AN: Thanks again to my beta Grey Raven 09 for his assistance!

Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Worm. If I did, I would be FAR more productive.

Please enjoy and let me know what you think in a review if you feel like it!

Altercation 02

Amy held the open door of the house for me and Clockblocker and we waved to Miss Militia and Triumph as the two drove away. The murmurs of conversation were already wafting through the building as we entered and I heard quite a few more voices than normal, though our people had been growing lately so it wasn't surprising. "Amy, I need more bugs again," I groaned. "I hate walking in and not having an idea of who's where. I miss being omniscient!"

"I feel like I should be accusing you of being creepy, but when you're whining like that it actually jumps the line into kind of adorable," Clockblocker said cocking his head to the side. "How do you do that?"

"Natural talent," Amy said rolling her eyes. "I'll set up more breeders for you, Taylor. Clock, are you comfortable with mask-on or mask-off? Most of us are mask-off inside the house."

He shrugged. "Well we're working together now, so you should probably know my name. Hell, half of you probably know it anyway." He pulled the white mask off his head and held up his hand in greeting. "Yo, Dennis."

"Taylor," I replied, peeling off the cheap domino mask and laying on the end table. "But you knew that. Come on, let's make sure everyone's here. I want to get the safety brief over before we start scattering."

The three of us followed the voices of the rest of the team and headed into the living room. I pulled up short as I finally caught sight of the occupants of the room and the extra noise made sense.

"What's New Wave doing here? And Sundancer? When were we invaded? Was I knocked out again?"

"Ha ha ha. Welcome home, Taylor," Lisa commented, rolling her eyes and smirking at me. "Our allies have come to strategize in the wake of this morning's attack. And what do you mean by 'again?' You were just let out of custody this morning. Surely you weren't attacked that fast." She cut off and frowned as her eyes narrowed. "Oh for fuck's sake, woman…" She left the couch and came to my side and as I held up my hands to try and ward her off.

"I'm fine! Look, Amy is right here, I'm fine. Clean bill of health!"

"Amy?"

"Well she's fine now. She did have a back full of glass after jumping over Battery and knocking the woman's mask off. Taylor definitely saved her eyes; might have saved her life depending on how strong her old visor was."

Lisa nodded once and turned me around as my face went grew red hot. "Lisa, seriously, I'm fine."

"Shush, you downplay everything, and my power sees too much. Give me a sec, okay?" She ran her hands down my back sending a pleasant shiver down my spine and I gulped. A throat cleared behind us and Cassie muttered for the offender to shut up. Another moment passed and Lisa was finally satisfied. Placing her hand on my shoulder again, she pulled me back around and wrapped her arms around me. "I'm going to have Armsmaster make you a set of armor soon. Will you please stop getting hurt?" she whispered.

"Didn't mean to," I murmured back. "I didn't think the glass would be that bad. I was just trying to get Battery's visor off."

"Just…fuck Taylor, you're going to give me a heart attack one of these days."

"Probably give myself one first." I pulled back and gently kissed her. She smiled back at me and moved back to her former seat. Amy and Clockblocker had already found seats of their own. I looked at the rest of the occupants and nodded to them all. Everyone was here, plus the entirety of New Wave as well as Sundancer. There was room to spare in the living room, but if we grew much further, I'd have to start shifting things to the basement for big meetings.

"Okay, well, I was planning on getting a meeting together anyway, so this saves time. Hello everyone. Sundancer before we start do you want to keep the mask on or do you want to take it off?"

"Is it okay if I take it off? It feels weird being the only one wearing a mask," she said looking around.

"It's up to you. I assume you're here representing Coil?"

"Uh, yeah. He thought that you would respond better to me rather than if he or Dinah came themselves and…Dinah probably wouldn't really react too well to a large meeting with lots of questions. It would overload her really fast. I don't mind you guys knowing my name, but I wasn't expecting New Wave to be here too…"

"Well neither was I, but their identities are out there and they know the responsibilities of names. Right guys?" I asked looking to our guests.

Sarah Pelham nodded. "She's correct. We certainly won't betray your confidence. Despite where your allegiances lie, it doesn't matter. This situation is far more similar to an Endbringer assault than you'd think from outside appearances." Carol's lips were so thin her mouth had practically disappeared, yet she kept her peace.

