This is a mirror-image version of Worm, inspired by a story called Reflecting on Spacebattles by Trump-12.
In it, heroes are villains and vice versa. The greatest villains are the Horsemen; Death, Famine and Conquest. Death is a near-invulnerable woman who lost an eye to the hero Monochrome years ago; Famine uses lasers with strange effects to destroy crops and foodstuffs. Conquest is a near-unbeatable Trump who can call on any power. War, the fourth member, was killed by Monochrome in the same battle that cost Death an eye.
Opposing them are the Lifegivers: Thunderhead, Hydro (sometimes called Suijin) and Angel.
Lower on the scale are Nonagon, a roving band of heroes and ex-villains; Razor Jack, Monochrome, Medic, Crag and several others.
Taylor Hebert appears in this story, but she is not the hero.
Now, read on ...
Adventures in the MirrorVerse
Part 1: Nonagon
Hovering above the battlefield, Death gave an inarticulate scream of rage. The flowing midnight draperies of her costume were in rags, the deaths-head face paint smudged and smeared, but she didn't care. She hefted the fuel tanker over her head, selected her target, and heaved. The star-shaped scar around her left eye, remnant of the first and last time she had tested her strength against Monochrome, seemed to glow as brightly as the crimson orb within its socket.
Down below, Razor glanced up, even as he laughed and danced aside from an attack by Shock. The slim young woman growled in frustration as one lighting-fast blow after another slid past the cheerfully taunting hero, almost as if she were telegraphing her attacks. She paused to gather her strength while Awe, a former hero who had turned villain to be at her side, took up the attack.
The blood-red lines on her daringly cut midnight-black costume began to glow brighter and brighter. Then she glanced up. Her face turned white under the mask.
"Death, you fucking maniac!" she screamed. "Awe!"
Her lover was at her side in a moment, staring up at the tumbling, falling fuel tanker. They had just a couple of seconds before it hit. Hoping that her power had recharged enough, Shock grabbed Awe and bolted out of there.
Razor looked up at the tanker; there was no way he could evade the blast radius in time, so he didn't try. Instead, he rocked back on his heels, humming a little tune as he folded his straight razor and put it away.
In the last instant before it struck, a black-and-white blur cut across the battlefield, bare feet carving through treacherous rubble as if it didn't even exist.
The tanker landed. Metal ruptured, fuel spilled, sparks flew. Ignition was a matter of seconds. A cloud of dark oily smoke climbed above the inferno below, while the concussion wave rolled across the battlefield.
On a nearby rise, Medic looked up from the man whose life she was saving. Her hands continued their careful work, stitching and sealing away organs, as she gasped in horror.
"Crag! Is Jack all right?"
The immense man standing alongside her, fully ten feet tall and so broad that he still looked short, patted her carefully on one shoulder. His skin was dark and pitted; he had survived virtually everything that a man could be subjected to, but it had taken its toll on him. Now he was an avowed pacifist, offering harm to none that did not threaten him or his friends.
"Aye, lass, he will be," he told her in a warm Scottish burr that resonated in his deep chest. "Mister Jack is canny, he is indeed. And Mistress Monochrome will be at his side, I'll wager."
Without even looking, she closed her patient's chest cavity and began to put the final stitches in.
"I hope so," she replied. "He took me in, you know, after my parents died. I don't know what I'd do without him."
She felt the comforting touch of his broad hand on her shoulder once more. "Aye, lass," he agreed quietly. "None of us would, and that's a fact."
The glittering form of Crystal Angel, silicate wings spread wide, swooped low over the still-fierce blaze. Then, as the forms of Razor and Monochrome, walking hand in hand like newlyweds, left the fire, she soared high into the air.
An hour later, they were convened in the ruined building they were using as a base; Razor, Monochrome, Medic, Crag and Crystal Angel. Joining the core members of Nonagon were the reformed villain Deathtrap, now calling himself Sanctuary; the pyro-controlling Firedancer; the lovely Autumn; and the stolid power-neutralising Equaliser.
"Good to see we all survived," Razor began brightly. "It seems that we have nine lives."
There was a pause as everyone assimilated the pun, then groans arose from around the makeshift meeting table. Even Monochrome, characteristically silent as she was, put a hand over her eyes.
"Jack, that was awful," complained Medic.
"Aye, 'twas truly painful," Crag rumbled. "I'm of half a mind to tear your arms off and beat ye about the heid with them."
"Do it," urged Medic. "I promise to sew them back on again. Eventually."
Laughing, Razor held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, that was bad, I admit it. Crag, I thought you only used violence to answer against violence?"
"And what do ye think yon jest was, ye great daft pillock?" retorted Crag, grinning broadly. "'Twas GBH of the earholes, so it was."
Razor shook his head, grinning equally broadly. "So," he asked, "Did anyone get an idea of what the Horsemen wanted?"
"I may have an idea," intruded a new voice. People moved aside to allow the wheelchair-bound man through to the table.
Razor's demeanour became more subdued, more respectful. "Doctor Manton," he greeted the newcomer. "Did you see much of the fight?"
"Only a little, I'm afraid," responded the bearded man in the wheelchair. "But I think I know what they were after. This may have been a diversionary attack. They might be trying to uncover the secrets to Process Foxtrot Sixteen-Eleven."
All eyes turned to Monochrome; the young woman ducked her head modestly.
"As you all know," began Manton, with the attitude of someone poking an open wound to see exactly how much it was going to hurt, "I pioneered the process on my own daughter. I'm not proud of myself for that; I was not a good man, then."
Monochrome moved from Jack's side to kneel before the man in the wheelchair; she took his hands in hers. She did not speak, for she could not; the process that had made her invulnerable and unaging, that had rendered her free of the need for such things as food, water and even air, had also frozen her vocal cords forever.
Death, the vicious and unpredictable leader of the Horsemen, had been through a derivative process; while this had given her the ability to fly, it had also left her without the true invulnerability enjoyed by Monochrome.
"So what do the Horsemen want it for?" asked Medic, although she feared she knew the answer.
William Manton stroked his daughter's hair. His voice was sombre. "Why, to use on themselves, of course."
End of Part 1