alan. You have to know someone?" Danny asked.

Alan raised an eyebrow before gesturing at his door. "Down the hall, Carol Dallon." He said.

The dockworker blinked, then chuckled. "I forgot you worked with Brandish. Think she'd be willing to go over this? I know she's a criminal lawyer but…"

"Well, I can't speak for her, but I can introduce you." Alan reached up and shut the briefcase before sliding it over to Danny. "C'mon. My nine o'clock should be here any moment so let's get this dealt with."

"Thanks Alan." Danny smiled.

"Not a problem." Alan replied as the two of them rose from their chairs, Danny grabbing the briefcase from the desk, and Alan lead the way out the door and down the hall a few doors. They stopped by an open door. Inside a middle-aged woman with blonde hair and a look of severe concentration on her face as she typed on the computer. She glanced up as Alan tapped on the doorframe. "Carol, have a moment?" He asked.

"More than I'd prefer. My nine o'clock just called in to say they can't make it." She said with a sigh. She glanced to Danny. "We've met before haven't we."

"Ah, yes." Alan glanced back at Danny. "I think the two of you have said hello in passing once or twice before."

Danny stepped into the room. "Danny Hebert." He said, holding out his hand.

"Carol Dallon. Can I ask what this is about?" She asked.

"He needs an opinion from someone more well versed in parahuman law than me." Alan said.

"On what?" She raised an eyebrow as he set the briefcase down on the armrest of the chair across from her. Her other eyebrow went up as she saw the amount of paperwork. She leaned forward. "I see. Well then Mr. Hebert. Please, take a seat. Alan, I'll take it from here."

"Thank you Carol. Good luck Danny." Alan said before hurriedly ducking out of the office. The door clicked shut behind him.

Danny smiled and slipped into the chair. "Thank you Mrs. Dallon." He said.

"This is perhaps the third time I've been asked to, professionally, help someone with Wards paperwork Mr. Hebert. Far too few people fair to read those documents fully." She said with a grimace.

"That bad?" He grimaced.

"By government standards? Hardly. It could be worse, but the base Wards contract is significantly more unfair than it really needs to be. Now, I assume this is on behalf of your own child?" She asked.

"My daughter."

She nodded. "Well, let's start from the top. Tell me about her." She said, laying one hand atop the other on her desk.

Danny sighed the nodded. "It started last friday when Taylor failed to come home after school…"

-0-0-0-0-0-​

"... which you should be able to feel once we complete a few exercises." Inari rambled, gesturing with her paws between chewing on an apple she had gotten from somewhere.

It was the next morning and Taylor had found herself herded onto the couch with a bowl of dry sugary cereal as she listened to her 'spirit guide' explain 'basic thaumic manipulation theory'. She probably should have been writing these things down, but she hadn't eaten yet and it was, in her opinion, too early for studying.

That didn't mean she wasn't trying to pay attention.

Taylor swallowed her mouthful of cereal. "And those exercises are?" She asked.

"We'll start with a form of mediation." Inari replied.

"Meditation." She frowned.

"Well the other exercises start with me trying to force instinctive uses of power out of you." The fox replied before glancing up. "Accidental lightning discharges are best done outside."

Taylor glanced about the living room and winced. Explaining to her dad why she had burned down the house while he was gone would be awkward, at a minimum. "Yeah…" She sighed before taking another bite.

"And we can't go outside right now, not to mention your backyard is kinda small." Inari said dryly.

Taylor frowned, but didn't dispute that. It was fairly large for Brockton Bay, but it was probably small when put in a meteorological perspective. What was a backyard compared to a storm after all?

"Finish up and we'll get started." Inari finished her apple and flipped the core onto a plate beside her. It bounced a little, but settled atop the other three apple cores without issue.

Taylor rolled her eyes at the little fist pump Inari did, but hurried on her own food. A few minutes later she set the bowl aside. "Alright, where do we start?" She asked.

"First, take a seat on the ground here." Inari tapped the floor, "I'll walk you through taking a proper posture so this doesn't hurt after a while. Probably."

"Probably?" Taylor asked as she got off the couch and onto the floor. It might have been carpeted, but carpet wasn't exactly comfortable when you tried to sit on it for more than a few seconds.

"This is your first try, you'll probably get it wrong even with my help." Inari remarked. "Grab that throw cushion, you'll need it to sit on." She added, pointing to the cushion Taylor had been leaning against as she ate.