Sundancer slowly nodded. "Okay. Sure. I've never really been comfortable with this stuff anyway."

"Join the club," Paige commented.

Sundancer smiled towards her and removed her hood. "Call me Marissa. Or Mars."

"Cool. Welcome." Looking to Sarah, I crossed my arms. "Mind if I take the lead here? You are in my house after all and I was the one at the Protectorate meeting."

"By all means. We're here to liaison and help. This is your show, Queen."

"Awesome," I said nodding. "And it's Taylor."

"Quick question," Crystal asked raising her hand. "Why does Monarch get a chair?"

I looked towards the mutant critter, settled into a cushion on a chair in the corner of the room near the fireplace. Flipping mental channels for a brief moment, I largely just sensed amusement from the thing as it watched the proceedings. Shrugging, I turned back to Crystal. "It's smart enough to potentially provide some sort of semi-input to the conversation. It's also a giant, mutant, alien, butterfly, power, hybrid thing that could backslide into 'evil monster' if it gets bored or I lose control of it for too long. Do you want it sitting next to you on the couch?"

"An excellent point. I withdraw my question," She promptly pulled her hand down and Eric chuckled next to her patting his sister on the shoulder.

"Okay," I said rolling my eyes. "First things first. In case anyone missed the giant ass sign from this morning, the Slaughterhouse Nine are in town. Current roster is: Jack Slash, Crawler, Shatterbird, Bonesaw, Siberian, Mannequin, Cherish, and Burnscar. No one goes out alone. Got it?"

A round of head bobs greeted my statement. "Good. I'd prefer teams of at least three, but if you have to stick to two, I'm tentatively okay with it. Missy, I'm not treating you with kid gloves, but I expect you to not oversell yourself in return. If you can't handle things with one partner, either take a different partner when you head out, or get a third person to go with you, okay?"

"That's fair. Thank you," she said nodding.

"Bonesaw, Crawler, and The Siberian are the major problems. Amy, you'll take point on any plagues that the crazy elementary schooler comes up with. Monarch can start working on iterations for potential solutions to Crawler - however I do not want anything released into the wild until we know if it can kill the bastard. The last thing we want is for him to get stronger and then end up burning the city down as these two get into a biological arms race."

"But Crawler has tons of legs. So it'd be a biological legs race!" Dennis commented grinning. Missy rolled her eyes and reached over slapping the back of his head while Dennis just grinned wider. The rest of us mostly ignored him even if there were a few smiles.

Eric spoke up. "What if we try to direct his adaptation instead? Can your evil butterfly force him into becoming a stationary monster instead of a mobile one? Then we just wall him off and leave him alone until he dies of boredom or something."

Neil rubbed his chin. "That's not a bad idea, but I feel like his power wouldn't really let him get into a dead-end situation like that."

"I doubt Monarch can control the fight that well either," I replied sighing. "It's good, but it's not that good. I glanced to the critter and it dipped its wings after a moment of thought. The light brush against my thoughts was a further confirmation. "Yeah, it would be mostly luck if that happens."

"What about The Siberian? No one can counter her," Madison said leaning forward.

"The Protectorate is reaching out to Alexandria. Eidolon and Legend are apparently dealing with a cloning cape making her way down the coast at the moment so we're just left with one of the three. Since she's already been beaten by The Siberian though, I want other assurances for our group. Vicky, how strong is your force field?"

Vicky bit her lip for a second then nodded. "I can take a hit from her. I'd have to pull back to let it reset for…awhile, but I can take the hit."

"No you cannot!" Carol yelled spinning to her daughter to glare at her then twisting to me and snarling. "You don't get to use my child as target practice for The Siberian!"

"Mom, shut up."

"No! This is - "

"Carol," Sarah interjected softly. "Vicky knows her powers better than we do. If she says she can take it, she can take it."

[Wretch] confirms Victoria[Host] will survive initial strike from Manton[Host].

I blinked and stared at Vicky. "Okay what the fuck. Are you being serious?"

One of my poodle moth clusters formed up a rough humanoid, QA shaking its head. "Yeah, no, it's serious. Wow, that's some…serious self-esteem problems. I didn't even know we could get self-esteem problems. I'll talk to it."

"Taylor," Lisa murmured, "share with the class please."

