AN: Okay, so, this is a bit awkward. It's been quite some time since I've last posted something on my account. Real life got complicated real fast, and I just couldn't find myself able to finish any projects I started.
But I think I finally managed to push through that with some help from my newest friend and co-writer, Alvor.
Alvor: I'm a depressed autist. Good luck with waiting for those updates.
Wyvern: Be happy, dammit!
Alvor: We just turned a teenage girl into a biological weapons factory. But, sure. Taylor is still best girl. Come at me bro.
Wyvern: No argument from me there. So with no further ado, Wyvern and Alvor present to you "Sasori"!
[Prologue]
Triggers are a bitch.
This is a fact of life; and one of the few universal truths of Capes
That a sequence of events leading up to a disastrous conclusion is enough to push a normal person over the edge and just break them.
Taylor wasn't stupid, she, logically, understood what that meant. But, perspective, well, that adds a whole other kind of understanding. When her mother died, having been on the phone with her when she crashed, Taylor thought she knew what that was like. Being so consumed with guilt and hatred and self loathing that it bends you in half as your stomach physically cramps and you want to scream or cry or vomit.
But, with time, even the crippling agony she felt faded. The wound scarred over. And yeah, it sucked, majorily, all the time. It was a grinding thing, though. Not quite the sharp, vicious thing kind of pain.
And dealing with all of that Taylor thought she knew what kind of hell could cause someone to trigger.
Obviously, there is a God and Murphy is his name.
Because when she came back from camp, heading back into school after finally managing to get her emotions under control, she had no way of knowing what she was about to walk into.
Her own personal hell.
She could still remember the first day back, the excitement of starting another year combined with the happiness of seeing her best friend again after months apart. Looking back at it, Taylor should have realized that something was wrong. This was Brockton Bay, after all. The city was ruled by gangs of drug dealers and nazis. And the only reason the school weren't active warzones was because the PRT tended to hand out kill orders like candy when Capes started blowing up kids.
At first Emma ignored her, acted as if she didn't exist. She had started hanging out with other girls like Sophia and then Madison; changing overnight into a completely different person. Obviously, she didn't want to think Emma had become a psychopathic bitch who revelled in the misery of others. So Taylor shut up and tried to give her some space. Obviously her best friend needed to cool off, or she'd screwed up and pissed Emma off somehow. It's not like Taylor was the most socially active girl in the world to begin with. And, maybe, Taylor could make a new friend or two. Branch out a tiny bit.
And that was when the torment began.
The kind girl she knew was gone, dead, as far as she was concerned.
What was left was a shallow thing. Almost a carraricature, really. Over the last year and a half Emma had used every single secret, ever single vulnerability, and every single hope she'd ever had, ever confessed to her. She'd used them to tear into her. Mentally, physically, and emotionally.
Oh, Emma had no desire to beat Taylor. That was more Hess' area of expertise.
Madison was cutesy and mocking and sickly sweet. And her pranks were like that. Glue on her chair, juice in her backpack, and things like that. Petty bullshit. Sophia Hess, on the other hand, was a mad dog. A sadist, pure and simple. Without Emma painting a target on her back Hess wouldn't have done much, probably only knocked her around a bit and then gone about her day.
Instead….Instead Emma had gone so far as to tell Hess to take her Mother's flute and defile it. When it was returned to her, caked in filth and excrement, that was the day Taylor gave up on ever recovering her old friend. There was just no line the trio was unwilling to cross and Emma proved it that day.
Obviously, things escalated further when Taylor almost broke down. The terrible trio went from petty taunting and stealing her things to physically assaulting her in the hallways and destroying her homework in order to get her into trouble with the teachers, who plain didn't care about her side of the story. Of course, this was Winslow, there were enough active drug dealers that 'minor' bullying didn't really rate.
She learned the hard way when she first went to the teachers for help. Certainly they had seen just how rotten the girls were? But her hopes had been dashed entirely when they either pretended not to notice, or said she had no way to prove it. Gladly, the sick creep, even went so far as to get a bit too handsy for Taylor's blood. Not that she thought he was a paedophile. Just a loser who wanted to be a cool kid, even though he was pushing forty. In the end Hess never got in trouble and Taylor learned quickly that fighting back only meant she'd catch detention. It felt like the universe was conspiring to take away everything she loved.
Yet Taylor was unwilling to let them break her. To let them have that satisfaction.
