Under The Skin (Worm Altpower- Body Horror)

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Sylent-M said:
Don't underestimate Taylor's foolish stubbornness in regards to not dropping out of Winslow.
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We saw her thought process way earlier in the fic. It was either go to school or walk off a building. She's been pretty well trained not to think of other options like asking for help.

TBH that's one of my favorite things with the recent chapters, how much trouble she has believing that anyone would spend any time being not horrible to her.
 
Telegraph Nine said:
I mean... given how powers work in worm, that could very easily be a more realistic image of an A or S class threat than some manically laughing asshole in a cape. Think Burnscar before Jack got his hooks into her, for instance. The guy with a name and a costume might be a bastard, but he'll play by some rules if only because civilization is where he keeps his stuff and he'd like to keep being part of that. The ones you need to watch out for are the ones who are just... broken.

The really nasty threats, the ones that don't even make it to the Birdcage because they're too busy having walls and quarantine zones built around them, probably look a lot like Taylor here. No name or costume or creed, just someone softly crying as reality twists itself into horrors around them.
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This is a really awesome point! I think in some ways people like Hookwolf or Jack Slash are always going to be the lesser evil when compared to someone like this fics Taylor, because she's trying pretty dang hard to not murder humanity and she's still got a huge body-count. Jack Slash can stop doing his incel-homicide-shtick at any time, but Taylor is only ever going to get more broken. I really like the way your comment reads, very nicely put by the way.

Telegraph Nine said:
(Honestly, while Taylor is obviously being irrationally hard on herself, there is an entirely legitimate argument to be made that she's guilty of negligence. She knew at least of a little of what her bugs were capable of if she lost control, she knew how shaky her grip on them was, and she knew the kinds of things the trio would do to her at school. Despite that knowledge she kept coming to school anyway, risking the lives of everyone around her in the process.)
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It makes one wonder what the protocol is in the Worm universe for stuff like this. As far as Taylor knew her options were: go to the Birdcage forever, go live in the woods, or die, in terms of harm reduction. Would the official recommendation have been that she turned her self in even before she understood her powers? I'd assume it's either that or tacit approval of self-neutralization via suicide. Kinda dark.
 
Arden said:
Worm is a dark setting. People like her are either quietly disappeared or become notorious S-class threats. There's little middle ground. She is more comparable to someone like Breed than someone like Blasto, and Breed was one of the most horrifying and notorious members of the Nine.
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yeah that's true! Taylors sort of one of those people who fall through the cracks in society- I'm willing to bet a lot of villains would live short miserable lives if they didn't get alien powers from their worst moments. It's easy to see a spark of the appeal of being a horrible S-class threat from that perspective I think- it certainly would not endow one to society at large to know that- were it not for this random thing that happened to make you powerful- most people would be completely fine with letting you suffer as long as it was out of their sight. Of course, things are never really that simple, but I just find it interesting to think about.
 
SatyaV said:
We saw her thought process way earlier in the fic. It was either go to school or walk off a building. She's been pretty well trained not to think of other options like asking for help.
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Even in canon, where she's not in nearly as bad a headspace as this Taylor, she refuses to quit Winslow out of a stubborn pride of 'not letting them win.' As if she isn't losing every moment she spends letting them torment her.
 
Sylent-M said:
Even in canon, where she's not in nearly as bad a headspace as this Taylor, she refuses to quit Winslow out of a stubborn pride of 'not letting them win.' As if she isn't losing every moment she spends letting them torment her.
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I see what your saying to some degree, but though pride is certainly a motivator for this Taylor it's not really her main one. She's depressed and actively suicidal- there are certainly other things she could do than 'go to school to get harassed' and 'drop out and die' but she's not really in the headspace to see them. It was taking her quite a bit of effort to even get up and follow her normal routines while actively being tortured by murder-bugs and recovering from an extremely traumatic event- finding innovative solutions to her life's problems is probably a bit too much to ask. I don't really think it's unreasonable or even unusually stubborn for a fifteen year old in her situation to be thinking this way. But that's just my two-cents on the matter haha
 
Junebugtwin said:
I don't really think it's unreasonable or even unusually stubborn for a fifteen year old in her situation to be thinking this way. But that's just my two-cents on the matter haha
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Oh it's totally believable and even understandable. Doesn't stop me from thinking it's a mistake both here, in canon, and really in any story where her school situation doesn't notably improve.