Once the cushion had made it way from the couch to between her and the floor Inari continued. "Alright, let's not get too complicated here. Legs out. Good. Now, fold your left leg inward, placing your foot against your thigh." Taylor attempted to fold her leg as instructed. "No, not like that. Flat against you thigh, not under it." It took several attempts, but soon Taylor was sitting in a meditative pose.

"And now we can begin talking actual meditation." Inari sighed, by now the fox had moved the foot stool over and was sitting on it.

"So, clear my mind? Think of nothing right?" Taylor asked. That was how everything seemed to depict meditation.

Inari scoffed. "That is a form of meditation, but we're trying to help you focus on something not lose track of time." She sniffed before curling up on the stool. "Now, you're partly right. You are going to be trying to clear your mind of everything except one thing. That thing you are going to focus on and try to see, feel, and experience."

"And that'll be?" Taylor prodded.

"We're going to try and get you to do a repeat of the lightning from earlier. A few sparks would be rather impressive if we can manage it." Taylor stared at the fox. "What?"

"I thought you said we were going to try and avoid shooting anything with lightning." She said with a frown. This sounded like a recipe for disaster to her.

"And this will avoid that. Look, the other methods would require me putting you under some form of strain then trying to get you to feel out how you do whatever thing you do instinctively. It can be effective under the right circumstances, and can reveal unknown aspects of your powers. However, we don't have a safe place to do it, and we already know how you have lightning so meditation is a much safer way of experimenting. Let me be honest, I'm not expecting you to manage more than a few sparks or even manage anything at all. This is our first session. It's about learning posture and learning how to reorganize your thoughts to best draw out your new powers." Inari lectured.

Taylor sighed. "Fine." She said, vaguely reassured that she wasn't going to be accidentally blasting holes in the wall.

"Good, now. Lighting. Close your eyes and listen to me."

Taylor closed her eyes. "Okay."

"Posture, remember straight posture. Good." Inari made a humming noise of approval as Taylor straightened her back. "Now, lightning. Focus on lightning, everything you know of it. Not just how it sounds or looks, but conceptually. Focus on that and try to imagine it forming a small ball in your hands."

Taylor tried, she really did, but lightning… What was lightning? Electricity? Electrons flowing from one point to another? She tried to focus on that and imagine it flowing into a ball in her hands. Nothing happened, nothing happened for over an hour before her mind wandered from the topic at hand in the direction of what her dad was doing right then.

Danny had left around eight o'clock to try and see if he could get help from Alan Barnes. She managed to avoid frowning at that. Mr. Barnes might have been the father of Emma, her old former friend and one of those who had shoved her into her own locker. Well, shoved or watched and taunted her while it happened. It was just the latest in their bullying campaign that had lasted since september.

"Lightning, focus Taylor." Inari chided as some of her thoughts must have shown on her face.

She tried to bring her mind back, but it strayed soon after back onto her dad and Mr. Barnes. She had wanted to tell him, but… Ever since her mother had died he had been so down, and while he had gotten a bit better over the last couple years his worries about the Dockworkers Union, at which he was the Hiring Manager, had only been getting worse. Once the Dockworkers Union had been amongst the top five employers in the Bay, now it could barely manage to keep its handful of members in work.

It had started with the downtick of world trade caused by a mixture of Parahuman issues, Behemoths attacks on oil and gas fields, overall economic decline, and finally Leviathan. Combined it had sent the shipping industry into a downward slide that had marginalized Brockton Bay's previous bustling shipping business. Being a smaller city with a smaller port shipping companies had moved away from it in favour of the larger ports in places like Boston, which were nearby. The final nail was, ironically, self-inflicted. When a large protest by the union and a number of other dockside groups over the decline and City Hall's inability to do anything about it things had turned violent. She didn't know exactly what had happened, no one really did, but when it was over the deepest part of the channel had been blocked by a massive tanker ship that was still there to this day.

Brockton Bay had been founded here because of the bounty of the harbour and its access to the sea, it was ironic that what had truly caused its slide into obscurity had been its actions cutting off from the sea… the sea...

Something stirred in Taylor. The sea… Wide and vast, it was on the surface an empty plain, but underneath… oh, underneath. While the ships plied the straights above fish swarmed beneath. Vast schools of tuna, salmon, haddock. Lone sharks and pods of dolphins and whales. They followed the currents that turned and twisted in the depths. The sea looked so tranquil from above, but beneath the surface it writhed like a living thing.