And then they'd shoved her into a locker filled with used tampons and worse and left her there. While laughing like a pack of psychopaths.
There were at least fifty kids in the hallway who saw what happened. Two or three teachers, probably. If nothing else they would have heard the raucous laughter of the Trio and their hanger ons. Of course, all of the freaks ignored her. Kept their heads down. Did the smart thing. Never mind the fact that they were witnesses to attempted murder.
It wasn't until the end of the day that a janitor let her out.
[Brockton Bay - Central Hospital]
Taylor lay in a bed, listening to the rhythmic beeping of the monitors.
Her mother was dead.
Her father spent months piecing himself back together from his bout of depression. She didn't blame him. God knows she'd had to do the same. The trio had waged a crusade against her, doing whatever they felt would hurt her the most. Whatever they could get away with and then some.
But she had persevered, unwilling to let them win.
Not when her grades started slipping.
Not when her notebooks mysteriously vanished.
Not when her belongings were ruined and covered in food stains.
Not when she came back home with bruises from 'tripping' so much on the hallways.
Or even after what happened to her mother's flute.
She listened to the rhythmic beeping of the monitors.
The Locker broke her.
The darkness, her screams, the putrid smell that smothered her entire existence. Just thinking about it sent shivers through her entire body, made her want to break into sobs again and again until there was nothing left.
It had been a week already but Taylor felt no closer to recovering.
Her body might have healed, even if her nails were still regrowing and the insect bites were still scabbed over. In that box, her mind had shut down. She'd become a screaming, feral thing. So much so she'd suffered a psychotic break.
A part of her, no matter how small, died inside that metal coffin.
"...and that seems to be it, Mr Hebert."
"Please, call me Daniel, doctor."
"Very good then. Your daughter's room is right up here, so I'll let you head on in."
Taylor was happy, she supposed, that her father had been spending so much time with her for the last week.
It was with a frustrated sigh that she turned over in her bed. Trying to focus on the here and now, and wasn't morphine withdrawal just a bitch, had been a task for the last few days.
There was a knock on the door.
It was an empty courtesy, Taylor wasn't really up for leaving her bed, but she appreciated it nonetheless. It even got a half strangled smile out of her. No matter what, he'd always given her privacy and respect. A lot more than most kids got, Brockton Bay or not.
"Hey kiddo, you awake?"
Turning over, Taylor looked up at her father. She let a slightly crooked grin peer up at him.
"Yeah dad. I'm up. My mouth feels like hell though. How long was I out?"
"About fourteen hours this time. So not too long."
Taylor snorted. "I still feel tired."
"You've been through a lot. Your body is trying to heal itself."
Taylor stared at her lap. "Yeah. I guess it is."
She could hear her dad's thoughts boiling over.
"Go ahead, dad, you can ask me a few questions. I think I'm….together enough to handle it." She took a deep breath. Okay, so maybe she wasn't quite as ready as she wanted to believe, but she didn't want to avoid it anymore.
Her father didn't deserve the silent treatment.
Sighing, he sat down, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"I know….I know I haven't been there. Not completely and not for a long time. I've been trying for so long to deal with Annette's death that I wasn't the best parent. I know I missed out on a lot, that I left you all alone to deal. All I can say is that I'm sorry and that from now on I want you to know that I'm here for you. And, whatever else happens, I've already pulled you out of Winslow."
Taylor started. Out of everything her father could have said, she did not expect that.
She honestly didn't know what to feel.
Relief, at not having to deal with the Trio anymore.
A bit of shame that the Trio, in the end, did win.
Maybe some curiosity as to how her dad managed to cross so much red tape in a few days, and confusion as to how she would get an education now.
"Are...are you sure about that, dad?" She hazarded, getting an incredulous look from him. "I mean...Winslow was the only school near home, the only one I could go to anyway."
She trailed off.
Danny shuffled a bit. "I don't want to seem like I'm trying to control you. Not after all that's happened. But I'm not comfortable with you going back there. I'm sure Emma will understand. It's just, I love you, and….After Annette, you're my whole world Taylor. I know I'm being selfish, but I'm afraid."
Taylor choked on air. That her dad would admit to being afraid meant he was really, really scared for her. It was touching. But, then, Taylor realized something. She...she had completely forgotten to tell her dad about Emma. As far as he knew, they were still childhood friends who adored each other like sisters. Not that the daughter of his best friend had been torturing his own for over a year now.