I will say the 'stubborn pride' thing was more in relation to canon Taylor. Pride is clearly on the low end of motivations for this Taylor.
 
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Junebugtwin said:
Would the official recommendation have been that she turned her self in even before she understood her powers? I'd assume it's either that or tacit approval of self-neutralization via suicide. Kinda dark.
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Define "understood." I may need to re-read the early chapters, but unless I'm really remembering wrong Taylor definitely knew that she was struggling to keep her powers under control, and she clearly had an inkling that her bugs could be dangerous to those around her if she got out. She just didn't understand the sheer scale. She was carrying what she thought was a loaded gun into school every day, and it turned out to be a nuclear bomb instead.

You have to figure the PRT has at least some directives for parahumans who come forward because they're worried their powers might be a danger to others. It must have happened before. Some of them probably end up as wards/heros, if training in a safe environment turns out to fix the problem or increase their control enough. Others end up like Labyrinth or Sveta, contained for the safety of others, but still nominally cared for by people trying to help them and make their existence as tolerable as it can be. Ending up living in a hermetically sealed room with multi-inch-thick steel walls and talking to a psychologist through reinforced bulletproof glass wouldn't be a great life, but it's probably the best one this Taylor could hope for. It'd be her best chance for actual human contact at least, even if it would need to be through sturdy barriers or technological intermediaries.

Sylent-M said:
Don't underestimate Taylor's foolish stubbornness in regards to not dropping out of Winslow.
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Honesty this might be me reading too far into it, but I sorta suspect that a large chunk of how Taylor treated Winslow in canon came from lessons she subconsciously picked up from Danny.

Think about it: Danny spends basically her entire childhood determined to not be like his father, to never be angry or violent or abusive towards Taylor. And he manages it, for the most part. But he also ends up inadvertently teaching her than anger is something to be ashamed of, something that needs to be hidden or repressed. She grows up seeing that when you're angry, when you're about to snap and lash out, the proper response is to remove yourself and vent in private where no-one can see. She has no role models for channeling her anger in a constructive manner, so instead when she's pushed Taylor just takes everything and then screams and throws and breaks things in private.

How he treated the dockworkers union also feeds into this. I'm pretty Taylor looked up to Danny for his determination to help people, and they definitely share an obstinate refusal to bend on what they care about. But she also learned from him that what you do when everything is falling apart, when things just get worse and worse and worse every day... is just keep showing up. Keep going, keeping doing what you've always done, keep trying, even when it becomes blatantly hopeless that things will ever change. That's what he modeled for her, and that's what Taylor did instead of realizing that she really needed to try something, ANYTHING else.

Not that I'm saying any of this imitation was happening on a conscious level, mind you. I'm like 95% sure it wasn't. But people tend to end up influenced by their parents in way neither part realizes until years down the line, if they ever do at all. The choices he made helped shape the kind fo person she became, for both good an ill.
 
Telegraph Nine said:
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Not that I'm saying any of this imitation was happening on a conscious level, mind you. I'm like 95% sure it wasn't. But people tend to end up influenced by their parents in way neither part realizes until years down the line, if they ever do at all. The choices he made helped shape the kind fo person she became, for both good an ill.
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yeah, its almost disturbing how well closely children somehow manage to mirror, how predictive it is for supposedly "independently acting people with free will" we like to think of our selves

I remember at one point watching someone talking about it online, listed examples/types/etc. Thought about my own problems, concluded which kind of problems/goals/desires the model said my parents would have so as to result in my problems/goals/desires/etc by this model for the sake of understanding what their saying, and then on top of that, what'd it mean for THEIR parents (that I knew very little about at all), based on JUST what I knew about myself (w.r.t what they were saying)....

