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I could see Shadow Stalker being one of those "rough" flirts.
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Wormverse ideas, recs, and fic discussion thread 1
- Thread starter Yog
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I could see Shadow Stalker being one of those "rough" flirts.
- Location
- Crackship Space!
So kind of like Highlander.
Parahumans hunt each other down, fighting and killing one another until there is only one.
Taylor - *Slices the head off of Coil*
*Thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening!*
Taylor - There can be only one.
This could go really badly when Scion eventually pops and massacres them all, because they dont have the confict base to work the problem without resorting to fantastic technology... of which Scion is aware of and can counter.
Everyone abandon the universe!
So essentially Abba uploaded a new restriction set to the greater shard network. Not really that big of a deal.
Didn't someone already do a kind of Noir story, with Tattletale as the private dick and Taylor the assistant?
I dont really understand how this changes things that much. What exactly has the Butcher done to change anything?
@Seclorum
Part of it is spoilers, and while I need to edit my stuff, I do intend to try and write a proper story. I tried to make a proper backstory with how The Butcher and Accord have changed things with their presence in future chapters.
Both the Empire 88 and the ABB have a few more parahumans as the Butcher and Accord have hit the others hard.
Accord got all the new capes he got in canon early, except for one in particular, when he started over in Brockton. Lung has a sort of bodyguard to protect him while he bulks up after nearly dying twice to the Butcher and Accord's ambassadors. Accord is allied with Coil and they have non-aggression pact with their powers greatly benefiting each other. The merchants have been absorbed into the Teeth, and they hold more territory, and Coil's hold on downtown is much more stable. So despite the fact the Empire and the ABB have more capes, they actually hold less territory than in canon. Though Lung has recently had success pushing the Teeth out of the docks since the Butcher is trying to expand in another city. Cauldron is not experimenting in Brockton Bay since Accord doesn't want such a thing in his city.
The Butcher is on her 17th iteration and has done some serious damage to the other gangs. I imagined that the Butcher shard has an important function in the cycle. Its purpose is keep things from being too peaceful and foster conflict by being crazy aggressive. Even if you kill the butcher, that just makes the next one worse. No matter how much he bulks up, Lung can't kill her. No matter how many capes they send after her, the Empire doesn't dare kill her either. Shards love conflict, so the teeth have a large amount of powerful parahumans.
The Butcher is fond of doing what Skidmark did in canon. Kidnapping or forcing people to fight in huge brawls to get people to trigger. She will also kidnap isolated parahumans and do the same thing against Teeth parahumans. You win you get showered with money, drugs, sex etc. You lose they torture you and force you to keep fighting until you arent' worth it and let you go. To keep the heat from building up they usually don't kill off those they kidnap. Uber, Leet, and Circus were captured in one of these raids and they won enough to be let go.
The Butcher was caught in the Simurgh presence and she is more aggressive than she was in canon and the 16th butcher caused a city wide riot thanks to his power before he was killed. The current Butcher has pushed the number of parahumans up. Every gang, except Coil though he is a special case, has more parahumans. The ABB has 7, the empire 27, and Accord has 14 at the moment. Brockton Bay has a bigger PRT with Lily, Weld, and few others in Brockton already. There are also a two new independent heroes that Taylor will interact with.
Most importantly the Butcher will have a big effect on Taylor in the future because she will inspire her to try something everyone will consider either very smart or very crazy. The thing is, Taylor's power really sucks for being a hero. Blasto's creations in canon weren't very powerful, and she is too moral to create sentient beings which makes her weaker. She also can't control her creations really well with pheremones either going by canon. So she will try something that will have give her the power to be a powerful hero who essentially acts like a warlord. Though what she does will have huge ramifications further down the line.
Taylor has a ways to go before she becomes a warlord, but she will be a long time enemy with the other gangs in the city. Coil will loathe her as an arch enemy before the story is over. Still haven't though of a good cape name for her. Well I could see her calling herself Blasto, I think she would pick something else. The first arc is planned for 5 or 6 chapters, and deals with Taylor at the first stage of her tech tree, and trying to figure out a way to be a hero with Blasto's power. I intend to edit and post it all at once since not to much happens in the first arc besides building up her tech, and her getting a crazy idea at the end of it.
Here is my old post on other story ideas. If I can ever finish this story in a relatively timely manner, I think I will focus on another one of the following.
Reality Black- The Simurgh tries an alternate anti-Scion plan early with the Travelers, which works and she goes into hibernation afterward. Scion commits suicide the day Taylor triggers. This causes all shards to behave similar to the butchers where the first person to kill a parahuman, normal people included, gets a watered down version of the shard, though it only works once and you can reject it at some cost due to the serious mental issues/side effects including case 53 monstrous looks or going crazy even from just one watered down shard. Though cauldron shards can be taken more than once. Taylor's great mult-tasking ability allows her to hold many such watered down shards without mental issues and the story explores her growing in power as things go to hell as people start killing each other for parahuman shards all over the world. Events:
The 9 come to town much earlier in canon and take advantage of the chaos, - Lots of deaths/murders. Hookwolf kills Kaiser, Noelle kills oliver and heals herself, assault is killed by bakuda, who is killed by battery in revenge, and will eventually be killed by Taylor due to trying to build a bomb that would kill a lot of innocents. Cherish leads the teeth by controlling the butcher similar to her plan was with the 9.
Coil tries to assassinate Dinah, but fails due to this Dinah becoming much more aware of the dangers of the world early. Lisa and the Undersiders go independent almost immediately as Lisa does not trust Coil to not try and kill her, and they will be forced to kill to save themselves from people trying to pick up some easy shards from rookie parahumans.
Uber and Leet are killed and replaced by two regular humans who try to take their place. Gallant is killed after Glory Girl accidently reveals his identity to some friends, and new wave moves to another location as there quite a few assassination attempts on them and Panacea.
By the later Leviathan attack, Taylor would have weakened versions of Batterys, bonesaws, and echidnas shard that she got from a newly returned class S Cody who killed Noelle, Trickster, and accord.
Nasty world with quite a few new triggers dying or going insane. Parahumans will have giant targets on their backs by other parahumans and regular humans who want their ability, and paranoia will be a fact of life for rogues/villains. There will be very few large-scale villain organizations because many parahumans will be unable to trust each other leaving many more independent villain parahumans in the city. In fact several will try to join the Undersiders for the perceived security.
The PRT actually becomes stronger and swells in membership from parahumans joining for perceived security/safety including a few canon villains. Behemoth will still killed be killed at great cost by heroes/villains that have new shards, but no new endbringers will show up due to david's death by Contessa. Leviathan will be active all the time, and as the only endbringer will attack once a year, but still makes travel by ship so dangerous that oceans almost become impassible. Contessa with Eidolon's power is the only reason the world hasn't gone to hell from killing numerous new S-class threats before they are created to recharge Eidlon's weakened shard and using her power to keep things from descending into anarchy. Cauldron's crimes and their connection to PRT will not be kept secret in story, which will cause new problems. Contessa's new goal to lessening the number of parahumans that are created. This is a world were being a villain that doesn't kill makes you a very attractive person to work under.
Reality Blue- My old favorite, and a sort of silver age Worm filled with Tinkers- Alternate universe where Zion and Eden destroyed a alien civilization that could reproduce any power with their tech though in weaker strength, and infected the shards they used with a virus to send a warning/preserve their knowledge and culture/set a trap for them.
All shards allow an unconscious choice between canon powers, or weaker tinker version of said shard. No one remembers this choice during your trigger as it is by instinct, with most choosing the perceived greater power. Tinker versions of shards allows parahumans to build tech to vastly diversify canon abilities instead of power, such as Brian building a teleporter for a mover rating similar to his echidna clone that could use darkness to teleport. As an added bonus, this tech can be used by regular people to have weaker versions of canon powers.
The Tinker version of shards is rare among case 53's, and tinker shards have less drive to conflict. Monstrous capes that choose tinker shards use their tinker abilities similar to Trainwreak did in canon.
Tinkers are thus much more common in world. Canon tinkers have extra additional power that allows them to manipulate matter in small amounts letting them build/experiment/repair much faster with few if any materials. This pushes them to the end of their tech tree much faster, and allows them to equip more people while still having time to innovate.
While tinker's tech reproduction problems are still present, the world's tech is much more advanced due to many more rogues, though not too widespread due to issues with infrastructure and the Endbringers presence. Toybox is the largest cape organization in the world.
A normal human vigilante with tinker tech killed Jack years ago and what's left of the 9 are wanted fugitives. Crawler is in the birdcage, Siberian still at large, and Mannequin is the most feared former member who is intelligent enough to be able to steal/use other Tinkers stuff from his victims. The moon has been cracked in two though, and there are many more villains like Blasto and Labrat.
The Undersiders will all be tinkers. Taylor uses tech to become Khepri lite from start of story and becomes a powerful/feared independent hero that many consider a myth. Dragon is open as a AI and renowned as most powerful hero in the world. She will married Armsmaster, and has adopted bonesaw. Saint is seen as terrorist/murderer for killing Dragon's "brother" who was created just before Richter was killed.
There was a relatively short war to destroy Nilbog, but the state was destroyed and has been quarantined as some of his creations are still around and breeding. Many more independent heroes like new wave. Normal people using tinker tech as villains/heroes is much more common. Is considered normal for canon tinkers, haven't thought of a good name for them in this world, to equip several people with tech. Many charge them for use of tech, and villain tinkers have been known to act like loan sharks with requiring those they sponsor to pay a certain amount every month. Hero canon Tinkers often sponsor their own hero teams made up of normal civilians. Kid win for example has a small team of four that use his tech as heroes. The most famous of these are the Dragon Teeth.
Uber and Leet are major players thanks to that extra power allowing Leet to more easily repair his old tech. Their "guild" has beaten the merchants and absorbed some of their members. Leet is currently dating Squeeler and are rivals with the 88 and the ABB. Bakuda is not part of ABB as she joined a group of "pure" (Dual? True?Canon?) Villainous tinkers. The ABB has two new members recruited and their only tinker is Lee. He is much more coherent as 2nd in command with regular members taking turns using his teleporting tech to avoid sideeffects and seen as initiation into gang. The 88 still has some of Allfathers infamous old tech but can barely make use of it as Kaiser is not a Tinker. But the 88's hated arch enemy Golem has managed to steal and use it with his own tech to great effect against them. The only two tinkers in the 88 are purity in her power armor and rune.
Coil and Dinah unchanged. Travelers are still around but Cody became the monster and is a known S class threat that is causing quite a bit of trouble in the Chinese imperial union and Asia. Noelle has Cody's power, and Oliver's tech has made the travelers wealthy/famous rogues since it greatly helps monstrous case 53's look more humanoid and good looking. Debate among group whether to try and go home or not, with most liking their place in Earth bet.
Japan is still around with Leviathan's attack being very damaging but not as severe thanks to the famous mass fabrication tinker greatly expanding Japans power. Japan's Sentai Hero Corps are the main counter to china's Yangban and have a pact similar to Nato with other counties against aggressive moves by the Union.
Cauldron's goal is to find Jacks old lab whose tech is theorized by Dinah and others to destroy or save the world when used. Though Jack has set a trap with a "mind" virus that will cause trouble. Eidolon is braindead thanks to Siberian, though his tech has been used by Contessa/Hero to destroy Leviathan by teaming up with Dragon during the battle. But his tech is becoming harder and harder to maintain/fix by Hero. New Endbringers are showing up much earlier but acting weird, and the world is more hopeful that they can be beaten. The Smurf is even more feared because she can use others tech, was the first endbringer, and has similarly targeted many others like mannequin and richter. A world half full instead of half empty, and much more hopeful for future. Taylor would sort of be seen as a dark figure of myth as she keeps herself secret easily with her tech.
Story would not follow Taylor besides first chapter. Her presence will be felt as she can sense/take over anything with a nervous system though needs specific equipment to determine type/distance/number under her control that she can't have for everything at once. Story would have mini arcs of various Tinkers and how the world has changed. Clockblocker dealing with the wards without Armsmaster, Dragon as the world's most powerful hero, Hero to describe how Cauldron and the Endbringers have changed, Leet to describe their gang, Golem to describe Theo's status as a hero, Kid Win to describe sponsoring a team of heroes etc.
Reality Red-Only crossover story. While I have two chapter written for it, they pale in comparison to the other much better written/horrifying fic that has the Simurgh attack Brockton Bay. So I'm not sure I will focus on it. In this crossover inspired by Deadman Wonderland, Taylor triggers as the wretched egg/Red Man. Very dark fic.
The Simurgh attacks Brockton Bay to target Taylor, though she doesn't come near her, to prepare her as an Anti-Scion weapon for the future. The Simurgh takes steps to keep parahumans from fleeing, opening a dimensional door to cauldron's storage, raining down case 53's and numerous vials. Echidna shows up early to try and kill her but is killed.
Taylor escapes the locker as the school is destroyed by the Simurgh, finds a vial from Cauldron, and finds her father dead and being eaten by something. Distraught and angry she drinks the vial turning her into the wretched egg and causes a massive earthquake in Brockton Bay. The story would be similar to the arcs after Leviathan attacked but with no one able to leave and even less order in the city. Strange alliances are formed trying to survive in the new city wide prison.
Taylor has the ability to use any branch of sin, can implant a blood crystal into others that gives people random/new branches of sin, can communicates telepathically with anything her blood touches, is able to heal from a single cell, and is immune to thinker abilities. Her skin and hair have become pale white, and the story details her struggling to survive and help others in the city, while hiding another personality that she blames on the Simurgh that likes to destroy and kill and can use the wretched egg's ability.
Three months down the line she would slip into that other personality briefly, easily escape, and kill Behemoth when he shows up. This is besides causing another earthquake in another part of the world. Though Taylor will not be conscious of doing this…at first. Dragon will build the mother goose system after studying Behemoth's corpse, that can weaken or shut down ALL parahuman shards in its range thanks to some new information, unknowing given from the Simurgh. The mother goose system is built around a Brockton Bay that is strangely becoming bigger on the inside due to the still open portals.
After a almost successful escape attempt by the Fairy Queen, she moves all of the birdcage inhabitants to Brockton Bay. Sort of prison survival story. The few wards/heroes that got caught trying to get families out team up with Coil and Piggot enters relationship with him. Taylor teams up with Undersiders and Bakuda for safety. She will also find and protect an unknowing Sophia and Emma.
Panacea and Glory girl get stranded on their own before Pancea starts making creatures similar to Nilbog for defense and meets her dad. Hookwolf leads remnants of 88 that didn't escape. The merchants swelling in power/members like in canon. The city is VERY dangerous with numerous case 53s in city, crazy echidna clones, weird monsters, and the portals lead to a impossible huge building with no exit.
Emma becomes a case 53 and joins Taylor. Though she will go through some dark times including losing her family, and try to redeem her friendship that she had with Taylor. Sophia eventually leaves to be her lone wolf predator, before coming back and nearly dying. Numerous fights over resources/dropped supplies with other groups. Taylor will also have to use diplomacy, and negotiation while ruling over a large civilian population that she will try to help. Taylor "adopts" Dinah who informs her that they will be let out in two years and knows that Taylor will be important at the end, though she is unware that Taylor will either save or destroy the world.
