Lung was going to kill kids. He had to be stopped. Taylor closed her eyes and dove into the star-filled space that was her power. She needed something that could stop Lung.
Dozens of powers made themselves known. Unfortunately, many of them felt spectacularly lethal. She needed one that could stop him without killing him. Broadcasting the situation, she felt many stars dim and several thrust themselves forwards. One, in particular, stood out, filled with arrogant confidence. She chose it, and a weirdo popped into existence next to her.
Taylor stared blankly at the strange-looking man. He wore an odd white outfit and glasses with thick, red frames, but it was his hair that stood out the most. It was a light blue and styled into strange-looking swirls that clung to his scalp. He turned towards her and nodded in a curt manner, speaking in an Italian accent.
"Buona sera Boss. My name is Ghiacco. What can I do for you?"
Taylor pointed over the edge of the building and spoke quickly in a loud whisper.
"I need you to stop those guys down there. ...Nonlethally!"
"Those cornuti? No problem."
The man sniffed scornfully but nodded. Closing his eyes, he suddenly was encased in a thick layer of ice. Then the ice shattered, revealing a strange white suit that covered his whole body. It covered every inch of his body and had a few green and purple markings, and Taylor noticed that the suit came equipped with ice skates.
"White Album…"
The air chilled and frost began to form on the roof of the building where they stood. The man stepped off the building and started skating down a ramp of frozen air that hadn't been there a second ago. Taylor walked to the edge, shivering.
Lung and his goons froze at the sight of the obvious cape sliding casually to a stop a short distance in front of them. He gave them a confident sneer, resting a hand on his hips in an odd pose. Lung glared at the unknown parahuman as Ghiacco pointed at him.
"I'll give you one chance to surrender. That's overly generous in my opinion, and I'd rather kick your asses first, so go ahead and give me a reason."
Lung grunted dismissively.
"Shoot him."
"White Album: Gently Weeps!"
The gang members opened fire on Ghiacco, who just leaned so far back it looked like he was about to limbo. He opened his arms as if welcoming the bullets and sneered. There was an almost musical sound of ricocheting bullets and several ABB members shouted in pain as their own bullets were sent right back at them.
"Ha! You thought that'd work on me!? Zoccole! Don't underestimate me!"
Lung snarled and stepped forwards, blood spurting from a hole in his thigh. His massive frame bulked up and he grew even bigger, passing seven feet in moments. His shoes ripped off his feet when the soles froze to the asphalt and the tops burnt away. He kept walking, his body temperature making the ice covering the ground hiss and steam. Ghiacco didn't move and snorted derisively at his increasingly large and scaly opponent.
"Oh? You're approaching me?"
Lung snarled something unintelligible in response. When he was almost in arm's reach Ghiacco lunged forwards and kicked upwards into Lung's shoulder. The blade of the skate bit deeply into the rage dragon's bicep. Lung roared in pain as his flesh froze around the wound.
The stand user smirked and threw a few more kicks without lowering his leg. In seconds his opponent's body was covered in frozen cuts. Lung swung a claw at Ghiacco, snarling in pain as his frozen arm came off his shoulder and shattered on the ground. Sliding back, Ghiacco sneered at Lung once more.
"You done already?"
"Ill oou!"
Lung roared angrily and burst into flame ...or tried to. Fire sputtered on different parts of his body, feebly struggling against the lethal chill in the air. Lung still managed to warm himself, but that just thawed the slashes across his chest and let them bleed. Ghiacco's response was a disdainful snort.
"I can drop the temperature of whatever I wish to -100 Celcius! You think your fire will do cazzo?"
Taylor watched in amazement from her perch as one of Brockton Bay's most dangerous capes was toyed with and slowly whittled down. His regeneration couldn't keep up with the cuts and the freezing temperatures that Ghiacco's attacks inflicted. Taylor shivered in the cold as she watched her summon skate in and out of range, tearing at Lung like a wolf.
"Everything stops when it gets cold enough! Objects, water, people, and even air! That's why my White Album is the greatest!"
Eventually, Lung couldn't take it anymore and fell to the ground, his fires snuffed. Ghiacco slid up to him with a sneer and froze his wounds, leaving him crippled but in no danger of dying. Taylor scrabbled down a fire escape and walked over.
"Is he alive?"
"Si. He'll need medical attention though."
"Good… uh, thank you."
Ghiacco nodded at her, already ignoring Lung. There was an awkward pause as Taylor shifted awkwardly, wondering what to do next. Ghiacco didn't seem to care though. He let out a sigh and looked off into the distance.
"You know, there are different ways to describe rain, depending on how heavy it's coming down. There is 'sprinkling' when it's barely raining, 'pouring down' when it's raining heavily, and 'raining cats and dogs' when it's raining really, really hard…"
Taylor watched in a kind of mesmerized horror as Ghiacco hunched over, frustrated rage visible on his face as he started screaming.
"Why!? What the hell do house pets have to do with rain!? Huh!? Are they making fun of me!? What kind of idiots are they!?"
Taylor shifted awkwardly as the eccentric Italian she'd summoned started kicking angrily at a light pole. The sharp blades of his skates scratched deep marks into the metal base. He kept swearing for a few moments before abruptly stopping and started speaking calmly, half to Taylor and half to thin air, before stirring himself into another rage.
"I get sprinkling and pouring down, I totally get that. You can sprinkle and pour water... But what do cats and dogs have to do with water!? Huh!? Freakin stronzi!"
He turned towards her in rage, breathing heavily inside his helmet. Taylor held up her hands before he could keep ranting.