I know pretty well about how the stuff you learn online has to be taken with a grain of salt. but models are compared/contrasted/etc by how much explanatory power they have, how much they model, how closely it matches reality and how little is required to put in to get results out and of course how resistent it is to analytical mistakes/bias/etc.

So it *shook* me to the CORE that when I went and immediately asked about it as directly as I could (in reverse order. as a test of the model cas I realized I COULD test it); my mom more-or-less said *WORD FOR WORD* what the model had predicted to the point that I even started GUESSING WHAT SHE'D SAY ....and she had ZERO context about why I was asking all of a sudden and I certainly had no idea what I was doing or how "the model worked".......

cas the super duper scary, wait-since-when-was-my-entire-life-predetermined-that-far-back thing is, is that not all child-parent "inheritary psyco-pathological curses" are one-to-one where you directly mirror your parents (though thats the most common by far I think).......sometimes they come in CYCLES.

basically this was a triple or quadruple blind test (whatever that looks like) when you had only recently learned what double-blind tests are; your still figuring out all of the ways its cuts past bullcrap and complexitys you only vaguely knew about if at all (and I'm used to jumping ahead, or at least keeping up, with most lectures on most topics).

it (felt) like reading a experts work on translating a ancient scholar's book and their confusion about what it was really saying (cas their struggling to even figuring out what its claiming, let alone whether its right/wrong) so while their covering different interpretations (mom answering my questions without knowing why I'm asking now) my hands are still shaking from chapter one,

cas it already said enough for me to *KNOW* that that the scholar had a entire sub-chapter dedicated to what was functionally not that far removed from calling me out by name before civilization even began; then using facts about myself that I knew I couldn't deny, to prove step-by-step, IN DETAIL, that I was a jackass;

Then wrapping up with the point that its not even about morality at this point for me because its not even a option for me to NOT change if I diden't want to go murder-crazy TEN FREAKING YEARS FROM NOW....whats it called when a logic-bomb was made to UNDO a pathology/virus? in cybersecurity its called grey-hat hacking.....

like you can't argue with their premise, evidence, arguements, or their conclusion at that point; and your FULL attention got stolen from you like when your prof mentions a video game while your half-asleep in class....So your already freaking out about all the implications and everything you think even just MIGHT fix what is apparently underpinning most of everything that has ever gone wrong, or ever will, and not just in your life but your entire family.

...... 😵‍💫

I grew up kinda thinking mystical sayings/etc as either just the previous generations way of saying (to wildly over-simplify and horrifically conflate all wisdom like this to make my point) "stop being idiots, your obviously going to get yourselves killed", or just straight up lies/esoteric mysticalism for manipulative reasons; and I have long since known "nothings really new under the sun" and that "you should study your past to not be doomed to repeat it"....but....

....uh...then I found......*that*.

it was like somehow getting a discovery as ground-breaking and field-defining as Einsteins freaking relativity downloaded into your head while your still learning how to COUNT...., but invented by people across the whole of human history on a subject you never had much respect for; I have NEVER had my understanding of myself/people/the-world/etc that suddenly and that strongly, shifted-- let alone so BLATANTLY "in front of me"--

.....let alone so CASUALLY like that cas I was on freaking YOUTUBE; I was NOT expecting to learn *my own* family history from a YT video I stumbled into.

I'm not very sure what to think about much of anything anymore.......
 
Junebugtwin said:
so much as it peels, like an orange- layers of skin ripping and folding until a bloody hole appears, thick enough she could stick a rubber ball inside and set it rolling
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I don't like horror, although The Thing is one of my favorite movies, and I've seen its fair share of body horror in games, movies, books, etc.; I will not continue with this story because the descriptions are too good and I just ate too much meat, thanks.