Reality White- Another one that I have some stuff written for. Attempt to write Worm as more street level, which has been defined by a friend of mine as where a group of thugs with guns is a very dangerous threat for everyone, and the police have ability to deal with most threats though at great cost. Eden's accident was a true attempt by Abbadon to kill her which succeeded. He also used a large ability to weaken all of her and Zion's shards before Zion managed to destroy him at great cost.
Thus all powers are canonically weaker or have more limitations that limit their effectiveness. Except for 4 exceptions including those that have a 2nd trigger, those that were weak to start with such as Skidmark, Tinkers since their power is based off of knowledge, and certain classes of Thinkers including Precogs. Coincidently case 53s with altered forms are more humanoid/rarer.
On a scale from 1 to 10, most parahumans are 2-4. With higher numbers being MUCH rarer. There are no S-class threats except a greatly weakened Zion at the end. Though there is a strong possibility that he will leave according to Cauldron. The Endbringers, and what would be S class in canon are the only A class threats. The militaries of the world are still around though greatly damaged, as even weakened the Endbringers have done a lot of damage, and they are starting to relay more and more on parahumans. The Endbringers are similar to canon except not as tough, and they do no escalate when things start to go against them.
The world is still fated to be destroyed by the Endbringers but in over a century, and one endbringer will have be killed without Scion, and another will skip a turn after being hit by a nuke. Scion will have to spend several hours destroying a county instead of waving a hand to do it and has a finite powersource that has to recharge. That is if he does not leave for greener pastures elsewhere.
Jack was an infamous serial killer who rampaged with the 9 for over a year before being killed by a special FBI taskforce. Hero is still alive as Siberian's range and control was not as great and they figured out her power. Manton still around but has nearly been killed several times and thus only rarely attacks. Cauldron is still around but not as influential, as Contessa can't use her power all the time and has to be choosy with what to focus on.
There is a large anti parahuman movement with the Empire being very anti parahuman and thus its canon members are in different places/circumstances. Dragon and Armsmaster are more influential as Tinkers are the same as in canon. Since the militaries are more involved fighting Endbringers, though they are starting to relay more and more on parahumans, the world is much less tolerant of villains. The birdcage has a much bigger population/kill orders are more common.
The ABB is led by bakuda who beat Lung with a custom bomb and put a bomb in his head as a leash. The 88 still led by Kaisar who is hiding that he is a parahuman. Purity is a known hero, and has custody of Aster she threatened to reveal his power if he tries anything. The merchants are more powerful since their powers are unchanged since they were weak already in canon. One of the gangs is a large and influential mob alliance that has no parahumans but does hire parahuman assasins/tinker equipment. Coil's power is the same, and he is seen as much more powerful and holds the most territory in the city as a Kingpin figure.
Dinah is not seen as any more accurate than other precogs, which is because she can now lie in exchange for a few less decimal places in her predictions, and is left alone. Though she does make some extra money one the side while hiding her identity since the 88 goes after lone parahumans. Leet is seen as washed up rather than a joke since he was much more effective with his tech in this world.
Taylor enters a much weaker world with her canon power which is seen as overpowered rather than weak, becoming THE hero of Brockton Bay since her ability to track people over a large area makes her very dangerous to criminals. Story would be similar to Taylor becoming a legendary figure that strikes fear into criminals.
Reality Purple- Sort of attempt to make a Worm Noir story. Like the world, but its difficult to write clever/intelligent characters effectively and come up with numerous new OC tinkers, strangers, and thinkers. Due to poor economic prospects, Leviathan attacking much earlier in the timeline, city wide bankruptcy, and thinker think tanks suggestions, Brockton Bay tries something drastic. They legalize gambling, prostitution, and marijuana, while also offering free drug rehab clinics, and making many drugs a misdemeanor. Thanks to Coil, with Cauldron's help, many of the ordinances are allowed. The Extra money helps the city grow as a sort of similarity to Reno and Vegas.
Las Vegas is badly damaged and rendered uninhabitable due to a severe water crisis caused by behemoth when he attacks. Phri See comes to vegas ahead of time to kill Behemoth, but has his timebomb repurposed by a team of villains that use it to transport vegas though time and space to a similar city. As a consequence, parts of Vegas and Brockton bay merge. The villains that did it are seen as heroes, turning Brockton Bay into a city divided between old and new vegas.
Lung still creates the ABB, but presents himself as a legitimate businessman owning a casino with numerous others and tries to help the large Japanese immigrant population. The 88 are struggling against the veritable invasion of new strangers, tinkers, and thinkers who have come to claim territory. Despite their large roster, they are slowly losing ground against enemies they can't just hit. The merchants are largely gone or driven off. Squealer has gotten clean and joined Haven similar to another well known fic. Haven has sent a large group to fight against the new city of sin's far larger than normal number of villains and the large amount of fallen who have started trying to fight for territory.
City has the largest number of independent villains/mercenaries that don't join organizations in the world. The city is divided between the old town and new town, with a much larger population. Taylor's dad is much more important, and thus Emma changes tactics against her. This causes Taylor to trigger with Teachers power. Story would focus on politics, negotiation, and the occasional cloak and dagger. Taylor slowly building up her powerbase, trying to make a positive difference in the world, and dealing with both new/old enemies. The Las Vegas heroes join the canon ones and Taylor is the one who brings the Undersiders together instead of Coil. Instead of a Endbringer attack, the city will be invaded by the Elite triggering mass preparations, uneasy alliances, and nasty fighting for control of the city similar to Wildbow's PRT quest. Then the 9 and echidna will show up at the same time. Hilarity ensues.
Part of it is spoilers, and while I need to edit my stuff, I do intend to try and write a proper story. I tried to make a proper backstory with how The Butcher and Accord have changed things with their presence in future chapters.
Both the Empire 88 and the ABB have a few more parahumans as the Butcher and Accord have hit the others hard.
Accord got all the new capes he got in canon early, except for one in particular, when he started over in Brockton. Lung has a sort of bodyguard to protect him while he bulks up after nearly dying twice to the Butcher and Accord's ambassadors. Accord is allied with Coil and they have non-aggression pact with their powers greatly benefiting each other. The merchants have been absorbed into the Teeth, and they hold more territory, and Coil's hold on downtown is much more stable. So despite the fact the Empire and the ABB have more capes, they actually hold less territory than in canon. Though Lung has recently had success pushing the Teeth out of the docks since the Butcher is trying to expand in another city. Cauldron is not experimenting in Brockton Bay since Accord doesn't want such a thing in his city.
The Butcher is on her 17th iteration and has done some serious damage to the other gangs. I imagined that the Butcher shard has an important function in the cycle. Its purpose is keep things from being too peaceful and foster conflict by being crazy aggressive. Even if you kill the butcher, that just makes the next one worse. No matter how much he bulks up, Lung can't kill her. No matter how many capes they send after her, the Empire doesn't dare kill her either. Shards love conflict, so the teeth have a large amount of powerful parahumans.
The Butcher is fond of doing what Skidmark did in canon. Kidnapping or forcing people to fight in huge brawls to get people to trigger. She will also kidnap isolated parahumans and do the same thing against Teeth parahumans. You win you get showered with money, drugs, sex etc. You lose they torture you and force you to keep fighting until you arent' worth it and let you go. To keep the heat from building up they usually don't kill off those they kidnap. Uber, Leet, and Circus were captured in one of these raids and they won enough to be let go.
The Butcher was caught in the Simurgh presence and she is more aggressive than she was in canon and the 16th butcher caused a city wide riot thanks to his power before he was killed. The current Butcher has pushed the number of parahumans up. Every gang, except Coil though he is a special case, has more parahumans. The ABB has 7, the empire 27, and Accord has 14 at the moment. Brockton Bay has a bigger PRT with Lily, Weld, and few others in Brockton already. There are also a two new independent heroes that Taylor will interact with.
Most importantly the Butcher will have a big effect on Taylor in the future because she will inspire her to try something everyone will consider either very smart or very crazy. The thing is, Taylor's power really sucks for being a hero. Blasto's creations in canon weren't very powerful, and she is too moral to create sentient beings which makes her weaker. She also can't control her creations really well with pheremones either going by canon. So she will try something that will have give her the power to be a powerful hero who essentially acts like a warlord. Though what she does will have huge ramifications further down the line.
Taylor has a ways to go before she becomes a warlord, but she will be a long time enemy with the other gangs in the city. Coil will loathe her as an arch enemy before the story is over. Still haven't though of a good cape name for her. Well I could see her calling herself Blasto, I think she would pick something else. The first arc is planned for 5 or 6 chapters, and deals with Taylor at the first stage of her tech tree, and trying to figure out a way to be a hero with Blasto's power. I intend to edit and post it all at once since not to much happens in the first arc besides building up her tech, and her getting a crazy idea at the end of it.
Here is my old post on other story ideas. If I can ever finish this story in a relatively timely manner, I think I will focus on another one of the following.
Reality Black- The Simurgh tries an alternate anti-Scion plan early with the Travelers, which works and she goes into hibernation afterward. Scion commits suicide the day Taylor triggers. This causes all shards to behave similar to the butchers where the first person to kill a parahuman, normal people included, gets a watered down version of the shard, though it only works once and you can reject it at some cost due to the serious mental issues/side effects including case 53 monstrous looks or going crazy even from just one watered down shard. Though cauldron shards can be taken more than once. Taylor's great mult-tasking ability allows her to hold many such watered down shards without mental issues and the story explores her growing in power as things go to hell as people start killing each other for parahuman shards all over the world. Events:
The 9 come to town much earlier in canon and take advantage of the chaos, - Lots of deaths/murders. Hookwolf kills Kaiser, Noelle kills oliver and heals herself, assault is killed by bakuda, who is killed by battery in revenge, and will eventually be killed by Taylor due to trying to build a bomb that would kill a lot of innocents. Cherish leads the teeth by controlling the butcher similar to her plan was with the 9.
Coil tries to assassinate Dinah, but fails due to this Dinah becoming much more aware of the dangers of the world early. Lisa and the Undersiders go independent almost immediately as Lisa does not trust Coil to not try and kill her, and they will be forced to kill to save themselves from people trying to pick up some easy shards from rookie parahumans.
Uber and Leet are killed and replaced by two regular humans who try to take their place. Gallant is killed after Glory Girl accidently reveals his identity to some friends, and new wave moves to another location as there quite a few assassination attempts on them and Panacea.
By the later Leviathan attack, Taylor would have weakened versions of Batterys, bonesaws, and echidnas shard that she got from a newly returned class S Cody who killed Noelle, Trickster, and accord.
Nasty world with quite a few new triggers dying or going insane. Parahumans will have giant targets on their backs by other parahumans and regular humans who want their ability, and paranoia will be a fact of life for rogues/villains. There will be very few large-scale villain organizations because many parahumans will be unable to trust each other leaving many more independent villain parahumans in the city. In fact several will try to join the Undersiders for the perceived security.
The PRT actually becomes stronger and swells in membership from parahumans joining for perceived security/safety including a few canon villains. Behemoth will still killed be killed at great cost by heroes/villains that have new shards, but no new endbringers will show up due to david's death by Contessa. Leviathan will be active all the time, and as the only endbringer will attack once a year, but still makes travel by ship so dangerous that oceans almost become impassible. Contessa with Eidolon's power is the only reason the world hasn't gone to hell from killing numerous new S-class threats before they are created to recharge Eidlon's weakened shard and using her power to keep things from descending into anarchy. Cauldron's crimes and their connection to PRT will not be kept secret in story, which will cause new problems. Contessa's new goal to lessening the number of parahumans that are created. This is a world were being a villain that doesn't kill makes you a very attractive person to work under.
Reality Blue- My old favorite, and a sort of silver age Worm filled with Tinkers- Alternate universe where Zion and Eden destroyed a alien civilization that could reproduce any power with their tech though in weaker strength, and infected the shards they used with a virus to send a warning/preserve their knowledge and culture/set a trap for them.
All shards allow an unconscious choice between canon powers, or weaker tinker version of said shard. No one remembers this choice during your trigger as it is by instinct, with most choosing the perceived greater power. Tinker versions of shards allows parahumans to build tech to vastly diversify canon abilities instead of power, such as Brian building a teleporter for a mover rating similar to his echidna clone that could use darkness to teleport. As an added bonus, this tech can be used by regular people to have weaker versions of canon powers.
The Tinker version of shards is rare among case 53's, and tinker shards have less drive to conflict. Monstrous capes that choose tinker shards use their tinker abilities similar to Trainwreak did in canon.
Tinkers are thus much more common in world. Canon tinkers have extra additional power that allows them to manipulate matter in small amounts letting them build/experiment/repair much faster with few if any materials. This pushes them to the end of their tech tree much faster, and allows them to equip more people while still having time to innovate.
While tinker's tech reproduction problems are still present, the world's tech is much more advanced due to many more rogues, though not too widespread due to issues with infrastructure and the Endbringers presence. Toybox is the largest cape organization in the world.
A normal human vigilante with tinker tech killed Jack years ago and what's left of the 9 are wanted fugitives. Crawler is in the birdcage, Siberian still at large, and Mannequin is the most feared former member who is intelligent enough to be able to steal/use other Tinkers stuff from his victims. The moon has been cracked in two though, and there are many more villains like Blasto and Labrat.
The Undersiders will all be tinkers. Taylor uses tech to become Khepri lite from start of story and becomes a powerful/feared independent hero that many consider a myth. Dragon is open as a AI and renowned as most powerful hero in the world. She will married Armsmaster, and has adopted bonesaw. Saint is seen as terrorist/murderer for killing Dragon's "brother" who was created just before Richter was killed.
There was a relatively short war to destroy Nilbog, but the state was destroyed and has been quarantined as some of his creations are still around and breeding. Many more independent heroes like new wave. Normal people using tinker tech as villains/heroes is much more common. Is considered normal for canon tinkers, haven't thought of a good name for them in this world, to equip several people with tech. Many charge them for use of tech, and villain tinkers have been known to act like loan sharks with requiring those they sponsor to pay a certain amount every month. Hero canon Tinkers often sponsor their own hero teams made up of normal civilians. Kid win for example has a small team of four that use his tech as heroes. The most famous of these are the Dragon Teeth.
Uber and Leet are major players thanks to that extra power allowing Leet to more easily repair his old tech. Their "guild" has beaten the merchants and absorbed some of their members. Leet is currently dating Squeeler and are rivals with the 88 and the ABB. Bakuda is not part of ABB as she joined a group of "pure" (Dual? True?Canon?) Villainous tinkers. The ABB has two new members recruited and their only tinker is Lee. He is much more coherent as 2nd in command with regular members taking turns using his teleporting tech to avoid sideeffects and seen as initiation into gang. The 88 still has some of Allfathers infamous old tech but can barely make use of it as Kaiser is not a Tinker. But the 88's hated arch enemy Golem has managed to steal and use it with his own tech to great effect against them. The only two tinkers in the 88 are purity in her power armor and rune.
