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Wyvern - Worm AU fanfic

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Yet another Altpower!Taylor fic. She gains yet another set of powers in the locker; it now...
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    • Ack

    Ack

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    Australia
    Yet another Altpower!Taylor fic. She gains yet another set of powers in the locker; it now remains to be seen what she will be doing with them.

    Disclaimers:
    1) This story is set in the Wormverse, which is owned by Wildbow. Thanks for letting me use it.
    2) I will follow canon as closely as I can. If I find something that canon does not cover, I will make stuff up. If canon then refutes me, I will revise. Do not bother me with fanon; corrections require citations.
    3) I welcome criticism of my works, but if you tell me that something is wrong, I also expect an explanation of what is wrong, and a suggestion of how to fix it. Note that I do not promise to follow any given suggestion.

    Index
    Part One: Inception (below)
    Part Two: How to ... Yeah, Not Going There
    Part Three: Handling Matters
    Part Four: Escalation
    Part Five: Discussions
    Part Six: Meddle Not in the Affairs of Dragons ...
    Part Seven: ... For You Are Crunchy, and Go Well With Ketchup
    Part Eight: All Dressed Up
    Part Nine: Stinger!
    Part Ten: Changing Fortunes
    Part Eleven: Show and Tell
    Part Twelve: Bugging the Dragon
    Part Thirteen: Growing Pains
    Part Fourteen: New Developments
    Part Fifteen: Hidden Conflicts
    Part Sixteen: That Went Places
    Part Seventeen: Escalation Central
    Part Eighteen: No Sale
    Part Nineteen: The Dreaded Slaughterhouse Arc (1) - Our Day in Court
    Part Twenty: The Dreaded Slaughterhouse Arc (2) - Farewell, Seven of Nine
    Part Twenty-One: Dealing With the Wyvern in the Room
    Part Twenty-Two: Getting the Measure
    Part Twenty-Three: The Proposition
    Part Twenty-Four: Draconic Measures
    Part Twenty-Five: Operation Ellisburg

    Omake: The Hand that Feeds ( @SwiftRosenthal )
    Omake: Wyvern vs Slaughterhouse Nine ( @Dr. Mercurious )
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Part One: Inception
  • Threadmarks
    • Wyvern

    Part One: Inception


    Flying.

    I was flying, chill air flowing past stretched membranes. Gliding, then flapping again, arm and shoulder muscles aching.

    I've never done this before. How do I know how to do it? Instinct?

    I hope it gets easier.

    Below, buildings slid past. A city. The buildings were old, decrepit. Somehow, I knew that I was flying east. Toward the ocean that beckoned.

    Why am I flying? How am I flying? Why are my arms wings now? Why am I flying toward the ocean?

    I stopped flapping for a few moments, allowed myself to glide once more. The wind drummed over the expanse of red-gold membrane that made up my wings, stretched between what had once been my fingers, my arms. Covered in fine scales, of the same colour as my wings, that winked back pinpoints of light in the weak January sunlight.

    What happened?

    I didn't know. I wasn't sure of much. I had only been flying for a few minutes, but where I was flying from was less certain than where I was flying to.

    Even who I was was uncertain. My name …

    "Who am I?" I tried to ask out loud. My jaws opened; I got the impression of a muzzle, and a croaking screech was all I heard. My tongue tasted the air, then ran over my teeth. Fangs, rather; all sharp, and far more than I'd had before …

    How do I know that?

    I didn't know how I knew. I knew I was human, despite my current shape. Which I knew little enough of, to be honest. Arms turned into wings, check. Red-gold scales, check. Muzzle, check.

    The buildings below were beginning to get uncomfortably close. I summoned up more energy, began flapping once more. A cross-wind buffeted me; I shifted to compensate, using my tail as balance and rudder both – tail?

    A glance over my shoulder showed that yes, I had a tail. Looking down and under myself showed legs, folded up beneath me, covered in … something. Something that stank.

    I now knew why I was flying toward the ocean.

    I needed water.

    Lots of water.

    The ocean was close, now. This was a good thing. My arms were tired. A joke surfaced in my mind – I just flew in from New York, and boy my arms are tired – and it didn't seem so funny any more.