That and I don't really like the tone of horror and despair, I prefer it to be reserved for allies and enemies, especially allies.
 
Lancet Fluke- Ten
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    • Alright! So, I know it's been a while, and I'm sorry for that- this chapter just really fought me while I was writing it. I'm not really satisfied with how it ends, but I'd rather just publish it and let myself move on than continue to stew over it indefinitely. As for the content warnings, as usual we have a lot of them: body horror, insects, gore?, self-hatred, very brief allusion to sexual assault, bullying, and cannibalism.

    Despite all the terror, depression, and absolute misery the last few months had been somehow it's now- when things are going surprisingly not disastrously- that Taylor feels like she's the most stressed she's ever been.

    When they- when she triggered, there hadn't been enough time for her to dread anything- it was all a nightmare fever of fear and humiliation and horror. Things had progressed so rapidly from juvenile prank to- to what happened, that she had barely even been able to process it at the time.

    The following days and months were soaked with anxiety and anger at the world around her, disgust and despair over her own powers, and a constant undertone of both depression and an agonizing sort of tenseness that refused to let up.

    It had been fucking awful- waking up every day already feeling so violated that she assumed the lumps and movement under her skin was part of some sort of pathetic phycological break. Then realizing slowly but surely that- no- she really did have something inside her, crawling and itching and biting.

    Going to school had been its own sort of torture as well- the worst day of her life had been public, which meant she was a spectacle- something to be amusingly commented on like the weather or the state of the winning football team.

    Having to sit in the same classes with the people who made her life living hell- having to sit and say nothing, and do nothing, and be nothing as they giggled about how shitty she looked covered up in all her layers- she meant it sincerely when she said that she'd rather just have them beat the shit out of her for eight hours instead.

    But even against all of that- somehow, this was more terrifying.

    Maybe it was because the stakes were higher- she'd fucking killed people now- children- whatever the law, or the PRT or hell, even Sophia, decided to do to her would be more than justified. She was probably heading towards a steel bunker underground, drugged up to her gills with the Hive somehow incapacitated at best. And as much as she deserved it- it was hard not to dread it as well. Her subconscious full of all of the horrible things that they could do to her without anyone even raising an eyebrow.

    Would she be kept alive and docile, slowly going crazy within the confines of her own mind as she withered away in some cell? Would they take her apart- cold sharp metal unveiling a mass of writhing bodies inside her- never able to die but never free of pain? Would they try to kill her- and if they did- which was the kindest option- what would happen to her dad? Would he ever know what happened to her? Would they let him believe she was just another victim of some unknown bug-master? Would they tell him, whisper to him and him only that his daughter- the girl he'd raised and loved and stilled cared about even when he couldn't be there- that she'd snapped and gone crazy and killed everyone- killed what he still thought was her best friend-

    Taylor suppressed a wince as an Excavating Terminal pushed aside something in her stomach on it's way- an organ of some kind, either her original set or a manufactured thing. It's sharp legs carefully avoided puncturing anything important, but it was still painful, and uncomfortable in a way she couldn't quite describe- like having an itch on the back of your mouth that you couldn't scratch or soothe no mater how many times you cleared your throat.

    Or maybe she was tense because as much as the situation with the Hive had 'improved' (in terms of communication) she still wasn't really 'in control' of them. Sure, the ones localized in her body seemed to be almost freakishly receptive to her orders when necessary- but that was the thing, it was only when necessary. They would listen smoothly and without complaint when the situation called for it- but as soon as they- or rather, the Hive- disagreed- then all bets were off.

    She couldn't just tell them to fuck off for example- the thought didn't really even seem to translate. Just the same way that she'd thought she had a good handle of her healing Terminal until suddenly it leaped into Victoria's mouth.