Her hands twitched, squeezing something. They felt… cool all of a sudden.

She could almost picture the ocean between her fingers. An orb of purest water, a clear and see through sphere whose surface did not waver for a second from its perfect shape, yet roiled and twisted with a vortex beneath.

"TAYLOR STOP!"

Taylor started as Inari's voice ripped through her concentration. Then there was water everywhere. Coughing and shaking her hands she wiped her eyes clear and looked around. She was soaking wet. Inari, poking out from behind the footstool, was soaking wet. The couch was wet, the carpet was soaked, there was water on the walls and ceiling. "What the hell?" She coughed. It felt like she'd tried to inhale the ocean.

Inari shook herself and Taylor raised a hand as the water went everywhere. "Well, that was more successful than I'd thought it would be." The fox said as she walked over, the carpet squelching beneath her paws with every step.

"I did this?" Taylor asked, looking at her own hands.

"Yep. I don't know what you were thinking exactly, but you went from looking frustrated to just zen all of a sudden." Inari said, walking behind the couch. "Oh, hey dry spot. Eh, sorta dry. Good enough. Anyway, you created this small ball of water but it kept growing and growing and, well it was bigger than me. That's why I started yelling. Took a couple minutes."

Taylor blinked and looked down at her hands blankly. She'd… done that?

"So, can you think of what led to it? Mind explaining what you were so focused on?" Inari asked from behind the couch. The sound of someone wringing out a cloth carried around the furniture.

"I," Taylor swallowed, "I was thinking about the ocean. The fish, the currents, its look, feel, how it looked do calm from above but…"

"Is so busy beneath." Inari stuck her head back around the couch's corner. She looked marginally less soaked. "That sounds like the sea. Can't say I'm too surprised."

Taylor frowned. "Why not?" She asked, "Lightning doesn't exactly fit 'ocean' does it?"

"Actually, it kinda does. Sea gods often also have dominion over Storms since its natural for Sailors to pray to the Sea God for good weather while sailing." Inari explained, "Lightning was probably too specific to get an intuitive response so soon. You can barely feel your power, lightning is probably just a small part of it. Separating it out would be impossible at this point if it's derived from a domain of Storm. Also, you're native to a Sea Port. Shoulda guessed you'd have some influence over it."

Taylor nodded slowly. "Okay, but… then why did it do anything? I thought you said this would take days?" She asked. Before Inari could respond they heard the front door open.

"Taylor, I'm back." Danny called.

"Oh, and you might have been doing that for the last six hours." Inari said as Taylor began to look wildly about the soaking wet living room in a desperate panicked hope that she could find something to fix it.

"Taylor?" Her dad called, sounding somewhat worried.

She grimaced. "In here." She called back. Oh, this was going to be so hard to explain.

-0-0-0-0-0-​

Danny shut the briefcase and smiled across at Carol Dallon. "Thank you for your help Mrs. Dallon." He said.

Carol stood up from her chair. "It was my pleasure Mr. Hebert. I'll look into what we discussed and call you sometime tomorrow." She said holding out her hand.

Shaking it Danny grinned. "Retaining your services was a bit more than I originally intended, but thank you for taking this on." He said.

"Well things have conspired to leave me with more than enough time to do so Mr. Hebert. Shall I show you out?" She gestured to the door.

"I know where the door is thank you. Have a good day Mrs. Dallon." He said as he made his way to the door.

"You as well. Good day." She said, sitting back down and turning her attention back to her computer.

He ducked out and shut the door behind him. Standing in the hall he let out a deep sigh. Carol Dallon was an intimidating and intense woman whose knowledge on parahuman matters was quite extensive. While he had originally intended to simply ask for advice the further into the documents they had gotten the more he had realized just how little he understood about how the law affected parahumans like Taylor.

"Finally done Danny?" He glanced up as Alan walked over. "I've been checking for you every ten minutes for the last two hours."

Danny chuckled. "There was a lot to cover Alan. A lot. I've retained her services for now." He said.

"Really? Her rates aren't cheap you know." His friend said.

"She reduced them for this. Apparently she has something of an issue with the current PRT Director unless I miss my guess." He replied. He placed and hand on Alan's shoulder and pulled him along towards the front. "I need to get going. I've left Taylor alone for long enough. Who knows what she'll have gotten up to by now."

