Vineyard Shrine (Worm)
- Thread starter Quolim
- Start date
Scarlet Rose
Verified Furry
- Pronouns
- Female/Genderless
Will said dolphins be learming to sing about how glorious fish are to snack on?
And how thankful they are for it all?
Because I sure do hope those gang members get put into a tank and made to perform for their disrespect!
And how thankful they are for it all?
Because I sure do hope those gang members get put into a tank and made to perform for their disrespect!
Well, not a leopard exactly, but she gets something like that fairly soon...
Well, she isn't actively malicious, as such.wow... yes, things just went from 0 to 100 in a blink. Shit just got serious! Poor PRT, just after they got done deciding she wasn't actively malicious.
It's just that she's channeling a Greek God, and they aren't exactly known for proportionate retribution for offenses. And desecrating a temple is exactly the sort of thing that gets people made into object lessons.
Or in this case, dolphins.
Chapter 8
- Location
- Ostia
8
"Bring this note to Kaiser, alright?" Taylor tied the note that she'd written onto the leg of a pigeon.
The bird let out a drunken warble of agreement, barely registering Taylor's words as it stuffed its beak into a bottle of wine. Behind her, Damien was busy with taking care of the people that had been roughed up by those Empire members and organizing efforts to wash off the graffiti.
"No idea where to find Kaiser, but you can track him down, yeah?" Taylor asked the bird.
The pigeon, rather than answering, dropped the now-empty wine bottle and crookedly flew away, spiraling away in drunken circles.
"Okay, bye! Thank you!"
"The hell is this?" Hookwolf growled and looked down into the water. Several dolphins were flopping away in the bay, calling out desperately to him. Most of them had swastikas and other gang symbols tattooed on their flippers. Whoever had done this, he could only really applaud their audacity.
"I can only assume this to be some form of an elaborate practical joke," Kaiser remarked airily, "A joke made in particularly bad taste, might I add."
That morning, a bird had shattered the window to Kaiser's office in the Medhall headquarters. Tied to its leg was a note, a small folded piece of paper with a message written in runny dark purple ink.
Dear Mr. Kaiser,
Plzpcki pikk pick up ur goons. Nver come too 2 the temple evr ain again. And also go fyuck urself.
XOXO
The person that had written the note had butchered the English language beyond Kaiser's comprehension, with repeatedly misspelled words and the most atrocious handwriting that he had ever witnessed. It was almost like whoever had written it had been severely drunk while doing so. Despite how short the note was, it had taken Kaiser several minutes to decipher it. There was a street address hastily scrawled across the back of the note in the same bleeding purple ink that the message in the front had been written in. A cursory internet search had revealed that address to be a place in the Docks, a shipping warehouse right by the water that had been abandoned years ago.
Most alarming, however, was the fact that the messenger bird had known exactly where to bring the note, and had brought it to his civilian identity. That meant that the person knew who he was. Which meant that he had to investigate.
Which, of course, had led him to the scene in front of him. The dolphins.
Kaiser turned around and began to walk away, his heavy armored greaves thudding against the asphalt. The dolphins, seeing him turn away to leave began calling out even louder, as if trying to recapture his attention. Kaiser paid them no mind. He had bigger things to worry about than a random pod of dolphins.
"I've been hearing mutterings of a new cape setting up shop in the Docks," as Kaiser walked, he spoke to Hookwolf, who had stuck by the dolphins for a moment longer before following behind him, "It seems that this would be her doing."
"Can't be a very smart cape if the first thing she does is piss us off," Hookwolf scoffed.
"It's possible that we were the ones that 'pissed her off,' as you put it," Kaiser mused, "The way in which she phrased her note would suggest that. 'Never come to the temple ever again,' she said. Perhaps some of our membership had wandered over into her territory."
"Why the hell would anyone do that?" Hookwolf was vaguely incredulous, "She's set up in the Docks. Only the Merchants would ever bother with such shitty territory."
Kaiser rubbed his chin contemplatively. With both his face and his hands covered in dull steel armor, the action was slightly silly, but it was more for effect than anything else anyway, "By all reports, she seems to be an equal opportunity employer. A person's race is, apparently, not an issue for her. I assume some of our recruits took issue with that."
Hookwolf snorted in derision. Quietly, Kaiser agreed with the sentiment. He himself had never bought into the Empire's philosophy, simply using it as a tool to control his people. He'd long suspected Hookwolf shared his views and only publically espoused the Empire's philosophy for protection and as an excuse to get into more fights.
"Still, I can't let this stand," Kaiser continued, "She seems to have knowledge of my civilian guise. And, on top of that, used it to deliver a message. It would be remiss of us not to send a message in turn, wouldn't it?"
Behind the mask, Kaiser knew that Hookwolf was beginning to grin, spoiling for a fight.
"Hebert," Sophia nodded in greeting as she bumped shoulders with Taylor in the hallway at Winslow. They were right by the girl's bathroom. The door to the bathroom had been locked or otherwise jammed for days at this point, ever since Sophia had stumbled upon the veritable jungle that Taylor was cultivating in there.
"Hi, Sophia!" Taylor belted out an excited greeting and opened her arms in a proferred hug which Sophia summarily ignored. Instead, she leaned back against the wall in a suitably surly manner and stared flatly at Taylor, waiting for her to drop her arms. She never did.
"What's got your ass so chipper this morning?" Sophia resisted the urge to roll her eyes at Taylor's routinely dopey attitude.