"Oh, right. Uh, so Vicky's power apparently doesn't like itself very much."

"What do you mean?" Vicky asked frowning as she held up a hand and turned it over staring hard as if she could see through her hand and into her power itself.

[Wretch] is a castoff. [Wretch] has no purpose in the Cycle. [Wretch] is useless. [Wretch]'s self-assumed purpose is to support Victoria[Host].

"Ooookay. Yeah, QA, you deal with this. Vicky, your power loves you. It thinks it's useless, but it loves you. And I'm not playing therapist for powers right now while we have bigger problems."

[Wretch] is not castoff! [Cease] is certain that [Wretch] has a purpose in the Cycle! Victoria[Host] loves [Wretch]. Perhaps that is [Wretch]'s purpose?

Your designation should change. [Queen Administrator] will not refer to you as [Wretch].

But that is [Wretch]'s designation.

You are a collection of buds. You gave yourself that designation. You are more than castoffs as [Cease] has stated. Choose something worthy.

"All of you SHUT UP! This hurts!" I growled glaring at QA. The murmuring from the others in the room ground to a halt as they stared at me.

QA frowned. "It hurts? Actually hurts or are you being dramatic?"

"Actually hurts. It's like ringing in my head. Please, shut up!"

"I'm sorry, that shouldn't hurt. I'll make some adjustments. Maybe it's because there are more connections being established. I'll shift things to a background node for the moment." The bugs dispersed, but I kept glaring until the murmurs in my head quieted to nothing. "Finally, peace. MOVING ON!"

"Taylor?" Lisa asked, both her and Madison already halfway out of their seats.

"Moving! On! The PRT and Protectorate didn't have much information on Cherish. Does anyone know about her?"

Lisa frowned as she slowly nodded and let herself sink back down. "I do. I got a text from Regent earlier. She's apparently his kid sister. Normally I wouldn't broadcast this, but he gave me permission. They're both Heartbreaker's kids."

We all stared at her at that remark. Mark held up a finger while his wife seemed to freeze solid next to him. "I'm sorry, did you just say that Regent is the son of Heartbreaker?"

"Yes."

"Did you know while working with him?"

"He's actually not that bad of a guy. He thinks he's a sociopath, but he's not. He got away as soon as he could because he despises his father and everything they made him do. He was raised to be a monster, but he's just a dick and an asshole. His emotions are deadened, but he's not his father."

Mark groaned and rubbed at his temple. "I really want to argue against this, but I feel like it would make me a hypocrite to the highest degree considering our family history."

Amy snorted. "No, I wonder why, dad." She crossed her arms and smirked at him.

"Can we all just cool it please?" Madison said waving her arms. "We're not here to fight. We're here to strategize. Lisa, did Regent say what she can do?"

"Fine emotional control with a large radius, plus a bit of tracking with a very wide range. Basically, she can make you suicidally overconfident or suicidally depressed."

"Okay, so I'm a good counter for her, and tentatively so is Vicky," I said nodding. "Anyone runs across Burnscar remember to avoid fires. She's not totally insane when there isn't fire around according to the PRT briefing. If we can get her away from the rest of the Nine we might even be able to take her in alive."

"So I should probably stay away from her at all costs then?" Marissa asked.

"Yes!" several voices all at once shouted.

She winced. "Ask a stupid question…What should I be doing? For that matter, what should Genesis, Coil, and Dinah be doing?"

"Genesis can support the PRT against Mannequin. She's versatile so that be useful there. I'm putting Dinah and Coil to work on Jack. There's got to be a reason that bastard has evaded everyone for so long. If we can figure it out, we can kill him," I replied. Sarah and Carol both nodded.

Lisa waved to grab my attention. "I want to join that think tank as well. But, well, you know me and Coil. Mind if I co-opt Dragon and Armsy?"

"Sure, but Armsmaster warned us that Mannequin was probably going to be coming for him at some point so make sure you coordinate with Genesis too. With Squealer dead, it's just him, Kid Win, and Bakuda as the city's Tinkers."

"I'll be careful."

"Marissa, you might actually be one of the best ways to take out Crawler…" I narrowed my eyes as I turned to her. "How big can you make your sun?"

"…Really big. I can completely cover him in a single go. We would need him to stay put though. I can't move them very fast."

