I would just like to say I do not own any of the other things I pay homage too in this story. If you like one of my ideas please, feel free to use them in your own stories, though I would appreciate a PM so I can read them.
This is a Worm / Life as a Builder - Builder-Verse Stories Wanted! challenge crossover. You can find the Challenge at www. tthfanfic Challenge-7849
Chapter 1
Taylor Hebert sat on the lid of a toilet calmly eating her lunch and reading a biography entitled 'Triumvirate' about the leading three members of the Protectorate. It was dull and probably not a word of it was true but they had started discussing capes in Mr. Gladly's World Issues class so information on heroes was always good. Once she would have come here trying to find some peace from her tormentors Emma Sophia and Madison and their lackeys but she no longer truly cared. She simply hid out to avoid confrontation.
Unfortunately it looked like today she wouldn't be getting away from them as the bathroom door banged open. She remained still hoping they hadn't found her. When a knock came on the door she called out, "Occupied."
"Oh my god it's Taylor!" one of the girls almost shouted in malicious excitement followed by an almost whispered, "Yeah, do it!"
She calmly put her lunch and book into her book bag on the floor sealing it. She then unlocked the door and tested it finding that someone was holding it closed not unsurprisingly.
Then with sounds coming from both side stalls she looked up just in time to see Sophia and Madison begin dumping cranberry juice grape juice and orange soda all over her and her bag before the bottles followed their contents. She simply looked down in order to protect her eyes.
Finally the door swung open but she refused to look up or give a reaction. When she heard the bathroom door bang shut on their giggles she finally looked up and seeing that no one was in the room started waving her hands around. Her empty brown paper bag from her lunch the empty soda and juice bottles and the mess of juice on her the floor and her bag just seemed to disintegrate into dust which flowed into her hands.
Next she waved her hands at her khaki green backpack and it seemed to flow changing shape and color till it was more of a brown satchel bag. Another wave and her clothes shifted cut and color much as had the backpack.
Confident that it now looked like she had brought a change of clothes and pack just in case of this type of situation and that she had taken the time to get cleaned up and changed she then grabbed the bag and headed towards her art class where her midterm project would be due while remembering the event three months before when she had gotten this power.
She had sobbed in despair in the cramped disgusting locker she had been crammed into she knew not how long ago. The stench of the used feminine products that had been rotting for a time before being stuffed into her locker at some time before she had arrived had almost immediately caused her to empty her stomach and would still occasionally cause her to dry heave. She could also feel the bugs that had come to feed on the rot and the spiders that had come to feed on the bugs crawling around on her.
At first when she was stuffed in here she could hear the voices of students and what she assumed were faculty passing through the halls and had called out until she was hoarse. No one had come to her aid.
The worst part was that this had been done just before the school had let out for Christmas break. She didn't know how long she had been in the locker but she knew she would die of dehydration if she didn't get out soon especially with the amount of fluids she had lost to vomiting and tears. Even had water not been a problem the school would remain unoccupied long enough that she could have possibly starved to death instead.
She had been in and out of consciousness a few times. She could not call it sleep so much as passing out unable to remain awake. She knew that one of these times she would pass out and never wake again so she resisted as strongly as she could as darkness began to cloud her vision once again. Truly there wasn't much light to be had with the school lights out and the locker closed but a sliver of light from the emergency exit lighting down the hall fell through the slats in the locker and she had grown used enough to this dim light to be able to tell when her vision was clouding over.
As her eyes closed against her will for what she feared would be the last time she felt something new. For a few moments she was granted a sense much like vision but not quite, a literal second sight. In this vision she saw two glowing entities dancing about each other in a spiraling double helix. Below them stretched countless Earths showing that they stretched across dimensional barriers.
As she watched she saw that something seemed to be wrong but could not comprehend their vastness well enough to truly know the cause. All she did know was that small glowing shards were being shed and falling across those Earths and as she watched one seemed to draw her attention. She watched it fall to one of the Earths and as it struck an area that from above looked like the map of Brockton Bay everything changed for her as a new blackness claimed her senses.
As awareness returned to her, she realized she was still in the locker but that she was feeling amazingly better than she had. She had been feeling weaker as time went on loosing strength and hope but now it was as if she had been restored to health, though it seemed as if something inside her were empty. It seemed almost like hunger but wasn't quite the same.
As she opened her eyes she gasped as everything looked different. She could see in the dark much better but also she could see each individual object in the locker and that made up the locker. In seeing all these things she also seemed to know. What they were, what their purpose was, what they were made from, and even how they were made.
Also overlaying her vision was a set of lines as if everything was being measured on graph paper.
Blinking at all this information she became confused at what was going on. She assumed she had triggered but didn't know what this power was or how to use it. Her best guess was that it was some form of Tinker or Thinker skill.
That was when an image overlaid her vision. It was a beautiful woman who seemed to be at a distance from her that would suggest that she were outside the locker or that somehow the locker door were a TV screen though she was aware through her power that this was not the case and that this image was only overlaying her vision much like the lines and construction information of the objects around her.
"Hello Youngling Builder Taylor Hebert, please allow me to introduce myself. I am Rank Four Master Builder Taylor Hebert. If things go the right way in your life then I am your future self. Now I know that there are a lot of things in my previous statements that will be very confusing for you right now, but unfortunately this message is just a recording. Fortunately as I was in your position seeing the same type of message once before I know what questions you will have and will be answering them but I also know that that locker is uncomfortable and that you need to get out so first things first is a tutorial on how to use your powers to escape," the message which was apparently from herself told her.