"Kiddo?"
Shit. He noticed it.
Guess today was just gonna be one of those days.
"I, well, Emma is one of the people who put me there."
She stared at her lap, eyes drilling through to the cold linoleum beneath. She didn't need to look to know her father was shocked.
But surprise eventually gave way to anger. God, she could feel it radiate off him like an aura those characters from cheesy saturday morning cartoons have. She felt like saying anything else would prompt Mt Danny to erupt.
Except there was no stopping it this time.
"What do you mean Emma was one of the people who put you here."
Taking a deep breath, Taylor thanked God he was only hissing mad. It would probably be best to be quick with it. Rip the bandage off as it were. Jerking him around got him to yell. But, if you were straight with him, Daniel Hebert was surprisingly reasonable for such a bullheaded man.
"Emma Barnes. Madison Clements. Sophia Hess. Those are the girls who did this to me. And, for about the last year and a half, they've been bullying me."
A strange choking sound came from Danny. Surprised, Taylor looked back up at her father.
It only took a second for guilt to well up.
He was shamefaced, looking almost physically ill.
"Taylor, I'm so, so sorry. Please, please, please, Little Owl, please forgive me."
Worried, she rushed to console her father. "Dad, no, it's fine. I dealt with it myself. Until now I could handle it. I didn't want to burden you."
Moving carefully, Danny gently reached over and hugged Taylor as tightly as he dared.
"You shouldn't have had to deal with it. I fucked up. I'm your father, I should have been there. If….if I had known…."
Taylor couldn't help it, she felt tears begin to trickle down her cheeks. All the stress from having to recount her torment building up and up. She was afraid to speak, she was that close to devolving into a babbling mess. So, she did the only thing she could.
She hugged him back with as much force as she could muster and let the tears run free.
This time it was different, however.
She felt light, as if a great burden had been taken from her shoulders. A step towards at least processing everything she had been through.
After holding back from telling him for so long, having nobody who would take her side, Taylor finally could confess to the anger, sadness and fear that had plagued her for over a year.
It was a catharsis.
"Thank you daddy. I'm so, so sorry."
"Shh, it's ok Little Owl, it's ok. It's gonna be all ok."
Taylor nodded, smiling through the tears. And for that single moment, all was right in the world.
[Hebert Household - Later that week]
With a sigh, Taylor popped her shoulders. It'd been a week since she'd gotten out of the hospital and since then she'd been home, for the most part.
The first few days since she returned from the hospital had been somewhat tense. Apparently her father had yet to finalize the process of pulling her out of Winslow, which required her to go with him to settle things with Director Blackwell.
Both father and daughter taken turns giving her a verbal thrashing and watch as the woman jumped between various shades of white, red, blue, and green. An all around fun family activity.
The best part was when her dad threatened to have the Dockworkers Union boycott Winslow altogether.
By that point, Blackwell had agreed to let her leave school unopposed. She may have been a raging bitch and terrible at her job, but Blackwell was very, very good at keeping said job. Despite, you know, tacitly sanctioning a campaign of torture and abuse.
Then they'd gone out to eat, to celebrate her recovery and their victory over the school, and Fugly Bob's greasy, juicy hamburgers had been the most amazing thing she'd eaten in years. She had forgotten how good it felt to have a laugh and Just talk with her dad without anything dragging the two of them down.
They may have gone through some rough patches, but Taylor could say with complete honesty that this was the closest she felt to her father in a very long time.
Now, three days after being discharged, Taylor was just about finished with brushing her teeth, she spat out her tooth paste and washed her mouth out when something got caught in her throat. She coughed and choked several times before spitting out a small black clump of something. It was sticky, it was slimy. And worst of all, it was moving.
As the clump started to twitch and wriggle, Taylor almost screamed. A small, horsefly like insect squirmed on the sink, pulling itself upright. The little critter even did a little dance as it shook off the last bits of the vomitus.
At that point, Taylor did what any teenager girl would have.
She screamed.
Loudly.
"Oh god, I'm gonna be sick." She fought the urge to vomit. There was no way in hell there had been any insects in the lasagna, she'd cooked it herself, and there was no way in hell she'd have missed a bug.
Darkness
Screams
Squirming bugs crawling all over her.