"When am I ever not happy at school these days?" Taylor beamed, "I get to see you, and Emma, and all sorts of people. Also, I'm drunk!"
"Of course you are," Sophia quirked her lips in an almost-smile.
"Speaking of," Taylor swung her head back and forth with comical exuberance, looking around. As she moved, her backpack jostled around, producing the sound of glass clinking together, "Where's Emma, anyway? I thought for sure I would've bumped into her today."
"Don't think she's here today," Sophia shrugged, "Probably out sick or something."
"Oh," Taylor tapped her nose, thinking, "If you see her, tell her I said hi, okay?"
"Uh-huh," Sophia grunted noncomittally.
Then came a loud crash from right behind her that made Sophia nearly jump out of her skin.
"... the hell?" Sophia muttered.
The door to the girl's bathroom had fallen clean off of its hinges and fallen onto the ground, revealing a solid wall of plant life, pulsating with primal power. The door hadn't been locked, Sophia realized, it had just been clogged up with an exponentially growing mass of flora. Beside her, Taylor giggled. Then she shrugged off her backpack, took out the wine bottles within the bag, and then began to feed the wine to the greenery.
Internally, Sophia wondered if she should bother writing up a report on any of this.
"Bring this note to Kaiser, alright?" Taylor tied the note that she'd written onto the leg of a pigeon.
The bird let out a drunken warble of agreement, barely registering Taylor's words as it stuffed its beak into a bottle of wine. Behind her, Damien was busy with taking care of the people that had been roughed up by those Empire members and organizing efforts to wash off the graffiti.
"No idea where to find Kaiser, but you can track him down, yeah?" Taylor asked the bird.
The pigeon, rather than answering, dropped the now-empty wine bottle and crookedly flew away, spiraling away in drunken circles.
"Okay, bye! Thank you!"
* * *
"The hell is this?" Hookwolf growled and looked down into the water. Several dolphins were flopping away in the bay, calling out desperately to him. Most of them had swastikas and other gang symbols tattooed on their flippers. Whoever had done this, he could only really applaud their audacity.
"I can only assume this to be some form of an elaborate practical joke," Kaiser remarked airily, "A joke made in particularly bad taste, might I add."
That morning, a bird had shattered the window to Kaiser's office in the Medhall headquarters. Tied to its leg was a note, a small folded piece of paper with a message written in runny dark purple ink.
Dear Mr. Kaiser,
Plz
XOXO
The person that had written the note had butchered the English language beyond Kaiser's comprehension, with repeatedly misspelled words and the most atrocious handwriting that he had ever witnessed. It was almost like whoever had written it had been severely drunk while doing so. Despite how short the note was, it had taken Kaiser several minutes to decipher it. There was a street address hastily scrawled across the back of the note in the same bleeding purple ink that the message in the front had been written in. A cursory internet search had revealed that address to be a place in the Docks, a shipping warehouse right by the water that had been abandoned years ago.
Most alarming, however, was the fact that the messenger bird had known exactly where to bring the note, and had brought it to his civilian identity. That meant that the person knew who he was. Which meant that he had to investigate.
Which, of course, had led him to the scene in front of him. The dolphins.
Kaiser turned around and began to walk away, his heavy armored greaves thudding against the asphalt. The dolphins, seeing him turn away to leave began calling out even louder, as if trying to recapture his attention. Kaiser paid them no mind. He had bigger things to worry about than a random pod of dolphins.
"I've been hearing mutterings of a new cape setting up shop in the Docks," as Kaiser walked, he spoke to Hookwolf, who had stuck by the dolphins for a moment longer before following behind him, "It seems that this would be her doing."
"Can't be a very smart cape if the first thing she does is piss us off," Hookwolf scoffed.
"It's possible that we were the ones that 'pissed her off,' as you put it," Kaiser mused, "The way in which she phrased her note would suggest that. 'Never come to the temple ever again,' she said. Perhaps some of our membership had wandered over into her territory."
"Why the hell would anyone do that?" Hookwolf was vaguely incredulous, "She's set up in the Docks. Only the Merchants would ever bother with such shitty territory."
Kaiser rubbed his chin contemplatively. With both his face and his hands covered in dull steel armor, the action was slightly silly, but it was more for effect than anything else anyway, "By all reports, she seems to be an equal opportunity employer. A person's race is, apparently, not an issue for her. I assume some of our recruits took issue with that."
Hookwolf snorted in derision. Quietly, Kaiser agreed with the sentiment. He himself had never bought into the Empire's philosophy, simply using it as a tool to control his people. He'd long suspected Hookwolf shared his views and only publically espoused the Empire's philosophy for protection and as an excuse to get into more fights.
"Still, I can't let this stand," Kaiser continued, "She seems to have knowledge of my civilian guise. And, on top of that, used it to deliver a message. It would be remiss of us not to send a message in turn, wouldn't it?"
Behind the mask, Kaiser knew that Hookwolf was beginning to grin, spoiling for a fight.
* * *
"Hebert," Sophia nodded in greeting as she bumped shoulders with Taylor in the hallway at Winslow. They were right by the girl's bathroom. The door to the bathroom had been locked or otherwise jammed for days at this point, ever since Sophia had stumbled upon the veritable jungle that Taylor was cultivating in there.