Coil and Dinah unchanged. Travelers are still around but Cody became the monster and is a known S class threat that is causing quite a bit of trouble in the Chinese imperial union and Asia. Noelle has Cody's power, and Oliver's tech has made the travelers wealthy/famous rogues since it greatly helps monstrous case 53's look more humanoid and good looking. Debate among group whether to try and go home or not, with most liking their place in Earth bet.
Japan is still around with Leviathan's attack being very damaging but not as severe thanks to the famous mass fabrication tinker greatly expanding Japans power. Japan's Sentai Hero Corps are the main counter to china's Yangban and have a pact similar to Nato with other counties against aggressive moves by the Union.
Cauldron's goal is to find Jacks old lab whose tech is theorized by Dinah and others to destroy or save the world when used. Though Jack has set a trap with a "mind" virus that will cause trouble. Eidolon is braindead thanks to Siberian, though his tech has been used by Contessa/Hero to destroy Leviathan by teaming up with Dragon during the battle. But his tech is becoming harder and harder to maintain/fix by Hero. New Endbringers are showing up much earlier but acting weird, and the world is more hopeful that they can be beaten. The Smurf is even more feared because she can use others tech, was the first endbringer, and has similarly targeted many others like mannequin and richter. A world half full instead of half empty, and much more hopeful for future. Taylor would sort of be seen as a dark figure of myth as she keeps herself secret easily with her tech.
Story would not follow Taylor besides first chapter. Her presence will be felt as she can sense/take over anything with a nervous system though needs specific equipment to determine type/distance/number under her control that she can't have for everything at once. Story would have mini arcs of various Tinkers and how the world has changed. Clockblocker dealing with the wards without Armsmaster, Dragon as the world's most powerful hero, Hero to describe how Cauldron and the Endbringers have changed, Leet to describe their gang, Golem to describe Theo's status as a hero, Kid Win to describe sponsoring a team of heroes etc.
Reality Red-Only crossover story. While I have two chapter written for it, they pale in comparison to the other much better written/horrifying fic that has the Simurgh attack Brockton Bay. So I'm not sure I will focus on it. In this crossover inspired by Deadman Wonderland, Taylor triggers as the wretched egg/Red Man. Very dark fic.
The Simurgh attacks Brockton Bay to target Taylor, though she doesn't come near her, to prepare her as an Anti-Scion weapon for the future. The Simurgh takes steps to keep parahumans from fleeing, opening a dimensional door to cauldron's storage, raining down case 53's and numerous vials. Echidna shows up early to try and kill her but is killed.
Taylor escapes the locker as the school is destroyed by the Simurgh, finds a vial from Cauldron, and finds her father dead and being eaten by something. Distraught and angry she drinks the vial turning her into the wretched egg and causes a massive earthquake in Brockton Bay. The story would be similar to the arcs after Leviathan attacked but with no one able to leave and even less order in the city. Strange alliances are formed trying to survive in the new city wide prison.
Taylor has the ability to use any branch of sin, can implant a blood crystal into others that gives people random/new branches of sin, can communicates telepathically with anything her blood touches, is able to heal from a single cell, and is immune to thinker abilities. Her skin and hair have become pale white, and the story details her struggling to survive and help others in the city, while hiding another personality that she blames on the Simurgh that likes to destroy and kill and can use the wretched egg's ability.
Three months down the line she would slip into that other personality briefly, easily escape, and kill Behemoth when he shows up. This is besides causing another earthquake in another part of the world. Though Taylor will not be conscious of doing this…at first. Dragon will build the mother goose system after studying Behemoth's corpse, that can weaken or shut down ALL parahuman shards in its range thanks to some new information, unknowing given from the Simurgh. The mother goose system is built around a Brockton Bay that is strangely becoming bigger on the inside due to the still open portals.
After a almost successful escape attempt by the Fairy Queen, she moves all of the birdcage inhabitants to Brockton Bay. Sort of prison survival story. The few wards/heroes that got caught trying to get families out team up with Coil and Piggot enters relationship with him. Taylor teams up with Undersiders and Bakuda for safety. She will also find and protect an unknowing Sophia and Emma.
Panacea and Glory girl get stranded on their own before Pancea starts making creatures similar to Nilbog for defense and meets her dad. Hookwolf leads remnants of 88 that didn't escape. The merchants swelling in power/members like in canon. The city is VERY dangerous with numerous case 53s in city, crazy echidna clones, weird monsters, and the portals lead to a impossible huge building with no exit.
Emma becomes a case 53 and joins Taylor. Though she will go through some dark times including losing her family, and try to redeem her friendship that she had with Taylor. Sophia eventually leaves to be her lone wolf predator, before coming back and nearly dying. Numerous fights over resources/dropped supplies with other groups. Taylor will also have to use diplomacy, and negotiation while ruling over a large civilian population that she will try to help. Taylor "adopts" Dinah who informs her that they will be let out in two years and knows that Taylor will be important at the end, though she is unware that Taylor will either save or destroy the world.
Reality White- Another one that I have some stuff written for. Attempt to write Worm as more street level, which has been defined by a friend of mine as where a group of thugs with guns is a very dangerous threat for everyone, and the police have ability to deal with most threats though at great cost. Eden's accident was a true attempt by Abbadon to kill her which succeeded. He also used a large ability to weaken all of her and Zion's shards before Zion managed to destroy him at great cost.
Thus all powers are canonically weaker or have more limitations that limit their effectiveness. Except for 4 exceptions including those that have a 2nd trigger, those that were weak to start with such as Skidmark, Tinkers since their power is based off of knowledge, and certain classes of Thinkers including Precogs. Coincidently case 53s with altered forms are more humanoid/rarer.
On a scale from 1 to 10, most parahumans are 2-4. With higher numbers being MUCH rarer. There are no S-class threats except a greatly weakened Zion at the end. Though there is a strong possibility that he will leave according to Cauldron. The Endbringers, and what would be S class in canon are the only A class threats. The militaries of the world are still around though greatly damaged, as even weakened the Endbringers have done a lot of damage, and they are starting to relay more and more on parahumans. The Endbringers are similar to canon except not as tough, and they do no escalate when things start to go against them.
The world is still fated to be destroyed by the Endbringers but in over a century, and one endbringer will have be killed without Scion, and another will skip a turn after being hit by a nuke. Scion will have to spend several hours destroying a county instead of waving a hand to do it and has a finite powersource that has to recharge. That is if he does not leave for greener pastures elsewhere.
Jack was an infamous serial killer who rampaged with the 9 for over a year before being killed by a special FBI taskforce. Hero is still alive as Siberian's range and control was not as great and they figured out her power. Manton still around but has nearly been killed several times and thus only rarely attacks. Cauldron is still around but not as influential, as Contessa can't use her power all the time and has to be choosy with what to focus on.
There is a large anti parahuman movement with the Empire being very anti parahuman and thus its canon members are in different places/circumstances. Dragon and Armsmaster are more influential as Tinkers are the same as in canon. Since the militaries are more involved fighting Endbringers, though they are starting to relay more and more on parahumans, the world is much less tolerant of villains. The birdcage has a much bigger population/kill orders are more common.
The ABB is led by bakuda who beat Lung with a custom bomb and put a bomb in his head as a leash. The 88 still led by Kaisar who is hiding that he is a parahuman. Purity is a known hero, and has custody of Aster she threatened to reveal his power if he tries anything. The merchants are more powerful since their powers are unchanged since they were weak already in canon. One of the gangs is a large and influential mob alliance that has no parahumans but does hire parahuman assasins/tinker equipment. Coil's power is the same, and he is seen as much more powerful and holds the most territory in the city as a Kingpin figure.
Dinah is not seen as any more accurate than other precogs, which is because she can now lie in exchange for a few less decimal places in her predictions, and is left alone. Though she does make some extra money one the side while hiding her identity since the 88 goes after lone parahumans. Leet is seen as washed up rather than a joke since he was much more effective with his tech in this world.
Taylor enters a much weaker world with her canon power which is seen as overpowered rather than weak, becoming THE hero of Brockton Bay since her ability to track people over a large area makes her very dangerous to criminals. Story would be similar to Taylor becoming a legendary figure that strikes fear into criminals.
Reality Purple- Sort of attempt to make a Worm Noir story. Like the world, but its difficult to write clever/intelligent characters effectively and come up with numerous new OC tinkers, strangers, and thinkers. Due to poor economic prospects, Leviathan attacking much earlier in the timeline, city wide bankruptcy, and thinker think tanks suggestions, Brockton Bay tries something drastic. They legalize gambling, prostitution, and marijuana, while also offering free drug rehab clinics, and making many drugs a misdemeanor. Thanks to Coil, with Cauldron's help, many of the ordinances are allowed. The Extra money helps the city grow as a sort of similarity to Reno and Vegas.
Las Vegas is badly damaged and rendered uninhabitable due to a severe water crisis caused by behemoth when he attacks. Phri See comes to vegas ahead of time to kill Behemoth, but has his timebomb repurposed by a team of villains that use it to transport vegas though time and space to a similar city. As a consequence, parts of Vegas and Brockton bay merge. The villains that did it are seen as heroes, turning Brockton Bay into a city divided between old and new vegas.
Lung still creates the ABB, but presents himself as a legitimate businessman owning a casino with numerous others and tries to help the large Japanese immigrant population. The 88 are struggling against the veritable invasion of new strangers, tinkers, and thinkers who have come to claim territory. Despite their large roster, they are slowly losing ground against enemies they can't just hit. The merchants are largely gone or driven off. Squealer has gotten clean and joined Haven similar to another well known fic. Haven has sent a large group to fight against the new city of sin's far larger than normal number of villains and the large amount of fallen who have started trying to fight for territory.
City has the largest number of independent villains/mercenaries that don't join organizations in the world. The city is divided between the old town and new town, with a much larger population. Taylor's dad is much more important, and thus Emma changes tactics against her. This causes Taylor to trigger with Teachers power. Story would focus on politics, negotiation, and the occasional cloak and dagger. Taylor slowly building up her powerbase, trying to make a positive difference in the world, and dealing with both new/old enemies. The Las Vegas heroes join the canon ones and Taylor is the one who brings the Undersiders together instead of Coil. Instead of a Endbringer attack, the city will be invaded by the Elite triggering mass preparations, uneasy alliances, and nasty fighting for control of the city similar to Wildbow's PRT quest. Then the 9 and echidna will show up at the same time. Hilarity ensues.
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He evolved in a different way than Scion and Eden did, was smaller than them, didn't have a partner, and picked up shards that granted philosophy and abstract thought from somewhere. Everything else is conjecture. And before someone brings up Apollyon, that was explicitly a different entity, since it was described as being larger than Scion and Eden put together.
Gideon020
Really in the mood for ribs.
... how many Entities are there?
As many or as little as you need.
notmi
Super Koala God Super Koala
Enough that they ran out of space/resources on their original planet, and that they consider running out of space/resources in space a valid concern from overpopulation.... how many Entities are there?
- Location
- Crackship Space!
Narrator - But there is one they fear.
Orchestra - *Banging out mad notes*
Narrator - In their tongue he is DOVAKIN Dragonborn!
Abbadon - FUS-RO-DAH!
Eden - *Crashes into a planet*
It's kind of hilarious and depressing at the same time. So much time and effort was put out by everyone to defeat Scion, which only was made by pure chance. And despite the victory, there are still countless Entities out there, some of whom may have taken notice of the whole debacle. What's the trope name? Fridge Horror?... how many Entities are there?
- Location
- West Michigan
Diabolus ex Machina.
I thought that the second part was more to the fact that they pretty much lived forever or had a lifespan measure in absurd amount of years.
Hotdog Vendor
Author of 'Sisters of Rail'
- Location
- (5 + 3 * sqrt(5)) / 8
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Sequel Hook.
notmi
Super Koala God Super Koala
Doesn't really invalidate my implications that there's a fuck-huge amount of them.
LacksCreativity
Disgruntled Hunter
Other than a minor issue of sometimes repeating information (Taylor's comments about cars, for example) it's pretty damn good. Certainly better than what I put out when I was just starting.
As for chapter length, that's highly subjective. I personally think 7k is about the ideal length from the perspective of writing, although I generally go over that. For reading? Not sure. I like longer chapters, if I can get them, so 8-10k is good by me.
Sorry, it was established in Eden's interlude, long before the endgame of Worm, that there are many Entities out there. It is also revealed that it was pure chance that caused Eden to crash into whatever Earth Contessa is from. Neither of those are Diabolus Ex Machinae. A Diabolus Ex Machina is when very contrived circumstances cause the villain to win in the story. This is Fridge Horror.
Focus on the part in bold.TvTropes said:
Their current reproduction method/speed doesn't help much.
Also FTFY.
Now on to an AU story idea.
The point of divergence is the summer-camp Taylor went to before high-school, the diffrence is that Taylor wasn't the only depressed girl at summer-camp, our favorite (well mine anyway) bio-kinetic was there as well (mandated holiday by her sister) and they became fast friends (thus giving each other a support network).
Maybe there is a situation that causes Taylor to trigger with a power that I have thought up in my head.
It's a changer power that has 2 parts to it, the first is that she can connect??? mechanical parts to herself (one part of it is fused to her and she can then use it) the second part is that she can absorb biological matter from things she touches (may be an automatic version of Amy's scan ability) and use that to do things, she may also get her unlimited multitasking to deal with it all, it also optimizes her body for survival.
Trinity Take 2 (Tohu!Taylor)
AN: I've been trying to fix Trinity for a while (read: a goddamn year). It started as a drabble, which meant that I hadn't really developed a plot before I tried to take it places. I can't say I've made much improvements on that front, but as we're not heading off to Namibia right off the bat, everything should be a little tighter, so it's something.
I know that I've expanded and edited out some scenes from the original 1.01. 1.02 diverges completely from the old Trinity.
Arc 1. Spin
1.01
Dry heaving sucks.
Dry heaving while in a cramped locker stuffed with used tampons?
You very quickly run out of 'dry'.
The smell made me gag: it was rank, musty and just a little sweet. The feel of it was a study in contrasts: wet and sticky, but also dry, crumbly. The darkness might have been the worst, forcing my imagination to fill in the gaps with the most lurid possibilities. A cadaver, dirty syringes, blood.
I retched, put two hands over my mouth, and tried to back out. Couldn't: they'd locked the door behind me.
I struggled, of course. Not for very long, but I did. I bucked against the metal, hit the door with all I had: elbows, heels, back, head. The attempts were weak, painful and likely shorter and more fitful than I thought they were.
I felt – I felt too much. Nausea, physical and emotional, that made me want to puke, cry, run, kill, fight. I had to clap a hand around my mouth, and swallow again and again, against the burning in my lungs, and the spasming muscles in my throat and stomach.
And the horrifying, all-consuming fear.
I would choke, I would die. I was so sure of it.
I didn't want to. Not like this. Not like this.
Not like this.
I tried to focus my thoughts, center myself, distract myself. I hummed. I counted out loud. I reached twenty-three Mississippi before I heard a laugh.
Emma's or Sophia's – it didn't matter. I think it saved me, in a roundabout way. It gave me a burst of energy I wouldn't otherwise have had. I think I would have went away if I hadn't heard it. I wouldn't have been able to take it. The horror of my circumstances, the fucked-upness of the 'prank,' the lack of support from my peers, the certainty I would die – the everything.
