Prelude: Reckless Abaddon
Worm belongs to Wildbow, as does the twist which inspired this story. This fic is set in the, or perhaps an, 'Apollyonverse,' a version of the Worm universe in which the two Entities which visited Earth were instead devoured by the third, known to the fandom at large as Abaddon (aka Apollyon). The short written by Wildbow about this universe can be found on the 39th Worm fanfic rec and discussion thread on SB.
On impact, it shatters the planet in several universes. More are destroyed as it folds into itself, forming into a protective cocoon so that it might digest its prey. None of the local wildlife is able to observe it; the worlds on which it is present have been rendered utterly barren by its presence.
The entity lives for combat. Its shards grant it the potential to operate thousands of minds, to solve countless other problems, but for cycles innumerable devoted the great majority of them for one savage purpose, prioritizing this aspect of its existence above all others.
It is of gargantuan size, and has the immortality of a bacterium; it feasts without pause, constantly absorbing whatever it can, the materials flowing to replace damaged subsections. The two lesser entities it has just consumed are rent asunder, and much of the useful mass goes towards repairing the minor but non-negligible damage inflicted by the one that fought.
The entity takes a moment, brief even by the standards of the local bipeds, to reflect upon its victims. The stronger prey, which thought itself a warrior, had some shards which were of obvious use. But the entity's feelings towards the one that surrendered are less than contempt. Weakness. Cowardice. It expends effort towards inspecting the latter's shards with something like reluctance.
But as it studies the contents of its digestive system, it sees utility in a vision of the lesser one, a plot which it had devised, and seen reforged as it was consumed.
The entity's shards stir. Some originate from older members of the smaller subspecies on which it has just dined. Acting in concert, they provide more computational power than could ever be achieved by an ordinary pair of the diminutive variants.
The course devised is similar in its essentials to the original scheme of the Thinker, but modified to suit this entity's preferences and needs. It cannot afford to linger excessively on this planet; once it emerges partially, as it must in order to seed the remaining bipeds with shards, it will find itself in a disfavorable metabolic position if it moves as slowly as the plan's creator envisioned. And thus, the essentials of the entity's modifications fell into place.
The shards would grant their hosts powers, still. It would be suboptimal to take the time to temper them carefully, so the entity reforges them en masse, splitting apart all but the weakest.
None of the resultant shards have anywhere near enough power to challenge even the lesser entities. Some of them, however, will threaten their own hosts considerably upon attachment, a possibility the Thinker responded with further shard-tinkering.
This, too, costs more than it will yield, and so the entity does not do it.
The lesser entities planned to install their shards in targets over some length of time, building up the conflict needed for the prepared shards to grow. Their shards would have waited for for their hosts to attune before manifesting.
The predator is impatient, so the moment it emerges, it implants all the shards it has ready, and activates them by force.
Kenta strode down the city streets. Order had been restored in Japan faster than in nearly every other major country, but here, chaos still reigned.
He might have had something to do with that.
Kenta, who was half-Chinese, had grown accustomed to poor treatment from both nationalities. Most people in Japan, when they found out, seemed to consider him less than human.
Having grown scales, wings, a snout, and about four more feet in height, amongst other things, Kenta suspected there was little danger that he would ever be perceived as a human again. In this, he wasn't alone.
Math was never his strong suit, but if he had to guess, about one in ten had been Changed in some way. Only a few had obvious alterations like he did, but he suspected the true number of Seamless, who showed no physical deviances to go along with their newfound abilities, was much smaller than was apparent, perhaps even composing only a minority of the Changed. Certainly, most of the opposing Yakuza he'd torn apart showed such signs. Black, hardened masses growing inside, tumors, perhaps. Bizarrely shaped bones, organs that seemed half melted. He'd seen such even in those he hadn't burnt to death, suggesting that though they seemed normal enough, they had indeed paid a price for their powers.
Kenta did not consider his new body to be a burden, however. There was no sentimentality for the days in which he had been a soft sack of flesh, only slightly more difficult to kill than a cockroach, at least for his present form.
He heard a faint, guttural noise. He followed the trail to a sight familiar in general, if not in its particulars.
The sound came from a mouth, and this was the most recognizable feature of the aberration before him. It was the sole orifice of what was otherwise almost a sheet of flesh. It had a certain thickness, giving the impression of dough kneaded in a heart-like shape. Here the resemblance between the Ill-Changed and anything appetizing ended, for remnants of what Kenta presumed were its internal organs were studded into its skin, linked by vivid branched blood vessels.