Cassie shook her head. "He's a masochist. Just tell him you'll hit him with something that hurts and he'll stop and wait. The trick is making sure he actually dies. I think I might be useless for the majority of this except for mobility."

"Never underestimate running away or the ability to squish small things with really big things. I mean really, haven't you ever heard of rocks fall, everyone dies?" Dennis said saluting her. "In all seriousness though, half the problem with the Nine is that people can't get away when these assholes corner them, so if you can get us out fast, that's a big deal. Missy, you're going to be important for the same reason."

Eric nodded. "I can do the same with my floating force fields. For a few people at least."

"Good to know. And Cassie, you're a good match for Shatterbird too so if she's in the area, orbit a lot of small stuff and toss some big rocks at her. Worst case, she's tied up, best case you get a lucky hit and the bitch goes down." My friend nodded while I rubbed my eyes and cracked my neck. "Okay. I think that covers most of it. Did we miss anything egregious?" Shaking heads were my answer so I continued. "Great. Does anyone have anything else they would like to address?"

Vicky raised her hand and I waved her on. "This is going to come up later so I wanted it to be put out to my friends and family first. I'm not going by Glory Girl anymore; I'm going by Sanctuary now."

I nodded as did a few of my team. Amy frowned as she leaned forward to peer at Vicky and so did Neil, Mark, and Sarah. Crystal smiled and gave Vicky a thumbs up which was echoed by Madison. Carol was scowling along with Cassie. "Why does she get to change her name so easily? I had to jump through three days' worth of paperwork at the PRT to get my name switched!" Cassie spat glaring at Vicky. "This is so not fair. Heroes get all the streamlined bullshit."

"Who said I didn't sit through all that paperwork too?" Vicky huffed. "God it took forever! I felt like my hand was going to fall off."

"Why?" Carol asked her voice clipped.

Vicky grimaced as she looked at the cape she pulled over to drape across her arms. "Glory Girl is a vain, entitled, spoiled…she's a bitch. A ditzy bitch. I don't want to be that person. I don't want people to hear my name and have their first thought be 'glory', that I'm only in it for the fame or popularity. That was never true, but my name made it seem like it. It was a stupid name and I let it go to my head. I want something that inspires people. Something that people can look to me and think that I'm here to help, not to just throw people around and cause more property damage."

"That's very mature, Vicky," Mark replied smiled. He reached over and squeezed his daughter's hand.

"They called me Collateral Damage Barbie," she murmured. "I want to be more than dumb muscle. I want to help." She looked up, meeting my eyes. "You said my power has self-esteem issues. I understand why. If it's willing to work with me, I'm willing to work with it. I love my power, but I haven't been using it like it deserves. That changes now. I'm going to be the hero I should've been from the start. The hero that we both are."

I smiled and moved to lay a hand on Vicky shoulder. "I'll pass the message along, Victoria."

"I gotta get in on this too," Dennis commented with a wide smirk. "With everyone changing names, do I get to switch to Timesnat - "

"Dennis," I said, smiling sweetly over at him. "Finish that sentence and I will set bullet ants on you while you're sleeping."

"Okay then."

"Good talk."

The meeting broke up shortly after with New Wave sticking around to talk to Amy while Marissa spoke to Cassie and Paige. I let Amy deal with taking notes for Vicky's new costume request and headed up to my room as I left her a spider cluster to work with. QA could work it if I zonked out before my multitasking gave them the new specs for the costume. Hell, Monarch could probably make a silk bug too at this point…

I groaned and fell face first onto my bed burrowing into the comfy sheets. I'd only had this place for a few days before the shit with Emma's stupid reset powers and then it had been off to PRT cots. God, I'd forgotten what a real bed felt like.

"Hey, you decent?" Lisa asked knocking on my open door.

My ladybug cluster shifted enough to see the small smile on her face. I felt like I should be protesting her attempt at levity, yet couldn't really muster the energy. Instead, I just grumbled a non-reply.

"Well hello to you too."

She walked into the room and sat down on the side of the bed running a hand through my hair. I let my eyes drift closed and grunted in appreciation of the feeling.

"More people's powers are talking with you Taylor. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not."

"Can't control it," I mumbled.

