Disclaimer: I do not own Worm, but I would love to own Taylor.
Start Up 1.1
She blinked, her vision blurry as she came to on the floor, the smell still surrounding her and her limbs burning in pain from where her muscles had cramped up hours ago. She experimentally stretched her arm, wincing as the muscle protested the movement. "How did I get out?" She turned her head, the loss of her glasses and the darkness keeping her from being able to see any fine details
The locker was open. She carefully began to move, each movement being met with stabs of pain as she felt around for her glasses. She hissed as she found the broken lenses on the floor. She clutched her hand around the wound as she picked herself up and pressed against the lockers, her breath heavy as she used it for support.. Thankfully she didn't need her eyes to make it to the front doors. She pressed her hand to the locker and pushed herself the rest of the way to her feet as a tingle caused her arm to surge with cold. She slowly crept forward, hoping it wasn't too late to catch a bus. Brockton Bay's public transport was well designed, but it wasn't the kind of place you went out after dark unless you lived in one of the rich areas, or unless you were looking for trouble.
Her aching legs slowly loosened up as she moved to the door and pressed against it. Unsurprisingly it was locked. Again the tingling in her arms as she desperately pushed the door's push bar before pressing her head to the door in defeat, the gold of the door quickly spread forcing her to push away and inadvertently causing her to fall down the front steps as the door suddenly came free in front of her. She groaned as she stood, her knees and hands aching from the snow covered concrete.
She looked in front of her, the darkness spread, the neighborhood dark and the moon high in the sky, visible despite her bad vision. An idea briefly surfaced while she thought of the various satellites up there before the wind blew past her, chilling her despite the layers that had kept her warm that morning. She took off in the direction of home, hoping the gangs had the good sense to stay in because of the weather, her will only took her so far before she collapsed on the ground. The chill binding her joints as she curled in on herself.
"Hey, kid, can you hear me?" She felt the shaking at the same time as she felt the hand invading her pockets.
"Come on, let's go. We got the bitch's wallet and we'll call an ambulance." She heard a second voice say, a female voice.
"Yeah alright. Let's get out of here." The first voice said. She groaned before passing out again.
She felt a lifting sensation as she was shifted onto something hard. " She felt herself placed some where warmer and sighed as she heard a snip snip snip snip and felt part of her arm uncovered. "Shit, what's wrong with her face?"
"Where the fuck's the needle?"
"Shit she's one of them."
"Call it in.'
The room swam around her.
" a case 53 you think?" A slightly muffled woman's voice said.
"They've been getting rarer, she's not a known one anyways but we've seen a similar ability." A familiar male voice said.
Taylor groaned and tried to open her eyes as a before giving up and falling unconscious once again.
"she'll need specialized furniture if she's anything like him. It won't be easy."
"It never is Hann-. Hold on." It was a few minutes before he spoke again. "We have a positive ID. Her name is Taylor Hebert, a missing person's report just got put into the system with the police. Says here she's been missing since she went back to school after winter's break."
"The Winslow case you think?"
"Possible. Some triggers can be quite damaging and she was found the next morning. Explains why there's no mark, she was just unfortunate."
"I'll pick him up in one of the unmarked cars." She said.
The man grunted. "I'll send you the address once you're"
She didn't hear the rest of the conversation as exhaustion caught up with her.
Taylor groaned as her eyes opened, the room around her coming into focus a bit despite the blurry edges. "-er" She started to cough as her dry throat spasmed. "Water" she managed to rasp out.
She felt a glass pressed against her lips as she looked over her father looking down at her. "It's gonna be okay Little Owl, you're okay now, you're safe." She could see the tears and exhaustion in his face as he moved closer and kissed her forehead.
Her eyes closed and opened again, wearily, not sure if she'd been awake or if she'd passed out, as she moved her head she saw her dad sitting in a chair reading a sheaf of papers. "What happened?" She whispered at him.
Another male voice responded. "That's what we'd like to know."
Taylor turned her head to the side, her mouth widening in an O of surprise as she stared at two of her 3 favorite heroes. Armsmaster and Miss Militia. After a moment of reeling her mind finally managed to force the words out of her mouth. "W-what do you mean?"
The heroine with a knife in her hand, (not that she was ever without a weapon) responded. "You were found in an alley Wednesday morning at half past four. Do you know how you got there?"
Taylor thought for a moment, her brain connecting the threads of what she did remember, wanting to explain it all but tired and disoriented she only said, "I walked."
Armsmaster stood there, imposing as he ever was, a veritable wall of muscle underneath his armor that seemed deserving of a brute rating by itself. "From Winslow?"
Coughing her dad got up, and interposed himself between her and the heroes. "Couldn't we do this later, she's just woken up."
The woman with her face covered in an american flag bandanna put her hand on her father's shoulder. "This really does need to be answered quickly, before she forgets Mr. Hebert. It's only a few questions. We'll be quick."
Armsmaster watched her deal with the father, he'd never been accused of being personable, like most tinkers he was more at home in a workshop than with people.
Taylor looked at him and gulped. "Y-eah. From Winslow." She coughed again, a strange constriction in her throat making itself known.
Armsmaster looked at her. His jawline tense. "And why were you there in the middle of the night destroying lockers?"
Her father tried to protest but Miss. Militia's hand dug into his shoulder holding him back and keeping him from interfering.
"Somebody, pushed me into my locker, it was full of, stuff, bloody tampons and fruit and rotting stuff. I puked and was pushed in. I tried to push the door open, but I was stuck, I couldn't move and nobody came to see who was shouting. The smell was getting to me." Taylor's voice slowly began to crack and her eyes started to water. "I screamed myself hoarse, my legs started to burn, things were crawling on me, I don't know how long I was in there before the need started, I tried to hold it in, but I couldn't. I felt it trickle down my leg, the smell only got worse. I wanted a cell phone anything to call for help and" she began to choke up, fully immersed in the memories.
"STOP!" Danny pulled away from her and pushed Armsmaster away as he folded Taylor into his arms. Armsmaster for once didn't push as the father comforted his daughter. He had no doubt she'd just described her trigger event, something all capes had in common and thus most understood just how horrific and traumatizing it could be. It was also painfully clear that her changes were not the result of being a case 53. "Too bad. She'd be the first on record to remember."
After a few minutes of calming Taylor down Armsmaster put his hand on Danny's shoulder. "She needs to know."
Taylor looked up at him her cheeks stained with twin red streaks. "Know what?" Danny Hebert looked at his daughter, and then to the hero before nodding. Miss Militia walked forward her knife now longer and thicker, A machete instead of the blade it had been, she angled it for Taylor to look into.
And then Taylor screamed.