Worm is owned by Wildbow.

Summary: Taylor just wanted to make friends. Unfortunately for her she triggered with a power that only isolated her further. When the good guys start to treat her like a walking time bomb or an exploitable tool it's not that surprising when she's tempted to walk a darker path. Taylor triggers with a different power story. M for the same reasons as Worm.

This story will have a strong Taylor/Panacea friendship and maybe romance. I haven't decided yet. If you have any opinions or inputs feel free to share them.

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I screamed. I panicked. The inside of that locker was horrifying, filled to the brim with bugs and rotting used pads and tampons. I threw up and gagged at the smell. There was a moment when I felt I was this close to completely losing it and having a complete blinding panic attack. If I had lost it and despaired right then everything might have been different.

But then in the midst of the most horrible situation of my life my mind turned to Emma.

I'd loved her. I'd truly loved her without reservation in the way only children can. She had been my best friend who had been almost as important to me as my dad. In some ways she had been even more important as I had shared absolutely everything with her. She had probably been the best part of my life.

Then she betrayed me. I knew it had already been a year and a half but I don't think I'd ever truly dealt with the loss. I'd trusted her and she had stabbed me in the back with no explanation. No justification. She'd gone from being the best part of my life to the one who made me terrified to get up to go to school in the morning.

Now this, stuck in my own locker covered in disgusting filth and my own vomit. I was so close to panicking and completely losing it, so damn close but something stronger overcame me at that moment. Something I didn't even know I was capable of.

Rage. Overwhelming angry vindictive rage that completely overwhelmed all reason.

Emma. Emma. Emma. Her two flunkies helped but she was the keystone behind my misery. At that moment I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to hurt her as badly as she had hurt me and hurt her worse besides, keep on inflicting pain on her until I made her feel as powerless as she had made me feel. I was going to make it so she could never hurt me again and force her to be my friend again to replace everything I had lost. I wanted to turn things around and own her life the way she had completely taken over mine.

It wasn't even remotely rational but I was far from rational at that point. I just felt pain and loss and wanted to both lash out at my tormentor and take back what had been taken from me. I screamed and this time it was a bloodcurdling inhuman sound of primal rage that scared even me.

(Two figures in the depth of space and time soaring over the Earth. Endless echoes, vibrations cutting across all different realities. Learn. Move. Consume.)

Then suddenly I was in the school hallway tripping over myself and falling forward. I was so surprised I barely got my arms underneath me to soften the blow. I hit the ground hard and had the air was knocked out of my lungs.

I lay on the ground confused and still riding high from emotion when someone grabbed my arm and tried to help me up to standing. Passively I let them get me to my feet as I stared ahead while my mind tried to sort of what had just happened. The adrenaline pounded through my veins and blood rushed through my ears making it hard to think clearly.

"Jesus Em, are you ok? Don't go tripping over your own two feet now," said a voice next to me that tried to make a joke but still sounded concerned. It was a voice I recognized. I should know because I had grown to dread and fear it over the last year and a half.

I turned my head to find Sophia Hess holding my arm looking for all the world like she was concerned about me. She had a soft look on her face I'd never seen before. That look did absolutely nothing to put me at ease. If she was looking at me that way it was just going to be a ploy to get my guard down. Wouldn't be the first time they'd tried something like that.

"Don't touch me!" I yelled at her yanking my arm from her grasp. I took a few steps back as Sophia looked at me wide eyed like I had grown an extra head. That's when I realized something.

The voice that had come out of my mouth didn't sound like my own voice. It had been higher pitched and more pleasant sounding than my voice had ever been even if I had just yelled at Sophia. My lingering rage was starting to give way to confusion and a thread of fear.

"Whoa, it's ok Em," Sophia said holding her hands up, "no need to freak out everything's cool," she said but instead of looking angry at me she just looked confused.

"Emma are you ok? Do you want us to take you to the nurse's office or something?" said another concerned voice behind me that I recognized. Turning my head I saw it was exactly who I thought it would be. Madison was standing there looking at me with a look that was both confused and worried. Why was she being nice to me? Why were both of them being nice to me?

And… and why where they calling me Emma?

"Why… what…" I stammered, backing away so I could keep both of them in my sight. That damn voice again that didn't sound anything like mine. I was wide eyed and hyperventilating and feeling vaguely light headed. "The locker… why are you being nice to me? You stuffed me in a fucking locker!" I yelled and I knew I sounded more than a little crazed.

"What…?" said Sophia looking incredulous, "We came up with that plan together. You're not saying what I think you're saying are you? You're not suddenly going soft on that Taylor bitch?"