She began to hyperventilate, but held on the sink for support as she fought off the memories. Like hell she was gonna let the Locker have any hold over her. Not after she finally escaped Winslow. Dante reached Paradise. Beatrix was granted absolution. And this Hell would not hold her spirit. Not now. Not ever.
She calmed down after a few moments, realizing that it wasn't so much the fact she spat up a bug that freaked her out but that she spat up a bug unexpectedly.
It was bizarre. Like, if she had intended to vomit up the far too still insect, for some reason just sitting there, almost watching her, it would have been all right. Obviously, any time a human is puking up bugs, that's an issue. Right?
Overcome with the perverse desire to make contact with the thing that came out of her body she tentatively reached out and touched it; jumping back the second her finger made contact with the fly.
It didn't move. She blinked in confusion.
Ordinary bugs, especially flies, didn't stick around when you tried to poke at them. They considered any and all sudden movements in their direction as threats and moved out of the way.
She touched it again.
Yup, no movement at all.
Slowly, she moved her hand next to it. Even with her right next to the thing it still didn't so much as twitch.
'Well, I wonder if it will move?'
With a squeak of surprise, Taylor held her hand still as the bug made its way up the side of her hand to sit in her right palm.
"What the hell. Did….did I do that?"
Of course, with Danny already in bed and Taylor being the only other person in the house there was no response. She looked at her hand, utterly bewildered by her new passenger.
"No way. this is just my mind playing tricks on me."
Taylor reached over with her left hand and pinched her right arm.
'Yup. It's still there. Um. Well. Maybe it'll go away in a moment or two.'
The bug promptly crawled back onto the sink.
'Fuck.'
There were not many explanations as to why a fly was obeying her.
Either she had just met the most intelligent fly in the world, who was now purposefully messing around with her. Which, considering her luck, might be an actual possibility. Or she could somehow control it. But there was no...oh...Oh….OH
She had triggered.
She had triggered.
Oh no...
She triggered!
Slowly, she slid down the wall. Ending up blinking up at the sink from the floor.
"Hey little guy, come here."
Taylor held out her hand and, with a little hop to get going, the fly took to the air before alighting upon her outstretched hand. Bringing her hand up close to her face she took the time to actually examine the little critter.
Before, she had referred to the bug as a fly. It was technically still true, although she was sure that no fly breed should have a second pair of wings. It was also much larger than any fly she had ever seen.
Paying closer attention to it, she also noticed it wasn't quite as fat as a normal house fly. Besides being thinner and longer, its head was also closer to a mosquito hawk's head than anything else.
Its abdomen, on the other hand, was closer to the ones she had studied in biology class, although with a clearly distinct red lie that ran down the middle. In short, this was the weirdest bug she had ever seen, but somehow, she felt like she already knew everything there was to it.
"Please turn around."
The little bug did so.
This...was going to take some getting used to.
"Where did you come from?" Taylor wasn't sure what she could actually get the bug to do. And, well, the thought that it would try to crawl back inside her made her shiver.
Taylor sighed, this was not how she expected her day to go. And to be honest, she still felt like this was all some sort of hallucination or dream that she would snap out of given time. She went back to her room and took a seat at the edge of the bed, still staring at her hand and the small tagalong.
Now that she mostly calmed down. Reality came calling and this time there was no shock or audacity to protect her from it.
She was a cape.
She, Taylor Hebert, had superpowers!
And...she wasn't sure that was a good thing. But, for now, she needed to find out just what exactly she could do. Luckily, she just happened to have the perfect volunteer to help her find out.
Up
The little fly buzzed lightly as it lift off the palm of her hand.
Spin
It did a small loop, like one of those airplanes people hired to do shows.
Down
And back to her hand it fell.
Taylor whistled softly.
"Well. I do suppose this makes me, what, a Master? 'Sigh'. Well I suppose I should be thankful I can't actually do anything to people. Of course, I don't know that. But, seeing how I'm controlling a bug, that's probably the limit of my control. I'll need to test it later, just to be sure."
The next thing she needed to test was her range. Just how far could she control bugs without faltering. Was her control something like a signal that got weaker with distance ? Or was it limited by number of bugs she could control.
Because she really wouldn't be able to do anything with those powers if all she could do with it was control a dozen flies.
Thinking about it, she noticed that, now that she was focusing on it, there was a small tingling on the edge of her consciousness. It was like having a buzzing in your ear, you knew there was a pressure of sorts but couldn't do much to alleviate it.