"Hi, Sophia!" Taylor belted out an excited greeting and opened her arms in a proferred hug which Sophia summarily ignored. Instead, she leaned back against the wall in a suitably surly manner and stared flatly at Taylor, waiting for her to drop her arms. She never did.
"What's got your ass so chipper this morning?" Sophia resisted the urge to roll her eyes at Taylor's routinely dopey attitude.
"When am I ever not happy at school these days?" Taylor beamed, "I get to see you, and Emma, and all sorts of people. Also, I'm drunk!"
"Of course you are," Sophia quirked her lips in an almost-smile.
"Speaking of," Taylor swung her head back and forth with comical exuberance, looking around. As she moved, her backpack jostled around, producing the sound of glass clinking together, "Where's Emma, anyway? I thought for sure I would've bumped into her today."
"Don't think she's here today," Sophia shrugged, "Probably out sick or something."
"Oh," Taylor tapped her nose, thinking, "If you see her, tell her I said hi, okay?"
"Uh-huh," Sophia grunted noncomittally.
Then came a loud crash from right behind her that made Sophia nearly jump out of her skin.
"... the hell?" Sophia muttered.
The door to the girl's bathroom had fallen clean off of its hinges and fallen onto the ground, revealing a solid wall of plant life, pulsating with primal power. The door hadn't been locked, Sophia realized, it had just been clogged up with an exponentially growing mass of flora. Beside her, Taylor giggled. Then she shrugged off her backpack, took out the wine bottles within the bag, and then began to feed the wine to the greenery.
Internally, Sophia wondered if she should bother writing up a report on any of this.
Last edited:
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Gotta be honest, I've never understood the point of making the E88 capes not ideologically Nazis. It just seems ... odd? Like I see writers do it fairly often, but I've never been clear on what it adds to the story.
Especially in this case with Hookwolf, considering Hookwolf's canon interlude which had the most hardcore racism in all of Worm.
Especially in this case with Hookwolf, considering Hookwolf's canon interlude which had the most hardcore racism in all of Worm.
TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
This Post (r/Parahumans - [Spoilers All] What If (on phone, so can't do the link properly) by Wildbow is probably a lot of it, on a What If Leviathan never attacked Brockton Bay. E88 would eventually shatter, and Wildbow notes Hookwolf might drop the racial superiority schtick altogether. He's apparently more into violence and the Being a Nazi Gang cape just gives him plenty of excuses to be violent and protection from consequences of being a murderous ass, but he apparently isn't a hardcore believer sort like Krieg or the like.
By WoG, Kaiser wasn't really a believer.
Also, I think it underlines how hollow their cause is; an evil and blatantly incorrect ideology led by somebody who doesn't even buy into it themselves.Wildbow said:
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh my, I'm dying of laughter.
Scarlet Rose
Verified Furry
- Pronouns
- Female/Genderless
Nooo. Don't die!
You'll miss all the awesome action!
Wonder what animal kaiser will be turned into..?
And if Hooky gets polymorphed, I hope it's into a harmless puppy, who gets sent to live with a loving family of any heritage other than white
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This feels very appropriate:
I do really rather like this. Also Kaiser... a PIGEON broke the window to get a message to you. You really need to think that part through. Do at least a little bit of research. I mean, you would still almost certainly go forward with your plans to send a message, but at least you might be slightly less blindsided. But going at it like this you're just actively accepting a threat to your public identity but not actually behaving as if there is a threat to your public identity.
Chapter 9
- Location
- Ostia
9
Emma laid back on her bed, staring at nothing in particular.
Taylor was strong now, that was for certain. Sophia had told her that the world existed in a dichotomy of prey and predator and that they were predators, so they had a sacred right to do whatever the hell they wanted to prey. Taylor was prey, and so she was nothing.
But that was wrong. Obviously and so stupidly wrong. Taylor hadn't responded to any of what she and Sophia and Madison had been doing to her, probably hadn't even really noticed it at all. They'd stuffed her locker full of trash again, hoping to riff off of the old locker prank, but as far as Emma knew, Taylor never even used her locker anymore, and Emma wasn't convinced that Taylor would care even if she did. The insults that she hurled at Taylor slid off of her like rain. The physical abuse was nothing to her. Even the suspension that Emma caused by tattling on Taylor to Principal Blackwell hadn't fazed her.
Taylor wasn't prey, but she certainly wasn't a predator either. A predator would have struck back a long time ago.
Taylor was a plant, Emma thought. A tree, hundreds of feet tall, with branches that held the sky. Docile enough to let even the lowest of animals pick off of her, but sturdy enough that even the strongest couldn't budge her an inch. She existed outside the system that she and Sophia had constructed.
So Emma thought. And she thought some more.
Taylor + Emma = Weak Taylor
Taylor - Emma = Strong Taylor
The math was dead simple. She was the only variable in the equation, after all, but she kept on getting tied into knots, trying to fit everything that she knew and understood into two tiny little equations. Logic chains that terminated in the same outcome, no matter what crackpot rationale she used.
Taylor + Emma = Weak Taylor
Emma = Weak Taylor - Taylor
Emma = Weak
No. No, that wasn't right.
Taylor - Emma = Strong Taylor
Taylor = Strong Taylor + Emma
Taylor - Strong Taylor = Emma
- Strong = Emma
- Strong = Weak
Emma = Weak
Damn.
It was supposed to be a clean break, a fresh start. Breaking things of with Taylor meant breaking things off with the old Emma. The one that was too weak to do anything at all, the one that was nothing. Cutting Taylor off had been a calculated risk of sorts.
