By Steve2
Beta by World Theory
Author's Notes:
I didn't do it. I wasn't there. You're mistaking me for someone else. I was in Buffalo that day. Trust me. What're you – a cop? No? Okay. Then let me tell you a story…
Anyone who read my Charlie Does the Foxtrot – A New Take learned that I have a penchant for swearing. This story ups that swearing. There is no gratuitous sex here. Nada. Nothing. There is, however, a lot of swearing. You have been warned. I swear.
This story is a comedy. It is not a drama. There may be some drama situations here. But overall, this story is a comedy. Maybe even a crack-fic if I play my cards right. Of course, the game is Go Fish – and I have the makings of an inside straight.
Disclaimer: I don't own Worm, or anything else for that matter. This is a work of fiction. It was, in part, influenced by the movie: Mystery Men, which I will freely admit was a truly awful movie, but I still loved the characters. Especially the tinker who invented the blame gun. And as for Captain Amazing, played by Greg Kinnear, I could see him easily fitting into the Worm-verse, likely as the face of the PRT.
-oo00oo-
Introduction:
In late 2017, I was introduced to the web-serialized story called Worm. For those not familiar with that story, here is a quick, very high-level Worm overview of what is important to this story: on a parallel world there exists people who, when they have a really, really… really bad day, they tend to trigger a superpower. This is in fact called a trigger event. In the original Worm story, several girls torment the hero of that story (the hero: Taylor Hebert) into a trigger event. Two of the girls that did this to Taylor are Emma Barnes (her former BFF), and Sophia Hess (never a BFF in any way, shape, or form). Worm is a story about Taylor and how she must save the world.
This story is not about that at all. In fact, while Taylor is in this story, she is not the protagonist here. She is still the overall hero, but in no way is the center of this story. Instead, herein lies a story of an alternate Taylor on an alternate Earth who at one time had an alternate BFF named Emma Barnes, and together they went out for ice cream one alternate fateful day.
-oo00oo-
March 17, 2009, 9:16pm
On a rainy evening, Annette Hebert, Taylor's mother was on her cell phone as she drove home from work. She never saw the other vehicle, and never made it home. It was a crappy way to die, and her husband knew it as he prepared for the funeral. He knew that he had to be there for his daughter. He couldn't go to pieces, not at that time. Later, he would. Later.
That one little thought changed the way of the world. Danny Hebert and his daughter, Taylor, grieved for the missing third person in their family. It would take time for them to move on. It might never even happen, but the hope was still there. And because Danny never fell to pieces, he never shipped his daughter off to a week of camp during the summer of 2009. As such, Taylor and her best friend, Emma, hung out as much as possible. The two girls were ready to begin 9th grade, even in Brockton Bay's public school, which as they both knew, really sucked.
-oo00oo-
August 26, 2009, 11:47am
Emma was glad her friend was finally starting to act normally again since the death of her mother. She was also glad that her father decided to take the two of them to the new ice cream shop on the Boardwalk. Emma had heard positive reviews about it. It was going to be great. She just knew it.
An hour later, she thought she was going to die.
-oo00oo-
DESIGNATION… AGREEMENT.
-oo00oo-
September 7, 2009, 11:03pm
August. Hot. Dad was home. Taylor was over visiting. No camp after all. Smiles. Hot. Dad suggested going to get ice cream. Boardwalk. Okay. In car. Dad driving. Taylor in back with other. Traffic heavy. Hot. Short cut. Alley. Half in. End now blocked. Dad gets out to move trash bins. Taylor gets out to help Dad. Worry.
Dad and Taylor moving big trash bin attacked by leering, jeering, snarling arms, hands, nasty words.
Window smashed by rock! Arms. Heads. Leering, jeering, snarling. Cuts. Shouting. Dragging other out. Kicking, shouting, cursing, knife shown. No, no, no! Bite hand holding other's arm. Bit. Slapped back. Hands reaching again. Tear top. Kick out. Get knee. Slapped back. Knife shown. Evil laughter. Knife shown. Slapped back. Knife shown. Slapped back. Knife shown. Slapped back. Knife shown.
"Aaaaaaahhh!" Emma shouted, abruptly sitting up in bed, her top soaked with sweat, her sheets needing to also be changed.
Emma looked around, shaking, sweating, but ultimately calming down. It was night. A quick glance at her green-digital alarm clock indicated it was 2:14am. She heard thumps closing in on her room.
Her bedroom door opened and her father rushed in. It was his turn tonight. Her mother had scream-duty last night.
"Another dream?" He blinked his eyes to get rid of the confusion caused by lack of sleep.
"Yeah," Emma replied with a frown. "Sorry." She grabbed the bottle of water on the floor by her nightstand and took a couple gulps. "I just can't seem to stop remembering that day…"
"I know, sweetie," Alan Barnes soothed, sitting on the corner of her bed. "You'll get through this. You're tougher than anyone else. You're a Barnes, so that means you'll be just fine."
She nodded and laid back down, oblivious to the damp pillow. She watched as her father started to leave, closing the door behind him.