But that laugh made me want to fight. Made me want to stay, made me want to spit in Emma's eye, hit back, attack.
And part of me responded to that will.
I triggered.
My senses shut down. First the lights went out, then the smell went away, then the sound of my choked breaths, then the taste of vomit in my mouth. I could still feel, but even touch was muted, consumed. I thought I was dying, but fear and anger kept me going.
I reached out. Tried to talk, move, breathe.
Instead, I fell apart.
Everything below my neck dropped away. The sound was almost comical, like something you'd hear if a cartoon character spilled their ice cream. Sploop. I would have screamed but then my face bulged and split forming three equal lumps, three other faces. Hair streamed down to occupy the place where my body used to be and formed a mockery of my old one: two legs, four hands. Three heads, two pairs of arms, one pair of legs.
I couldn't feel them. I couldn't feel anything.
Thinking stopped when the pain hit. It came in waves, each greater than the last. I couldn't hear myself scream so I wasn't sure if I did.
Despite that a part of me still tried to stay me.
I heard a half-remembered conversation. Topic you'd hear at lunchtime. So common, I couldn't even put faces to the names.
"If you could have any power, what would it be?"
"Not this one," I mumbled.
The pain got worse. I reached out.
And I found… something. It's hard to explain. Points of light in a great void; bits of matter bouncing around in the vast emptiness of space; differences in pressure between here and there.
Most were scattered far, far away, but at least a five dozen or so were close by.
It took me a moment to identify the closest one. It was a power, my power. There was something off about it, like it was sick, or damaged. Comprehension, selection, administration: an ability that came in threes. Each was warped in a way that made me extremely uneasy.
I couldn't pin down what was wrong with it, only that it was.
I looked elsewhere.
Closest was a power which allowed for the distribution of matter across dimensions. It had been crippled, its higher functions stripped away until it could barely perform its duties at all, its bearer forced to partially linger in this dimension instead of wandering to and fro as they should have been able to. A more straightforward power to understand than mine, and while damaged, coherent in a way mine wasn't.
I moved on to the next light. Not the one which was closest geographically, but rather genealogically. Some powers were more related than others were. I could follow those twisting, branching paths. Hard enough as it is to believe, I was fascinated by the powers, by my new senses. I almost forgot about my situation.
The related power was dormant, waiting for a condition, a choice. Until then it was like – it was like a toddler, full of unrealized potential.
I backtracked, looking for others.
I found an information-gathering power similar to my own, but this one was used to identify and catalogue weapons instead of powers. It had restrictions too, but they were oddly placed. It would not catalogue weapons produced by other powers, nor weapons manufactured through the knowledge bestowed by other powers. There were a smattering of other abilities it bestowed: obviation of the need to sleep, perfect recollection, the creation of any catalogued weapons and munition.
It was an old power, experienced. I followed its descendants, only to discover emptiness where there should have been three others.
Instinctively, I knew the reason: the bearers – parahumans – had died.
I continued on.
The vast, vast majority of powers were still latent, their essence dark. Others were varied, perplexing. There was a power that could add to the biology of canines, and while it should have been able to do so for nearly anything, it had been altered for this one specific purpose. There was a power that could determine outcomes with a truly awesome degree of insight; a power that could send matter to a different dimension and replace it with matter from this one; a power that could produce metal from any surface…
And below, not so far away, was a power that dwarfed them all.
It was like me. Just as bright, but dormant.
I nudged it, curious.
Nothing happened. I wasn't sure what it would do. It seemed like the other latent powers, waiting for other events to occur before it would activate.
I spread my awareness out further, discovered hundreds, thousands of other stars. Some were not even in this dimension, but stumbling on them was happenstance, like sifting through sand on a beach and discovering a grain of rice or a kernel of corn.
I looked higher, found –
Something shoved me back into the confines of my muted flesh with a suddenness I found disorienting.
I was back.
And I was still blind, deaf, and unable to feel anything save the presence of other parahuman powers.
They were surrounding me in a loose net. Not that close, but not that far either. If I had to guess, most were still outside the school, maybe a minute or two away given their approach. Only the crippled dimension hopper was close, feeling almost within reach.
I gave the others a cursory inspection. A space warper limited to inorganic matter, a time stopper that worked through touch, a body built with an incredible amount of redundancy, a multi-purpose manufacturer, a technological miniaturizer, the weapon cataloguer -
I was starting to notice a pattern with these powers. They all belonged to local heroes, Wards and Protectorate.
Time stopper would be Clockblocker. His name was one of those that were easy to remember. One of the tinkers must have been Armsmaster, the other Kid Win or Gallant. The weapon cataloguer… oh, of course, Miss Militia. After that things got harder to place. Space manipulation… I vaguely recalled one of the younger members of the Wards being heralded as the 'next' big thing, but couldn't remember her name.
I wasn't sure who had a redundant body structure or who half-shifted between dimensions. If I had to guess… Aegis and Shadow Stalker? Their powers could work on those principles. Shadow Stalker must have attended Winslow, based on the fact that the power signature hadn't changed position.
Then again, it could have been a vigilante or a rogue. I couldn't even discount villain. If I had a power I wouldn't want to announce it at the top of my lungs either.
I would have blinked if I could. I did have powers.
That was going to take some getting used to.
Protectorate and Wards arriving from across the city. Why?
Someone must have opened my locker and seen the... mess. Protocol would have had them evacuate the building and then call in all available heroes. Bad for publicity if a school was involved in a cape matter that wasn't immediately dealt with.
Something seemed a little off in that deduction, but I didn't have much better to work with.
I got up.
At least I tried to. With my expanded awareness of powers I'd forgotten that all my conventional, human senses had left the building. I think I struggled forward, but without a sense of touch, or a feeling of your own limbs, I discovered it's not actually possible to walk. Not even possible to crawl. A lot happens when you move your leg: your muscles communicate messages to your brain that allow you to automatically perform subtle shifts in posture that prevent you from falling, some of those messages are caught by the spine and sent directly back to the muscles, and so on and so forth. Without those messages movement becomes difficult if not impossible.
Without the ability to see, or hear, or feel, the truth about whether or not I was making progress… well, it's a lot like using the remote to the TV from two streets away. Whether or not the TV turns on is not something you can actually tell.
This wasn't working and I couldn't even sigh in frustration.
I tried to wave my hand. There wasn't the slightest hint of feedback. Sometimes I thought I could feel something but maybe that was just my brain trying to find things that weren't there. Ghost limb.
Damn.
The dimensional mosaic used its power. This close I could almost taste how the energies shifted from person to object, outlining a thin, long stick. Something sunk into me, severing strands of my hair before stopping an inch or so in. I didn't feel the pain, just a slight pressure, like someone was poking me with a finger. I wasn't sure if I was more disturbed to realize that I wouldn't have felt it at all if it hadn't been for the use of the power, or by the nature of the attack itself.
It had been aimed at one of my 'heads'. A normal person would have died.
More hit. They phased in and out of another dimensions, attempting a sort of teleport cut. My new body was resistant to the maneuver.
If these were the Wards, and this was Shadowstalker, why was she using lethal force…? Why would she be attacking?
That thought became two, then three.
Then they fractured and I found myself spinning back into the abyss. Something was wrong with my powers, and that wrongness was still ongoing. I tried to say something, anything, but my senses were still missing. I was blind, mute, deaf and whatever words were used to describe people who couldn't smell, taste, or touch.
I reached for my memories and found that idiotic conversation again.
"If you could have any power, what would it be?"
Damn but this was embarrassing.
"Heartbreaker's, duh."
"Dude, not cool."
"Hey, you were all thinking it."
"Pffft. Emma, what about you?"
"I dunno. Hey, Taylor's good with cape stuff. I bet she has a plan when she gets powers."
"Um-"
"Oh, come on, I bet it's cool."
"Well…"
Another attack.
"Yeah Taylor, if you could have any power, what would it be?"
Again the memory. Almost insistent.
"The Triumvirate," I whispered.
The three most iconic heroes in the world.
Alexandria. I'd had her on my lunchbox when I was in grade school, her tower insignia still decorated some of my T-shirts and one of her bobblehead dolls still stood atop one of my bookshelves. She was tough, no-nonsense, but kind all at once. The flying brick other flying bricks aspired to be. My favorite hero.
Legend, the leader of the Triumvirate. Artillery of the most devastating sort, and arguably the fastest speedster in the world since he could all but turn into light. I'd seen his interviews – not with the same obsessive completion that I'd seen Alexandria's, but I'd looked at them anyway. He was warm, personable.
Finally, Eidolon, the strongest parahuman hero in the world. It wasn't so much that he was powerful than that he had all the powers. He could choose any he wanted and discard those he didn't need anymore. Versatility and power virtually without limit. He had single-handedly driven off more Endbringers than anyone else combined except for Scion. He always spoke about his work, the drive and necessity that pushed him each day. The challenge that made it worthwhile.
Something within me clicked, and the pain went away.
I felt my strength grow, my durability tweak itself, and gravity became a matter of choice. My central head changed, re-shaping itself to better represent the new power. A dark helmet covering my face. Surprisingly, I also felt smarter, my thoughts speeding up, my memories clarifying themselves to astonishing degrees.
Alexandria.
My left head twisted, a mask of blue and white appearing. I could feel my body shift states and begin to turn insubstantial. If I started to accelerate I knew it would functionally resist damage to a degree on par with the best. Combined with Alexandria's natural toughness, it was the sort of raw durability that couldn't be defeated by conventional means. A pool of power that I could manipulate and fire at the bat of an eye burned in my chest.
Legend.
I felt the third face solidify into a glowing cowl, lined with green, and powers, potential powers drifted in and out of my grasp. This was Eidolon. What did I need?
I needed to communicate.
A power to see, a power to hear, a power to talk.
I felt and grabbed two thinker powers and one maybe-shaker. If I'd waited longer I could tell they would be stronger, but I didn't consider that necessary. A complete awareness of everything happening within exactly thirty meters of me, the ability to interpret subtle shifts in air pressure and the ability to manipulate that air pressure in turn.
Weak, as powers went. Or, rather, weak as Eidolon's powers went. Somewhere in the back of my head, a different Taylor was gaping at the sheer waste this represented, like using a nuclear power plant to fuel a laptop, but that Taylor was outvoted as I scrambled for any ability that would let me communicate. I didn't want to fight. If I was guessing right, Shadow Stalker was trying to incapacitate me and the rest of the Wards and the Protectorate weren't far behind.
I was suddenly aware of a lot of noise, or maybe movement. It was difficult to tell the difference with a power like this, where everything was a variation of pressure, of force. Students were evacuating and I could hear everything from the pounding shoes, to their excited mumbling, to their heartbeats, communicated through a cacophony of aerial vibrations that my primitive human brain couldn't decipher.
All I knew was that I hadn't been unaware for particularly long.
So many of them and not one had tried helping me. It was hard not to feel a bit bitter.
I rose. Two different sorts of flight tried to work together and it took everything I had not to accidentally put a hole in the ceiling. It only hit me then, hovering a foot above the ground, probably looking like a freakshow reject, that no matter my looks, I was probably one of the most powerful parahumans in the world right now.
Part of me was scared.
Another, wilder part of me wanted to laugh until I cried.
And I did, completely by accident. A change in pressure that, judging by the intensity and the resulting faraway screams, must have sounded like a thunderclap instead of laughter. Oops.
I set aside my aerokinesis and accessed my thirty foot clairvoyance. It was and wasn't like sight: there were no colors, just folds in space, almost like the area was a wireframe model I could feel. I could sense every mote of dust and every strand of hair, the tips of my clawed hands to the three heads on my winding, braided neck. The pens and pencils that were stuck within me, the blood that pooled and dripped from the hopefully cosmetic wounds. The person attacking me was female with long hair and an enviably athletic figure. There was something wrapped around her face, and she was attacking me with… darts? No, those were pens and pencils.
Female, so probably not Aegis then.
I tentatively labeled her as Shadow Stalker.
She shot at me again. I tried to float out of the way, accelerated too quickly and crashed into the lockers opposite mine, denting and sheering through the painted metal as easily as if it were a pane of sugar.
There was symmetry in the destruction. Behind me, my locker lay in a bloody ruin. The lockers next to my locker were bloody ruins. In front it was now the same.
I shook away the thought. Where had that come from?
I needed to get my bearings, I was still reeling from the attack, still acting like I was Taylor Hebert, powerless mortal.
Was that why Shadow Stalker was treating me with such hostility? Assuming that the bullied victim was going to pull a Carrie?
Thinking about that made me angry. If she was going to jump to conclusions like that she should have helped me like an actual hero, her secret identity be damned. She surely had training, it wouldn't be that difficult to fight without powers, or just say a word to stop things.
I tried speaking. It took a few tries for me to really grasp how difficult it was to use powers for things they hadn't originally been designed to do, but I managed it, after a fashion. Shadow Stalker had returned and tried to shoot again. With Alexandria's invincibility I let them bounce. As things were I had a far, far greater chance of accidentally turning the school to rubble than Shadow Stalker had of hurting me.
I was limited in the selection of sounds I could pronounce. Words were going to be difficult. I wanted to say 'stop,' but I couldn't quite work out how to attach the pee sound to the long aw. Divided them into chunks.
"Ay. Staw. Puh. Naw. Tuh. Foe."
She said something long and complicated enough that I couldn't parse it before shooting me again.
Damnit, I should have spent the time to get a more useful power. These weren't doing what I needed them to do.
"Suh-luh-oh," I said.
"Or…" she said, her voice accompanied by another riot of pressure changes. There was too much to interpret. The people running away made noise. The 'wind' was making noise. I was making noise.
I discarded my intuitive understanding of air. How could I listen in?
I had focused too much on how sound was created. I needed to understand people. I discarded a few emotion perceivers. Hoped for something that would get me close to psychic and found an intuitive comprehension of body language instead.
I allowed it time to load before realizing that I wouldn't be able to hear myself speak. Or, for that matter, tell if I was making the correct assembly of sounds with my air manipulation ability.
Fuck.
These powers were too overwhelming. I felt like a child given a supercomputer and told to code the game when all she wanted to do was play pong.
What would I do if I were just Taylor and not Eidolon?
Put like that the answer was simple. I didn't need to talk to communicate, I could just as easily write. Then the heroes could write back. Problem solved. That means all I needed was vision. Legend's lasers could be fine-tuned to the point where they could virtually become glow-in-the-dark paint. Maybe I could project words over my heads.
There, that freed up two slots. I let go of my air manipulation ability.
I was about to dismiss my comprehension of body language as well when it finished loading. Without Alexandria's enhanced cognition maybe I wouldn't have noticed it, not in that split second before I let it go, but with it I was without doubt. The way she moved, the way she angled her crossbow, the way she prowled.
Shadow Stalker was Sophia Hess.
A lot of things, a lot of little details, events that happened over the past year and a half, fell into place.
I had options now. With the way my powers worked I was pretty much made of options. Legend's lasers were versatile enough to be either lethal or incapacitating; Alexandria was the flying brick all other flying bricks aspired to; and Eidolon had a laughably huge number of ways to snap her out of her shadow state and then shove her in that filth she had prepared for her latest victim.