So, stretching out with mental muscles she didn't know she had, Taylor made contact with the insects mind. At first, it was like trying to see through a drinking straw, but, after a moderately unpleasant squeezing sensation her world shifted.
She saw herself.
Her room.
She saw everything at once.
'Wow, this is so weird.' Turning to the side, she noticed there weren't any changes, only a shift in what direction she...no...it was facing.
'Now, how do I pilot this thing." She moved its legs a bit, providing strange sensations her own had never felt. She could tell that it was normal for the little bug though, its mind acting as buffer of sorts; almost like a manual.
'Okay, that's enough test. Command center, we are going for a ride.'
Taylor gave her new wings an experimental flap and was rewarded by the feeling of wind running down her back and across hundreds of tiny hairs. Alright, she could do it.
With a mental hurrah, Taylor threw her new bug-body off her human hand, more than ready to see why everyone always thought flying was so much fun.
'Taylor the Fly, launching!'
[Later that day]
Taylor winced in pain.
Maybe she should have planned her first flight a bit better. Hitting the wall facefirst a couple dozen times was far from the success she envisioned eve if it wasn't quite the most stupid thing she had tried to do. That was trying to do a loop and losing her balance, only to end dangerously close to falling into her trash bin. Now that was something she was glad to have avoided.
Although she could still feel the migraines.
Her dad had already left for work and since Taylor managed to finish her school work as well as the chores, she decided to step outside for a bit in order to test her control over the little fly she had hacked out earlier, now branded Taylor Two or T2 for convenience. It would do her a lot of good to test out her flight without anything to run headfirst into.
Her plan was met with relative success.
While she could now move around freely with T2's body, it only took a few moments of happy buzzing in the somewhat chilly wind for a bird to promptly snap her up for a snack. A few panicked moments later and she was back in her own body, groaning in pain as she recalled being eaten. Once the sensation of being swallowed had passed, the memory of being enclosed in a dark, crushing place rushed in.
It was, to her pride, only a few minutes later when she had stopped vomiting. And, thankfully, she hadn't even screamed once.
Still, due to Taylor Two's untimely demise, she was left without a volunteer to practice her new powers on, which lead to her current conundrum.
Trying to find more bugs to control.
Obviously, she was a Master. That, or just insane. But that didn't really bear thinking on.
But, no matter how many species or how hard she tried, she couldn't connect with any insects she saw.
She could still feel the same, for lack of a better term, mental pressure inside herself. But it just wasn't capable of clicking with any of the other bugs. She'd even made the effort to try as many different species, ranging from ants to termites to mosquitos, as she could find. It didn't seem to matter if they were true insects or not, as even the few spiders she could find seemed to be on the right frequency.
They just seemed to be missing some key component.
"I miss Taylor Two."
It was then her stomach acted up for a moment, what felt like a small amount of bile rose up in her throat, and, after a moment's confusion, she spat out a small gob of a familiar-looking blackened saliva. Taylor groaned in exasperation. Was that going to happen every time she had to use her powers or was it just a quirk of her seemingly rebellious body? At this point it could be either.
Still, it was as good a time as any to see if she was right about her powers so she gave the mass of black slime a once over and was relieved to find another bug wriggling about inside it.
"Oh. I make the bugs."
Taylor promptly passed out.
Two hours later, the dark-haired girl groggily sat up and rubbed her slightly bruised head, further aggravated from her earlier bout of headbutting walls. She winced but noticed that her newly little friend was still just sitting there. Thankfully non-eaten.
Good news was, Taylor Two was back. And it allowed her to find out another facet of her own powers, that she could memorize and compare bugs that she saw. For now she could tell a glance how their body proportions differed as well as their approximate age and some minor details regarding species. It was the only aspect of her powers that worked on normal critters so far. She wondered if that part of her powers could be used to compare differences between her own critters, though.
She felt bile rising up her throat.
'Oh shit! Abort! Abort! Abort!'
She sighed in relief when no more bugs came out. After a few moments she felt an extremely slight churning in the area around her stomach, but more a bit behind and to the left.
Understandably distressed, Taylor took a few moments to calm herself. Gingerly, she reached out and brushed her new fly's mind. It felt almost identical to Taylor Two. Slipping fully into the insect's body, after checking and making sure no birds were nearby, she noticed the body actually felt familiar.