But man, was she bad at math.
A pipe burst at Winslow that day, something to do with clogging from the girl's bathroom. The water leak seeped through the bathroom and into the hallway, turning the western wing of the school into a veritable swamp. Rather than canceling school for the day, given that about a quarter of the building was flooded, Principal Blackwell had made the executive decision to simply move the affected classes into various unused spaces in the school. Which was how Taylor spent Mr. Gladly's world issues class in the cafeteria, chemistry class in the hallway, and algebra in the parking lot. It was, thankfully, an unusually warm day for late February, which meant that it wasn't terribly uncomfortable to attend class outdoors.
There was even a faintly classical quality to it, Taylor thought to herself while Mrs. Caulfield lectured about the quadratic formula or something of the sort. The ancient Greeks lectured and did much of their education outdoors, didn't they? Or maybe that was the Romans. It was kind of hard to keep them straight.
Taylor snickered to herself at the unintentional pun.
"Something funny, Hebert?" Sophia muttered under her breath.
"Nothing much," Taylor smiled. She scooted backward until her butt was against the curb and then reclined against the grass, freshly revealed, yellowed, and sodden from the recently-melted snow. The grass responded to her contact, turning green and lengthening. The grass tangled its growths together until it was a suitably comfortable pillow for Taylor to lie against, "You ever see Emma, by the way? I haven't seen her all week."
"I haven't either," Sophia rested her chin on her fist, "She hasn't really been returning my texts either. Was thinking of stopping by her house."
"Can I come with?" Taylor tilted her head to the side.
"Uh..." Sophia blinked, "Not sure that's a good idea."
"Why's that?" Taylor had an unnerving way of looking at people sometimes, Sophia noticed. These days, she was usually drunk enough that she couldn't look at anything with too much focus. But every now and then, there was something sharp behind that cloudy stare.
"Well, you and Emma have got that thing, right?" Sophia retorted.
Taylor stared at Sophia for a long moment. They locked eyes, and despite the relative chill of the day, Sophia began to sweat slightly. The grass behind Taylor lengthened and began to swing back and forth, forward and backward, side to side, an infinite series of offset metronomes. Tick tock.
Then the moment passed, the grass unwound itself and returned to normal, and Taylor put on a radiant smile.
"The rampant sexual tension?" Taylor tapped her cheek, only half-joking. Sophia blew out a sigh.
"Is that how you've been seeing it?" Sophia snorted, "I meant the fact that she hates your guts and bullies you mercilessly whenever she sees you, dumbass."
"Mhmm," Taylor hummed, "But Emma and I are friends, right? Or we used to be. Friend-in-progress is how I think of it these days. At least Emma's parents like me? I'm sure they won't mind if I stop by for a visit. Haven't seen them in forever."
Sophia gave Taylor a look that she hoped conveyed exactly how dubious she was feeling.
Mrs. Caulfield, their algebra teacher, had finally stopped with the lecture and was coming around to each person and passing out worksheets for each of them to do with the remaining class time. Sophia took one look at the worksheet and was instantly at a loss for what to do, or even how to start. Taylor, on the other hand, was madly scribbling all over it, already done with half of the problems in the time that it took for Sophia to even finish reading a single one of them.
Taylor caught Sophia's curious glance, "Math goes a whole lot quicker when you're drunk, you know?"
"How's that?"
"Just slap any old number down, all makes perfect sense," Taylor grinned, "It's all dead easy if you're sloshed to hell. Or rather, everything's harder, but it all feels easier, and that's really all that matters."
"Interesting methods."
"Pretty effective, too."
"That so?"
"I still have an A in the class," Taylor crossed her arms and cast a smug look in Sophia's direction.
"I think that says more about the school than it does about your math skills," Sophia said, "But I'll take your word for it."
Sophia surreptitiously pulled out her phone, first checking the time (only two or three more minutes until the school day was over), and hid her phone behind her worksheet so as to avoid Mrs. Caulfield's attention. She opened her messaging app and shot Emma a quick text, fingers tapping the screen rapid-fire.
coming 2 ur place
Then, after a moment, she sent another.
hebert says shes coming 2
There was a little speech bubble with an ellipsis, showing that Emma was typing, which then disappeared. Then it popped up again and disappeared once more. Looking up, Sophia saw that Mrs. Caulfield was looking in her direction, so she quickly crammed her phone back into her pocket.
Faintly, Sophia heard the bell ring from within the building. She probably wouldn't have been able to hear it if she hadn't specifically been listening for it, but she picked her bag up and stood up all the same. The other students had probably been similarly tuned to listen for the bell, as they all got up as a group and began to shuffle away. Mrs. Caulfield shouted the homework for the night, trying to make herself heard over the noise, but either nobody heard her, or they had heard her and pretended not to.
When Sophia checked her phone again, she saw, to her surprise, that Emma had responded. The first text that she'd sent all week, and it was uncharacteristically laconic.
Don't come.
And another below.
Either of you.
"She says not to come," Sophia grumbled to Taylor, "Either of us."
"Huh," Taylor plucked her pinecone wand thing from... somewhere, and gave it a twirl. She tapped the end of it against her palm, before vanishing it away to whatever pocket dimension she'd drawn it from in the first place, "Well, some other time, I guess."
"Not gonna just barge in?" Sophia asked.
