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(Worm/Multicross) Awakening: Part I
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    • Another repost, originally posted in the Worm 'fic thread here.

    (Part I | Part II)

    Awakening
    Part I​

    Day 1

    My name is Theresa Hillford.

    By the time anyone reads this, you may not even remember what it was like before, so I'll start from the beginning.

    It started several years ago, with Superman.

    Yes, Superman. Before, he was a comic book character, and he was only the first. At first, he called himself Sentinel, but over time, his costume changed, and he began answering to Superman. At the time, it seemed like he was just changing to honor the first superhero of comic books.

    No one thought anything of it. He was part of a modern day legend, one of the greatest heroes come to life, and he was just the first. Other "capes," as they had begun to be called, began appearing as well. Captain America, Jetstream, Astra.

    How people get powers is a mystery. There's plenty of speculation, mostly based on fiction rather than any facts, talk of "eruptions," "breakthroughs," "break outs," or "trigger events," but no one really knows.

    However, even after others started appearing, it wasn't until the first villains appeared that we learned the truth.

    When we did, people began calling them "awakenings."

    They'd all thought they were alone. People like Joker, Super-Skrull, and Syndrome had proven them wrong. Superman was the first to speak out, to reveal the terrible truth.

    To warn the world of the price of power.

    He couldn't remember his name. As time had passed, he had begun to lose who he had been, until there was nothing left of... whoever it was. And only Clark Kent, Kal-El, Superman remained.

    People stopped dreaming of becoming capes after that. To lose your very identity -- your life, in a way -- for power? No one wanted that.

    The dreams started a few months ago, I think. At first I blew it off, but now I think... I think I may have awakened.

    God, I hope I'm wrong.

    ----​

    Day 2

    My name is Theresa Hillford.

    I'd always wanted to be stronger. Not physical strength; that, I was satisfied with. No, I wished I had been more willing to stand up for what I believed in, for other people. My high school had a bullying problem -- let's be honest, just about every school did -- but they ignored me. I was a jock, track team, so that made me off-limits. I didn't socialize, and they left me alone.

    I wanted to do something for the bullying victims, to stop them. But I didn't know how, and I never found the courage to try.

    I am 19 years old and an intern at the local newspaper. I'm taking night classes at the community college, aiming for a degree in journalism.

    I've always been tall -- 5'10" -- and skinny. People say I have a runner's build, which is fine by me, since I've always been a bit of a tomboy. I keep my brown hair cut short; growing it longer just gets in the way I've found.

    My parents are both alive and well, running a ranch in Texas.

    I have to remember these things.

    I have to.

    Because I can feel them. They're all around me.

    I wasn't wrong.

    ----​

    Day 31

    My name is Taylor Heb Theresa Hillford.

    The dreams, the memories... I can't tell what's real or not anymore. I nearly attacked my best friend, seeing the ghost of a redhead with a cruel smile.

    I left. I had to. I couldn't risk hurting anyone else I cared about.

    ----​

    Day 239

    My name is Taylor Theresa Hebert.

    I've been letting my hair grow longer, the natural curls coming out full force. It just didn't seem worth the effort to keep it cut short.

    I have to remind myself that both my arms are real these days. That I've never lost one, never been cut in half, never actually suffered any of the litany of injuries I remember.

    That I am not Taylor. I am not Skitter or Weaver or Khepri.

    My name is Theresa.

    ----​

    Day 303

    My name is not Taylor Hebert.

    I can't remember what my name is anymore. When I look on the earlier pages of this journal, I can't see it. All I see is "Taylor Hebert," and I know that's not right.

    This will probably be my last entry.

    * * *​

    I shuddered as I closed the journal. Nearly a year since my awakening, three hundred days trying desperately to cling to fragments of myself... and failing.

    I carefully set the journal down and look over the edge of the overpass to the busy interstate below.

    If I'm going to die, I'm at least going to die as myself. I grasped the railing, ready to pull myself over, when I heard a voice.

    "Hey there, Bug."

    I spun, pressing my back against the railing. It was girl, about my age, dirty blonde hair, freckles, a faint, slightly sad smile. I'd never seen her before in my life.

    Unbidden, a name came to mind. "Lisa?"

    Her smile broadened. "Got it in one." She walked up next to me and glanced over the safety rail. She looked at me. "You really gonna do it?"

    "I..." I trailed off. I shook my head. "I don't want to be her," I said finally. "The things she's done..."