"Dad?"
"Yes?"
"If something had happened… um… in the alley…" She paused. "Would you still have, you know, wanted me here?"
"Oh, Emma," Alan was unsure if he had the right facial expression but hoped it would do the trick. "Of course I would. Your mother and I love you. Nothing will ever change with that. And nothing happened in that alley that you can't move past from. We good?"
"Yeah," she replied. "We're good."
Her father closed the door, a trail of mostly-blue light scent following him.
Emma didn't want to see the light, and in truth, she couldn't. But ever since that fateful visit to the alley, just a few weeks ago, she had been able to smell the lights. She instinctively inhaled longer than normal through her nose. She smelled strawberries. And something else. She grimaced.
Weeks ago, after Emma woke up in the hospital with a small bump on her head, she had smelled many different things. It was not horrible, but not great. She had initially thought it was just normal smells at a hospital. She paid it no mind as she was brought home later that same day. The smells diminished, but never went away.
Emma was not the brightest bulb in the house, but she wasn't a complete idiot. She noticed the smells and began to pick up a pattern. She monitored smell after smell and kept a journal. Well, a notebook really. Well… the notebook she was going to use for her math class since she really didn't figure it would get much other use anyway.
Pattern identified, she then went online and began researching. It took many hours of research to finally find the best mascara to go with her new school outfits, and only 20 minutes to find what she didn't really want to know. Interesting fact: the human body tends to emit bodily gas roughly 20 times a day. She learned that while gas comes from the food a person eats, it does not just come out once a person is done eating. Oh no, not at all.
Emma quickly picked up that gas exited the body by two ways: burping, or tooting. Undigested food moved from the small intestine to the large intestine. Once there, stomach bacteria would go to work, making hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and methane, which then made itself known to the host body that it really, really wanted to get out and spread the wealth.
Like virtually everyone on Earth, Emma had a working nose. She could smell farts. Some were weak (she appreciated those). Some were noisy and embarrassing, and the less said the better. Others were just plain awful.
At the end of August 2009, Emma understood something: she was a cape. And all she could think about it was: big damn deal. So what if she was a cape. Did she get the power to fly? Hell no. Did she get a power to beat up the bad guys? No to that as well. She did give small thanks that she didn't become a thinker or tinker for the last thing she wanted to be known as was a geek (not that she knew that an enhanced sense of smell could be classified as a thinker power). Not with her looks going for her that is. She had plans to be a model and wasn't going to allow a geek power to get in her way.
Still, she was a cape and what did she get? She got the ability to instinctively assign rainbow colors to people's gas. As her father left, she smelled that blue curve. It was the strawberry ice cream tooting out softly behind him.
She turned her pillow over and went back to sleep. Screw him and that growing lactose intolerance problem he had.
As Emma tried to go back to sleep, many things rolled through her head. Most pertained to the alley and the gang members. None of her thoughts went to her power. This was probably a good thing since she was not science-inclined at all and would have not understood how the over 900 kinds of olfactory receptors in her nose began talking on the cellular level with the three types of optical receptors in her eyes. Had she been so inclined to gain a better understanding of what was going on in her new digital scenting, it would have required her to understand the molecular structure of odors as well as gain a better understanding of the exteroceptive systems in a human body. And since she couldn't balance a checkbook account that generally only carried $100 or less, talking science to her was like asking a dog to give its opinion on the comedic writings of Franz Kafka. Hah! Trick question unless you were a bug.
Emma drifted off to an orange glow she could have sworn smelled of limes.
-oo00oo-
September 8, 2009, 7:47am
Emma and Taylor were dropped off by Taylor's dad at the front of Winslow High bright and early along with several thousand other kids in a massive wave of teenage humanity all trudging along to a drab three-story building that had two entrances. The girls had their backpacks, and in Taylor's case, a packed lunch since buying lunch was not always an option due to her family's financial well-being.
The two found their lockers, which oddly enough were next to one another, and as the first bell rang Taylor waved encouragingly to Emma as she headed to another part of the building for her first class. "See you in 3rd period, Emma," she smiled as she ran for the steps.
Emma began walking to her classroom which was just around the corner. She knew she and Taylor would meet in English (3rd period), and then for lunch. And that was it. They had a lot of different classes. Subconsciously, Emma couldn't help but feel like she was back in the alley again. She had been abandoned by Taylor in that alley then too. Emma was on her own… again.
A few steps later her mood changed entirely. Her classroom already had kids in there, but no teacher yet. She noticed Sophia Hess right away. Or as she knew her: Shadow Stalker. It was hard not to notice Sophia Hess that morning. All the kids noticed her. Especially Larry Brewster, the Empire Eighty-Eight wanna-be stooge that Sophia was bashing around. Sophia had the freshman skinhead in an arm hold, his left arm behind his back, while using her other hand to smash his head against the wall a few dozen times. She also had a few choice words for the young youth.