"Was thinking about it," Taylor admitted, "But I get the feeling some Nazi schmucks are gonna try mucking about at the temple soon, so I better get cracking on it. Keep me posted on Emma, though, yeah?"
"Sure whatever," Sophia muttered an answer while she watched, somewhat transfixed, as Taylor managed to not only open a bottle of wine without even touching the cork but then proceed to suck down the contents of an entire freshly-opened bottle in less than ten seconds.
"Later, Sophia," Taylor waved, wiping away the trail of wine on her chin while unevenly walking away.
Emma laid back on her bed, staring at nothing in particular.
Taylor was strong now, that was for certain. Sophia had told her that the world existed in a dichotomy of prey and predator and that they were predators, so they had a sacred right to do whatever the hell they wanted to prey. Taylor was prey, and so she was nothing.
But that was wrong. Obviously and so stupidly wrong. Taylor hadn't responded to any of what she and Sophia and Madison had been doing to her, probably hadn't even really noticed it at all. They'd stuffed her locker full of trash again, hoping to riff off of the old locker prank, but as far as Emma knew, Taylor never even used her locker anymore, and Emma wasn't convinced that Taylor would care even if she did. The insults that she hurled at Taylor slid off of her like rain. The physical abuse was nothing to her. Even the suspension that Emma caused by tattling on Taylor to Principal Blackwell hadn't fazed her.
Taylor wasn't prey, but she certainly wasn't a predator either. A predator would have struck back a long time ago.
Taylor was a plant, Emma thought. A tree, hundreds of feet tall, with branches that held the sky. Docile enough to let even the lowest of animals pick off of her, but sturdy enough that even the strongest couldn't budge her an inch. She existed outside the system that she and Sophia had constructed.
So Emma thought. And she thought some more.
Taylor + Emma = Weak Taylor
Taylor - Emma = Strong Taylor
The math was dead simple. She was the only variable in the equation, after all, but she kept on getting tied into knots, trying to fit everything that she knew and understood into two tiny little equations. Logic chains that terminated in the same outcome, no matter what crackpot rationale she used.
Taylor + Emma = Weak Taylor
Emma = Weak Taylor - Taylor
Emma = Weak
No. No, that wasn't right.
Taylor - Emma = Strong Taylor
Taylor = Strong Taylor + Emma
Taylor - Strong Taylor = Emma
- Strong = Emma
- Strong = Weak
Emma = Weak
Damn.
It was supposed to be a clean break, a fresh start. Breaking things of with Taylor meant breaking things off with the old Emma. The one that was too weak to do anything at all, the one that was nothing. Cutting Taylor off had been a calculated risk of sorts.
But man, was she bad at math.
* * *
A pipe burst at Winslow that day, something to do with clogging from the girl's bathroom. The water leak seeped through the bathroom and into the hallway, turning the western wing of the school into a veritable swamp. Rather than canceling school for the day, given that about a quarter of the building was flooded, Principal Blackwell had made the executive decision to simply move the affected classes into various unused spaces in the school. Which was how Taylor spent Mr. Gladly's world issues class in the cafeteria, chemistry class in the hallway, and algebra in the parking lot. It was, thankfully, an unusually warm day for late February, which meant that it wasn't terribly uncomfortable to attend class outdoors.
There was even a faintly classical quality to it, Taylor thought to herself while Mrs. Caulfield lectured about the quadratic formula or something of the sort. The ancient Greeks lectured and did much of their education outdoors, didn't they? Or maybe that was the Romans. It was kind of hard to keep them straight.
Taylor snickered to herself at the unintentional pun.
"Something funny, Hebert?" Sophia muttered under her breath.
"Nothing much," Taylor smiled. She scooted backward until her butt was against the curb and then reclined against the grass, freshly revealed, yellowed, and sodden from the recently-melted snow. The grass responded to her contact, turning green and lengthening. The grass tangled its growths together until it was a suitably comfortable pillow for Taylor to lie against, "You ever see Emma, by the way? I haven't seen her all week."
"I haven't either," Sophia rested her chin on her fist, "She hasn't really been returning my texts either. Was thinking of stopping by her house."
"Can I come with?" Taylor tilted her head to the side.
"Uh..." Sophia blinked, "Not sure that's a good idea."
"Why's that?" Taylor had an unnerving way of looking at people sometimes, Sophia noticed. These days, she was usually drunk enough that she couldn't look at anything with too much focus. But every now and then, there was something sharp behind that cloudy stare.
"Well, you and Emma have got that thing, right?" Sophia retorted.
Taylor stared at Sophia for a long moment. They locked eyes, and despite the relative chill of the day, Sophia began to sweat slightly. The grass behind Taylor lengthened and began to swing back and forth, forward and backward, side to side, an infinite series of offset metronomes. Tick tock.
Then the moment passed, the grass unwound itself and returned to normal, and Taylor put on a radiant smile.
"The rampant sexual tension?" Taylor tapped her cheek, only half-joking. Sophia blew out a sigh.
"Is that how you've been seeing it?" Sophia snorted, "I meant the fact that she hates your guts and bullies you mercilessly whenever she sees you, dumbass."
"Mhmm," Taylor hummed, "But Emma and I are friends, right? Or we used to be. Friend-in-progress is how I think of it these days. At least Emma's parents like me? I'm sure they won't mind if I stop by for a visit. Haven't seen them in forever."
Sophia gave Taylor a look that she hoped conveyed exactly how dubious she was feeling.