    "I get it," she said. "I do. But that's not going to solve anything." She gave me an oh-so-familiar vulpine grin. "Besides, you jump, he'll just catch you," she added, nodding behind me.

    "He"? I looked behind me.

    "Superman," I breathed in wonder, stepping back away from the railing.

    The world's first cape was floating there, arms folded, still able to invoke wonder by his very presence even today. He nodded. "This moment happens to all of us," he said. "Let us help you."

    He floated closer and held out his right hand.

    "Call me Clark."

    I hesitated.

    I shook his hand.

    "Taylor," I said. "Taylor Hebert."

    (Part I | Part II)​
     
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    • (Worm/Multicross) Awakening: Part II
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    • Reposted from here.

    (Part I | Part II)

    Awakening
    Part II​

    I stared at the costume. Spider silk, just like I remembered. I looked over at Lisa. "How did you...?"

    She looked away. "I didn't," she said softly. I could hear the pain in her voice. It took a moment for it to click. Hazy memories of supervillain reports out of New Hampshire.

    I wasn't the first Taylor Hebert.

    "How many?" I asked.

    "Taylor..." she hesitated.

    "How many, Lisa?" I repeated. "Am I the second? The tenth? The hundredth?"

    "The third," she choked out. "You're the third."

    I looked over at Clark in sudden understanding. "That's why you don't kill them. Us. Not even villains like Joker or Red Skull. We just come back. Someone else awakens as us."

    He nodded solemnly.

    I closed my eyes. "How did I- how did she die?" I asked. It almost seemed... normal, really, to ask about that, after everything I'd survived. Everything I remembered surviving: Lung, Leviathan, the Nine, Behemoth.

    Scion.

    Lisa didn't answer. Clark, however, did.

    "She sacrificed herself to save Lisa," he said gently.

    "No, she didn't," Lisa spat. "She'd made a mistake, and she blamed herself, and somewhere along the way, she decided to commit suicide by cape, and I somehow fucking missed it!"

    (Part I | Part II)​
     
  • Threadmarks
    • My head canon for Awakening, at least where Taylor is concerned?
    QA never died, and it was so desperate to get back to it's host it learned so much with, it latched on to any that looked remotely similar, and brought along all the memories of Hebert it could.

    But it just wasn't the same.
    It was never the same.
     
    wow. That's terrible and terribly sad. just, wow. I'd read it. But I can't imagine a good end for anyone involved :(
     
    (Halo/Robotech) Seeds of the Past
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    • Seeds of the Past (Halo/Robotech)

    For all the Forerunners' great works, there remain those who also remember their sins.

    * * *​

    "Cortana, all I need to know is: did we lose them?"

    "I think we both know the answer to that," came the AI's deadpan reply.

    The star system the UNSC Pillar of Autumn had jumped to had initially appeared deserted, its most notable feature an obviously artificial ring structure orbiting a gas giant, and they had been unpleasantly interrupted on their approach to the discovery.

    Captain Jacob Keyes sighed and shook his head. "We made a blind jump. How did they-?"

    "Get here first?" Cortana finished. "The Covenant's ships have always been faster. As for tracking us all the way from Reach, at light-speed, my maneuvering options were limited."

    Keyes began heading for the sensor station. Peering at the data, he asked, "We were running dark, yes?"

    "Until we decelerated," Cortana replied. "No one could have missed the hole we tore in sub-space. They were waiting for us on the far side of the planet."

    "So where do we stand?"

    "Our fighters are mopping up the last of their recon picket now -- nothing serious -- but I've isolated approach signatures for multiple CCS-class battle gro-" Cortana broke off. "New contacts! Designating Group Bravo! Three CCS groups, designating Group Charlie, are diverting to intercept."

    "What are we dealing with here?"

    "Doesn't match anything in the warbook. Bringing up a visual now."

    There were four of them. Three of them were identical, easily dwarfed by the Covenant battlecruisers turning to greet them; they were even smaller than UNSC destroyers, according to the readings. They were a blocky design, but with rounded edges. The spiky protrusions emerging from them coupled with their dark color scheme gave them a positively sinister appearance.

    The last one -- presumably the flagship -- was different. It was about twenty percent larger than Keyes's own command. Like Covenant ships, it bore a vaguely organic appearance, but it was more of a bulbous, almost cancerous look, rather than the graceful curves of Covenant design.

    Suddenly, the display went white. "Cortana?"

    "Massive energy discharge," she said. "I don't-" The display cleared. "Captain, I am now reading two CCS-class battle groups moving to intercept Group Bravo."