That Taylor bitch. I realized that Sophia didn't recognize me. Neither of them did. Why didn't they recognize me? It should have been obvious to them who I was. My mind raced as I tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

Then I started to notice a few things that felt different. My balance felt different. I took stock of my body and my eyes widened and my mouth opened in disbelief as I started to notice things I hadn't before. There was a noticeable… weight, mass I guess on my hips and butt that had never been there before and was making me feel a little awkward standing up. Then there was a definite weight on my chest that most definitely had not been there before. I looked down in disbelief. It looked like I had breasts. Big breasts. Those had definitely not been there before.

Looking down at myself I also noticed what I was wearing. Expensive flats with a deep red skirt and a long sleeved top in pink patterned with white flowers. I knew these clothes. I knew them because I had seen them before.

They were Emma's.

An ugly dreadful spark of suspicion started to form in my head.

"You know you shouldn't worry too much about her. Someone will let her out of there eventually," said Madison sounding a mix of worried and annoyed.

"She's still in that locker?" I asked while looking at my hands. Except they didn't look like my hands. The fingers weren't as thin and long and they were less bony. The palms were rounder and just a little bit bigger.

"She should be. Doubt anyone's let her out yet. Students know better than to fuck up this prank for us too soon," said Sophia a definite note of disapproval in her voice.

"Oh my God… still in the locker…" I said as I looked at my hands. Then suddenly I had to see.

I had to know what was in that locker.

Because suddenly I felt like I was going crazy.

I took one last wide eyed look at Sophia and Madison before I turned on my heel and started running.

"Hey! Emma," called out Madison but I ignored her. She hadn't been calling out to me. She had to have seen Emma show up all of a sudden. Had to. That was the only explanation that made any sense.

I took off running down the halls at top speed as fast as I could. It was incredibly awkward. The balance of my body was all wrong and I almost tripped and fell on my face twice. Students looked at me incredulously as I ran but I ignored them. I had to see what was in my locker. I felt if I did somehow everything would finally start making some kind of sense.

When I reached my locker there was a small crowd of students gathered around it whispering, most of them just staring at it and a good few of them with little smiles on their faces. I pushed past the crowd and ran up to my locker. I almost puked. The smell was indescribably horrible. Covering my nose with one hand I frantically reached for the lock.

It wasn't my combination lock. It was a new looking padlock and I didn't have the key. At that moment it also registered that there was no one inside the locker making any kind of racket. That was a good thing right? Or wasn't it? I didn't know.

I'll admit I wasn't very rational. In fact I was downright hysterical. I started to try to twist the lock off with my bare hands. When that didn't work I started hitting the locker and yelling that someone was trapped inside. I heard people talking around me and to me but it was all just background noise to the rushing of blood in my ears. All that I cared about was getting the locker open. I had a bad feeling and somehow thought if I could get that locker open fast enough maybe everything would be fine.

I think someone yelled at me and tried to pull me away from the locker but I wouldn't let them. Completely losing it in front of my locker must have been quite the spectacle but I was already more or less used to public humiliation by then and this was too important. Someone must have called the teachers because at some point a few of them showed up.

Female adult hands tried to gently pull me away. I would have fought them except I saw Mr. Gladly step up with bolt cutters looking grim. He sent me a pitying concerned look before he used the cutters on the padlock. When he removed it and lifted the latch of the locker a heavy weight from the inside opened it and crashed onto the floor.

Lying there on the floor covered in bugs, puke and rotted feminine products was a skinny girl I knew very well. Wide mouth, dark curly hair, tall and with no figure to speak of. Her glasses were askew and half hanging off her face. She lay there with her body twisted awkwardly looking like some kind of broken movie prop. Her eyes were glassy and she wasn't moving. She was so still. Like she was dead.

"Oh my God. Someone call an ambulance!" said Mr. Gladly sounding panicked.

I knew that face. It was me. Taylor Hebert. That was me. What was I doing on the floor? Why wasn't I moving?

"Emma? Emma dear take deep breaths. Come on you don't need to see this," an adult female voice said as she gently tried to pull me away.

I was hyperventilating. I kept looking at me, but it wasn't me. I was here. But I had been in the locker. Why had I been in the locker? Why wasn't I moving? My vision started to narrow to a point and I had was having a hard time staying on my feet.

"Come on dear I'm sure everything will be fine. Sophia! Come help me with Emma will you?"

The last thing I saw was Sophia looking down at me with a disapproving glare before everything went black.