Mrs. Caulfield, their algebra teacher, had finally stopped with the lecture and was coming around to each person and passing out worksheets for each of them to do with the remaining class time. Sophia took one look at the worksheet and was instantly at a loss for what to do, or even how to start. Taylor, on the other hand, was madly scribbling all over it, already done with half of the problems in the time that it took for Sophia to even finish reading a single one of them.
Taylor caught Sophia's curious glance, "Math goes a whole lot quicker when you're drunk, you know?"
"How's that?"
"Just slap any old number down, all makes perfect sense," Taylor grinned, "It's all dead easy if you're sloshed to hell. Or rather, everything's harder, but it all feels easier, and that's really all that matters."
"Interesting methods."
"Pretty effective, too."
"That so?"
"I still have an A in the class," Taylor crossed her arms and cast a smug look in Sophia's direction.
"I think that says more about the school than it does about your math skills," Sophia said, "But I'll take your word for it."
Sophia surreptitiously pulled out her phone, first checking the time (only two or three more minutes until the school day was over), and hid her phone behind her worksheet so as to avoid Mrs. Caulfield's attention. She opened her messaging app and shot Emma a quick text, fingers tapping the screen rapid-fire.
coming 2 ur place
Then, after a moment, she sent another.
hebert says shes coming 2
There was a little speech bubble with an ellipsis, showing that Emma was typing, which then disappeared. Then it popped up again and disappeared once more. Looking up, Sophia saw that Mrs. Caulfield was looking in her direction, so she quickly crammed her phone back into her pocket.
Faintly, Sophia heard the bell ring from within the building. She probably wouldn't have been able to hear it if she hadn't specifically been listening for it, but she picked her bag up and stood up all the same. The other students had probably been similarly tuned to listen for the bell, as they all got up as a group and began to shuffle away. Mrs. Caulfield shouted the homework for the night, trying to make herself heard over the noise, but either nobody heard her, or they had heard her and pretended not to.
When Sophia checked her phone again, she saw, to her surprise, that Emma had responded. The first text that she'd sent all week, and it was uncharacteristically laconic.
Don't come.
And another below.
Either of you.
"She says not to come," Sophia grumbled to Taylor, "Either of us."
"Huh," Taylor plucked her pinecone wand thing from... somewhere, and gave it a twirl. She tapped the end of it against her palm, before vanishing it away to whatever pocket dimension she'd drawn it from in the first place, "Well, some other time, I guess."
"Not gonna just barge in?" Sophia asked.
"Was thinking about it," Taylor admitted, "But I get the feeling some Nazi schmucks are gonna try mucking about at the temple soon, so I better get cracking on it. Keep me posted on Emma, though, yeah?"
"Sure whatever," Sophia muttered an answer while she watched, somewhat transfixed, as Taylor managed to not only open a bottle of wine without even touching the cork but then proceed to suck down the contents of an entire freshly-opened bottle in less than ten seconds.
"Later, Sophia," Taylor waved, wiping away the trail of wine on her chin while unevenly walking away.
You made me choke on my tea, you bastard.
- Location
- Somewhere that's on a map
Thug Life, the Anti-thinker. Trump 3, Stranger 2, Shaker 2 (Thug Life's barrels able to withstand Leviathan's waves), Thinker 1(expert in ancient Greek philosophy).
Thug Life is a rogue that lives in a barrel down by the Brockton Bay docks. Approach her at your own peril. Not particularly hostile to anyone unless you question her on her philosophical leanings.
Notable incidents: Maliciously converted Skidmark and Squealer to 'heroism'. Abandoning the Merchants, the two capes have begun an escalating career of vigilantism focused on the area around Captain's Flat. Master rating considered, but ultimately discarded after meeting between Thug Life and Armsmaster.
Chapter 10
- Location
- Ostia
10
Things had gotten a little crazy in the past few days.
For one, Brockton Bay's homeless population had become highly concentrated in a small area right by the water, surrounding the empty parking lot where the temple was being constructed. In and around the abandoned buildings that comprised the district, people were banding together and pitching all manner of tarps and scavenged garbage together into makeshift shelters. The reason for this sudden exodus of homeless people was fairly straightforward. The Empire's aggressive expansion efforts into the Docks meant that if you weren't white, you were a goner, and if you were, you'd get recruited, willingly or not.
The easy solution was Taylor, the nuclear deterrent.
"Hello, are you a neo-Nazi, perchance? If so, there's a lovely pod of dolphins I think you could join..."
Multiple times a day, a group of Empire thugs would find their way over to Taylor's turf, looking for trouble. Taylor, of course, obliged with far more trouble than anyone could possibly handle. Still, it was an uneasy sort of quasi-peace. The Empire wasn't sending any of their heavy-hitters, only, apparently, some goons. Just to probe her out, apparently.
Really, it was only a matter of time until things began to get more heated.
"Nice Halloween costumes, you two," Taylor amiably commented, having rushed to the temple on Midas' back as soon as school had let out. She wobbled off of the donkey's back unsteadily, bottle in one hand and her thyrsus in the other, "Although admittedly a little lazy."
Hookwolf and Stormtiger. The two of them had shown up at her temple, leaning brazenly against one of the columns. The temple had become a bustling place during construction, with a flurry of people always bustling about. But none of the activity that had recently characterized the temple construction site was present that day. Everyone had either fled or were watching with bated breath from inside their makeshift shelters. Only Damien was brave enough to stand by Taylor's side and glare down the two Nazi parahumans. Some would call Damien, a middle-aged black man who was exactly the type of person that the Empire would kill without a second thought, categorically insane. To those people, Damien would only point at Taylor and shrug.