Alan chuckled. "Knowing her? Could be anything." He said, "But uhh, before you go Danny." They stopped in the hallway. "It's been a while. Around a year now, but uh… I was thinking of hosting a barbeque next weekend. Why don't you and Taylor come by?"

Danny sighed. It had been a while. "I can't. With everything going on I want to keep Taylor's situation as quiet as I can until everything is official." He said.

"That's fine. Maybe another time then?" Alan said with a sigh.

Danny frowned. "Look, not this week, but how about rather than us coming over, you bring your family over at the end of July. We can do a barbeque, I'll get Kurt over and we can visit properly." He suggested. He'd admit it had been a long time since he'd done anything like this, but the barbeque was probably in usable condition? Uh, probably needed a good clean out, but it should be usable… hopefully.

Alan grinned. "Sounds good. Steak? Burgers?" He asked.

"We'll see what I can find." He patted his old friend on the shoulder. "I'll call you with the details once I'm sure."

"Talk to you then Danny."

"Yep. Talk to you later." With that Danny headed down the hallway and exited the building, smiling. It was a smile he kept right through finding his daughter sitting in the middle of the living room, with every surface inundated with impressive amounts of water. Normally he would have been mad, but the wet dog impression she was doing managed to get a chuckle out of him as he searched for towels to help mop it, and her, up.

-0-0-0-0-0-​

Glenn Chambers, Head of Public Relations for the PRT, pondered the sketch he'd just finished up. He spared a glance at the photograph on the tablet lying next to his sketchpad. He frowned. "No, no, won't work." He sighed.

On the pad was a sketch of a costume for the girl in the photograph. It was more martial than most of his work, an armoured chestpiece, flowing robes, and a club-like weapon at her hip. Perhaps tinkertech, perhaps not. The sketched girl had her hair up in an elaborate braid held together by some form of jewelry.

"Too impractical." He muttered, "Braids fall apart at the worst times, and she doesn't have the musculature for so much armour." He tapped his pencil on the table as he thought. This would be so much easier if he actually knew what Taylor Hebert's power actually was. Even the girl in question hadn't had a clue if there was anything more beyond a talking fox and her quite lovely fox tails and ears.

He glanced at the photograph again. Perhaps something more oriental? Japanese perhaps? They had a lot of things involving foxes didn't they? He could vaguely recall something from those Aleph-Japan animated films that his niece had forced him to watch a few months back. Sure Taylor was hardly Japanese, but cultural appropriation was almost a tradition at this point when it came to creating costumes. Perhaps…. Hmm…

His thoughts were interrupted by a polite cough from his left. Letting his ideas churn in the back of his mind he turned to face the PRT Trooper who was waiting politely. "Yes?" He asked.

"Director Piggot wishes to see you Mr. Chambers." The trooper said.

"Really? Now I assume?" Chambers asked, already folding up his sketchpad and shutting off his tablet.

"Yes sir." The trooper nodded.

Glenn groaned as he eased his way out of the cafeteria table bench. His back cracked softly as he stood. He ignored the way the trooper winced. "Well, let's not keep her waiting then." He said, allowing the trooper to lead him out of the room.

As they walked he considered what it was that Piggot might want to talk about. Most likely it was about the young lady whose costume he had been sketching ideas for. Well that, or Armsmaster's accidental romp through the bath house had blown up into something much worse than a mere reprimand could solve. It wouldn't be the first time.

Ten minutes later he bid goodbye to trooper outside of the Director's office. Her receptionist waved him in. Opening the doors he walked into the room. "Director Piggot, you wished to speak to me?" He asked as he took in the room and its sole occupant. Well that wasn't entirely accurate. While Piggot was the only one physically present within the room the left wall had been replaced with a projected image of the office of Chief-Director of the PRT Costa-Brown.

"Glenn, thank you for joining us." Costa-Brown said with a nod as Piggot turned to him. "We were just going over the latest information on this latest parahuman in the Bay. Emily would you mind sharing what you were telling me?"

He caught Piggot's slight twitch at the use of her first name by the first director. With the tone of voice the Chief-Director used it was a bit like being called out in elementary school by the teacher. He stifled a sigh, it appeared that their working relationship was as nasty as ever.