Taylor Hebert rammed through the closest surface, shooting through drywall, plumbing, electrical wire and brick like it was so much papier mache, shook off the resulting debris, and vanished in a burst of white light.
----------------------
1.02
I flew.
I didn't know what it was I felt, wasn't sure if there was word there that could properly express having a murder she wrote moment about my very own bullying campaign. There was a little bit of anger there, and a lot of ugly.
But hey: flight. Voted number one most popular power utility power on PHO, and here I was with two varieties.
I wanted to relax, wanted to enjoy it.
Couldn't.
Damn you Emma.
And damn you too Sophia.
I rose higher and higher, until my short range clairvoyance picked up the heavy cloud cover above the city, and then I was above that too. With my absolute awareness I could feel, but I wanted to see. I had two of Eidolon's slots open, and could sense the matrix of his potential abilities pulse with a steady stream of possibilities.
I grabbed another thinker power before it could disappear. This one interpreted the visible spectrum through the medium of my skin. Legend's affinity with light synergized with it to an absurd degree and combined I could 'see' in all directions for miles. With the way my body had changed, there was a lot of overlap, a lot of looking at myself through myself, but I could cope.
Words can't do the experience justice. The sky above was so blue it almost hurt to look at, and the sun a ball of pure white that surprisingly didn't. I was already far enough above the clouds to perceive them as a sea of dense white cotton stretching out into the distance, far farther than I would have expected.
I stopped and hovered. Like a switch being flicked, Legend's light went out as I transitioned out of his breaker state.
A younger Taylor would have wanted to carve her names in the clouds. Something to wow herself, her friends.
I… what did I want?
I floated, not serene, not okay, but not drowning in the ugliness either.
I felt better, being here, seeing this. If I didn't pay attention to the background fuzz of my power sense, I could almost imagine I was alone.
Free.
I ran a claw-tipped hand through my hair. Neck? Damn, but my new form was weird, my hair weaving together into cords and then ribbons as they passed through my torso.
I took a deep, mental breath. I wanted… I wanted to be everything Shadow Stalker was not. I wanted to be someone who was kind, someone who cared, someone who protected and helped others.
In short, I wanted to be a hero. To do that…
I raised my four arms, fiddling with the pool of Legend's power sitting in my chest.
Fired.
The first blast was terrifyingly off the mark, a column of light that could have engulfed and leveled buildings, spearing straight up through the empty sky.
I gaped. On an intellectual level I knew he was the blaster of the Triumvirate but, holy shit I had wanted to use that laser to write messages.
I tried again; this time, the beam was tighter, more concentrated, giving it the sort of punch that I presumed Legend would deploy against Endbringers or high end brutes.
Damn, but his ability was complicated. Making lasers that could turn corners, split into a baker's dozen and impart various other effects was more labor intensive than simply willing them into existence. I felt my respect for the man grow in grudging leaps and bounds. Of the Triumvirate his power felt the messiest, something kludged together with too many parts, many of them working at cross-purposes.
Kind of like mine, in a way. I still recalled the feel of my own power, the sickly, prickling edges of it. Comprehension, selection, administration, all mashed together.
Eidolon's power was the opposite in a way: hard as it was to fathom, he seemed to be missing pieces, while Alexandria was weirdly 'perfect.' Not in the sense that hers was the best power, but it felt like the most elegant, most economical. Minimum effort for maximum effect.
Eidolon's was undeniably useful though. His kept on offering me thinker powers, crutches that would make it trivial to control and maintain Legend's firepower. I kept turning them down. If Legend could do it without outside aid, then I'd almost certainly be able to do it with Alexandria's help.
I brought forth yet another beam of light, narrowing its focus and lowering its output. Only a few more adjustments and I could use it for something resembling communication instead of, say, building demolitions.
I felt a power approach and automatically re-oriented, all three of my heads swivelling. Two of them knocked against each other. Dumb, I could see just as well from the soles of my feet as from my heads. Anyway, they were below the clouds, and I wouldn't be able to see them through my skin. I checked with my power sense instead.
Flight, strength, emotion aura, forcefield.
The emotion aura cinched it, but... seriously, Glory Girl had a forcefield? I thought she was supposed to be a straight Alexandria package with an emotion aura. Less raw power, less speed, but outside the context of an Endbringer or a brute like Lung that barely mattered.
Others were rising too, if slower: that'd be Photon Mom and her daughter Laserdream most likely.
Had to hurry if I wanted to get Legend's lasers down before they made it up here.
A dozen attempts later, I had something almost workable. I'd finally figured out how to leave a trace in the air that would linger. A laser whose intensity was as low as it got, joined to a laser that slowed things down. Wouldn't really work in a fight, the slowing laser was itself incredibly slow, but the slowing aspect would hit the low intensity laser, all but freezing it in place. I could use it to write, draw, whatever.
It was crude, but I'd take crude if it let me explain myself.
Glory Girl made it past the cloud cover where she stopped, hovering. I could see her, maybe a mile or so below, in all her fully costumed – excuse the word choice – glory. White dress, cape, tiara. Now that I was looking for it, I could see the forcefield: her golden hair didn't budge in the wind, and neither did her dress. She probably wasn't even cold.
Her head was turning: she was looking for me.
How had she known I'd still be up here? Were people spitballing? Using thinkers?
Didn't really matter. I descended towards her, Legend's breaker state turning me lightbulb bright. I crossed the distance in less than the blink of an eye. I had hoped to appear in front of her, but landed somewhere behind her instead.
And then further, piercing through the clouds.
Oops.
The light went out as I burst back up, trailing mist. I thought it looked badass.
Glory Girl turned and flinched.
It wasn't dramatic. It was on the same level as an involuntary spasm that happens when a C-list horror movie throws in yet another jump scare. But the expression she made... I'd seen it on myself enough times to know it. Fear, or something close enough to it. Gone a moment later, but that didn't erase the fact I had seen it, that she had made it.
Was my appearance really that off-putting? Or was it the helmets, the implied powers?
She backed away, only half a step, the gesture probably a habit of her earthbound reflexes, one hand briefly cupping her ear, the other held in front of her fingers splayed. She began to speak, slow, deliberate, but neither my short range clairvoyance nor my light perception powers were up to the task of decoding her words. I couldn't read lips, and feeling the air move was hugely less useful than my earlier aerokinesis.
Helen Keller might have learned how to understand someone by stuffing her hand in the other person's mouth, but that was a little beyond my abilities, Alexandria's thinker abilities or no.
I raised three of my own hands, fingers identically splayed, and after a moment's hesitation, started to write in the air with my fourth.
Glory Girl immediately dropped back beneath the cloud cover.
I looked at the empty space she had just occupied, my hastily scrawled I CAN'T SP hanging in the air, reversed so she'd be able to read it.
I wasn't surprised when she burst through the clouds from below: my power sense allowed me to keep a bead on her. She was probably thinking three heads, 360 degree view, try to surprise me by coming at an angle I couldn't grasp.
To be fair she did surprise me. I hadn't expected the attack.
To be a little less generous, I hadn't expected it because I hadn't done anything.
I caught the attack on one chin and the world lurched as I spun wildly around. Both Legend and Alexandria's modes of flight tried to kick in at the same time to correct for the spin and I overcompensated, spiralling in the opposite direction, bursting through the clouds towards the city below.
I would have corrected, but Glory Girl kept hitting me, pounding away with a reckless tenacity. I hunched my shoulders, dipped my heads, tried to ward off any blows to the craniums. I wanted to close my eyes, but to do that I'd need to lose my perception power, so I could do was see the blows coming, each one capable of going through concrete. I tried to point to one of my mouths, get her to understand that I couldn't speak. Either she didn't understand or didn't care.
And then it was Sophia punching and kicking me, a sneer on her face.
I knew it wasn't really her, but the experience was still off-putting. I panicked, tried to get away, create some distance so I get my thoughts in order, but my flight powers kept misfiring, and Glory Girl wasn't that slow. My inexperience combined with having four arms and a really bizarre sense of feel made any attempt at retaliating feeble at best.
Stop it! I wanted to yell. Just – just stop!
She did.
I hadn't even realized I'd picked up another of Eidolon's powers until I noticed why Glory Girl had stopped: she was plummeting away, her thoughts temporarily derailed by a field of absolute mental torpor that surrounded me. Her last hit had come from above so she was falling with all the speed her power gave her, and gravity.
I took half a second to place the other two members of New Wave, decided they wouldn't catch up nearly quick enough, mentally cursed and dove after her.
I wasn't sure what sort of impact the forcefield could tank, but decided not to have my first high-profile action as parahuman be attacking and killing the city's darling Alexandria-lite by accident.
Why couldn't she have just waited?
That thought must have triggered something: I went into Legend's breaker state and then went way too fast, shooting past Glory Girl and nearly hitting a high rise near central downtown. I could see her, clear as I could see the people below. She was still falling, caught in a classic action figure pose.
Damn, but I was a bad flier. I was a really, phenomenally bad flier. This would almost be funny if it wasn't threatening to become tragic.
I kicked off the air and zoomed back up, abandoned the stupid knock out field, searching for a different Eidolon power. Telekinesis, tractor beam, gravity, precise teleportation, any of those would work if I had enough fine control.
Instead, as choices, I received invisibility, consciousness-suppressing powers, and color changing beams.
Fuck you too Eidolon.
My power sense picked up another cape. Aegis was on the scene… and his flight was way, way too slow.
Would one other person in this city being able to break the sound barrier be too much to ask for?
I flashed forward, again too fast, too far. One of the New Wavers tried to take a pot shot at me.
I ignored it, and tried again.
And again.
And again.
Like my adjustment with Legend's lasers, each burst allowed me to learn a little more, make myself better, more precise. I was moving at scary speeds, the sort that should have been leaving sonic booms in my wake but weren't because of Legend's breaker state.
And then I was there, flying parallel to her.
My success was more a matter of happy accident then intent, so much so that I nearly blasted away again before I realized I'd reached my goal.
I caught her, one pair of arms clutching her awkwardly around the middle, and then I was trying to slow us down.
A beam of white light caught one of my faces. This time I did what I should have done with Glory Girl and ignored the attack. I was five kinds of invincible, unless it was someone like Heartbreaker trying to take control I wasn't going to be too miffed about people trying to hit me. I directed us to the beach, and then slowly, stutteringly brought us down, dragging furrows into the sand as we landed.
My new form was heavy: I sank almost halfway to my knee.
If this were a movie, Glory Girl would have chosen that moment to wake up, but she was still out. She would be for at least another hour or so.
When they were good, Eidolon's powers were good.
I tried to make sure she was comfortable, then got up, and immediately began writing, making sure I'd get my message out first before they could attack. I was expecting the fastest heroes to take up to half a minute if not more to arrive. In that span of time I'd hopefully be able to write enough to get them to understand my position. I made the letters big, at least foot high blocks, keeping track as powers converged on me.
I felt someone teleport in or around Winslow – they had an unfamiliar combination of powers, but it was a potent one. It felt oddly familiar, and with a jolt I realized that its signature was one of mine.
Eidolon. Here. He discarded discarded his two other powers, started choosing two others.
The most powerful member of the Triumvirate? I re-doubled my efforts.
GG is fine. She'll wake up in an hour.
Stop attacking me. I can't hear, or speak. Write down what you want to say and I'll do the same.
I want to –
I'd overestimated my writing speed, and underestimated the New Wave fliers. I moved back as Photon Mom tried to wrap me in a forcefield bubble, while Laserdream did the same with Glory Girl. Both were flying, their white, indigo and pink starburst pattern bodysuits standing out against the drab, gray sky. They weaved and ducked, but I was tracking them with no less than three different senses.
Someone faster, but travelling from farther away landed on the beach as well, kicking up sand and surf as they landed. Their armored battlesuit bristled with gun nozzles and missile launchers. It had a bit of a T-Rex/King Kong look, a giant head, bulky body, and arms that descended to the level of their feet. The enormous face, protruding nose, recessed eyes – it was lizardlike.
Dragon? Here? Alongside Eidolon? Why?
That was two big names from out of town. They were treating me like I was an A-class threat. Lung and fucking Kaiser didn't get this kind of treatment.
Her armored suit looked around, and then one of the panels on her suit flipped around, revealing a thin computer screen, complete with a keyboard. It lit up a second later with a single word, white on black.
[SURRENDER.]
I had a vivid recollection of Glory Girl just before she'd started attacking me. If I recalled how her lips moved – yes, I was ninety percent she'd been asking for my surrender too.
Why?
Shadow Stalker? My appearance? I kept a bit of my focus on the other two members of New Wave.
[PLEASE.]
Oh, well that made everything peachy-keen. I wanted to groan in frustration.
I moved to write more, fingertips lighting up. Dragon didn't give me a chance. The panel with the monitor flipped around to reveal armor as she shot at me with a stream of high pressured containment foam fifty feet long. With Lady Photon and Laserdream registering so much more brightly on my power sense, I had a moment of blank incomprehension, unable to quite process a power that wasn't actually a power, before dodging away at the last second.
Damn.
On the upside, I was getting used to my power sense. On the downside: I was getting used to my powersense. I was already treating it as more reliable than eyesight.
Dragon took to the air, the jets propelling her up burning with a blue flame as the sand beneath her feet turned to glass.
She landed between me and Glory Girl, unloading a payload of oddly shaped missiles which split apart mid-air into hundreds of tiny, razor-thin projectiles. Each streaked towards me with incredible speed. This was an attack designed to take on or distract a speedster.
Well, it was succeeding. I left a trail of cooling glass in my wake as I kicked myself backwards, out of the area of immediate attack, and then continued hopping as they followed, lightning fast. A violent kick created a wave of sand that caught a few which exploded into veritable walls of containment foam. Lady Photon and Laserdream were attacking as well, but I barely had to focus to dodge their attacks. Dragon was making me work at it.
Something dropped out from beneath Dragon's undercarriage, ball shaped, with little anti-grav panels on the exterior. It was shaped a bit like the one-man Empire spacecraft from Star Wars.
Somehow it picked Glory Girl up and began towing her away from the battle.
This completely, one hundred percent unnecessary battle.
I tried to calm down. The last time I panicked, I'd nearly killed Glory Girl. None of the people here could actually hurt me, and Dragon was limiting herself to non-lethal weaponry. Depending on how effective the containment foam was, that made her more dangerous, not less, but I didn't need to panic. It was why I was still here instead of fleeing at hypersonic speeds. If I just explained myself, if I could just get them to listen…
The fastest members of the Protectorate were arriving. Dauntless and Velocity first, Armsmaster not far behind.
I knew it even before Dauntless threw his spear at me: they weren't here to back me up.
My heart plummeted as I dodged the electrically charged projectiles. These weren't the actions of a few cowboy cops jumping the gun, a group of independents and a big name from the Guild, this was a sustained campaign. There was even a thinker trying to pin me down. I'd never heard of them, but they were part of it.
Worst of all was Eidolon. The bright nimbus of his power growing even as I looked for him, some sort of trump power that'd let him tap into other available powers, the teleportation power I'd sensed before, and power immunity that he could grant others. Soon he'd overshadow everyone else in the city. The scent of his power was so sharp, so bitter, I could almost sense the hostility radiating off him. He was spoiling for a fight.
