A Certainly Strange Series Of Events

"Of all the days for the power to go out, it had to be the one when my dad was working late? Really life, this is just spiteful. I mean, I'm already at the bottom, why keep kicking me? I can't fall any lower unless I was six feet under. Which might be your plan. Ha… well, no help for it. Might as well run out and get some fresh groceries. Milk definitely. Maybe some hamburger too?"

List of new Worm terms used in this chapter, in case you're unfamiliar with the series.

Cape - Someone with super powers, be they villan or hero. Referred to occasionally as parahumans.

PRT - Parahuman Response Team. The government agency (Law enforcement in a way.) deployed to stop hostile or dangerous capes.

Brockton Bay - Setting of Worm. (Likely in New Jersey.)

Protectorate - A government-sponsored superhero organization that spans the United States of America and Canada. Works under the Parahuman Response Team.

Wards - A subdivision of the Protectorate for underage capes.

ABB - Azn Bad Boys. A gang made up of primarily Asians. One of three major gangs in Brockton Bay, alongside the Empire 88 and the Merchants.

Clockblocker - Male. Member of the Brockton Bay Wards. Ability to stop people or objects in time with a touch, though needs physical contact.

Vista - Female. Member of the Brockton Bay Wards. Ability to shorten or widen distances between objects or points. Youngest member of the Wards, though also longest member in the Brockton Bay Wards. Pre-teen at oldest.

Oni Lee - Male. High ranking member of the ABB. Teleporter that leaves behind ash clones when he teleports. Ash clones are capable of limited autonomous movement for a short time after being created. Generally used as suicide bombers via the grenades Oni Lee carries. Psychopathic murderer.

Taylor Hebert sighed as she jogged back towards her home, groceries slung over her shoulder. At some point during the day the power had gone out while she was at school. It was back now, but half the food in the refrigerator had spoiled. Well, maybe not all of it, but Taylor had no desire to eat potentially spoiled food, and so she had to run out and get more food. Of course she could just eat cold cereal, but without milk that just hadn't sounded that appealing. And dad was still at the docks trying to keep the workers doing their jobs and was therefore too busy to help her. Not that she had asked for his help, but that was mostly because she knew he would say that he was too busy. So now she had to get back home with fresh groceries, throw out the old ones, and cook dinner before finishing the mountain of homework she had. It was all really tiring.

Then tomorrow was Thursday and she would have to go back to… them. Emma and her gang of miscreants. She really didn't want to. Maybe she could skip? Call in sick or something? The school had never really cared where she was before, why would they now? Sure, it had been months since Emma and her friends had shut her in Taylor's own locker, and sure they didn't go quite so far anymore, but the bullying hadn't stopped by any measure.

Her thoughts were rudely interrupted by the street in front of her exploding. Taylor blinked. Not in surprise so much as this was Brockton Bay, where exploding streets were pretty common, but more out of reflex. Though she did step back in shock when she saw who it was lying there.

"What the hell," the girl cursed, as she stumbled away from the fallen body of one of the Brockton Bay Wards, Clockblocker. The hero's distinctive mask, white with only a clock's ticking face on it, stared back at her, even as the masked teen in front of her stumbled to his feet. Taylor's thoughts ran at mile a minute. The only reason for Clockblocker to be here was that there was some criminal. And not just some run of the mill criminal either. While Clockblocker was not the most physically capable of capes, it would take more than just a thug with a bat to knock him through a wall. And considering this was Azn Bad Boys territory…

Taylor swore again, spinning to run. Some part of her told her to go back and help the downed Ward, but common sense overruled that. Clockblocker was a cape, she wasn't. She was only a skinny fifteen year old girl, if he couldn't get out of this situation then there was no way she could help.

Taylor had only gone a few feet, before she was brought to a stop by the feeling of cold steel on her throat. She twisted her head and peered up at the visage of Oni Lee, hidden behind a leering demon's mask. "Well, great," she muttered.

Oni Lee gazed impassively down at the young girl. "Survival of the fittest, little girl," the man said quietly to her.

"Pah," Taylor gave a derisive snort, glaring back at him. "What goes around comes around, coward." That book of quotes that her mom got her, back when she was still alive, did come in handy sometimes, she decided. She immediately took back that thought as Oni Lee's eyes narrowed at her words and his knife pressed deeper into her throat.

Perhaps, she decided, it wasn't the best idea to provoke the psychopathic murderer with the knife to her throat. This was reinforced by the trickle of blood running down her neck and onto her orange t-shirt, a result of the razor sharp blade that her captor held.