"I actually know this, my mom mentioned it once. It's a perversion of the Greek phrase 'cata doxa' which means 'contrary to experience or belief'. It means that it's raining impossibly hard."
Ghiacco seemed to calm down for a second and nodded thoughtfully. Then he exploded once more.
"Oh... Tch! Then why don't they just say that!? It's two freaking words! What, is greek impossible to pronounce or something!?"
The man kept cursing and screaming in Italian, generally throwing a temper tantrum as Taylor stood awkwardly to the side, wondering whether it would be rude to de-summon him or not.
Meanwhile, two blocks away…
"No Tattletale, we are not going to go say 'thank you' to the screaming madman who just took down Lung so that you can get a better read on him."
Piggot glared at Armsmaster, somehow cutting him off without speaking. Her glares could do that. There were semi-serious jokes in both the PRT and the Protectorate that the director's glares should have a blaster rating.
"If you are going to lie to me, at least try to lie convincingly. That was just insulting."
Armsmaster stiffened in response. His lower mouth twitched in a way that she had come to recognize after so long spent dealing with him as the director of this garbage fire disguised as a city.
"I'm not sure what-"
"-You were thinking when you thought I wouldn't notice that Lung was brought in partially frozen and suffering from frostbite? I'm not sure what you were thinking either. I know you've been working on safe tranquilizers for high-level brutes for a while now. And I know that they are still unfinished. Were you also creating some sort of freeze ray without anyone knowing? Or did you just pull it out of your ass?"
Assault stage whispered out of the side of his mouth to Battery.
"Impossible. The stick would get in the way."
Assault grunted in pain as soon as he finished speaking. Half of it was from Battery's elbow digging into his ribs, and half from Piggot's Glare, which had reached an intensity that deserved capital letters. Armsmaster stood stiffly, the sound of his teeth grinding the only sign that he wasn't a statue. Eventually, he spoke, forcing the words out in a clipped tone.
"I received reports of Lung and a small group of ABB members disturbing the peace. There were also reports of the Undersiders being sighted in the same area. When I arrived Lung was on the ground, missing an arm and covered in a large number of cuts. His wounds were frozen, presumably to prevent him from bleeding out."
Armsmaster cleared his throat before continuing.
"On-site there were two parahumans. One was a male in a professional-looking outfit that possessed a pair of speed skates. The other was a woman in a much more amateurly-made costume. The male was ...belligerent, but disappeared mid-rant."
"A mover or stranger?"
"No. According to the young woman, the male parahuman was actually a projection."
….Aaand that is where inspiration cut off, aside from another fun little scene~
School was about a thousand times more bearable to Taylor now. Sophia, Emma, Madison, and even principal Blackwell were gone. That alone had improved things considerably. The teachers had started doing their jobs, mostly just to avoid ending up like Blackwell and because principal Whitemore was much more competent. Without the trio instigating things, their clique had abandoned the bullying campaign as well.
But the greatest reason Taylor could stand school now was thanks to her ability.
"Taylor baby~ You got a raw deal for a while, sure, but karma's on your side now! You're a hero, and nothin's gonna stop ya! So hold your head up high and walk like you own the school!"
Hey Ya! stayed invisible, and Taylor wasn't even sure it had powers. But it took next to no energy to keep active and just listening to it was an amazing ego boost.
Taylor drew a lot of attention. The bullied girl that dressed and walked like she was hiding from the world was gone. She wore brighter colors and more fashionable clothes that suited her surprisingly well. She walked straight and always had a small smile. Suddenly, everyone was noticing how pretty she actually was.
It wasn't easy for Taylor to keep up her confident attitude, but every time the stares started to get to her then Hey Ya! would lean over her shoulder and chime in from his position on top of her backpack.
"Don't worry! You're a lucky gal ain't ya? Those girls are gone, right? So smile! The world is your oyster!"
I made this after watching JJBA. I hadn't really wanted to make yet another 'OP power in Worm' story, but the setting kind of lends itself to that sort of thing in an odd way. It doesn't take much to make Worm happier, which is something I gravitate towards as a writer, but it does take a lot to make a happy ending plausible. Outside context powers are fun to write in the systematic, magicless world of Worm as well.
I should say that this type of OP story isn't a power fantasy (and isn't the fact that I didn't use an SI for this telling). The story revolves around character development and the changes to the world in response to Taylor brand escalation. The fights would just be frou-frou that looks cool, not the meat of the story.
The world of Worm is both stagnant and getting worse in the original story. The reason why Taylor is such a fitting protagonist is because she escalates to match the rising challenges and actively attempts to change things for the better. Of course, Things Get Worse anyways, and Taylor goes from a broken, traumatized teenager to an even more broken and traumatized infamous supervillain.
I wanted to make a story where Taylor had the power and options to choose a better way. I wanted circumstances to force people to stop making things worse, but I wanted there to be reasons for it.
Plus, stand powers are fun and trump parahumans in some ways. For instance: Moody Blues or Hermit Purple would make finding Dinah a snap. Sticky Fingers or Oasis would make infiltrating Coil's lair with a whole team super easy, and Paisley Park would debatably be able to defuse his traps and deadman's switches using her electronics control.
Killer Queen could take the endbringers with a little help and Gold Experience Requiem could kill Scion(over and over and over…). And I could set things up to give each member of the slaughterhouse 9 an ironic death (a concept I am creepily obsessed with) with Crazy Diamond saving Mouse Protector!
It's fun to envision, but this story is pretty low on my priority list. One of those that I wished existed, but not enough to drop everything and write.