I could feel myself react to that hostility, feel the stranger powers Eidolon's last slot was suggesting slowly shift towards blasters and strikers.
Damn them all. If they wanted to attack this badly I'd oblige them. I began repurposing Legend's lasers as I simultaneously worked my way through Eidolon's current selection of powers. I picked a sound-based ability and allowed it to slowly load. Well, not quite sound, vibrations. It would be good for debilitating but non-lethal long-ranged attacks, and within the range of my clairvoyance I would have enough fine control to vibrate the inner ear and induce nausea, loss of balance, and so on. Less useful against Dragon who wasn't physically present as a person, but she was packing a lot of delicate electronics within chassis. All it would take – I sent a flash of harmless energy at Dragon who crashed through it and retaliated with another spurt of high-pressure containment foam – was a little time.
When Eidolon flickered into existence fifty feet above us, I wasn't sure I'd get it. His cape hung from his shoulders, a heavy blue-green mantle that fit him like it did so few people. I'd never heard of him as being charismatic, but he had presence. I could sense it in the way everyone present moved a little, unconsciously making room for him and probably keeping an eye on him.
He held up a hand. Dragon stepped back, as did the New Wavers, and local Protectorate. I bristled, ready for him. He had a ridiculously good teleportation power, an immunity to powers power, and was somehow borrowing powers from all the other heroes' who were present.
He wasn't borrowing my powers though. Was he underestimating me?
No, he was trying to, he just couldn't. A perk of my altered biology?
For some reason, he wasn`t attacking. Neither were the heroes. They were probably waiting for others to arrive. I wasn't about to complain if it allowed me to finish my own preparations. I adjusted Legend's laser for maximum coverage and minimum intensity. A bright light: hopefully it'd blind them without hurting them.
We all stood there, breathless, waiting. Dragon was doing something to her suit, but I didn't dare spare the attention I had focused on Eidolon. He was the threat.
My power finally finished loading. It came equipped with a minor thinker power that allowed me to interpret sound waves.
I could hear again. Far, far better than I would as a human being. I was bombarded by useless details: the sound of the surf against the sand, the hiss of molten glass as it cooled, the beating of the metallic slurry that acted as Dragon's blood, and the incredible minutiae of life. I could hear hearts beat, blood flow, perspiration drip, lips move, and teeth clack.
I adjusted my perceptions, then adjusted them again. It felt like turning the knob on the car radio, listening for a station that wasn't static. My experience fine-tuning Legend's lasers, and my horrific flight powers were put to good use. Eidolon's powers were significantly more intuitive.
Then I managed it.
"-hold," a man was saying. "She's calming down."
Eidolon.
I must have done something, given away a tell, because his voice softened. "You can hear me now, can't you?"
All three of my heads nodded slowly. I realized that Dragon had been trying to get my attention with her computer screen, but I'd ignored it, like I'd nearly ignored the containment foam earlier. She'd popped open the computer panel again. Words were written on the screen.
[Sorry, I'd like talk.]
Oh.
From my power sense Eidolon still appeared to be radiating hostility. I couldn't help but compare him to Emma on one of her bad days. Something was definitely wrong with that analysis though: he'd calmed everyone down, he'd stopped the fight.
Well, almost.
"She doesn't look like she's calming down," a voice said, echoed quietly in a dozen places.
The speaker wasn't within range of my absolute awareness, but I could ballpark the general area. It was probably Dauntless or Velocity. One of my heads swung towards them.
A whisper, this time, accompanied by even softer whispers: "She heard that?"
A female voice, her accent difficult to place said: "Taylor, can you hear us?"
I nodded again.
For some reason, everyone looked relieved. A tenseness to their motions vanished. Someone muttered 'thank goodness.'
"That's good. That makes this easier," Eidolon said. "I'm going to touch down now. Are you okay with that?"
Nod.
He slowly drifted down, every move calculated to look harmless, which was quite the feat given who he was. He was short, which helped. Not obviously so, but standing close to a six foot something Armsmaster made him seem less imposing.
"Can you speak?"
I couldn't, not really, but I could copy what others had said. All I needed to do was vibrate the air in precisely the same way they had vibrated it.
Alexandria's memory, my shaker power and…
"Can, speak, okay," I said, using Eidolon's voice. The words were choppy, disconnected, like how you might hear an automatic voice message system recite a number.
"Freaky," someone commented. I couldn't quite tell who. Someone else muttered "screamer," but I wasn't sure why.
Dragon cut in. I could tell because words were appearing on her screen in sync with the words she spoke.
"I'd like to apologize. After you left Winslow, the rest of your body was discovered in your locker. We jumped to conclusions about who was responsible. I should have verified first, like Eidolon did."
I remembered. 'Sploop.'
I could understand why they'd reacted the way they did. It didn't necessarily explain the sudden A-lister response, but it was at least comprehensible.
"I... really do hope you can forgive us for that," she continued. "Me, especially. A lot of what happened today is my fault. This isn't how I would have wanted us to meet."
"Okay," I said, using Eidolon's voice again. "That's, okay."
I heard another whispered voice, emanating from a dozen places. "Is no one going to mention that she turned the sky above BB into a seizure-inducing lightshow and scared the pants off Madam Director or-"
The voice cut out abruptly.
"Clockblocker, maintain radio discipline," Armsmaster said curtly, lips moving beneath the visor of his helmet.
The shock that I was listening in on as minute a source as their individual earbuds was outweighed by the shock of comprehension. Now I understood the A-lister response. I hadn't really been thinking when I started experimenting with Legend's lasers. The sky had been covered in clouds, and I had thought that no one… would… see…
Well, that explained how Glory Girl had known where to find me.
It probably explained Dragon's presence too: she maintained several satellites, right?
"Are you willing to come with us to the Protectorate HQ? As a guest. We can get your injuries looked at too."
I wanted to nod, but then I realized.
Uh, injuries?
-------------
=> 1.03
AN: I've been trying to fix Trinity for a while (read: a goddamn year). It started as a drabble, which meant that I hadn't really developed a plot before I tried to take it places. I can't say I've made much improvements on that front, but as we're not heading off to Namibia right off the bat, everything should be a little tighter, so it's something.
I know that I've expanded and edited out some scenes from the original 1.01. 1.02 diverges completely from the old Trinity.
Arc 1. Spin
1.01
Dry heaving sucks.
Dry heaving while in a cramped locker stuffed with used tampons?
You very quickly run out of 'dry'.
The smell made me gag: it was rank, musty and just a little sweet. The feel of it was a study in contrasts: wet and sticky, but also dry, crumbly. The darkness might have been the worst, forcing my imagination to fill in the gaps with the most lurid possibilities. A cadaver, dirty syringes, blood.
I retched, put two hands over my mouth, and tried to back out. Couldn't: they'd locked the door behind me.
I struggled, of course. Not for very long, but I did. I bucked against the metal, hit the door with all I had: elbows, heels, back, head. The attempts were weak, painful and likely shorter and more fitful than I thought they were.
I felt – I felt too much. Nausea, physical and emotional, that made me want to puke, cry, run, kill, fight. I had to clap a hand around my mouth, and swallow again and again, against the burning in my lungs, and the spasming muscles in my throat and stomach.
And the horrifying, all-consuming fear.
I would choke, I would die. I was so sure of it.
I didn't want to. Not like this. Not like this.
Not like this.
I tried to focus my thoughts, center myself, distract myself. I hummed. I counted out loud. I reached twenty-three Mississippi before I heard a laugh.
Emma's or Sophia's – it didn't matter. I think it saved me, in a roundabout way. It gave me a burst of energy I wouldn't otherwise have had. I think I would have went away if I hadn't heard it. I wouldn't have been able to take it. The horror of my circumstances, the fucked-upness of the 'prank,' the lack of support from my peers, the certainty I would die – the everything.
But that laugh made me want to fight. Made me want to stay, made me want to spit in Emma's eye, hit back, attack.
And part of me responded to that will.
I triggered.
My senses shut down. First the lights went out, then the smell went away, then the sound of my choked breaths, then the taste of vomit in my mouth. I could still feel, but even touch was muted, consumed. I thought I was dying, but fear and anger kept me going.
I reached out. Tried to talk, move, breathe.
Instead, I fell apart.
Everything below my neck dropped away. The sound was almost comical, like something you'd hear if a cartoon character spilled their ice cream. Sploop. I would have screamed but then my face bulged and split forming three equal lumps, three other faces. Hair streamed down to occupy the place where my body used to be and formed a mockery of my old one: two legs, four hands. Three heads, two pairs of arms, one pair of legs.
I couldn't feel them. I couldn't feel anything.
Thinking stopped when the pain hit. It came in waves, each greater than the last. I couldn't hear myself scream so I wasn't sure if I did.
Despite that a part of me still tried to stay me.
I heard a half-remembered conversation. Topic you'd hear at lunchtime. So common, I couldn't even put faces to the names.
"If you could have any power, what would it be?"
"Not this one," I mumbled.
The pain got worse. I reached out.
And I found… something. It's hard to explain. Points of light in a great void; bits of matter bouncing around in the vast emptiness of space; differences in pressure between here and there.
Most were scattered far, far away, but at least a five dozen or so were close by.
It took me a moment to identify the closest one. It was a power, my power. There was something off about it, like it was sick, or damaged. Comprehension, selection, administration: an ability that came in threes. Each was warped in a way that made me extremely uneasy.
I couldn't pin down what was wrong with it, only that it was.
I looked elsewhere.
Closest was a power which allowed for the distribution of matter across dimensions. It had been crippled, its higher functions stripped away until it could barely perform its duties at all, its bearer forced to partially linger in this dimension instead of wandering to and fro as they should have been able to. A more straightforward power to understand than mine, and while damaged, coherent in a way mine wasn't.
I moved on to the next light. Not the one which was closest geographically, but rather genealogically. Some powers were more related than others were. I could follow those twisting, branching paths. Hard enough as it is to believe, I was fascinated by the powers, by my new senses. I almost forgot about my situation.
The related power was dormant, waiting for a condition, a choice. Until then it was like – it was like a toddler, full of unrealized potential.
I backtracked, looking for others.
I found an information-gathering power similar to my own, but this one was used to identify and catalogue weapons instead of powers. It had restrictions too, but they were oddly placed. It would not catalogue weapons produced by other powers, nor weapons manufactured through the knowledge bestowed by other powers. There were a smattering of other abilities it bestowed: obviation of the need to sleep, perfect recollection, the creation of any catalogued weapons and munition.
It was an old power, experienced. I followed its descendants, only to discover emptiness where there should have been three others.
Instinctively, I knew the reason: the bearers – parahumans – had died.
I continued on.
The vast, vast majority of powers were still latent, their essence dark. Others were varied, perplexing. There was a power that could add to the biology of canines, and while it should have been able to do so for nearly anything, it had been altered for this one specific purpose. There was a power that could determine outcomes with a truly awesome degree of insight; a power that could send matter to a different dimension and replace it with matter from this one; a power that could produce metal from any surface…
And below, not so far away, was a power that dwarfed them all.
It was like me. Just as bright, but dormant.
I nudged it, curious.
Nothing happened. I wasn't sure what it would do. It seemed like the other latent powers, waiting for other events to occur before it would activate.
I spread my awareness out further, discovered hundreds, thousands of other stars. Some were not even in this dimension, but stumbling on them was happenstance, like sifting through sand on a beach and discovering a grain of rice or a kernel of corn.
I looked higher, found –
Something shoved me back into the confines of my muted flesh with a suddenness I found disorienting.
I was back.
And I was still blind, deaf, and unable to feel anything save the presence of other parahuman powers.
They were surrounding me in a loose net. Not that close, but not that far either. If I had to guess, most were still outside the school, maybe a minute or two away given their approach. Only the crippled dimension hopper was close, feeling almost within reach.
I gave the others a cursory inspection. A space warper limited to inorganic matter, a time stopper that worked through touch, a body built with an incredible amount of redundancy, a multi-purpose manufacturer, a technological miniaturizer, the weapon cataloguer -
I was starting to notice a pattern with these powers. They all belonged to local heroes, Wards and Protectorate.
Time stopper would be Clockblocker. His name was one of those that were easy to remember. One of the tinkers must have been Armsmaster, the other Kid Win or Gallant. The weapon cataloguer… oh, of course, Miss Militia. After that things got harder to place. Space manipulation… I vaguely recalled one of the younger members of the Wards being heralded as the 'next' big thing, but couldn't remember her name.
I wasn't sure who had a redundant body structure or who half-shifted between dimensions. If I had to guess… Aegis and Shadow Stalker? Their powers could work on those principles. Shadow Stalker must have attended Winslow, based on the fact that the power signature hadn't changed position.
Then again, it could have been a vigilante or a rogue. I couldn't even discount villain. If I had a power I wouldn't want to announce it at the top of my lungs either.
I would have blinked if I could. I did have powers.
That was going to take some getting used to.
Protectorate and Wards arriving from across the city. Why?
Someone must have opened my locker and seen the... mess. Protocol would have had them evacuate the building and then call in all available heroes. Bad for publicity if a school was involved in a cape matter that wasn't immediately dealt with.
Something seemed a little off in that deduction, but I didn't have much better to work with.
I got up.
At least I tried to. With my expanded awareness of powers I'd forgotten that all my conventional, human senses had left the building. I think I struggled forward, but without a sense of touch, or a feeling of your own limbs, I discovered it's not actually possible to walk. Not even possible to crawl. A lot happens when you move your leg: your muscles communicate messages to your brain that allow you to automatically perform subtle shifts in posture that prevent you from falling, some of those messages are caught by the spine and sent directly back to the muscles, and so on and so forth. Without those messages movement becomes difficult if not impossible.
Without the ability to see, or hear, or feel, the truth about whether or not I was making progress… well, it's a lot like using the remote to the TV from two streets away. Whether or not the TV turns on is not something you can actually tell.
This wasn't working and I couldn't even sigh in frustration.
I tried to wave my hand. There wasn't the slightest hint of feedback. Sometimes I thought I could feel something but maybe that was just my brain trying to find things that weren't there. Ghost limb.
Damn.
The dimensional mosaic used its power. This close I could almost taste how the energies shifted from person to object, outlining a thin, long stick. Something sunk into me, severing strands of my hair before stopping an inch or so in. I didn't feel the pain, just a slight pressure, like someone was poking me with a finger. I wasn't sure if I was more disturbed to realize that I wouldn't have felt it at all if it hadn't been for the use of the power, or by the nature of the attack itself.
It had been aimed at one of my 'heads'. A normal person would have died.
More hit. They phased in and out of another dimensions, attempting a sort of teleport cut. My new body was resistant to the maneuver.
If these were the Wards, and this was Shadowstalker, why was she using lethal force…? Why would she be attacking?
That thought became two, then three.
Then they fractured and I found myself spinning back into the abyss. Something was wrong with my powers, and that wrongness was still ongoing. I tried to say something, anything, but my senses were still missing. I was blind, mute, deaf and whatever words were used to describe people who couldn't smell, taste, or touch.
I reached for my memories and found that idiotic conversation again.