"Could say the same thing about you," Hookwolf's voice was gruff, "I'd say your costume is lazier."
"Really?" Taylor raised an eyebrow dubiously, "Hard to get much lazier than the whole 'shirtless with a mask' schtick the two of you have got going on."
"You're wearing a bedsheet over a hoodie."
"That is also true. Least I'm rocking it, though. You guys look like you just came back from the lamest rave in Brockton." Taylor sniffed, "But I'm sure you guys didn't just come here so I could lambaste you over your fashion sensibilities. Why the hell are you here? I thought for sure I told Kaiser his goons weren't welcome at the temple?"
Even though the mask that Stormtiger wore, Taylor could practically feel the sneer that was dripping from his words, "We're not really inclined to follow any sort of rule that you set down. We're the goddamn Empire, bitch. You do what we want, not the other way 'round. You keep doing something to the boys we send over, so we figured we'd send a little message."
"Uh-huh, uh-huh," Taylor dropped her backpack on the asphalt. She drew her thyrsus and gave it a twirl in her hand, "You're just here to say hello, then?"
Without answering, Hookwolf's arm bubbled and burst into a thorny appendage made of swords. He reared back and punched one of the temple's columns. And the marble toppled to the ground. A barely visible coating of air coalesced around Stormtiger's fist as a blast of air blasted away stonemasonry and brought another column down. While the half-finished temple crumbled around her, Taylor never took her eyes off of the two Nazis, leveling her coolest glare at them even as chunks of stone rained down around her. Miraculously, nothing hit either her or Damien.
"Interesting," Taylor said after the dust had settled.
"Uh, is it?" Stormtiger answered, having expected a more distressed response from the girl.
"Well, it's just that I didn't know that the two of you wanted to die today. If that was the case, you could've just said that from the start, you know?"
Hookwolf and Stormtiger looked at each other.
Then Taylor smiled and spoke again, "Be a good boy and tell Kaiser I'm coming for him, alright Hookwolf?"
"Wha—oof!" A tree had sprouted lightning-quick from the asphalt and hit Hookwolf squarely in the stomach, launching him up and over the abandoned factory buildings of the Docks and into the sky. Within a few seconds, he was nothing more than a little glittering metallic speck spiraling away into the horizon.
When Stormtiger tried to move, he found that his feet were rooted to the ground by a tangle of wooden branches that were coiling around his ankles. When he lifted his eyes back up to Taylor and attempted to raised his hands and send a blast of air in her direction, he found that his arms were bound to his sides by branches that had somehow wrapped themselves all the way around his body in a matter of milliseconds.
Then, there was a flash of light. And after Stormtiger blinked the spots out of his eyes, he saw that all the destruction that he and Hookwolf had wrought against Taylor's temple had been neatly reversed. Tayor's thyrsus was vibrating with power and dripping honey onto the street, leaving sticky droplets on the concrete.
"Sorry, Damien. I don't think I'll be able to take care of things at the temple for a little while now," Taylor apologized to Damien, "I've got to do a little spring cleaning around the city, I think. This is the last straw with that band of idiots."
"The fewer Nazis, the better," Damien grunted, "Don't worry a thing. I've got it covered over here."
Then Taylor turned her attention towards Stormtiger, who could do nothing except watch as Taylor approached him. The branches had crawled all the way up to his neck at this point and were very quickly approaching his face. No amount of struggling loosened their grip.
"Hello," Taylor's smile was so wide that her eyes became nothing more than narrow slits, "Did you know that Lord Dionysus sometimes rides in a chariot drawn by tigers?"
What? Stormtiger wanted to ask, but couldn't, on account of the branches that were now stuffing their way into his mouth, effectively gagging him.
"Don't worry about it," Taylor bopped him on the nose with her thyrsus.
Things had gotten a little crazy in the past few days.
For one, Brockton Bay's homeless population had become highly concentrated in a small area right by the water, surrounding the empty parking lot where the temple was being constructed. In and around the abandoned buildings that comprised the district, people were banding together and pitching all manner of tarps and scavenged garbage together into makeshift shelters. The reason for this sudden exodus of homeless people was fairly straightforward. The Empire's aggressive expansion efforts into the Docks meant that if you weren't white, you were a goner, and if you were, you'd get recruited, willingly or not.
The easy solution was Taylor, the nuclear deterrent.
"Hello, are you a neo-Nazi, perchance? If so, there's a lovely pod of dolphins I think you could join..."
Multiple times a day, a group of Empire thugs would find their way over to Taylor's turf, looking for trouble. Taylor, of course, obliged with far more trouble than anyone could possibly handle. Still, it was an uneasy sort of quasi-peace. The Empire wasn't sending any of their heavy-hitters, only, apparently, some goons. Just to probe her out, apparently.
Really, it was only a matter of time until things began to get more heated.
"Nice Halloween costumes, you two," Taylor amiably commented, having rushed to the temple on Midas' back as soon as school had let out. She wobbled off of the donkey's back unsteadily, bottle in one hand and her thyrsus in the other, "Although admittedly a little lazy."