    She'd had like, three nervous break-down-panic-attack-things since she left the safety of the nest, she was barely fucking keeping it together! And now that she was near people it was going to be a million times worse!

    And that was really the damning part of it. The reason why her probably non-human heart felt like it was going to explode even though she was just walking- the reason why her fingers trembled and shook enough she had to keep them in her pocket and clench her jaw shut to keep from clattering.

    People. She was surrounded by humans and she felt like she was going to be physically sick on the busted up sidewalk in front of them.

    She felt their eyes on her constantly- judging and prying and watching her every twitch carefully. No doubt they were disgusted by what they saw- no doubt they had to stain themselves to keep their faces neutral and their noses unwrinkled. They knew she was a threat; knew she was dangerous- that a part of her- the Hive- her- had torn apart her classmates like their skin was paper.

    They had to be thinking of ways to put her down even now- and worse, she'd fucking told them about herself.

    Stupid. So fucking stupid. It had felt almost painfully good in the moment- like pouring hydrogen peroxide on a wound infected and watching it fizzle. It had been…freeing almost, to actually tell someone- anyone- about at least some of the things that had happened to her.

    But it had only been freeing because she hadn't expected it to last. It had been one last attempt to explain events from her side before everything inevitably fell apart. She had expected them to not care. Or at the very most, feel slightly conflicted about putting her down. It had been a selfish urge. She hadn't thought they'd listen.

    But now they knew! They knew just how pathetic she was- just how much she had screwed everything up just because she couldn't handle a few mean words. They seemed legitimately surprised and angry at the…way things had turned out around her trigger event- which- which had been shockingly nice- but any sympathy they might've had was going to swirl down the drain once they got acquainted with the reality of the situation.

    She desperately wished she could rip the knowledge from their heads- that she was weak- that she was all vulnerable underside with no hard shell, that horrible things happened to her and she did nothing to make anything better.

    And that wasn't even getting into Tattletale- Taylor genuinely didn't want to even try imaging what she probably knew about her life now. If she was as good as she said she was then- then she no doubt knew all the things she had left untouched in her summary- all the shit Taylor wanted most locked away and buried and forgotten about.

    She tried to remember that the villain had seemed horrified, almost sick on her account- but no matter what she saw, or what she knew logically, she couldn't help but wait- tense and uncomfortable for the laughter to start.

    "-oing? Taylor?" Taylor flinched to the tune of thousands of muffled legs twitching, snapping her head to the side so harshly her neck protested.

    Victoria blinked, seemingly startled by the response, before half-heartedly raising her hands in innocence.

    "…Hi. Um. I was just asking if you were doing okay? You look a bit- well, um, your probably still in pain, right?" She sounded awkward enough that Taylor felt her cheeks heat up in sympathy- god, how the hell did she manage to get inside her own head with a literal sentry-bug flying directly over her head?

    Taylor picked up her pace a little so that Victoria wouldn't have to slow down for her while she struggled with a response.

    How the hell was she supposed to reply to question like that? Of course she was in pain, she was the human equivalent of a clown car over stuffed with flesh eating bugs- she doubted that she ever went more than a couple seconds without some sort of irritant or pinch scraping at her skin or squeezing her guts. But saying that would be oversharing- and weird, and she'd already whined enough before- and besides, what right did she have to complain after everything she'd done? Why would Victoria even ask a question like that?

    "It's manageable. I… it's been worse, and I'm sort of used to it by now." All true enough. Taylor absently encouraged a terminal away from her lips by biting the inside of her cheek where it was crawling. It made a truly unpleasant sound, and her teeth itched at the sensation of it writhing underneath them. Blood filled her mouth- it must have scratched though the flesh on the inside of her cheek in its panic.

    Victoria was looking at her with her eyebrows lowered in concern, eyes an unfairly deep color of blue. When Taylor swallowed her throat tasted like blood.