"Fuck you, skinhead! I don't give a shit if you like the color of my skin or not. I don't fucking care one fucking bit, you fuck-face! Know why? 'Cause I would like nothing better than to fucking smash your fucking punk-ass head in! Got it, fuck-face?! Now, you gonna be my bitch, or do I gotta fuckin' kill you, you goddamn piece of crap?! You gonna let me have that desk in the back row for the rest of the year, or do I have to fuckin' beat the shit outta you?!"
Emma smiled at the recognition. Why not? She had seen something very similar to that conversation just a few weeks ago, on the 27th, in a very specific alley. It was music to her ears.
Emma recalled everything when she had been pulled from the car, through the broken window, which cut her several times on her arms, back, and legs. Asian teens were whooping it up, thinking she was easy prey. They leered and jeered, saying they were going to have fun with her before selling her. She was no one's piece of meat, she recalled. She struggled and managed to kick a couple of the ABB members in their balls, one even going to the ground. She was not going to go lightly.
That was when Shadow Stalker had showed up. She grabbed one ABB by the neck and shoved him into a wall, bashing his head against the side of the building similar to the way Sophia was doing with poor Larry's skull. Shadow Stalker dropped her attacker and then grabbed a piece of rebar and went to town on the other ABB guys who were unsure if to let Emma go, or attack Shadow Stalker. They should have run, but Emma was glad they didn't.
"You fuckers want to snatch a young girl to sell? Is that it, you goddamn fuckers?!" she had yelled that day in the alley. "Well, here I am; come and get me, you pieces of shit! But if you don't get me, I'm going to turn you all into my bitches! Is that what you want, you crap bastards?!"
Back in the present, the second bell rang, and Sophia stopped her lecture to Larry the E88-wannabe and let the poor sap fall, his face still bleeding. A teacher came in, oblivious (either intentionally or unintentionally) to what had just happened, and not bothering to look at Larry. Sophia took the seat in the back row. Emma took the seat next to her.
"Hi," Emma extended her hand to Sophia. "My name's Emma. Let's be friends. Nice blood splatter pattern on the wall, by the way."
Sophia smiled at the other girl's comment.
Emma knew one thing at that point, after she met Sophia and witnessed how she handled the seating arrangements in that classroom she knew she wanted to be more like Sophia Hess than she wanted to be like Taylor Hebert. Taylor was a sweet girl, she knew deep down, but she was too much a downer for her anymore.
"Sophia," the girl replied, shaking the hand.
"Do you have some time after school for us to talk?" Emma inquired before the teacher got started with roll call.
-oo00oo-
"I want to be strong like you," Emma said to her new friend, Sophia. Her fists were clenched, there was determination in her voice, but there was a tremor of fright as well. They were near the alley where Emma had been dragged from her father's car by the ABB gang members.
The first day had continued much like Emma had thought it would. Emma met Taylor in English, and later in the lunchroom, where she introduced her to Sophia. Emma spoke favorably about her new friend, Sophia. And Sophia didn't hold back a snarl on her end, nor the disdain she had of Taylor. At the end of lunch, Emma informed Taylor that she would not need a ride home with her, and her father after all. That she needed to do something after school and to not wait for her. Reluctantly, Taylor said she would tell her dad and would call Emma later.
At the end of the day, Emma met up with Sophia and the two of them headed off in the direction of the Boardwalk. All too soon they were near… that place. Emma stood straighter as she felt her new friend judging her worth.
"I want to be strong like you," Emma repeated, looking at Sophia's face. The girl was strong and would make Emma strong. "Can you make me strong?"
"I can," Sophia replied evenly. "But there is a price."
"What kind of price?"
"Being strong means showing your strength. You need to be strong. You can be a friend, or you can be the strong leader. You can't be both."
Emma digested this for a couple minutes. "What do I need to do?"
"Break from your old bestie. That Taylor wimp. She's a loser and will pull you down. You need to be strong, Emma. Strength equals power. Power equals telling those fucks to shut it when you are in the right and they are in the wrong."
"Dump Taylor?" Emma said the words aloud, hearing the suggestion she was making to herself.
"Yes. Dump that fucking wimp. She's not strong. Don't be a wimp, Emma. Be strong."
"Okay."
-oo00oo-
Once home, Emma headed for the kitchen. Smile on her face, she stopped at the doorway as her mother and father were setting the table and getting ready to sit down for dinner. She immediately noticed a red arc mixed with yellow splotches.
Shit. Her mother made Nacho-Taco surprise, and her father already had a sample. She instinctively knew this was going to smell like a lousy night.
But she would be strong and get through it.
-oo00oo-
Author comments:
Some time ago I put out a request on CaerAzkaban's yahoo group to think of some interesting lame powers. Many responses were given and some of those powers will be in here.
Should any reader have a suggestion of a lame power, feel free to send a message to me, or enter it as a comment in this story. I do have quite a bit of this story plotted, but there is always room to explore different avenues.
I will say this: Emma's powers are lame for a reason, and not just for comedic effect. Well, not entirely for comedic effect. However, that reason will not be clear for many more chapters.