Piggot was, however, a professional and managed to keep her annoyance with her superior out of her tone. "The situation involving Taylor Hebert has evolved. A half-hour ago we received word that she accidentally flooded her living room while experimenting. According to our team keeping an eye on her she created an orb of compressed water. Our thinkers estimate it to have been about forty gallons at least in an orb the size of a basketball. When she lost concentration it flooded the entire room."

Glenn whistled. "So she has more to her than just a talking fox or some electricity then." He said. Water, he could work with water. Dark blues perhaps? Possibly a waves motif? Though if she had lightning as well… a storms motif then? Brockton Bay was named for the body of water it surrounded on three sides after all. Playing that local angle might work.

"The think-tank is working over the new information right now, the results so far are indeterminate, even more so than before." Director Costa-Brown said, interrupting Piggot.

"And it appears she is inclined to join us as well." Piggot said, shooting an annoyed glance at her superior. A glance that Costa-Brown simply appeared to ignore. "About an hour ago Carol Dallon, Brandish, of New Wave contacted us. Mr. Hebert has retained her services to negotiate on his behalf."

That was interesting, and odd. "I thought the Heberts were a low-end middle-class family." Glenn said, "The costs of a Lawyer like Mrs. Dallon are quite high."

"How isn't particularly important, especially since we'll probably never get that information out of them." Costa-Brown replied, "But one of the conditions that has already been communicated is a say in whatever costume Ms. Hebert is to be wearing before anything is signed."

"A request we are both inclined to allow." Piggot interjected.

He frowned. It wasn't without precedent. Several times in the past prospective members of the Protectorate with particularly valuable skillsets had been given a great deal of leeway as an incentive to get them to sign on. "Input, yes. Final say, no." He said. "I've seen what teenagers think is appropriate costume design. Ms. Taylor represents a gold mine for PR if we play our cards right, I won't let that go to waste just because of bad costume design."

"And keeping a potentially powerful parahuman from going elsewhere is more important that their looks." Piggot responded.

"Do what you can to get her in then that doesn't take away creative control from my people. I'm not joking when I say a PR gold mine. Ms. Taylor won't have the luxury of wearing a mask and I'm planning on running with that. Let me show you." He said, turning on his tablet and linking it to the projection systems. "Let's see… here we go." He pulled up a photograph of one of his earlier sketches and sent it to both of the two directors while he put it up on screen. "Can you see this Chief Director?" He asked.

She nodded as she peered at her computer. "I do. Interesting design, very greek." She said.

"I was toying with running with the Fox's comments about gods. Not an attitude we want to encourage however. Still, this was the first one were I removed the mask." He said, pointing out the blank face of the generic female in the drawing. "Do you know what the single biggest consistent issue both the PRT and Protectorate face day to day in PR?" He asked.

"If you listen to the complaints from City Hall it's our inability to deal with the Empire and the ABB." Director Piggot snarked.

"Trust I believe." The Chief-Director said looking to him.

His hand swung to point dramatically at her face on the wall. "Precisely." He said. "Trust. And the biggest issue is that neither the PRT nor the Protectorate have a face. Scandals about irresponsible use of funds, or excessive force blow over eventually. But the fact is all of our heroes wear masks, even the PRT Troopers wear full helmets."

"By necessity Glenn." Director Costa-Brown said. They had had this conversation before. "Need I remind you of the New Wave incident from years back with Fleur." Fleur of New Wave had been murdered in her own home after the entire team had gone public with their identities as part of an attempt to do away with the secret identity thing.

"I am aware Director, and I'm not arguing against it. But we have a crisis of trust on our hands. There is no one we can point to in our ranks who doesn't wear a mask of some type. It makes it very easy for our opponents to vilify our people as faceless government goons. We don't have people, we have faceless drones. Of the Triumvirate how many can you even tell has a properly human face? One. Alexandria wears a metal bowl over everything but her mouth. Eidolon covers his entire face in cloth and even Legend, whose face you can tell has the right shape, wears a domino mask that distorts his features and hides his eyes. There is no one who lives without a mask in our ranks." Glenn said, breathing heavily as he finished.

"What about the case 53s? They live their lives without putting on a mask." The Chief-Director said.

"Their lives are, unfortunately, masks in and of themselves." Glenn replied, "We can pretty them up, dress them up all we want. But to the public the only names they have are their hero names. Their forms are rarely even human-like, and they often have strange habits or needs that make it difficult for people to relate to them." It was the perennial issue of branding Case 53s. They were simply too inhuman for many to accept. Not even inhuman in a consistent way either, there was no pattern to their appearances, powers, or problems.