"If you could have any power, what would it be?"
Damn but this was embarrassing.
"Heartbreaker's, duh."
"Dude, not cool."
"Hey, you were all thinking it."
"Pffft. Emma, what about you?"
"I dunno. Hey, Taylor's good with cape stuff. I bet she has a plan when she gets powers."
"Um-"
"Oh, come on, I bet it's cool."
"Well…"
Another attack.
"Yeah Taylor, if you could have any power, what would it be?"
Again the memory. Almost insistent.
"The Triumvirate," I whispered.
The three most iconic heroes in the world.
Alexandria. I'd had her on my lunchbox when I was in grade school, her tower insignia still decorated some of my T-shirts and one of her bobblehead dolls still stood atop one of my bookshelves. She was tough, no-nonsense, but kind all at once. The flying brick other flying bricks aspired to be. My favorite hero.
Legend, the leader of the Triumvirate. Artillery of the most devastating sort, and arguably the fastest speedster in the world since he could all but turn into light. I'd seen his interviews – not with the same obsessive completion that I'd seen Alexandria's, but I'd looked at them anyway. He was warm, personable.
Finally, Eidolon, the strongest parahuman hero in the world. It wasn't so much that he was powerful than that he had all the powers. He could choose any he wanted and discard those he didn't need anymore. Versatility and power virtually without limit. He had single-handedly driven off more Endbringers than anyone else combined except for Scion. He always spoke about his work, the drive and necessity that pushed him each day. The challenge that made it worthwhile.
Something within me clicked, and the pain went away.
I felt my strength grow, my durability tweak itself, and gravity became a matter of choice. My central head changed, re-shaping itself to better represent the new power. A dark helmet covering my face. Surprisingly, I also felt smarter, my thoughts speeding up, my memories clarifying themselves to astonishing degrees.
Alexandria.
My left head twisted, a mask of blue and white appearing. I could feel my body shift states and begin to turn insubstantial. If I started to accelerate I knew it would functionally resist damage to a degree on par with the best. Combined with Alexandria's natural toughness, it was the sort of raw durability that couldn't be defeated by conventional means. A pool of power that I could manipulate and fire at the bat of an eye burned in my chest.
Legend.
I felt the third face solidify into a glowing cowl, lined with green, and powers, potential powers drifted in and out of my grasp. This was Eidolon. What did I need?
I needed to communicate.
A power to see, a power to hear, a power to talk.
I felt and grabbed two thinker powers and one maybe-shaker. If I'd waited longer I could tell they would be stronger, but I didn't consider that necessary. A complete awareness of everything happening within exactly thirty meters of me, the ability to interpret subtle shifts in air pressure and the ability to manipulate that air pressure in turn.
Weak, as powers went. Or, rather, weak as Eidolon's powers went. Somewhere in the back of my head, a different Taylor was gaping at the sheer waste this represented, like using a nuclear power plant to fuel a laptop, but that Taylor was outvoted as I scrambled for any ability that would let me communicate. I didn't want to fight. If I was guessing right, Shadow Stalker was trying to incapacitate me and the rest of the Wards and the Protectorate weren't far behind.
I was suddenly aware of a lot of noise, or maybe movement. It was difficult to tell the difference with a power like this, where everything was a variation of pressure, of force. Students were evacuating and I could hear everything from the pounding shoes, to their excited mumbling, to their heartbeats, communicated through a cacophony of aerial vibrations that my primitive human brain couldn't decipher.
All I knew was that I hadn't been unaware for particularly long.
So many of them and not one had tried helping me. It was hard not to feel a bit bitter.
I rose. Two different sorts of flight tried to work together and it took everything I had not to accidentally put a hole in the ceiling. It only hit me then, hovering a foot above the ground, probably looking like a freakshow reject, that no matter my looks, I was probably one of the most powerful parahumans in the world right now.
Part of me was scared.
Another, wilder part of me wanted to laugh until I cried.
And I did, completely by accident. A change in pressure that, judging by the intensity and the resulting faraway screams, must have sounded like a thunderclap instead of laughter. Oops.
I set aside my aerokinesis and accessed my thirty foot clairvoyance. It was and wasn't like sight: there were no colors, just folds in space, almost like the area was a wireframe model I could feel. I could sense every mote of dust and every strand of hair, the tips of my clawed hands to the three heads on my winding, braided neck. The pens and pencils that were stuck within me, the blood that pooled and dripped from the hopefully cosmetic wounds. The person attacking me was female with long hair and an enviably athletic figure. There was something wrapped around her face, and she was attacking me with… darts? No, those were pens and pencils.
Female, so probably not Aegis then.
I tentatively labeled her as Shadow Stalker.
She shot at me again. I tried to float out of the way, accelerated too quickly and crashed into the lockers opposite mine, denting and sheering through the painted metal as easily as if it were a pane of sugar.
There was symmetry in the destruction. Behind me, my locker lay in a bloody ruin. The lockers next to my locker were bloody ruins. In front it was now the same.
I shook away the thought. Where had that come from?
I needed to get my bearings, I was still reeling from the attack, still acting like I was Taylor Hebert, powerless mortal.
Was that why Shadow Stalker was treating me with such hostility? Assuming that the bullied victim was going to pull a Carrie?
Thinking about that made me angry. If she was going to jump to conclusions like that she should have helped me like an actual hero, her secret identity be damned. She surely had training, it wouldn't be that difficult to fight without powers, or just say a word to stop things.
I tried speaking. It took a few tries for me to really grasp how difficult it was to use powers for things they hadn't originally been designed to do, but I managed it, after a fashion. Shadow Stalker had returned and tried to shoot again. With Alexandria's invincibility I let them bounce. As things were I had a far, far greater chance of accidentally turning the school to rubble than Shadow Stalker had of hurting me.
I was limited in the selection of sounds I could pronounce. Words were going to be difficult. I wanted to say 'stop,' but I couldn't quite work out how to attach the pee sound to the long aw. Divided them into chunks.
"Ay. Staw. Puh. Naw. Tuh. Foe."
She said something long and complicated enough that I couldn't parse it before shooting me again.
Damnit, I should have spent the time to get a more useful power. These weren't doing what I needed them to do.
"Suh-luh-oh," I said.
"Or…" she said, her voice accompanied by another riot of pressure changes. There was too much to interpret. The people running away made noise. The 'wind' was making noise. I was making noise.
I discarded my intuitive understanding of air. How could I listen in?
I had focused too much on how sound was created. I needed to understand people. I discarded a few emotion perceivers. Hoped for something that would get me close to psychic and found an intuitive comprehension of body language instead.
I allowed it time to load before realizing that I wouldn't be able to hear myself speak. Or, for that matter, tell if I was making the correct assembly of sounds with my air manipulation ability.
Fuck.
These powers were too overwhelming. I felt like a child given a supercomputer and told to code the game when all she wanted to do was play pong.
What would I do if I were just Taylor and not Eidolon?
Put like that the answer was simple. I didn't need to talk to communicate, I could just as easily write. Then the heroes could write back. Problem solved. That means all I needed was vision. Legend's lasers could be fine-tuned to the point where they could virtually become glow-in-the-dark paint. Maybe I could project words over my heads.
There, that freed up two slots. I let go of my air manipulation ability.
I was about to dismiss my comprehension of body language as well when it finished loading. Without Alexandria's enhanced cognition maybe I wouldn't have noticed it, not in that split second before I let it go, but with it I was without doubt. The way she moved, the way she angled her crossbow, the way she prowled.
Shadow Stalker was Sophia Hess.
A lot of things, a lot of little details, events that happened over the past year and a half, fell into place.
I had options now. With the way my powers worked I was pretty much made of options. Legend's lasers were versatile enough to be either lethal or incapacitating; Alexandria was the flying brick all other flying bricks aspired to; and Eidolon had a laughably huge number of ways to snap her out of her shadow state and then shove her in that filth she had prepared for her latest victim.
Taylor Hebert rammed through the closest surface, shooting through drywall, plumbing, electrical wire and brick like it was so much papier mache, shook off the resulting debris, and vanished in a burst of white light.
----------------------
1.02
I flew.
I didn't know what it was I felt, wasn't sure if there was word there that could properly express having a murder she wrote moment about my very own bullying campaign. There was a little bit of anger there, and a lot of ugly.
But hey: flight. Voted number one most popular power utility power on PHO, and here I was with two varieties.
I wanted to relax, wanted to enjoy it.
Couldn't.
Damn you Emma.
And damn you too Sophia.
I rose higher and higher, until my short range clairvoyance picked up the heavy cloud cover above the city, and then I was above that too. With my absolute awareness I could feel, but I wanted to see. I had two of Eidolon's slots open, and could sense the matrix of his potential abilities pulse with a steady stream of possibilities.
I grabbed another thinker power before it could disappear. This one interpreted the visible spectrum through the medium of my skin. Legend's affinity with light synergized with it to an absurd degree and combined I could 'see' in all directions for miles. With the way my body had changed, there was a lot of overlap, a lot of looking at myself through myself, but I could cope.
Words can't do the experience justice. The sky above was so blue it almost hurt to look at, and the sun a ball of pure white that surprisingly didn't. I was already far enough above the clouds to perceive them as a sea of dense white cotton stretching out into the distance, far farther than I would have expected.
I stopped and hovered. Like a switch being flicked, Legend's light went out as I transitioned out of his breaker state.
A younger Taylor would have wanted to carve her names in the clouds. Something to wow herself, her friends.
I… what did I want?
I floated, not serene, not okay, but not drowning in the ugliness either.
I felt better, being here, seeing this. If I didn't pay attention to the background fuzz of my power sense, I could almost imagine I was alone.
Free.
I ran a claw-tipped hand through my hair. Neck? Damn, but my new form was weird, my hair weaving together into cords and then ribbons as they passed through my torso.
I took a deep, mental breath. I wanted… I wanted to be everything Shadow Stalker was not. I wanted to be someone who was kind, someone who cared, someone who protected and helped others.
In short, I wanted to be a hero. To do that…
I raised my four arms, fiddling with the pool of Legend's power sitting in my chest.
Fired.
The first blast was terrifyingly off the mark, a column of light that could have engulfed and leveled buildings, spearing straight up through the empty sky.
I gaped. On an intellectual level I knew he was the blaster of the Triumvirate but, holy shit I had wanted to use that laser to write messages.
I tried again; this time, the beam was tighter, more concentrated, giving it the sort of punch that I presumed Legend would deploy against Endbringers or high end brutes.
Damn, but his ability was complicated. Making lasers that could turn corners, split into a baker's dozen and impart various other effects was more labor intensive than simply willing them into existence. I felt my respect for the man grow in grudging leaps and bounds. Of the Triumvirate his power felt the messiest, something kludged together with too many parts, many of them working at cross-purposes.
Kind of like mine, in a way. I still recalled the feel of my own power, the sickly, prickling edges of it. Comprehension, selection, administration, all mashed together.
Eidolon's power was the opposite in a way: hard as it was to fathom, he seemed to be missing pieces, while Alexandria was weirdly 'perfect.' Not in the sense that hers was the best power, but it felt like the most elegant, most economical. Minimum effort for maximum effect.
Eidolon's was undeniably useful though. His kept on offering me thinker powers, crutches that would make it trivial to control and maintain Legend's firepower. I kept turning them down. If Legend could do it without outside aid, then I'd almost certainly be able to do it with Alexandria's help.
I brought forth yet another beam of light, narrowing its focus and lowering its output. Only a few more adjustments and I could use it for something resembling communication instead of, say, building demolitions.
I felt a power approach and automatically re-oriented, all three of my heads swivelling. Two of them knocked against each other. Dumb, I could see just as well from the soles of my feet as from my heads. Anyway, they were below the clouds, and I wouldn't be able to see them through my skin. I checked with my power sense instead.
Flight, strength, emotion aura, forcefield.
The emotion aura cinched it, but... seriously, Glory Girl had a forcefield? I thought she was supposed to be a straight Alexandria package with an emotion aura. Less raw power, less speed, but outside the context of an Endbringer or a brute like Lung that barely mattered.
Others were rising too, if slower: that'd be Photon Mom and her daughter Laserdream most likely.
Had to hurry if I wanted to get Legend's lasers down before they made it up here.
A dozen attempts later, I had something almost workable. I'd finally figured out how to leave a trace in the air that would linger. A laser whose intensity was as low as it got, joined to a laser that slowed things down. Wouldn't really work in a fight, the slowing laser was itself incredibly slow, but the slowing aspect would hit the low intensity laser, all but freezing it in place. I could use it to write, draw, whatever.
It was crude, but I'd take crude if it let me explain myself.
Glory Girl made it past the cloud cover where she stopped, hovering. I could see her, maybe a mile or so below, in all her fully costumed – excuse the word choice – glory. White dress, cape, tiara. Now that I was looking for it, I could see the forcefield: her golden hair didn't budge in the wind, and neither did her dress. She probably wasn't even cold.
Her head was turning: she was looking for me.
How had she known I'd still be up here? Were people spitballing? Using thinkers?
Didn't really matter. I descended towards her, Legend's breaker state turning me lightbulb bright. I crossed the distance in less than the blink of an eye. I had hoped to appear in front of her, but landed somewhere behind her instead.
And then further, piercing through the clouds.
Oops.
The light went out as I burst back up, trailing mist. I thought it looked badass.
Glory Girl turned and flinched.
It wasn't dramatic. It was on the same level as an involuntary spasm that happens when a C-list horror movie throws in yet another jump scare. But the expression she made... I'd seen it on myself enough times to know it. Fear, or something close enough to it. Gone a moment later, but that didn't erase the fact I had seen it, that she had made it.
Was my appearance really that off-putting? Or was it the helmets, the implied powers?
She backed away, only half a step, the gesture probably a habit of her earthbound reflexes, one hand briefly cupping her ear, the other held in front of her fingers splayed. She began to speak, slow, deliberate, but neither my short range clairvoyance nor my light perception powers were up to the task of decoding her words. I couldn't read lips, and feeling the air move was hugely less useful than my earlier aerokinesis.
Helen Keller might have learned how to understand someone by stuffing her hand in the other person's mouth, but that was a little beyond my abilities, Alexandria's thinker abilities or no.
I raised three of my own hands, fingers identically splayed, and after a moment's hesitation, started to write in the air with my fourth.
Glory Girl immediately dropped back beneath the cloud cover.
I looked at the empty space she had just occupied, my hastily scrawled I CAN'T SP hanging in the air, reversed so she'd be able to read it.
I wasn't surprised when she burst through the clouds from below: my power sense allowed me to keep a bead on her. She was probably thinking three heads, 360 degree view, try to surprise me by coming at an angle I couldn't grasp.
To be fair she did surprise me. I hadn't expected the attack.
To be a little less generous, I hadn't expected it because I hadn't done anything.
I caught the attack on one chin and the world lurched as I spun wildly around. Both Legend and Alexandria's modes of flight tried to kick in at the same time to correct for the spin and I overcompensated, spiralling in the opposite direction, bursting through the clouds towards the city below.