It didn't feel awkward like she expected. She didn't feel any changes in mass or body proportions. It was for intents, a replica of Taylor Two. Even the dispersion of hairs seemed identical. And wasn't that an odd thing to notice?
'Okay, let's do this right this time around.'
She jumped back to her human body and scooped T2 into her hands before running back inside. She didn't need anymore birds swallowing her up, thank you very much.
"I need to wash my mouth out." She concluded. "Also, That was dangerous."
What if she had died with T2 when that bird swallowed them?
At the time, she was so freaked out by the whole 'getting eaten' thing that she completely ignored the implications. That was sheer dumb luck and Taylor felt like banging her head against the wall out of frustration.
She couldn't afford to make mistakes like that before knowing exactly how her powers worked. Experimenting in broad daylight, where anyone could see, was a bad idea. Scratch that, it was a horrible idea as proven by how she failed to notice a freaking bird of all things.
'Guess I can't really postpone this.' Taylor sighed. She really was hoping to avoid looking inside her own body the moment she spat out T2.
She tried to control normal bugs, but her control seemed fine tuned to only the ones she spat out.
Which meant that there could be more of them.
Taylor took a deep breath and closed her eyes, stretching her senses outwards. She could feel T2 on top of the coffee table as well as a few more flies on the wall, but they were not what she was looking for.
Instead she focused on the familiar mental pressure, the little buzzing inside her mind. It was like trying to listen for her own heartbeat, remaining completely silent as she search for the signs of life.
If she had anymore roommates, it was about time they woke up.
And then she felt it.
A slow, steady beating. Almost rhythmic. Almost like a second heart beat, in fact.
But not quite. It was….primitive. That's the impression she got. Slowly moving her hands, she stopped about two thirds of the way down her back. It seemed like her left lung had….changed. Become something alive in its own right.
Taylor found this odd. She hardly did anything that could be considered athletic, but, even then, she'd never felt short of breath. If her lung had changed, surely it would have been more noticeable.
Frowning, she ignored the fact her own body was no longer quite her own for the moment.
Instead, she focused on the sensations with her and pushed.
The moment she made contact with what was within her, everything shifted.
No longer did she see or hear or smell or touch as a woman, or, indeed, anything that could be said to be strictly alive.
Instead, it was as if she was swimming in a vast sea made up of thousands upon thousands of shades of colors, all pressing in on her in such a way that she more felt the idea of 'red' or could smell something that seemed to be 'strength'. There was also a faint pulse, almost like a vibration that echoed through the liquid. It wasn't painful or loud, Taylor doubted she could even accurately recognize noise in her current state. Frankly, it should have been extremely disconcerting. Instead, everything made a strange, swirling sense. Oh, it was a disorganized mess, but the moment she started to experience each sensation, each shade or sound or taste, they became ever so slightly more familiar.
And so, for an unknown period of time she simply drifted in this sea, everything around her slowly arranging itself into subtle patterns.
After what could have either been hours or minutes of this she realized she had each and every shade was, in fact, blended together with at least a few others. And, reaching out, even though she had no hands, she touched one of those clusters.
Information flashed through her mind's eyes. A thousand, thousand bits of information, but, in the end, they formed what she realized was T2. Now that she could actually perceive the little bugs in totality, she understood, in a primal, visceral way, that it was actually a mishmash of twenty or so different insects.
More than a few were rather unpleasant things, including a tapeworm, somehow.
The shock was muted, when it came, that, perhaps, these were all the various species inside the Locker when she triggered.
"Yes, that seems likely." Her voice echoed, distorting the ocean around her with its passage.
Something happened then, a sharp sensation made her panic and brought her back to her body.
As she awoke she realized three things.
One, she'd only been gone for, maybe, ten minutes.
Two, a mosquito had just flown into her mouth.
Three. She now understood, down to the most exact details, how to replicate a female mosquito, of at least one variety. Though, if she focused, Taylor felt that there was a little bit more just waiting outside her grasp.
That if, somehow, she had intended to….consume the bug, that it would have held more information than just it's current, expressed genes.
So, now that she had just stretched out her shoulders, something occurred to her.
"I gain information by eating living things. Oh god. I'm Nilbog."
Taylor began to hyperventilate.