    In the ocean ahead, in the bay – Brockton Bay, I recalled. The city below was named for the bay – was a technological citadel, a home for the Protectorate. I blinked, eyelids moving in odd ways, as memories slotted into place. That long street is called Lord Street. And that's the Boardwalk.

    "Hey!"

    I jolted in midair as the voice called out beside me; so focused had I been on my own emerging thoughts that I hadn't paid attention to my surroundings. My wings lost purchase on the air and I dropped a dozen feet before I corrected that. When I was gliding properly once more, I risked a glance sideways.

    There, paralleling me, was a teenage girl; white-clad, wearing a tiara over her blonde hair. She was keeping pace with me fairly easily, almost lounging in the air. Right. For her it's easy.

    A name surfaced in my memory. Glory Girl.

    Okay, so I can remember everyone else's names. Why not mine?

    Forgetting my inability to vocalise, I tried to reply. "Uh, hi?"

    What I got was, "Ooo-ah?" In a sort of screechy, velociraptor sort of accent.

    She frowned, marring that perfect brow. "Can't talk English?"

    Closing my muzzle – not wanting her to think that I was about to try to attack her with my startlingly large collection of needle-sharp teeth – I nodded firmly, then shook my head.

    "Yes, no?" She paused. "Can't talk, can understand?"

    This time, I nodded vigorously.

    " … ah, right. Okay, gotta ask you to land, so I can talk to you, okay?"

    Looking down, I saw that we were crossing Lord Street. I angled my wings into a dive.

    "Hey!" she shouted, catching up, even as I accelerated. "I'm talking to you, here!"

    How do I say, "I know, but I've got to do this?" in dinosaur? It was a conundrum.

    The cool waters, twinkling in the morning sunlight, were just ahead, coming up fast. I angled into a steeper dive.

    "Hey!" yelled Glory Girl, reaching for me. I twitched my wing out of the way, rolling smoothly to the side. Huh, something I can do.

    She tried again; I barrel-rolled over her, and folded my wings back.

    "You can't dodge forever -" she began, and then we hit the water.

    <><>​

    Cool silence surrounded me. I spread my wings once more, letting myself float in the dimness. The dreadful things that had been clinging to my legs drifted off, floated away, as I kicked. I rolled my eyes upward, the nictitating membranes allowing me to see clearly, even under water. Glory Girl was gathering herself, flying upward, leaving just ripples behind.

    I would have to follow soon; although at home in the water, I didn't have gills. So I folded my arms against my sides once more; my legs kicked and my tail waved, and I started toward the surface.

    As I moved upward, so did more memories emerge from the darkness.

    <><>​

    "Hey, there she is."

    "Fuck, I nearly didn't see her."

    "Is it just me, or is she even skinnier than before Christmas?"

    "Anyone else has a Christmas dinner – Hebert has a Christmas puke."

    "She just has to look in the mirror."

    I ventured through the halls of Winslow, seeking my locker. I had imagined that they were letting up over November and December, but it must have been a ploy to get my guard down. They certainly weren't letting up now.

    "She's so skinny that she has to run around in the shower to get wet."

    "Mustn't do it all that much. I can smell her from here."

    "Pee-yew! She probably took a puke just before she came in here."

    Maybe it was just the power of suggestion, but I could smell something horrible now, too. My cheeks burning from the hurtful words – I never asked to be skinny – I hunched my shoulders and walked past them.

    "So how old do you think she'll be before she actually grows breasts?"

    "I don't think there's that many years on the calendar."

    "Well, it's not like she'll need them – she's too ugly and skinny to ever get a boyfriend."

    "I hear that when she goes for a walk in the park, all the perverts button up their raincoats and go home."

    "She'd need a boob job just to get the tits of a twelve year old."

    "A twelve year old boy."

    Trying not to listen, I reached my locker. A rancid smell emanated from it. I knew, with a sinking feeling, that they had done something to it. Something horrible. But, just as it's almost impossible to look away from a train wreck, I couldn't not see what was inside the locker.

    Bending over the lock, I entered the combination. Concentrating on ignoring the stink, I didn't look behind me.

    That was my mistake.

    <><>​

    I emerged from the water feeling much cleaner; my speed put me a good body-length above the water. This gave me the chance to get my wings into operation; spraying salt water in all directions, I rose into the air.

    "Hey."