"We can change that with Ms. Hebert. At least, we have the potential to change that. Assuming she is willing to work with us I can make excellent use of her unique situation. We can't hide who she is, and unlike Case 53s she's someone that the average person can bond with. An average schoolgirl from an average family in a typical American city." He continued, pulling up a photo of her sitting on the couch, this time snacking on crackers and cheese with her fox trying to steal from the plate in her lap.

"You say she might have multiple, possible potent, powers? All the better. It makes it easier to hold her up as the face of our organization if she can actually do the job we're supposed to do. I've seen the report Battery put together on her and the think-tanks take on her personality. Her only big issue is her shyness and I've worked with much worse over the years. If she's willing to play ball Directors, we need her. A lot more than she needs us." He finished, sitting back down with a sigh. There, that was his take on this. He spared a glance at the picture on the wall. If it wasn't for the tails and ears you'd think she was just an ordinary girl. It struck a balance between the extraordinariness of Capes and the average life of the common man that they sorely needed to help bridge the divide.

The two directors shared a long silent look. Finally Piggot broke it. "I will not bend over backwards on a maybe. Not to New Wave." She said.

"I won't ask you to." Costa-Brown replied, "But Glenn is right. This has been an issue for years. If we can address it we should. That said, anyone we hold up as a symbol is going to become a target for our enemies. Glenn, make sure you know what you're doing. Her getting killed as a Ward would make anything you do backfire on us." She said severely.

He nodded. There were people with powers who simply wanted to watch the world burn, and who wouldn't hesitate to destroy anything that seemed like it might help make the world better. Even a young girl wasn't safe. "I know. Which is why we'll need to leverage our resources to help her master her powers."

"I'd like to take a moment to remind both of you that all we have is evidence that she can produce large amounts of water, and maybe electricity. Nothing more." Piggot said irritably. "You're gambling she's going to be more than just an average cape."

Glenn nodded. "I can work with average. I don't need her to be the next Eidolon, or Legend, or Alexandria. Average works fine." He said.

"Call it a feeling Emily. I've taken bigger gambles in the past and they've worked out fine." Costa-Brown said before glancing at the clock. "We are running out of time however. Emily, get her on board. That's an order. Glenn, you'll be working on this one personally so find an office and get used to Brockton Bay, you'll be there for a while. Also, get working on a costume design you think you can get past her father. Good day to both of you." They echoed her and the projector turned off.

Glenn stood up. "Well, if that's that." He said, disconnecting his tablet from the system.

"I'll send a message down to HR to find you some office space." Piggot said, scowling openly at her computer. "Get me your ideas by tomorrow morning. Deputy-Director Renick will need them for the negotiations with Brandish. Get out." She shot a glance at him before going back to her work.

Taking the brusque order he hurried out the door. Behind him he heard her dialing up someone on the phone. "Miss Militia, Director Piggot here I need you to-" The door shut behind him, cutting off the conversation.

He took a deep breath and sighed. It was going to be a long night if he wanted to get some ideas put together. Pulling out his cell he hit the speed dial for the local head of PR. If he was going to get this done he'd need more manpower. His subordinate picked up on the second ring. "Jennifer, excellent…" He launched into an explanation of what was happening as he made is way for the lift. First, the cafeteria to arrange for an urn of coffee, then the PR offices on level two. It was going to be a long night. A really, really long night.

-0-0-0-0-0-​

A/N: And Part Four of The Taste of Peaches. A little less Taylor focused this time, but important background events while Taylor figures out how to Goddess. Also the first chapter to be posted on TTP's own thread. It's not entering the rotation of major stories, but I'll do one of these 5k+ chapters when I feel like writing worm.

Embarrassed Edit: And a thank you to @Gekkou_Yoko for being my editor again. And an apology for forgetting to thank her, again. *sheepish kitsune*

 

[MadMaud]

So Glenn gets to be the PR manager for a Goddess.. One that can get stronger through public perception.

Dude is living his dream.

 

[Ashrik]

I like The story so far and am looking forward to seeing where you'll take.
Ps: you misspelled the first meditation as mediation.

We'll start with a form of mediation." Inari replied.

"Meditation." She frowned.

Click to shrink...

 

[jwolfe_beta]

So Glenn gets to be the PR manager for a Goddess.. One that can get stronger through public perception.