Hookwolf and Stormtiger. The two of them had shown up at her temple, leaning brazenly against one of the columns. The temple had become a bustling place during construction, with a flurry of people always bustling about. But none of the activity that had recently characterized the temple construction site was present that day. Everyone had either fled or were watching with bated breath from inside their makeshift shelters. Only Damien was brave enough to stand by Taylor's side and glare down the two Nazi parahumans. Some would call Damien, a middle-aged black man who was exactly the type of person that the Empire would kill without a second thought, categorically insane. To those people, Damien would only point at Taylor and shrug.
"Could say the same thing about you," Hookwolf's voice was gruff, "I'd say your costume is lazier."
"Really?" Taylor raised an eyebrow dubiously, "Hard to get much lazier than the whole 'shirtless with a mask' schtick the two of you have got going on."
"You're wearing a bedsheet over a hoodie."
"That is also true. Least I'm rocking it, though. You guys look like you just came back from the lamest rave in Brockton." Taylor sniffed, "But I'm sure you guys didn't just come here so I could lambaste you over your fashion sensibilities. Why the hell are you here? I thought for sure I told Kaiser his goons weren't welcome at the temple?"
Even though the mask that Stormtiger wore, Taylor could practically feel the sneer that was dripping from his words, "We're not really inclined to follow any sort of rule that you set down. We're the goddamn Empire, bitch. You do what we want, not the other way 'round. You keep doing something to the boys we send over, so we figured we'd send a little message."
"Uh-huh, uh-huh," Taylor dropped her backpack on the asphalt. She drew her thyrsus and gave it a twirl in her hand, "You're just here to say hello, then?"
Without answering, Hookwolf's arm bubbled and burst into a thorny appendage made of swords. He reared back and punched one of the temple's columns. And the marble toppled to the ground. A barely visible coating of air coalesced around Stormtiger's fist as a blast of air blasted away stonemasonry and brought another column down. While the half-finished temple crumbled around her, Taylor never took her eyes off of the two Nazis, leveling her coolest glare at them even as chunks of stone rained down around her. Miraculously, nothing hit either her or Damien.
"Interesting," Taylor said after the dust had settled.
"Uh, is it?" Stormtiger answered, having expected a more distressed response from the girl.
"Well, it's just that I didn't know that the two of you wanted to die today. If that was the case, you could've just said that from the start, you know?"
Hookwolf and Stormtiger looked at each other.
Then Taylor smiled and spoke again, "Be a good boy and tell Kaiser I'm coming for him, alright Hookwolf?"
"Wha—oof!" A tree had sprouted lightning-quick from the asphalt and hit Hookwolf squarely in the stomach, launching him up and over the abandoned factory buildings of the Docks and into the sky. Within a few seconds, he was nothing more than a little glittering metallic speck spiraling away into the horizon.
When Stormtiger tried to move, he found that his feet were rooted to the ground by a tangle of wooden branches that were coiling around his ankles. When he lifted his eyes back up to Taylor and attempted to raised his hands and send a blast of air in her direction, he found that his arms were bound to his sides by branches that had somehow wrapped themselves all the way around his body in a matter of milliseconds.
Then, there was a flash of light. And after Stormtiger blinked the spots out of his eyes, he saw that all the destruction that he and Hookwolf had wrought against Taylor's temple had been neatly reversed. Tayor's thyrsus was vibrating with power and dripping honey onto the street, leaving sticky droplets on the concrete.
"Sorry, Damien. I don't think I'll be able to take care of things at the temple for a little while now," Taylor apologized to Damien, "I've got to do a little spring cleaning around the city, I think. This is the last straw with that band of idiots."
"The fewer Nazis, the better," Damien grunted, "Don't worry a thing. I've got it covered over here."
Then Taylor turned her attention towards Stormtiger, who could do nothing except watch as Taylor approached him. The branches had crawled all the way up to his neck at this point and were very quickly approaching his face. No amount of struggling loosened their grip.
"Hello," Taylor's smile was so wide that her eyes became nothing more than narrow slits, "Did you know that Lord Dionysus sometimes rides in a chariot drawn by tigers?"
What? Stormtiger wanted to ask, but couldn't, on account of the branches that were now stuffing their way into his mouth, effectively gagging him.
"Don't worry about it," Taylor bopped him on the nose with her thyrsus.
xbox432
Lover of Editing
Heh, hehehehehahaha! Hooky got uppercut by a tree. So much for him being a walking chainsaw, eh? Now the real question is, did anyone get that on film? 😈
Well, that's ONE question, I guess another would be if Taylor gave Stormtiger to Dionysus as a charioteer or if PETA will be coming after her for forcing a tiger to carry her around town?🐅
Also, with how things were worded BB must have QUITE a large pod of tattooed Dolphins off its coast now. I wonder if the idiots will be dumb enough to try picking a fight with an Orca... Or, heh, maybe they'll start following a great white around? 🐬🦈🥩
Well, that's ONE question, I guess another would be if Taylor gave Stormtiger to Dionysus as a charioteer or if PETA will be coming after her for forcing a tiger to carry her around town?🐅
Also, with how things were worded BB must have QUITE a large pod of tattooed Dolphins off its coast now. I wonder if the idiots will be dumb enough to try picking a fight with an Orca... Or, heh, maybe they'll start following a great white around? 🐬🦈🥩
- Location
- Somewhere that's on a map
Dodos. Turn them all into Dodos. Helpless, flightless birds so hyper adapted to a single biosphere they are completely unable to function outside of it.
The symbolism tickles.