Author's Note:

Hello everyone. I'm new to writing fanfiction, but not to writing in general. Critiques are welcome, as is lavish praise and snickerdoodles.

I've been lurking for a little while, but I've finally gotten up the nerve to start posting some of my ideas. This is the first.

A couple of things before we start: for those of you who haven't read it, Worm is a rather dark world in which some people, called parahumans, have superpowers. This will be an altpower fic, in which the protagonist, Taylor Hebert, triggers with a different power. Now, a slight problem that I have with altpower!fics, much as I love them, is that WoG is that the trigger event relates to the power, and fewer writers than I would like include that aspect in their work. In cannon, Taylor triggers in a locker, and her feelings of alienation give her a master/thinker power. The same situation could result in a different power, but it would probably be something similar. So, in order to change Taylor's power, I'm also changing her trigger event.

Now, on to what to expect from this fic. This is going to get dark. All of Worm is a dark place, but this is going to get bad. Eventual M rating, probably just for violence. Additionally, we will be sailing the Skittertale ship (Taylor/Lisa). For some reason, even though cannon Taylor is straight, my headcannon has her being gay. I think it's because she takes a very masculine roll in the story...

I would like to acknowledge the debts I owe. First to Wildbow, for creating this wonderful world and letting us use it. Second to all the other talented Worm fanfiction writers out there. I will probably end up using ideas from some of you, and I'll try to acknowledge it when I do. If anyone spots something they think is taken from someone else, let me know and I'll give credit where credit is due. I am forgetful, so I apologize in advance if that happens.

Lastly, don't expect any sort of routine update schedule. I'd rather not make a commitment I can't keep.

Anyway, I think that's it. Please let me know what you think.

Gathering Storm 1.1

Trapped. The crush of bodies surrounded me, scared and anxious people taking shallow gulps of the limited air supply. My claustrophobia, an ever-present gnawing in the back of my mind, surged to the fore. It hadn't been this bad since the locker. Even the memory of Sofia shoving me into that cramped space, walls closing in on me, the stench of blood and fetid waste barreling into my nostrils and mouth, the darkness, the slats of light that mocked me-

No. Have to keep a clear head. Have to stay calm. That's what all the posters said. Just stay calm. No panicking. Please. I eyed the people around me, some better dressed than others, the best dressed of them shooting nervous glances at the worst. My mind buzzed, anxiety rising from the pit of my stomach and flooding my brain. God, I can't stand this. Too many people. Too many.

Dad was on the other side of the room. I could barely see him; only his height and mine let me identify his slowly receding brown hair. He shot a glance towards me, his eyes catching mine briefly before returning to the man across from him. The two of them, and several surrounding men and women, had taken up something of a leadership position in the shelter, rationing out the bottles of water and granola bars, making sure that the elderly and pregnant got first choice of the limited selection of seats. I could see that Dad was in his element; hell, I could see some familiar faces from the dockworker's union helping him out. And here I was, alone amidst a group of women I neither knew nor cared to. The ones that weren't drugged up were rather clearly prostitutes, but it was safer in this part of the shelter than with the opportunists.

There was a group of girls my age somewhere around here, but to be honest I'd rather stick with the prostitutes. At least they wouldn't judge me for being a goddamn beanpole, or the acne I just couldn't get rid of, or the general shabbiness of my clothes. Come to think of it, I couldn't actually remember the last time I bought new clothing. Sweatshirts and jeans were very forgiving.

The lights above us flickered, causing a wave of murmurs to sweep across the room. It's funny, I think, how all of us came to be here today. I was probably just using the line of thought as a distraction from the press of bodies and already stale air, but whatever. Wouldn't be the first time I lost myself in my thoughts to escape something.

Shit, I can't even keep a train of thought running without something interrupting it, like how that bulge in the ratty-looking man a few yards away from me's pants was probably a gun, or how the woman next to me stank of cigarettes and overdone perfume. I bend over in the little space I have, trying to segregate some air from everyone else. Think about something else, Taylor Hebert.

All of us in this shelter, going about our ordinary days, in our ordinary lives. Me waking up to a Saturday, going for a run just because if I stopped going I don't think I'd have the strength to ever start again. Breakfast spent avoiding my father's eyes, refusing to see the guilt there. The anguish. It's why I never told him about the bullying, the constant rain of petty abuse I'd weathered for so long. I couldn't bear to see the look in my father's eyes when he realized, after the locker, that he couldn't help me. That he was just as helpless as I was, that even the famed Hebert rage was nothing compared to the indifference of bureaucracy and the cowardice of bystanders.

That his little girl had been shoved into her own defiled locker and left there for three hours, and he couldn't do a damn thing about it.

He looked so different now, alive and energized, staring down a situation he could actually fix.

Ever since my mother died and Emma, my best friend, turned against me, I'd been hanging on for him. Even after the locker, when nothing had changed, when the usual puddle of juice waited for me on my seat in Mr. Gladly's class, when Sophia shoved me down the stairs and I twisted an ankle and limped all the way home, even then I persevered. I survived. I though about killing myself. I thought about it the same way I'd consider going to the mall, or watching a movie. Just another option. But I didn't take it, because if my mother's death had hurt my father, mine would destroy him. And I couldn't do that to him.

I wouldn't.

The shelter shuddered abruptly, knocking a few people off their feet. More than one girlish scream filled the cramped space.

It was just another Saturday in a line of Saturdays, just like the week that preceded it was no different than the ones before it. Another footstep in the sand. I remember wondering if that was how people did it, the ones who lasted for months at sea or got marooned on an island for years. Just one step at a time, keep your head down and think of something else.

And yet this Saturday, today, was broken from all the others by a shrill cry that echoed from hidden loudspeakers all across the city. Something new in the monotony of my life. Like every new twist I could remember, it was for the worst.

The Endbringer sirens were going off.

As Dad grabbed me and headed for the shelter nearing us, I found myself trying to find a silver lining, and succeeding. Maybe Leviathan would destroy Winslow High for me. Hell, maybe Emma, Sophia and Madison would die. That last thought was kind of morbid, but hey, it wasn't like I hadn't thought of it before. Unlikely, though. They were probably in an Endbringer shelter for rich people, not stuck trying to prevent an unconscious woman from drooling on their sneakers.

Screw them. If there was one good thing about Leviathan deciding to attempt to sink Brockton Bay into the Atlantic, it was not having to see Emma smiling at me as she insinuated that it was my fault my mother was dead.

The shelter shuddered again, and I wondered abruptly how it was going for the defending capes. Leviathon wasn't quite as deadly to capes as Behemoth, or as terrifying as the Simurgh, but his civilian death toll was often the highest of the three. Due to the whole sink-the-city thing he had going on. I pictured Alexandria somewhere out there, leading the charge against the Endbringer. I had wanted to be her when I was a kid, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much her life had to suck. Constantly expected to be the front line against everything, barely praised for succeeding and being lambasted for every failure. The pressure had to be immense.

I looked over to my Dad, feeling nauseous from the stifling air and perfumes around me. God, this shelter was too small. Just a breath of fresh air...

Dad looked over at me, wiping his forehead and smiling. I could practically feel the sense of accomplishment coming from him all the way across the room.

Which is why I stared, uncomprehending, as Leviathon smashed through the ceiling of the shelter and my father vanished in a spray of blood.