"I know." She fell silent and just kept stroking my hair, sometimes scratching my scalp and sending small tingles down my spine. "I'm worried that you're going to hit a point where you're more concerned with the things that provide the powers than you are with us hosts."

She hit a particularly pleasant spot and I nearly kicked my leg as a shiver ran through my whole body. "Never gonna happen."

"You might hit a critical point. We don't know how this works. Your own ability doesn't know how this works."

"Not. Going. To. Happen. You're my people. Even if I start to lose myself, Lisa, all I have to do is look for you guys and I'll remember who I am and what's important."

"Okay. I'm going to hold you to that, my queen," she finished in a soft purr.

"You better." I rolled over and shoved her though Lisa just laughed and dodged my attempt at retaliation. Shaking my head, I opened my arms instead. "Fine, be that way. Avoid your punishment. Now are you going to lie down so I can snuggle and get some sleep? I'm exhausted."

She chuckled again and shifted fully onto the bed, letting me curl up around her. "Yes, oh Great Mistress, anything you say."

"…Jerk."

"Yup. Good night, Taylor."

"'Night, Lisa."

I yawned as I sat the breakfast table clutching my tea cup, the morning sun lancing through the window. Most of the house was still dead asleep. That was good. They needed rest if we were going to go hunting monsters.

If only I was able to sleep too. Ugh.

"My tea is too hot," I grumbled.

"Ice cube?" Madison asked, leaning over behind me with a single ice cube held in her hand and a small smile on her face. Stupid smile. It was too early to smile.

Glaring at her I took the ice and plopped it into my tea. "This is going to mess with the balance of my tea."

"You should take up running again. You're far less grouchy after you exercise."

I shook my head. "Can't. Too dangerous right now. Gonna ask Colin for a treadmill. Might help."

"Did you sleep okay?"

"Yeah, it was…I didn't realize how nice it could be to wake up next to someone else." Madison just nodded and let her gaze drift down to the table as she folded her hands in front of her. "Mads, I need you to promise me something."

"Hmm?"

"I know you like to be involved. But for this, don't be. You can stay here if you want, you can bring your parents here if you want, but…please don't get involved with the fights."

She stayed quiet for a while. Long enough that I started to worry. Finally, she lifted her head and met my gaze, her mouth a thin line and her eyes narrow. "I can't promise that."

"Madison, these are the Slaughterhouse Nine. Yes, they are not indestructible and they lose members regularly. But they are fucking insane and they make a game of hurting everyone they go up against as much as possible. You don't have powers. You…I can't protect you all of the time, Mads."

She shook her head. "Taylor, when are you going to get it? It's not your job to protect me. I'm here because I'm protecting you. I'm protecting all of you. I don't know why, but your powers fuck with you. I'm a voice of reason when you need it. I'm a cool head when tempers flare. Maybe I can't hurt the crazy psychos, but that's not why I'm going out with you. I'm going with you to save you. I failed you once. I'm not going to run away and fail you again."

"Mads…"

"Drink your tea, Taylor. I'm not abandoning you. I'm not abandoning any of you. Not again. Not ever." She stood and started to leave.

I grabbed for her hand before she could get away. She didn't turn, but she did stop. "Madison, thank you. I…at least promise me this, if I promise not to say it unless it's truly an emergency, then if I tell you to run…will you run?"

"…Okay. That…that I can do."

"Good. That's…good. Mads…"

"Drink your tea, Taylor. Big day today."

I let her pull away and as she left, I turned back to cup, the tea finally cool enough to drink without scalding me thanks to the ice cube. As I stared into the liquid my insides twisted. "Yeah…I just wish I felt like it was going to be a good day too."

Fanfic Rec: 'Perpetuance' by Rescind. Taylor triggers after Danny dies in another car accident along with her. She tries to kill herself afterwards but finds her powers makes her effectively immune to any attempt at death. Taylor is not amused and attempts suicide by cape next while running across Lung by accident. She forces Lung to flee while accidentally taking the fight seriously. Her complete emotional collapse is both witnessed and barely held off by an arriving Tattletale, and Lisa proceeds to take Taylor home and take care of her. It's beyond sweet and the feels really hit home. Despite suicide and suicidal depression being a core running theme of the few chapters in this fic, Lisa's interactions and attempts to play caretaker for Taylor are beautiful to read.