Dude is living his dream.

Click to shrink...

Though apparently he and Magical Spirit Guide Inari-Chan~ will be locking horns over Taylor's costume design to at least some degree.

 

[Jonn Wolfe]

I like this. Personally, I hope she joins New Wave.

 

[Ilikebob]

I foresee a clash with ABB in the future.

 

[Grounders10]

So Glenn gets to be the PR manager for a Goddess.. One that can get stronger through public perception.

Dude is living his dream.

Click to shrink...

Keep in mind that they don't think Taylor is a Goddess.

Though apparently he and Magical Spirit Guide Inari-Chan~ will be locking horns over Taylor's costume design to at least some degree.

Click to shrink...

Will they clash? Or will they... Synergize?

I like this. Personally, I hope she joins New Wave.

Click to shrink...

New Wave isn't exactly looking for new recruits right now, and Danny is more of the opinion that going to the group that can bring in people like the Triumvirate is more likely to see Taylor protected.

I foresee a clash with ABB in the future.

Click to shrink...

Well the superstitious amongst them are going to be really nervous.

 

[Jonn Wolfe]

Well the superstitious amongst them are going to be really nervous.

Click to shrink...

Ya Think? :lol

Wouldn't surprise me if ABB mooks end up turning tail (hah!) and running whenever she shows up.

 

[jwolfe_beta]

Well the superstitious amongst them are going to be really nervous.

Click to shrink...

'OK, OK Taylor, gotta scare off these gangers before things get really nasty. Inari said I should have a knack for this somehow. Just act natural, it'll work.'
-She unconsciously strikes a pose, storm winds whipping up around her, tails lashing and eyes beginning to glow as she summons a shining ball of hypercompressed water and 'smiles' at the ABB-
Taylor: "Should I make your pulse rise? Or... STOP!" *Evil sounding giggle*
-High-pitched screams echo around the area as the ABB beat feet so fast they start red-shifting-

Aegis: "What. The Hel--ck. Was that?"
Taylor: "I didn-I mean I-I'd never-Gaah!" *Embarrassed hiding in collective fluff of tails commences*

-Elsewhere-
Magical Spirit Guide Inari-Chan~: "I get the feeling my pupil is taking her first steps to being a proper fox goddess. Now to start working on those silly little inhibitions and hang-ups of hers."

 

[xeivous]

Well this sure is a thing. Hopefully this fic won't die the death that the other kitsune!taylor fics have.

Curious about what wards Taylor thinks are cute and if you're deviating from Taylor's canonical tastes, be it in general or under the excuse of godly changes.

 

[jwolfe_beta]

Curious about what wards Taylor thinks are cute and if you're deviating from Taylor's canonical tastes, be it in general or under the excuse of godly changes.

Click to shrink...

Though Grounders10 is no doubt going to be keeping things clean/on a low simmer to comply with forum rules.

And as for 'godly changes' said entities tend to simply go "yes" when it comes to preferences of partner genders etc.

 

[xeivous]

Though Grounders10 is no doubt going to be keeping things clean/on a low simmer to comply with forum rules.

And as for 'godly changes' said entities tend to simply go "yes" when it comes to preferences of partner genders etc.

Click to shrink...

That's sensible.

Making Taylor open-minded seems like a solid idea if adding to her godliness, though I will admit finding such a thing to be good simply because it opens up options to romance the typically more interesting female worm characters in Taylor's rough age group.

Spoiler

Tattletale in particular could be interesting given how Taylor outfoxes her in traits so much by virtue of being so much an actual fox. Plus if I'm remembering the timeline right, she's yet to get recruited by Coil.

 

[Zeuseus]

Excellent, I clicked on this cos of the fluffy tails tag. I have not been disappointed.

All Hail Kyuubi Taylor-chan!

Always interesting to see a story that starts earlier than canon too, since it seems like it's at the end of 2009 instead of the start of 2011.

 

[Grounders10]

And as for 'godly changes' said entities tend to simply go "yes" when it comes to preferences of partner genders etc.

Click to shrink...

Taylor will lean towards "yes" eventually.

Always interesting to see a story that starts earlier than canon too, since it seems like it's at the end of 2009 instead of the start of 2011.

Click to shrink...

The first scene is June 25th 2010. The latest chapter is Tuesday June 29th 2010.