    "'Two'?" Keyes repeated. "Do you mean...?"

    "It appears the Group Charlie's third battle group has been destroyed, sir. I'm reading two additional battle groups, designating Group Delta, breaking off to join Group Charlie."

    Silence reigned on the bridge for a long moment.

    "Well, whoever they are, they're packing some serious firepower, and they're clearly no fans of the Covenant," Keyes observed. "Cortana, can we make a run for it?"

    "Negative, we'd never get the slipspace drive up before the rest of Group Alpha's on top of us."

    "Well, that's it, then. Bring the ship back up to Combat Alert Alpha. I want everyone at their stations."

    "'Everyone,' sir?"

    "Everyone."

    * * *​

    Sector Governor Zariya Dirne stood on the bridge of the Seron Thoun battlecruiser C'Vonikas. She had seen no choice but to act immediately, with what resources she had had on hand, not if the Cultists truly had discovered one of the Great Enemy's mass genocide weapons... and it seemed, they had. And they'd moved to secure the system more quickly than she had anticipated. She only barely noticed the even more primitive ship heading toward the Halo, pursued by Cultist ships.

    The flotilla she had cobbled together to accompany the C'Vonikas -- three Taul Detrel destroyers -- was hardly the most impressive, and five to one were unenviable odds, even against the Cultists' primitive ships, but the Seron Thoun formed the backbone of the Tirolian Empire's border fleet for a reason, and loading the Serauhaug Regults with reflex missiles should further tip the odds in their favor. The Regult series battlepods were ancient designs, even by the Empire's standards, and Governor Dirne's sector wasn't slated to receive the new Lotzors for another half-century or so, but they would get the job done.

    "Governor, we are detecting a slipspace rupture."

    Her lips tugged into a small frown. The Empire had abandoned slipspace drives long ago in favor of fold drives, but while slipspace was old technology, oversized and inefficient, it did have its advantages.

    "Reading fifteen additional Cultist vessels."

    She studied the display with grim determination. This was going to be a rough fight. Still, this was too important to turn back now.

    "All ships," she ordered, "move to engage, best speed." She paused, then added, "Launch corvettes and prepare bioroids for launch."

    * * *​

    A/N: Been toying with this idea for a while, and I've come to the conclusion that it's unlikely that I'll get inspired to proceed any further with it any time soon. Still, hope you enjoyed.

    "We have fought the Covenant on occasion. They attack us; we wipe out a world or two of theirs; they go running off with their tails between their legs. They are quite tiresome. A nuisance, really, a distraction from more pressing internal matters, and difficult to track to their core worlds. However, when we learned the fools had found and sought to use one of the ancient weapons of our Great Enemy, we knew we had to act."

    * * *​

    "You said you came here to stop the Covenant from using a weapon of the Great Enemy?"

    "Yes."

    "So who was this 'Great Enemy'?"

    "In their arrogance, they called themselves the Forerunners. They believed themselves the pinnacle of civilization and the natural leaders of the galaxy, that they carried a mantle of responsibility over the galaxy and that they and they alone had the right to choose who lived and who died. Our ancestors... disagreed on the matter, believed we and other species should make our own choices, follow our own paths. That, in the face of extinction, we still deserved to live."

    "What happened?"

    "Many of the details of that era are lost to history, but this is known: Our ancestors were beset by a terrible plague, and the Enemy sought to quarantine us and leave us to die, killing even those uninfected who tried to leave. We fought, of course, and in the end, the Enemy built and used a weapon to exterminate that which they could not control, wiping out all life in the galaxy."

    "And that weapon is on Halo?"

    *snort* "No. No, this ringworld is but a part of that weapon."

    "What do you mean by that?"

    "What we mean is that this 'Halo' is but one of many. There are others spread throughout the galaxy, each capable of wiping out all life above a set biomass within several thousand light-years. Activating one triggers the others, and the network itself covers the entire galaxy. Proper shielding can protect you, but the technology behind such shielding is... not easy to grasp."

    * * *​

    "Where are your Forerunners now? I'll tell you: we killed them."
     
