Broken
Author: Prospero Hibiki
Disclaimer: Worm and its characters are the property of Wildbow. In no way are these aforementioned characters being used for my own personal profit, and this is not meant as an infringement of the copyright owned by any the above entity...who is freaking awesome
Timeline: Pre-Worm
Spoilers: Yes, if you haven't read Worm then why are you even reading this?
Classification: AU (Alt-Power!Taylor) (Take Nothing For Granted)
Rating: M...because Worm!
Summary: In a universe where Danny Hebert never recovered from his wife's death, Taylor had no support at home. So when she was at her lowest, all she wanted was for the whole world to leave her alone. She was never seen again...well almost never.
Author's Comments: I really like Alt-Power!Taylor stories most of the time because they're the perfect chance for a divergence from canon. Still this one is going to diverge more than most. Don't take anything for granted. Fully expect for some characters you love to die. Because this is Worm and Earth Bet is already circling the the drain.
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"Solitude 1.01"
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Taylor didn't beg and plead to be let out when the door to the locker shut behind her trapping her inside. Not out of some sense of moral superiority, a desire to show the trio that she wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of begging. No, her reasons were much simpler. She'd already broken. She was in many ways more a robot than a human being. For almost two years now, since Emma had turned her back on her, she'd been slipping further and further away and it'd only accelerated as each cruelty was heaped upon her one after another.
A person can only take so much after all.
That point for Taylor seemed to coincide with the shutting of the locker door. She stood there in the waste and the filth, tears rolling down her face and her only thought wasn't even about escaping what some might call a level of hell. She just wanted it to all end.
I just want to be left alone.
Later she couldn't recall how long she spent in the locker. Minutes, hours, days. None of them mattered. Probably it was best that she didn't remember. But with that forgetting other things were lost as well. Taylor never remembered how she got out of the locker or where she went once she escaped. Not surprising really if one were to consider the sheer amount of trauma she'd undergone.
In point of fact she didn't remember anything between being inside the locker on January 3rd and sitting on top of the bleachers in the Arcadia High School gym in the middle of February.
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The shouts were the first thing that she noticed. At first she thought they were directed at her until she noticed the girl standing ten feet or so behind her pulling down gaudy pink streamers and deflated balloons.
The second thing she noticed was that she had no idea where she was. Oh, sure, it was obviously a gym of some sort, but it was much too clean and well maintained to be the one at Winslow. Of course, going back to the shouts quickly told her which school she was at.
"Ames, come on already! Let's get out of here already. We're the only ones still cleaning up. It's Valentine's day and I've got a date with Dean to get ready for." The girl speaking wasn't in costume, but she didn't really have to be for me to recognize her. Glory Girl, like all the rest of New Wave, didn't really have a secret identity so everyone, including me, knew that her name was Victoria Dallon.
Process of elimination made the somewhat mousey girl she was talking to her sister. Amy Dallon, or Panacea to the cape community, was the most powerful healer in Brockton Bay, if not the world. "You mean I'm the only one still cleaning up. If you just helped I'd be finished sooner."
Any response that Glory Girl would have made was pushed completely out of Taylor's mind when Amy walked right through her body to pull down the next batch of streamers.
She walked right through me.
There was no hesitation, no bump, no stutter. It was as if Taylor didn't exist.
She wasn't sure she did.
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The days after that seemed to find a sort of pattern. She seemed to find herself sitting on the front steps of Arcadia every morning watching the students go about their lives. The rest of the school day she spent drifting from class to class out of sheer boredom. In particular she liked sitting in on the Parahuman Studies classes simply because they were light years beyond Mr Gladly's class at Winslow. In fact even comparing the two was more than a little insulting to the classes at Arcadia. It was through these classes that she figured out at least something of what had happened to her. Well probably happened to her if she assumed she hadn't died and become a ghost.
Assuming she was still alive, she'd most likely triggered some time after being shoved into the locker. Most likely classifications being a Breaker and Stranger with a possible Mover added in. Mover 1 just for being able to walk though things. From there it gets much tougher to sort out. Fairly high Breaker classification for the same reason as well as the fact that she didn't need food, water, sleep, or even air. Probably a fairly high Stranger classification because she can't be seen, heard, etc. Taylor also didn't show up on video either. The problem with figuring out a real number for those is the fact that she wasn't much of a threat to anyone or anything since she don't actually seem able to interact with anything.
The rest of her time she spent wandering the city. It was amazing how much of it she'd never seen before. She rode buses until they stopped for the night, and then rode on the roofs of cars when they stopped at lights. When no one was going her way she simply walked.
For ten days she wandered to and fro across Brockton Bay with not a single care in the world. Ten whole days of just enjoying the experience of being left alone and not having to worry about anything.
And then the Endbringer sirens went off.
The Simurgh was attacking Canberra.
Taylor started worrying a lot.
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End "Solitude 1.01"
Chapter Notes: So this is Stranger/Breaker Taylor. I've actually got a bit more planned for her because otherwise this would be a pretty pitiful story with her unable to affect ANYTHING. Taylor goes through some typical Brockton Bay stuff...so pretty much her life is going to be "blessed with suck" but again that's life in the Worm-verse. Next chapter will probably be Changer/Brute/Breaker Taylor and I have no idea whether to do the intro chapter or go straight to the epic battle scene.