    This time, I was less than surprised; Glory Girl hovered there, looking a little more bedraggled than before. Her skirt hung damply, her blonde hair was flat against her head, and she had lost the tiara. She also looked less than impressed.

    I gave her my best inquiring look. She pointed toward the beach. "Land. Now."

    She could fly faster than me; although I was much better under water, I didn't really want to tangle with her. Angling forward, I glided toward the beach. Fortunately, this being January, it was almost totally unpopulated; I came in for a neat landing on the hard wet sand just above where the tiny waves washed back and forth, and folded my wings. Due to my odd body shape, I had to lean forward a little, large clawed feet gripping the sand and my tail balancing from behind.

    Glory Girl alighted beside me and looked at me, folding her arms. Carefully, I straightened up so that we were eye to eye. "Okay," she asked, "so who are you?"

    Opening my mouth, I replied with an unintelligible screech.

    Closing her eyes as if in pain, she rubbed her forehead. "You can't speak any English at all?"

    That was easy; I shook my head.

    "Uh … okay. You're human, yeah?"

    After a moment of hesitation, I nodded.

    "Are you a case fifty-three?"

    I paused, blinking. Then I shrugged; with wings that could cover maybe twenty feet of span, and elbows that now almost touched the ground, I could really shrug.

    "Okay, let's make that a maybe. Do you remember who you are?"

    <><>​

    I was trapped inside the locker, unable to get out. Taunting laughter from outside, fading away. I couldn't get out. I struggled, screamed. I wasn't good enough to get out. Not strong enough.

    "Too skinny and ugly ..."

    There was a moment of discontinuity. Things began to change. I began to change. I had strength now; I had muscle. I pushed at the door, ripped at it with the talons on my feet. It resisted. I opened my mouth, inhaled the noxious fumes.

    What came from my mouth was more in the nature of an explosion than mere flame; perhaps I was igniting something in the mess beneath me. In any case, it wrecked the locker, bending the ones on either side to hell and gone. I sprawled on the floor, struggled to my feet. My clothes were gone; I wore a new form. Red-gold scales, arms lengthened into wings, a strong tail behind. I did not fit any more into any reasonable definition of 'human'. I had to get out of here. I had to clean the stink of Winslow from me.

    I ran, scuttled, down the hallway. Burst out through the doors. Spread my wings for the very first time.

    The ocean was east. I flew that way.

    <><>​

    I reached out with a wingtip, and in the hard sand, I wrote, MY NAME IS TAYLOR HEBERT.

    As she absorbed that, I added three more words.

    PLEASE HELP ME.


    End of Part One

    Part Two
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Lung is gonna have an aneurysm when he hears about this.

    Lung: This is my mountain! My Treasures! Raaaaaaaar
    Oni lee: But oh Lung the great and terrible, beg pardon, but she would make a good mate, aye?"
    Lung: Hmmmmmmmm. HMMMMMMMMM. Okay, I'll go capture her and bring her back to my lair. Now hit me, so I can ramp up and get wings.
     
    DRAGON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Hopefully this will fill the void of the other dragon!Taylor story that was discontinued. :(

    Then the one that wont be updated in awhile.
     
    So, either a Case 53 or Changer power that is stuck on. Flying gives a Mover rating. The explosive breath will give a Blaster rating as well. Considering that dragons are usually pretty tough, a Brute rating is also expected. Altogether, a dragon-shaped Alexandria package. There also might be a minor Thinker rating to go with it for enhanced sense of smell/vision.
     
    Taylor wouldn't be classified as a case!53 due to the fact that she has her memories.

    It is more than likely a changer power that is stuck on though.
     
    If I wasn't so aware of my own lack of writing skills, I always wanted to have a go at a Monster Hunter multiple form changer Taylor fic.

    Since I am well aware that I can't write worth a damn, I'll just have to hope this gets close.

     
    apeljohn said:
    IIRC the difference between a dragon and a wyvern is that dragons have four limbs plus wings, whilst wyverns only have two lower legs plus wings. (Thus making them significantly more plausible from an evolutionary perspective - they're perfectly normal tetrapods, honest :D)
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    Wyverns are a type of dragon. But yes, Taylor is a wyvern. (even though she currently thinks she's some sort of dinosaur. Except for the explosive breath thing).
     