The creature flopped ineffectually. Kenta moved forward to deliver a merciful death.
He sensed the ambush the moment he stepped into the alley; no less than twelve individuals, nine men and three women. Their attire labeled them, improbably enough, as members of the JSDF.
One stepped forward, without any sign of fear, and greeted a moment, he replied in kind.
"Your country requires your assistance," the leader, who, preposterously, called herself Kurokaze.
Kenta could think of a variety of comebacks to this, but held his tongue. "The country is doing all right, as far as I can see," he replied, his voice a deep, resounding rumble.
Some of the others could not disguise their surprise that he could speak at all. Kenta marked them for death first.
"There have been some recent developments," said Kurokaze smoothly. "The foes you would find would be of considerably higher quality, should you join the Sentai."
Kenta knew he was being manipulated, knew that they had somehow found out what would most likely motivate him to join any group, let alone a government-sanctioned one. "If it is not a worthy opponent, you will regret this," he growled.
The leader seemed unperturbed. "I am certain I will not."
Kenta paused. "This must be an exceptional enemy, to have consumed so much of your time that you could not even put this one out of his misery."
"That is Gaitou," replied Kurokaze, "and it isn't so simple. You are, however, welcome to try and end her suffering."
Needing no further encouragement, Kenta drew himself up and unleashed a torrent of flame upon the aberration. The fire burned as hot as ever, but when the flames cleared, the Ill-Changed, as well as a roughly circular patch of the alleyway, was not even singed.
The locker was cramped, but it was the best place Emma could find to hide.
When It first happened, when the world went insane, many had thought to flee Winslow High. If they'd only stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, It hadn't stopped at the school's edge…
But most hadn't, not until the screams and explosions from outside had become intense enough that they could be heard even from her locker.
Back when the internet was still up, she'd found out that it was happening world wide. Just about every major urban center in the U.S. was a warzone, which still put the country ahead of the majority of the world.
Someone had begun to fiddle with the lock. Emma braced herself and prepared. She hadn't dropped dead or sprouted vile growths, but she had changed, somehow. She had felt it, at the very moment Sophia had disappeared, Greg turned into a slug, and Mr. Gladly went berserk and started strangling strangling students with his bare hands.
When she'd first tried to hide, she'd neutralized the janitor's closet as a viable hiding spot by inadvertently ripping the door off. When she ran into Julia, they were both confronted by a junior who'd left a trail of bodies in his wake. He'd made a single hand gesture, and she'd felt a sharp pain. The surprise was enough for her to fall, which was fortuitous, as the murderer moved on. She'd gotten a glimpse of Julia's body; her hands were clutching her throat as she died.
Emma wasn't a fighter. This was also fortunate, since she was surprised enough but the ease with which the door was unlocked that she didn't immediately deck the person who'd opened it.
Her brief surprise at the fact that it was Sparky was overshadowed by the sight of her friend.
"Taylor!" she exclaimed.
"Wait," muttered the dark haired girl. But she wasn't loud enough, and Emma jumped into the hallway, and ran until she was less than a foot away. Then she was still.
Emma stared at her friend while she processed the fact that she couldn't move. Worse, there was a - something - not exactly a voice, but a will, flowing through every part of her. It urged her back, and slowly, jerkily, she stepped back. Or rather, her body stepped back. She was not in control until she'd managed a few steps. Then, at once, the feeling came back to her limbs, and she collapsed.
A/N: Of course, the PoD should alter things with the result that no one born after the original impact should even exist, but for the sake of having recognizable characters, the fic is set on an earth where, by sheer coincidence, most of the characters we know from earth Bet are around. Indeed, the only ones that aren't are those brought into the universe from elsewhere (the travelers, the case 53s) and those who would not be around were it not for their powers (not too many of these, but, for instance, we can assume Alexandria died of cancer). Naturally, the lack of powers until the moment the entity injected them means that the world's opinion and knowledge of powers was nonexistent prior to the Change.
I have a broad idea of what I want to do with this story. It'll probably be in the first person, from Taylor's perspective, with third-person interludes, and I'm hoping to get practice at a less abstract kind of story, ie one not from the perspective of some kind of alien. I couldn't resist putting an entity section in there, but hopefully other than that this should be more comprehensible than most of my fics thus far.