    "Really. It's fine. I'm more concerned about what-" Taylor stopped herself mid sentence, frustration rising up like a tide at her own stupidity. She'd been about to say 'I'm more concerned about what they're going to do to me' like some sort of brain-dead idiot.

    She was being way too trusting of Victoria- as genuinely kind as she seemed, she was still a hero- still pretty and rich and popular- when it came down to it, she was never going to side with ugly, awkward, stupid little Taylor. She didn't need to give any more vulnerabilities away; Victoria already knew too much about her as it was.

    Victoria hovered a little, eyes flicking briefly upwards to scan their surroundings before resting back on Taylor again. Taylor thought maybe the flying thing was an automatic thing the blonde did when she was stressed or worried- something she did without thinking. She went back to looking at her shoes kick up gravel as she walked.

    "What? What where you going to-" Victoria was interrupted mid-sentence as Regent casually slid up to them, his scepter twirling idly in his hands.

    Taylor had spotted him apparently deliberating on approaching them previously, and was prepared enough to keep walking steadily when he got within punching distance. A part of her was glad he had decided to barge in, because she honestly didn't want to continue the previous thread of conversation with Victoria- but it was a small part of her.

    Mostly she just felt very, very, intensely aware that he was right beside her. If she stretched out her arm she'd be able to easily touch his arm, and vice versa.

    Her shoulders stiffened impossibly tighter, and she tucked her arms into her side, hunching slightly so that her hair would hide her face and she made a smaller target. Not much smaller- considering her height, but a bit.

    There was a curious sensation rolling through her insides- a slow a deliberate migration of some of her tougher terminals over to her right side. She imagined that a ship at sea might be familiar with the sensation- it's crew and supplies rocking precariously to one side by the force of a powerful ocean wave. The feeling was nausea inducing, mildly painful, and her right arm, side, face, and leg got ever so slightly heavier.

    She wasn't even all that sure as to the effectiveness of this maneuver either- surely anything that was ripping through her skin and upper layers of fat was powerful enough to burst through the makeshift wall of carapaces?

    And even with all that going on under the surface she was still a hundred percent focused on Regent. She asked one the Sensor Terminal to keep one of its 'eyes' fully focused on him alone, paying particular attention to his hands. Thankfully, it did so without complaint or question which was a relief- fighting against the Hive on top of whatever the hell her body was doing right now would have been anxiety inducing to say the least.

    "Soo what are we talking about over here?" He drawled his bored tone at ends with the tension her terminal could see in his legs and back. Was he getting ready to run if things went bad? That was the most sensible thing any of these people had done today.

    Victoria- who had just started walking with her feet to the ground and everything- started floating again, jaw clenching. She seemed fairly wary of Regent as well, though undoubtably for different reasons. With her level of strength Taylor doubted Victoria had to worry about being touched when she didn't want to be.

    Taylor expected Victoria to answer him- she seemed like a very 'take charge' sort of person- but surprisingly she left replying up to Taylor, simply folding her arms across her chest.

    Great.

    "Nothing. Victoria was just asking how I'm doing, and I'm doing fine." She said tersely, trying not to snap. She had been even tempted to just end her sentence after 'nothing' but that would have made her seem suspicious. Or. Well, more suspicious.

    Taylor glanced up at him. She couldn't see the upper half of Regents face- his mask covered that much pretty solidly, and what little she could see of his eyes was shaded and hidden. Undoubtedly she could get a better glimpse through the sensors vision- hell, she could probably make out the exact pigment of his eyelashes with the Sensor Terminal- after all, even from where it was hovering it could easily distinguish Victoria's pores or the dust on Clockblockers shoulders. Unfortunately, he was tilting his head in a direction which made that impossible.

    Still, she got the impression from what little she could see that he was raising his eyebrows.