The PRT wouldn't even hesitate to cage her. Being a Master was already bad enough, but adding biotinker powers was about as good as a kill order. She knew from PHO that the local Director was supposedly an Ellisburg survivor and infamous for her dislike of Capes. If she found out…
"Oh god. Oh god. I….I can't tell anyone. No one can know." She held onto the couch to avoid another fainting spell, but by then her mind had already began to conjure images of what would happen to her if anyone found out what she could do.
Armsmaster cutting her down. Miss Militia blowing her head off. Any one of the Triumvirate squishing her from low orbit.
"Splat. Bug on a windshield. They could probably just take the house out. Oh god. Daddy."
She was hyperventilating again.
Panic bubbled up sour and harsh in her gut. She couldn't help it. In a blind stumble she rushed for the kitchen sink as she began to retch.
In a wave, black and purple bile rushed out of her mouth. It took her nearly ten seconds to realize that, amongst the goop, there were hundreds if not thousands of wriggling forms. Once she did, Taylor desperately tried to get herself under control. Unleashing a swarm now would hardly help her.
After another moment, with only a few more dry heaves, she managed to get herself under control. Mostly.
The entire swarm, which Taylor could see was composed of dozens of different types of insects, each a mish mash of various species, buzzed around her. Already they'd scoured the kitchen of any other living thing.
She knew this, because she had felt as they'd ripped a spider from its web, shredding it into pieces, and how they'd swarmed a number of flies. Even now, she could, somehow, feel a mouse cowering in a wall. Hiding from the enraged swarm that at that very moment sought to defend its mistress from anything that might threaten her.
Realizing that her body must have reacted to the stress and fear, Taylor immediately clamped down on the existential terror. Her body was some kind of hive, a factory of creepy crawlies that now skittered all over the house.
'So many from just one bout of vomiting….'
There must have been thousands. And she could feel them all. Focusing on individuals was nearly impossible, only T2 stood out, and, even then, was barely noticeable.
But the whole, the entirety of the mass of life now moving about the kitchen, it had a mood. It wasn't a true hive mind. Even this many insects didn't have the raw processing power for even the most basic of brains. Yet, there was still a collective sense of 'Defend-protect Mother-Hive'.
Taylor was scared. Not the angry panic of before. She was cold in terror. Her power included a hive mind.
Another power with unfortunate connections to villains and monster, she noted.
Finally back in relative control of herself, Taylor sat down and, with an act of sheer willpower, pushed her swarm to calm down as well. The insects, quite literally, flew to the nearest surface, including her own body, and stopped moving.
Even as she was covered in silent insects from head to toe.
Even with the black-purple vomit drying on the corners of her mouth.
Her brain just couldn't process everything. Not the enormity of how terrifying her powers were to the average human. Never mind the capes who'd fought off monsters like the SH9 before.
Afterall, even without the big threats, like the endbringers, there were still the Quarantine Zones.
Nine of them.
Reaching out to the Swarm, Taylor realized, even as the clawing, gnawing terror burned cold inside her, that she had to control them. If they went out of control, at best, her dad would be in danger of losing his house and his job.
It was a figurative bucket of cold water on her anger and fear.
After everything that had happened, there was no way she would let her powers be what ruined her father's as well as her own. So she reached out, much like she had done before with T2, and linked with the swarm.
It was much harder than before, but she grit her teeth and gave the critters the harshest mental pull she could.
It was a herculean ordeal, but it was enough.
With a mental flex, the swarm quickly stopped, their eyes glued on her as if expecting orders. Taylor took a moment to catch her breath before moving the swarm outside, clustering then underneath the back steps behind the rear door.
They had orders to remain out of sight, defend themselves only if attacked, and not to seek out anything else living.
Mentally, she reviewed the strains she had seen. None of them should be capable of reproduction. Their genetic codes would have been….horrific. In fact, they likely wouldn't be able to live for very long, considering that their bodies simply wouldn't work that well. Still, for safety's sake, she amended her instructions to include a standing order not to reproduce without explicit directions.
For now, this was enough. Taylor realized, before she did anything else, she needed to speak with her father. If nothing else, the nature of her powers meant he was involved. No matter how much the thought galled her.
So, as she trudged towards the bathroom, intending to brush her teeth and then scrub herself under a very hot shower, she thought about how she would break it to him.
If she hadn't been emotionally drained, Taylor would have cried.
"This is gonna really, really suck."