I would have corrected, but Glory Girl kept hitting me, pounding away with a reckless tenacity. I hunched my shoulders, dipped my heads, tried to ward off any blows to the craniums. I wanted to close my eyes, but to do that I'd need to lose my perception power, so I could do was see the blows coming, each one capable of going through concrete. I tried to point to one of my mouths, get her to understand that I couldn't speak. Either she didn't understand or didn't care.
And then it was Sophia punching and kicking me, a sneer on her face.
I knew it wasn't really her, but the experience was still off-putting. I panicked, tried to get away, create some distance so I get my thoughts in order, but my flight powers kept misfiring, and Glory Girl wasn't that slow. My inexperience combined with having four arms and a really bizarre sense of feel made any attempt at retaliating feeble at best.
Stop it! I wanted to yell. Just – just stop!
She did.
I hadn't even realized I'd picked up another of Eidolon's powers until I noticed why Glory Girl had stopped: she was plummeting away, her thoughts temporarily derailed by a field of absolute mental torpor that surrounded me. Her last hit had come from above so she was falling with all the speed her power gave her, and gravity.
I took half a second to place the other two members of New Wave, decided they wouldn't catch up nearly quick enough, mentally cursed and dove after her.
I wasn't sure what sort of impact the forcefield could tank, but decided not to have my first high-profile action as parahuman be attacking and killing the city's darling Alexandria-lite by accident.
Why couldn't she have just waited?
That thought must have triggered something: I went into Legend's breaker state and then went way too fast, shooting past Glory Girl and nearly hitting a high rise near central downtown. I could see her, clear as I could see the people below. She was still falling, caught in a classic action figure pose.
Damn, but I was a bad flier. I was a really, phenomenally bad flier. This would almost be funny if it wasn't threatening to become tragic.
I kicked off the air and zoomed back up, abandoned the stupid knock out field, searching for a different Eidolon power. Telekinesis, tractor beam, gravity, precise teleportation, any of those would work if I had enough fine control.
Instead, as choices, I received invisibility, consciousness-suppressing powers, and color changing beams.
Fuck you too Eidolon.
My power sense picked up another cape. Aegis was on the scene… and his flight was way, way too slow.
Would one other person in this city being able to break the sound barrier be too much to ask for?
I flashed forward, again too fast, too far. One of the New Wavers tried to take a pot shot at me.
I ignored it, and tried again.
And again.
And again.
Like my adjustment with Legend's lasers, each burst allowed me to learn a little more, make myself better, more precise. I was moving at scary speeds, the sort that should have been leaving sonic booms in my wake but weren't because of Legend's breaker state.
And then I was there, flying parallel to her.
My success was more a matter of happy accident then intent, so much so that I nearly blasted away again before I realized I'd reached my goal.
I caught her, one pair of arms clutching her awkwardly around the middle, and then I was trying to slow us down.
A beam of white light caught one of my faces. This time I did what I should have done with Glory Girl and ignored the attack. I was five kinds of invincible, unless it was someone like Heartbreaker trying to take control I wasn't going to be too miffed about people trying to hit me. I directed us to the beach, and then slowly, stutteringly brought us down, dragging furrows into the sand as we landed.
My new form was heavy: I sank almost halfway to my knee.
If this were a movie, Glory Girl would have chosen that moment to wake up, but she was still out. She would be for at least another hour or so.
When they were good, Eidolon's powers were good.
I tried to make sure she was comfortable, then got up, and immediately began writing, making sure I'd get my message out first before they could attack. I was expecting the fastest heroes to take up to half a minute if not more to arrive. In that span of time I'd hopefully be able to write enough to get them to understand my position. I made the letters big, at least foot high blocks, keeping track as powers converged on me.
I felt someone teleport in or around Winslow – they had an unfamiliar combination of powers, but it was a potent one. It felt oddly familiar, and with a jolt I realized that its signature was one of mine.
Eidolon. Here. He discarded discarded his two other powers, started choosing two others.
The most powerful member of the Triumvirate? I re-doubled my efforts.
GG is fine. She'll wake up in an hour.
Stop attacking me. I can't hear, or speak. Write down what you want to say and I'll do the same.
I want to –
I'd overestimated my writing speed, and underestimated the New Wave fliers. I moved back as Photon Mom tried to wrap me in a forcefield bubble, while Laserdream did the same with Glory Girl. Both were flying, their white, indigo and pink starburst pattern bodysuits standing out against the drab, gray sky. They weaved and ducked, but I was tracking them with no less than three different senses.
Someone faster, but travelling from farther away landed on the beach as well, kicking up sand and surf as they landed. Their armored battlesuit bristled with gun nozzles and missile launchers. It had a bit of a T-Rex/King Kong look, a giant head, bulky body, and arms that descended to the level of their feet. The enormous face, protruding nose, recessed eyes – it was lizardlike.
Dragon? Here? Alongside Eidolon? Why?
That was two big names from out of town. They were treating me like I was an A-class threat. Lung and fucking Kaiser didn't get this kind of treatment.
Her armored suit looked around, and then one of the panels on her suit flipped around, revealing a thin computer screen, complete with a keyboard. It lit up a second later with a single word, white on black.
[SURRENDER.]
I had a vivid recollection of Glory Girl just before she'd started attacking me. If I recalled how her lips moved – yes, I was ninety percent she'd been asking for my surrender too.
Why?
Shadow Stalker? My appearance? I kept a bit of my focus on the other two members of New Wave.
[PLEASE.]
Oh, well that made everything peachy-keen. I wanted to groan in frustration.
I moved to write more, fingertips lighting up. Dragon didn't give me a chance. The panel with the monitor flipped around to reveal armor as she shot at me with a stream of high pressured containment foam fifty feet long. With Lady Photon and Laserdream registering so much more brightly on my power sense, I had a moment of blank incomprehension, unable to quite process a power that wasn't actually a power, before dodging away at the last second.
Damn.
On the upside, I was getting used to my power sense. On the downside: I was getting used to my powersense. I was already treating it as more reliable than eyesight.
Dragon took to the air, the jets propelling her up burning with a blue flame as the sand beneath her feet turned to glass.
She landed between me and Glory Girl, unloading a payload of oddly shaped missiles which split apart mid-air into hundreds of tiny, razor-thin projectiles. Each streaked towards me with incredible speed. This was an attack designed to take on or distract a speedster.
Well, it was succeeding. I left a trail of cooling glass in my wake as I kicked myself backwards, out of the area of immediate attack, and then continued hopping as they followed, lightning fast. A violent kick created a wave of sand that caught a few which exploded into veritable walls of containment foam. Lady Photon and Laserdream were attacking as well, but I barely had to focus to dodge their attacks. Dragon was making me work at it.
Something dropped out from beneath Dragon's undercarriage, ball shaped, with little anti-grav panels on the exterior. It was shaped a bit like the one-man Empire spacecraft from Star Wars.
Somehow it picked Glory Girl up and began towing her away from the battle.
This completely, one hundred percent unnecessary battle.
I tried to calm down. The last time I panicked, I'd nearly killed Glory Girl. None of the people here could actually hurt me, and Dragon was limiting herself to non-lethal weaponry. Depending on how effective the containment foam was, that made her more dangerous, not less, but I didn't need to panic. It was why I was still here instead of fleeing at hypersonic speeds. If I just explained myself, if I could just get them to listen…
The fastest members of the Protectorate were arriving. Dauntless and Velocity first, Armsmaster not far behind.
I knew it even before Dauntless threw his spear at me: they weren't here to back me up.
My heart plummeted as I dodged the electrically charged projectiles. These weren't the actions of a few cowboy cops jumping the gun, a group of independents and a big name from the Guild, this was a sustained campaign. There was even a thinker trying to pin me down. I'd never heard of them, but they were part of it.
Worst of all was Eidolon. The bright nimbus of his power growing even as I looked for him, some sort of trump power that'd let him tap into other available powers, the teleportation power I'd sensed before, and power immunity that he could grant others. Soon he'd overshadow everyone else in the city. The scent of his power was so sharp, so bitter, I could almost sense the hostility radiating off him. He was spoiling for a fight.
I could feel myself react to that hostility, feel the stranger powers Eidolon's last slot was suggesting slowly shift towards blasters and strikers.
Damn them all. If they wanted to attack this badly I'd oblige them. I began repurposing Legend's lasers as I simultaneously worked my way through Eidolon's current selection of powers. I picked a sound-based ability and allowed it to slowly load. Well, not quite sound, vibrations. It would be good for debilitating but non-lethal long-ranged attacks, and within the range of my clairvoyance I would have enough fine control to vibrate the inner ear and induce nausea, loss of balance, and so on. Less useful against Dragon who wasn't physically present as a person, but she was packing a lot of delicate electronics within chassis. All it would take – I sent a flash of harmless energy at Dragon who crashed through it and retaliated with another spurt of high-pressure containment foam – was a little time.
When Eidolon flickered into existence fifty feet above us, I wasn't sure I'd get it. His cape hung from his shoulders, a heavy blue-green mantle that fit him like it did so few people. I'd never heard of him as being charismatic, but he had presence. I could sense it in the way everyone present moved a little, unconsciously making room for him and probably keeping an eye on him.
He held up a hand. Dragon stepped back, as did the New Wavers, and local Protectorate. I bristled, ready for him. He had a ridiculously good teleportation power, an immunity to powers power, and was somehow borrowing powers from all the other heroes' who were present.
He wasn't borrowing my powers though. Was he underestimating me?
No, he was trying to, he just couldn't. A perk of my altered biology?
For some reason, he wasn`t attacking. Neither were the heroes. They were probably waiting for others to arrive. I wasn't about to complain if it allowed me to finish my own preparations. I adjusted Legend's laser for maximum coverage and minimum intensity. A bright light: hopefully it'd blind them without hurting them.
We all stood there, breathless, waiting. Dragon was doing something to her suit, but I didn't dare spare the attention I had focused on Eidolon. He was the threat.
My power finally finished loading. It came equipped with a minor thinker power that allowed me to interpret sound waves.
I could hear again. Far, far better than I would as a human being. I was bombarded by useless details: the sound of the surf against the sand, the hiss of molten glass as it cooled, the beating of the metallic slurry that acted as Dragon's blood, and the incredible minutiae of life. I could hear hearts beat, blood flow, perspiration drip, lips move, and teeth clack.
I adjusted my perceptions, then adjusted them again. It felt like turning the knob on the car radio, listening for a station that wasn't static. My experience fine-tuning Legend's lasers, and my horrific flight powers were put to good use. Eidolon's powers were significantly more intuitive.
Then I managed it.
"-hold," a man was saying. "She's calming down."
Eidolon.
I must have done something, given away a tell, because his voice softened. "You can hear me now, can't you?"
All three of my heads nodded slowly. I realized that Dragon had been trying to get my attention with her computer screen, but I'd ignored it, like I'd nearly ignored the containment foam earlier. She'd popped open the computer panel again. Words were written on the screen.
[Sorry, I'd like talk.]
Oh.
From my power sense Eidolon still appeared to be radiating hostility. I couldn't help but compare him to Emma on one of her bad days. Something was definitely wrong with that analysis though: he'd calmed everyone down, he'd stopped the fight.
Well, almost.
"She doesn't look like she's calming down," a voice said, echoed quietly in a dozen places.
The speaker wasn't within range of my absolute awareness, but I could ballpark the general area. It was probably Dauntless or Velocity. One of my heads swung towards them.
A whisper, this time, accompanied by even softer whispers: "She heard that?"
A female voice, her accent difficult to place said: "Taylor, can you hear us?"
I nodded again.
For some reason, everyone looked relieved. A tenseness to their motions vanished. Someone muttered 'thank goodness.'
"That's good. That makes this easier," Eidolon said. "I'm going to touch down now. Are you okay with that?"
Nod.
He slowly drifted down, every move calculated to look harmless, which was quite the feat given who he was. He was short, which helped. Not obviously so, but standing close to a six foot something Armsmaster made him seem less imposing.
"Can you speak?"
I couldn't, not really, but I could copy what others had said. All I needed to do was vibrate the air in precisely the same way they had vibrated it.
Alexandria's memory, my shaker power and…
"Can, speak, okay," I said, using Eidolon's voice. The words were choppy, disconnected, like how you might hear an automatic voice message system recite a number.
"Freaky," someone commented. I couldn't quite tell who. Someone else muttered "screamer," but I wasn't sure why.
Dragon cut in. I could tell because words were appearing on her screen in sync with the words she spoke.
"I'd like to apologize. After you left Winslow, the rest of your body was discovered in your locker. We jumped to conclusions about who was responsible. I should have verified first, like Eidolon did."
I remembered. 'Sploop.'
I could understand why they'd reacted the way they did. It didn't necessarily explain the sudden A-lister response, but it was at least comprehensible.
"I... really do hope you can forgive us for that," she continued. "Me, especially. A lot of what happened today is my fault. This isn't how I would have wanted us to meet."
"Okay," I said, using Eidolon's voice again. "That's, okay."
I heard another whispered voice, emanating from a dozen places. "Is no one going to mention that she turned the sky above BB into a seizure-inducing lightshow and scared the pants off Madam Director or-"
The voice cut out abruptly.
"Clockblocker, maintain radio discipline," Armsmaster said curtly, lips moving beneath the visor of his helmet.
The shock that I was listening in on as minute a source as their individual earbuds was outweighed by the shock of comprehension. Now I understood the A-lister response. I hadn't really been thinking when I started experimenting with Legend's lasers. The sky had been covered in clouds, and I had thought that no one… would… see…
Well, that explained how Glory Girl had known where to find me.
It probably explained Dragon's presence too: she maintained several satellites, right?
"Are you willing to come with us to the Protectorate HQ? As a guest. We can get your injuries looked at too."
I wanted to nod, but then I realized.
Uh, injuries?
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=> 1.03
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OverReactionGuy
Verified Sanity
Not bad, certainty different from the first ones. But I have two questions.
Is Sophia going to get in trouble for attempted murder? Or is Taylor going to get in trouble for defending herself when the hero's attacked first, leading her to leave and go around the world like the other version?
@FixerUpper
I like it, though I have a few questions. How big is Taylor right now? Once she uses a power is it gone forever, or can she only use a power in her range?
I like it, though I have a few questions. How big is Taylor right now? Once she uses a power is it gone forever, or can she only use a power in her range?
Both are going to be addressed later, but for your first question: from an objective point of view, attempted murder is going to be hugely difficult to pin on Sophia. She saw an eldritch-y monster appear out of a locker accompanied by the headless corpse of a young girl. That kind of thing counts as an extenuating circumstance, pretty sure.
Taylor's as big as canon Tohu. That's too say, roughly human-sized. Six and a half feet, tops.
As for the other questions: you'll see!
OverReactionGuy
Verified Sanity
You know, I just realized something. If Kaiju were real in worm, Taylor could control the giant pray mantis kaiju, the giant worm Kaiju, the giant crab kaiju, and Mothra.
Ridtom
Good. Bad. I'm the man with the Wand.
We the birth of Entity spawn in one of Krouse's visions.... how many Entities are there?
He says that there are "innumerable". So I guess it depends?
OverReactionGuy
Verified Sanity
Yeah, it depends on what the author wants if the character says something vague like "innumerable" and the like.
On the other hand, if Taylor is at any point asked why she was in the locker in the first place...