    "You're doing fine? You've got mutant bugs with a taste for highschoolers crawling around in you, you basically just wiped a school off the map, and you're probably going to the big-bad-Birdcage for the rest of your life, and you're doing fine?" Regent let out a condescending little laugh.

    Taylor subconsciously took a few steps closer to Victoria, before realizing what she was doing and straightening out again. Her fingers were starting to hurt from how harshly she was clenching her hands.

    She tried to ignore the mocking 'taste for highschoolers' that was looping mercilessly around in her head, hiding her expression behind her hair and trying not to be sick. She wished so desperately that she didn't have any memories from the brief lapse when she ceased to be 'Taylor' and melded with the Hive- wished that it was merely an ominous hole in her memory, torn from her mind because it was simply too alien to comprehend. But it hadn't been alien at all- not all of it at least. Hunger, and eating and tearing wet meat with starving teeth- these things were natural to her as well- humans were omnivores after all.

    The truth was that people tasted a lot like pork- like food. Except for raw and grisly and bloody and warm- except for the sharp crack of bone and the wet yellow fat peeking out from-

    "Cut it out Regent. There's no reason to say it like that." Victoria snapped, her aggressive tone thankfully taking Taylor from her darkening thoughts.

    Victoria was now a good head or two above them both, somehow turned towards Regent while still maintaining a course straight ahead. It didn't seem like a very wise maneuver- especially since the streets were full of seemingly hastily parked cars and debris. Taylor made a mental note to make sure the hero didn't float into anything while she was preoccupied.

    Preoccupied defending Taylor which was extremely weird. It was probably just because she was aware of how little mental stability Taylor had, but it still left her feeling off-balance and flustered.

    Regent put his hands up sarcastically and subtly moved his head in a way she assumed meant he was rolling his eyes.

    "Oh come on- it's not like she doesn't already know. You went to Winslow- that's the shitty school that makes every other public school in America look like paradise right?" Taylor jolted slightly, surprised he'd gone back to talking to her directly. She was pretty sure Winslow wasn't actually that bad but-

    She nodded hesitantly, uncertain where he could possibly be going with this.

    "Right, so you're probably poor- and let me guess, everyone's bullying you, so no friends either?"- What the fuck? Was he trying to pick a fight with her? Was he that stupid?- "You only mentioned your dad once earlier- so only one parent, and your power is bugs. Big, murderous- and if I'm reading this right- semi-intelligent- bugs, that you suck at controlling and also happen to live inside you. Now, if we take a look at someone like Canary- hot, talented, super popular- who still ended up getting Birdcaged, and then we look back at you-" Victoria cut him off with a aggressive slicing motion.

    "What is your problem?!" She practically snarled, and Taylor had to stop herself from startling at the volume of it- she'd gotten too close to Victoria again.

    Before Regent could reply Vista called back- "Is everything alright back there?"- from in front of them, mouth twisted into a harsh frown. She'd probably heard Victoria and had assumed correctly that, no, everything was not 'aright'.

    Bizarrely, Taylor was reminded of her mom dryly interrupting her and Emma's arguments on long road trips. Her heart ached a little at the thought of her mother, and then again but much harsher when she remembered that Emma was dead now too.

    Regent smiled winningly.

    "Oh absolutely, completely and totally fine." He claimed, stressing the last word mockingly. Taylor grit her jaw.

    Tattletale, who had been talking quietly with Bitch behind them, quickly jogged up a few paces to catch up- though thankfully she approached from behind Regent and not Taylor.

    She grabbed the renaissance themed villain on the shoulder, her grip punishingly tight if his pained grimace said anything.

    "Oh well that's great! I'm glad you're trying to be a bare-minimum amount of decent to the two women in our little group most likely to squish you like a shitty stress ball!" Tattletale cheerfully said, her smile baring a few too many teeth to be friendly.

    Regent winced.

    "I thought that was Bitch?" He half-joked, slowly and awkwardly allowing himself to be dragged backwards by his teammate. Not that Taylor really thought he had much of a choice.