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    • Cyclone said:
    A/N: Been toying with this idea for a while, and I've come to the conclusion that it's unlikely that I'll get inspired to proceed any further with it any time soon. Still, hope you enjoyed.
    ]
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Very nice, but this line really doesn't fit the rest of the story, I think it would be better if you replaced it with a half a dozen new chapters :p:D
     
    (Worm) Tinker Taylor, Cyberspy: Contingency 1.4 - Dean
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    • (Contingency 1.3 - Emma | Contingency 1.4 - Dean | Contingency 1.5 - Thomas)

    Tinker Taylor, Cyberspy
    Contingency 1.4 - Dean​

    I picked up the phone and dialed. It rang twice, but all I heard was a brief click, followed by a dial tone.

    She'd answered and immediately hung up on me. Again.

    I sighed and slumped back. I was in the Wards lounge in the PRT headquarters. I'd been spending a lot of time here.

    It had been a rough week.

    Not many people knew I was a receptive empath, but those that did assumed that, with a power like that, it was easy for me to figure people out.

    It wasn't. It really, really wasn't.

    Sophia had been... abrasive. Antisocial. She was always a roiling ball of anger, frustration, and resentment. But being unfriendly wasn't reason enough to assume she was a sadistic psychopath, and given she had been forced into the Wards, anger and resentment were natural.

    And with the situation the city was in, I can't name a single member of the Wards, Protectorate, or PRT who didn't have an underlying flavor of frustration to their emotions most of the time. Well, maybe Bob down in the mail room.

    And Sophia had friends, friends she was often eager to go meet once her responsibilities as a Ward were over. Eagerness was eagerness. I figured it was about seeing her friends, not about some new sadistic prank she'd thought of.

    The director had grilled me for three hours on why I hadn't spotted her instability sooner. None of the Protectorate said anything, but they seemed more upset at the director.

    Victoria was avoiding me. She even had Amy screening calls to their home, which, given how much she seemed to hate me, only made that worse.

    Pretty sure I've fallen off whatever pedestal Missy had me on. She refused to meet my gaze anymore, and I sincerely hoped the sheer hatred I was feeling off of her was aimed at Sophia; it was worrisome enough if it was.

    Dennis had cracked a few hollow jokes, but it was clear as day to me how he felt. He and Sophia had never gotten along well -- their personalities clashed too much -- and I'd always been the one to defend Sophia when his jokes had gotten too harsh.

    Chris was working on... something in his lab. He didn't talk about it and only seemed to come out for food, school, and whenever his parents showed up to drag him home. A cold, simmering anger radiated from him, and I didn't blame him. He never said anything, but I'd be very surprised if he hadn't been bullied over his dyscalculia before he triggered.

    At least Carlos wasn't blaming me, but in a way, his reaction was worse. He was putting up a brave face, but he was tearing himself up inside with guilt. He was our team leader, and he felt responsible.

    (Contingency 1.3 - Emma | Contingency 1.4 - Dean | Contingency 1.5 - Thomas)​
     
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    • Poor Dean. Seems most of the other Wards think he should've been able to sense what Sophia was up to even though he's only an empath, not a true telepath. His internal monologue makes sense, sure Sophia was a boiling cauldron of anger and such, but those emotions don't automatically translate to sadistic psychopath making an innocent girl's life hell and it's perfectly logical to think the emotions Dean sensed from Sophia were anger at being forced into the Wards and innocent eagerness to spend time with her friends. At least the Protectorate are aware that Dean couldn't be expected to know what was going on in Sophia's head
     
    JumperPrime said:
    Poor Dean. Seems most of the other Wards think he should've been able to sense what Sophia was up to even though he's only an empath, not a true telepath. His internal monologue makes sense, sure Sophia was a boiling cauldron of anger and such, but those emotions don't automatically translate to sadistic psychopath making an innocent girl's life hell and it's perfectly logical to think the emotions Dean sensed from Sophia were anger at being forced into the Wards and innocent eagerness to spend time with her friends. At least the Protectorate are aware that Dean couldn't be expected to know what was going on in Sophia's head
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Plus they got far more convenient targets for their anger, such as Piggot and the PRT. A shame that even that is not going to save his career, even if he was the unofficial XO of the BB Wards there's no way that any of the current higher ups is going to allow him, or any of the other Wards except maybe Vista, into a position of leadership due to PR and suitability concerns. If he's lucky (and still alive) he might be trusted with a small out of sight command after a few years as part of the Thinker Tank.
     
    Very nicely written. It sums up a lot of the problems with that scenario and works them in a nice, believable way!
     
    Heh, Vista has three advantages from a PR perspective. One, she's adorable. Two, she was SS's designated punching bag on the Wards. There, she told everyone who listened that SS was a colossal bitch.
     
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