    Actually, I thought (and could be wrong, so I'm just putting this out there) that the difference between 'dragon' and 'wyvern' was whatever whoever was writing about them wanted it to be because it was only ever something that came up in stories so there's so many different ways it has been done.

    I don't really care either way. When a big scaly thing with sharp teeth comes charging at me for a snack, screw definitions!

    *edit* also, anyone else imagining Taylor sunning herself on a roof somewhere with her head draped over the side, only to have Lung come walking past prompting them both to casually nod at each other? Sort of a "oh hey, another dragon, sup?"
     
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    Franklymydear said:
    Actually, I thought (and could be wrong, so I'm just putting this out there) that the difference between 'dragon' and 'wyvern' was whatever whoever was writing about them wanted it to be because it was only ever something that came up in stories so there's so many different ways it has been done.

    I don't really care either way. When a big scaly thing with sharp teeth comes charging at me for a snack, screw definitions!

    *edit* also, anyone else imagining Taylor sunning herself on a roof somewhere with her head draped over the side, only to have Lung come walking past prompting them both to casually nod at each other? Sort of a "oh hey, another dragon, sup?"
    Click to expand...
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    Mayyyybe.
     
    Franklymydear said:
    You 'maybe'ed my whole post. That is the least of useful things!

    Also, you liked the post including Rathalos' roar and I'm taking that as permission to assume that's how Taylor sounds even though I would have assumed that anyway because I've played too much Monster Hunter to hear it any other way.
    Click to expand...
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    I think Ack is one of those authors that like all posts in their threads. So it would be kinda hard to tell either way.
     
    Franklymydear said:
    You 'maybe'ed my whole post. That is the least of useful things!

    Also, you liked the post including Rathalos' roar and I'm taking that as permission to assume that's how Taylor sounds even though I would have assumed that anyway because I've played too much Monster Hunter to hear it any other way.
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    Taylor, as noted, sounds rather like a velociraptor.

    As for the 'maybe', I was referring to the Lung thing.
     
    Wyvern, huh? Innnnteresting! I wonder if she has any sort of regeneration, and just how much heat she can handle. As well as if she can turn back or not! It would be, well... pretty inconvenient/life-changing if she's stuck this way forever.
     
    For my money a traditional dragon has 2 more appendages than a Wyvern. Wyverns don't have front legs, dragons do. Otherwise, fairly similar.
     
    Chojomeka said:
    ....my question is just what is the state of Winslow High School? :ogles::drevil:;):p:D
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    Probably with either a new hole in the roof, or an hole instead of a door.

    May also be on fire. Or have screaming students on fire. Or simple screaming stundents not on fire(How boring). It also may be on fire with the students screaming but not on fire, which would be an interesting variation!
     
    Numen said:
    Lung is gonna have an aneurysm when he hears about this.

    Lung: This is my mountain! My Treasures! Raaaaaaaar
    Oni lee: But oh Lung the great and terrible, beg pardon, but she would make a good mate, aye?"
    Lung: Hmmmmmmmm. HMMMMMMMMM. Okay, I'll go capture her and bring her back to my lair. Now hit me, so I can ramp up and get wings.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    The group of men and women nervously looked into one of the smaller machine shops as the sound of a hammer striking hot metal continued to echo throughout the Dockyard. Nervous whispering could nearly be heard as everyone argued back and forth between hammer strikes until one of them was finally forced pushed blackmailed volunteered to enter the room.

    For a few brief minutes a deafening silence hung over the Dockyard only to resume as the sacrifice red shirt 2 days til retirement guy came out.

    "It's alright!" *CLANG! CLANG!* "He isn't becoming a Supervillain!" *CLANG! CLANG!* "He's just in.." *CLANG!* "..homicidal.." *CLANG!* "..Father.." *CLANG!* "..mode!"

    Everyone: "Oh!"

    "....so what's he building then?"

    "A suit of armor."

    {Sometime Later}

    Armsmaster continued to watch the new "Silver Knight"s fight with Lung from the safety of his lab as he tested the popcorn maker addition for his next bike upgrade.

    'Hmm, maybe I should add a automatic dispenser for flavored powders.'

    "Hey, Colin?"

    "Yes, DRAGON?"

    "Would you mind if I implicated Saint for Lung's recent behavior?"

    {Somewhere Else}

    *Spit-take!*

    Saint: "WHAT?!"

    :p
     
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