The arrival of a third cape, Clockblocker and Oni Lee being the first two, drew Taylor's attention. The green dress was a pretty obvious giveaway to who she was, and Taylor grinned slightly as Vista's shoes clattered onto the pavement of the road; the young Ward having stepped from the top of a nearby building to the street as if she was simply walking down the last step of a staircase. Well, Taylor thought, considering the girl's power allowed her to manipulate distance that was actually pretty much what she was doing.

"Release the girl, Lee," the green clad Ward said. Though she spoke firmly, Vista's actions betrayed her unease as the preteen's head shifted slightly, turning her gaze towards her injured comrade. "She's just a civilian, she had nothing to do with this. You kill her, you'll have the whole PRT on your head."

Oni Lee shrugged, the motion pushing his knife deeper into Taylor's throat, the girl making a grunt of pain. "You're wrong on one account. I could kill her. But it is true that I would not like to do so," the man said, his accent distinctly Japanese. "But if I cripple her? Then you will stay here and tend to her and I will be free to run. Another crippled child is nothing on my record. I have done worse."

The masked man's form shifted, growing softer, more ashen though still real. Taylor would have cursed if she had been willing to risk her throat. As it was, she could only watch as the man began to reform across the street, leaving her restrained by his clone. The ash clone brought its left arm, the one not holding her hostage, towards her stomach and steel glimmered in the moonlight as it swung the blade towards her helpless form. Vista was already moving, rushing towards Taylor in swift strides, each one the equal of a dozen normally as the girl's power shrank the distance between the two of them. But Taylor knew it wasn't enough. And so she raised her hand up in a desperate but futile attempt to protect herself. As she did so, the fingers of her right hand brushed against the oncoming blade.

With a tremendous crash, like the shattering of glass, the clone and the knives pressed to her broke into a million pieces and Oni Lee let out a cry of pain from where he had begun to reform a ways down the street. One of his arms looked like it had been torn from its place, the entire forearm missing, and his left leg was shattered, fragments of bone jutting out at all angles.

Vista pulled herself to a stop, a few yards away from Taylor and gaped at the groaning villain who lay crippled in the street.

"What in God's name was that?" the tween asked, stunned, her dress fluttering around her as she slid across the wet pavement, snow melting in the warm April weather.

Taylor looked down at her right hand in confusion. "I have no idea," she admitted, stumbling backwards and falling to the ground in shock. The only thing she had wanted was to get some groceries and come back. Until a few minutes ago her biggest problem was Emma's gang of bullies and her homework, and now she was standing in the middle of a cape fight, apparently responsible for the incapacitation of Oni Lee, a villain with a kill count that had more names on it than she had friends. Taylor blinked and, after a second's thought, changed that to Oni Lee's kill count having more names on it than she had tormentors at school. After all, if she went by the first one, almost everybody in Brockton Bay qualified.

As she heard the wail of sirens draw nearer towards them, Taylor's thoughts turned to a phrase she had read in her mother's book that seemed appropriate for the situation.

"Such misfortune," she groaned, slumping onto the cold sidewalk, ashes from Oni Lee's clone swirling around her, even as the man himself clutched at his leg in pain. Now wouldn't this be a fun night?

Based on A Certain Magical Index/Toaru Majutsu No Index, namely on the protagonist Kamijou Touma. (Anglicanized as Touma Kamijou.) Index is an anime that follows the adventures of high school student Kamijou Touma as he attempts to navigate that oh so troublesome time that is high school. Throw in living in a city where science is 20-30 years in the future, and add a dash of science created superpower wielding teens called Espers, and you have quite the recipe of disaster for our main character, who wields no powers himself. Well, no powers except for the ability to cancel any other power, be it Esper or magical. (Yes, there is magic. That's why it's called A Certain MAGICAL Index.) Well anyways, if you liked this concept, I highly recommend you watch the anime. (Or read the light novel, if that's more your cup of tea.)

All said and done, I took some liberties with the story. Namely, Vista and Clockblocker didn't actually fight Oni Lee in canon Worm. But hey, if you're here for what basically amounts to slight deviations from canon with only different powers, I suggest you try a different story, because this is totally not for you.

Oh, and if you were wondering what happened to Oni Lee, it's because Taylor interrupted Lee's teleport. The contact knocked him out of the 11th dimension, the result being somewhat brutal. If you're a Harry Potter fan, just imagine that Lee got spliced with extreme prejudice.