"Now the first thing is, right now you are using a Builder power known as seeing which allows you the ability to observe and analyze any building, structure, material, component, unit, person or thing and map them out. This is called blueprinting. Many builders will turn this feature off most of the time only activating it to actively scan something as they find it annoying constantly seeing. That choice is up to you but turning it off and on is but a simple thought based command," the message told her.
Testing this she thought about canceling the seeing and the lines and information disappeared. With another thought the seeing came back on.
"Now look down at the mess below you and extend your hands toward it and think Deconstruct," the tutorial told her.
Doing as told she watched as all of the mess in the locker just seemed to disintegrate into dust and flow into her hands. That empty feeling she had felt before seemed to be filling. She really hoped she wasn't eating that disgusting mess.
"What you are doing is reducing the mess to its' constituent atoms and pulling them into an extra dimensional storage space all builders have. Youngling builders commonly use this to clean as all dust and stains can be Deconstructed leaving behind pristine surfaces though normal wear and tear has still occurred. As you are a youngling that storage is rather limited so it is recommended that you get clothes with lots of pockets and things like tool belts that provide more storage. Even those would be limited but Builders have a way to stretch space within buildings and storage containers," older Taylor explained as the mess quickly disappeared.
"Now you could Deconstruct the locker door then rebuild it using your powers but that would use much of your limited energy supply and be a waste of time since there is another option. Now here comes the part that will irritate you some but you will most likely get over it quickly much like I did. You are no longer human. You are a human form Builder. Builder in and of itself is a race of beings," the message explained to her and it was right. She was irritated.
"How could my trigger have changed my race and what is a Builder," Taylor mumbled to herself.
"First I should tell you that your power didn't change you, I did. Your parahuman power is a form of Trump ability with the ability to copy any ability that someone willingly lets you. Unfortunately you were on the brink of death when you triggered and that power would have been useless had I not willingly allowed you to share the builder power. New builders normally start with a full storage but you can tell that yours is a bit low. Your deconstructed matter can be used to heal yourself," with that statement all the anger was just blown away. A choice between death and becoming this Builder race was pretty much a nonchoice for anyone other than the racist bastards in the E88.
"Now normally this parahuman power would only allow you to copy one power at a time but this is where a Builder can cheat the system. Once you become a Builder there is no going back. You can never be anything other than a Builder. As a builder your true form is a metamorphic and transitional fluidic biological nanoform substance that could be mistaken for a liquid. In parahuman terms you are a changer. I recommend you take that form now and flow out of the locker," the recording told her.
Thinking about changing and flowing out of the locker she easily accomplished the task and was able to also easily take her human form again on the other side.
"As you make your way home I will continue the lecture and when you get home just think of pausing the recording to do so and play the recording when ready to resume. Unfortunately when you get home you are going to have to tell dad what happened as you have been missing over three days. He will have to be told that you triggered also because you are now too healthy to have been locked up so long," Taylor wanted to object but thinking about the statement she realized that she was right. No one would believe she hadn't just skipped out since all the evidence was gone.
"You might be thinking that you should have left the evidence but to do that would have required you to take your liquid form and flow through it. That is an experience neither you nor I would want. Plus it gave you experience in some of the basic builder powers," older Taylor explained before she had even thought of it.
"Now I have two major things to explain to you that I should be able to finish before you get home. First is how becoming a Builder allows you to cheat with your parahuman power. First is that as I said once you become a Builder that can never change. So it no longer takes up that one power slot you can fill. Second through the Builder Traits of Absorption and Integration any power you place in the slot will slowly over time starting from its' weakest level to its' strongest build up as a permanent builder trait all your own. So if you copy a rank five tinker with computer specialty you will be able to use it but when you copy someone else's power you would keep anywhere from rank zero to rank five computer tinker depending on how long you held it," well that certainly broke the barrier on an already good power making it ridiculous.
"Third, and this is where it gets broken, any hero you use seeing on will give you the blueprint for their parahuman power shard. When you get too Apprentice Builder you will be able to summon and store one artificial hero unit with any shard you have the energy to imbue them with. As you are the creator of this hero unit, unless it is imbued with true life by the universe, it is yours to command at will like a Master of the required rank. So It will obviously be willing to share its' power shard with you to copy," said the recording with a mischievous grin.
That caused Taylor's eyes to widen. She would have to keep the second and third point secret or there would be all sorts of parahumans out to get her to prevent her from becoming too powerful.
"You probably see one of the dangers of that but there is another. You will recognize shards you have seen before or have read about what they do. Which means that any parahuman you see in civilian form you will recognize if you have met them before in cape form essentially breaking the unwritten rule of never trying to find out a person's civilian ID," older Taylor warned her.
"Oh yes definitely need to keep some secrets about my powers. I can't reveal that I can essentially steal copies of powers and out anyone's secret IDs. That would get me murdered instantly," Taylor mused aloud.
"Now for the second important thing I think you should know first is that as a shape shifter you are sexually compatible with anyone of any race.. Meaning you don't have to worry about not being able to have children due to race change. You could even become male and get a girl pregnant if that was your choice. In fact because of this trait most builders are pansexual caring not what gender or race, or even species when traveling interdimensionally, that a person is but only caring for who they are," older Taylor told her in a teasing tone and stuck her tongue out giving the impression of a raspberry at the same time as wiggling it in a suggestive manner.
Unfortunately for Taylor this was said just as she was getting home. So she paused the recording and went inside to talk to her dad hoping she wasn't blushing too bad.