 

[Zeuseus]

The first scene is June 25th 2010. The latest chapter is Tuesday June 29th 2010.

Click to shrink...

ah right, forgot to adjust for American school system term dates, thanks for clarifying.

 

[Doodle]

It's amusing to find this now since I recently started writing the beginning of a Goddess of Life and Death Taylor idea snippet where she's in her own endless Garden of Eden building her Creation Room and molding her first human/humanoid Creation.

 

[polparohoda]

Very nice.
And it's another foxgirl!Taylor to boot! And a goddess! We don't have nearly enough of them both.
So I'm (very impatiently) waiting for what comes next. And thanks for reminding me, I really could use yet another rereading of A Little Help. Chepi!Taylor is hilarious.

 

[Xon]

Will they clash? Or will they... Synergize?

Click to shrink...

Trigger warning; contains corporate-speak.

 

[shinkicker444]

Nice finally got it's own thread. So will she have power for each tail? I think that was a thing with Kyuubi right? Each tail represented a different thing. Lightning/fire, water, wind, earth, spirit?

Looking forward to superstitious reactions like in that other Kyuubi Taylor fic with people freaking out. That was great.

Hope this Foxgirl Taylor goes on longer than other attempts!

 

[Darkarma]

Foxes are the best, the perfect mix of cat and dog personalities. Inari alone will be a huge PR boon in that she can act as a stage foil for Taylor.

Though I've seen to have missed, what color is Taylor's tails and ears? White like Inari or black like her hair?

And will she hold up to the myth of having infinite vision for having nine tails?

 

[ScottotheUnwise]

It seems like she might have a smattering of the big three there at the beginning, what Inari passed along, and how many other flickers of power any other gods may have held in reserve at the end. Be funny if she has her debut as an outed Cape and then finds she can shape change to a human look.

Watching this.

 

[Ashkari]

So far so good. I'm liking it. Hope this doesn't swiftly go the same way as other Kisune!Taylor fics though. (IE dying before they even hit 40k words)

If I might make a small suggestion regarding the end of Chapter 4, there, with Glenn's conversation: simply giving both Glen and Taylor both veto power over the final design would work just fine. It's a reasonable solution that lets both parties make sure theyre happy with the end result, as long as they're both being reasonable about it. That and actually I suspect that Taylor (and Inari actually) would understand Glen and Rebecca's desires/wants regarding PR just fine. It's a pretty reasonable arguement, and one that iirc came up in Worm canon as well.

Typo callouts behind the spoiler.

Spoiler: Typos

Well, it's not unheard of for master's to have semi-controllable projections

Click to shrink...

The word here should be 'autonomous', as in 'under its own control'. Taylor's already implied she didn't summon it (saying it was there when she woke up), it's behavior seems it's own, and Taylor just said she isn't controlling what it's saying. There's no reason for Battery to think she's partly controlling it at this point.)

I mean somethings are instinctive

Click to shrink...

some things

A master/changer at the minimum.

Click to shrink...

Changer isn't appropriate at all here. That's for people with alternate forms, which Taylor hasn't demonstrated or claimed.

It as a part he did not look even remotely qualified for.

Click to shrink...

It was a part

Getting her on board would be

Click to shrink...

onboard is one word.

It was late, very late, despite them having started going over the stack of papers right after dinner, a nice spaghetti carbonara Danny had whipped up

Click to shrink...

Not a typo per se, but... Danny had already asked about pizza in the previous chapter. Unless you were actually using 'supper' in the archaic sense of 'early afternoon meal'... which is a bit weird on its own since Taylor woke up late and had a late breakfast.

She frowned at the ears and poked out of her hair.

Click to shrink...

I'm guessing by context that 'and' here should be 'which'

Wouldn't let Emma do it myself

Click to shrink...

Also not a typo, but rather an FYI. Probably not relevant as this is an AU which seems to lack Sophia entirely, but canonically not true - Emma actually went out in costume with Sophia, and Alan had to have known about it after Emma made him drive her to rescue Sophia one time.

Danny shut the briefcase and smiled across at Carol Dallon.

Click to shrink...

Probably should remove 'across'. The wording felt a little awkward. Alternatively, add 'the desk' or something.

Good day." She said

Click to shrink...

The . should be a ,

While he had originally intended to simply ask for advice the further into the documents they had gotten

Click to shrink...

Add a comma between 'advice' and 'the'

Edit: fixed some typos, clarified some things.