    "Nope! After them it's me actually!" Tattletale threatened manically, her voice fading as she started whispering furiously at Regent.

    Okay then. Taylor shared an uncertain look with Victoria, who seemed like she couldn't decide whether she was still angry at Regent, amused at Tattletales antics, or uncomfortable with their last conversation.

    For once Taylor understood pretty much exactly how she was feeling.
     
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    • Birdcage? Lol. Given the hive seems to be psychic and can rebuild taylor's body, i would assume she is capable of startrek style teleportation. Just have the bugs inside her burst and eat the corpse, then have a hive elsewhere remake her body.

    I am getting the impression that while everyone else is thinking taylor is an A class threat, TT knows she is an uncontainable S+ threat. They dont seem to really understand that being mostly composed of super space bugs means you cant really be suppressed or drugged or contained even short term, long term is functionally impossible.

    Hopefully taylor gets shot and/or killed in some manner by the prt or while talking to them and after they are done dying from bug vengance we get an outside PoV of someone watching the bugs reassemble themselves into a taylor. "Yes, we are totally taylor and not 3 jillion bugs in a skinsuit."
     
    Cerevox said:
    Birdcage? Lol. Given the hive seems to be psychic and can rebuild taylor's body, i would assume she is capable of startrek style teleportation. Just have the bugs inside her burst and eat the corpse, then have a hive elsewhere remake her body.
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    Shhhhh, they don't know that, let it be a surprise.

    Cerevox said:
    I am getting the impression that while everyone else is thinking taylor is an A class threat, TT knows she is an uncontainable S+ threat. They dont seem to really understand that being mostly composed of super space bugs means you cant really be suppressed or drugged or contained even short term, long term is functionally impossible.
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    Ok, most of them don't know that, but tattletale is not spoiling the surprise, let her have her fun, she seems to like it, look at how big her grin is! Ignore how tense it seems, it's nothing important.

    Cerevox said:
    "Yes, we are totally taylor and not 3 jillion bugs in a skinsuit."
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    Well… technically, as far as this fic's concerned, *3 billion bugs in a skinsuit* is the definition of *a Taylor* so… not false?
     
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    Alec was just trying to get to the important part of the dilemma. It does Taylor no good for everyone around her to assume that they alone will be able to prevent her from being birdcages. It would be cruel to act like they are going to save her no matter what when the reality is that everyone will be against them and going to the PRT for help may make things even worse.
     
    Tattletale: Do you have a death wish, or are you just that much of an asshole?

    Regent: Meh.

    In all seriousness, this is the equivalent of going up to the "dead" movie monster and poking it with a stick.
     
    Huh, I have always wanted to see more fics where someone gets railroaded to the Birdcage, and it just doesn't stick. Cue PRT flailing in karmic justice.

    Also the true story coming out after Taylor is caged to discredit the PRT seems like a super Coil thing to do, which could be fun.

    On the other hand, with people on her side maybe that fate will be dodged here? Guess we'll see how the PRT (or rather Piggot) responds.
     
    demonboss said:
    It does Taylor no good for everyone around her to assume that they alone will be able to prevent her from being birdcages.
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    Actually, I think that someone explaining that "She can regrow completely from any of her bugs and they're already too spread put for you to kill them all" is probably a strong argument against putting her in the Birdcage.

    Not that I would be opposed to see them try, just to show how powerless they are.
     
    PRT: "Oh God! We have to Birdcage her!"

    TT: "That won't work."

    PRT: "Then we have to kill her!"

    TT: "Still won't work."

    PRT: "Well what are supposed to do to contain this threat to humanity?"

    TT: "Trust Taylor to "contain" herself?"

    PRT: "That's stupid, if people could handle their powers without our expert aid, we would not be absolutely necessary in every circumstance."

    Regent: "Yes, "expert", "necessary", and other words are totally what describes you guys."
     
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