Obligatory disclaimer: I do not own Worm or the Parahumans series, Wildbow does, et cetera.
Another disclaimer: If you have not finished Worm (and/or have no idea who Khepri is in context with the web serial) then you probably shouldn't read this. You'll either be confused, or worse, have Worm's ending spoiled to you. There won't be any spoilers for Ward.
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It was an unremarkable spring evening in the city of Brockton Bay. Another uneventful day of gang fights, cape-on-cape violence, the churning cogs of bureaucracy, and the unending machinations of evil geniuses.
In an unremarkable, near-abandoned part of the city, was an unremarkable building. Definitely not housing any sort of supervillains. That would be preposterous.
And yet, one of these so-called supervillains was sitting at her messy desk. Papers strewn about, chaotically upon the desk and pinned neatly upon the wall; several laptops sat open, their screens dimmed significantly, showing graphs, camera feeds, and other nonsense.
Said supervillain, was simply resting her head upon the desk's hard wooden surface. Drool was trickling out of her mouth, as she maintained the delicate balance between the limbo of sleep, and the ceaseless dredge of the living world. She maintained this state, for it was yet another tiring day for her and the rest of the Undersiders fighting for their lives. Despite how it may seem, she kept vigilant for any threats. Maybe she was just paranoid, but paranoia has gotten her through thick and thin before.
Her phone suddenly started vibrating, releasing her from the grasp of sleep.
"Bwuah?" her eyes snapped open, but the rest of her body was slow on the uptake, as she gently raised her head and took on a more natural, slouched, sitting position. She took her time, she already knew who was calling her, even if she didn't have her power, the vibration pattern was just slightly different enough for her to know. She, of course, took her time to reach for the phone. The call would time-out after thirty seconds, and she had about ten of those left.
She grumbled as she grabbed the phone and took her sweet time to accept the call. Still five seconds left until it would automatically drop. Her oh-so benevolent boss may have revealed himself to the rest of her team, but that didn't stop him from making backroom dealings with her. What else would he let his prize Thinker do? Certainly not give her enough time to make any sort of escape plan.
Her thumb flicked to accept the call.
"Hey boss!" her voice was unnaturally sweet, trying her best to hide the grogginess that still clouded her. "Whaddya need this time?"
"Tattletale," the voice, slick and slithering its way out of the speaker on the phone and into her ears. "I have something I need you to look into for me."
"Wha-, really?" disbelief taking over, "Now of all times?"
"Yes. Now of all times."
Lisa rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Fine, fine then. I hope I don't have to remind you about the hazard fee to account for the current state of events."
"Yes, of course, you'll get your usual pay on top of your 'fee'." Coil responded, without a hint of emotion in his voice.
She waited for Coil to continue. Her power helpfully supplied to her that he was, in fact, not done speaking.
"I need to you to get into the Protectorate database, tonight, and to dig up information on a certain parahuman John Doe that was recently admitted to their medical ward."
Lisa's brows furrowed, her power not giving her much of anything to go off of. "…And this is important, how? They picked up some injured cape, what of it?"
"My… associates have provided me information that Armsmaster picked up the parahuman in question late last night and has been in a coma since. Officially, this parahuman is a John Doe. However, all of the low-level files that I have been able to access that pertain to him has had everything redacted. Nothing on gender, costume description or even an actual name, cape moniker or otherwise." Coil paused for a moment. "I imagine it cannot be hard for you to understand why a mysterious parahuman, for which the Protectorate is making every effort to hide their identity to such a level, given the volatile nature that the city is currently in. Of course, it could be nothing, but you know that we are in the business in keeping tabs on all parahumans in this city regardless of affiliation."
"Yes boss," she mumbled, keeping the grumble of discontent out of her voice. Beyond that, her power was feeding her small tidbits.
\Concerned. Knows Protectorate does not ever go to such extreme lengths to hide the identity of any injured cape, even one of their own.\
\Needs assurance that an unknown cape will not destabilize any of his plans.\
\Assumes that you can easily find this information.\
"Good. Report your findings to me no later than midnight tonight." The call ended, without so much of a farewell.
Lisa looked at the nearest clock. 11:36pm.
Fucking typical. She fumed. I should have demanded for the rush job fee.
Not that it mattered where her effort was concerned, she could get in and out of the PRT database within minutes, the issue was going over the files she needed. She couldn't simply copy them off their servers, that's an amateur move, and an easy way to get discovered.
She grabbed the laptop she specifically used for hacking into the PRT servers and got to work, her power supplying her with everything she needed.
The file in question was easy to find. Despite the mountains of paperwork and reports those poor sods probably had to go through recently, it was near the top.
*UNKNOWN PARAHUMAN UG835-G004 IN CUSTODY*
*RESTRICTED ACCESS. LOCKED JOINTLY BY ENE DIRECTOR, ENE DEPUTY DIRECTOR, HEAD OF ENE PROTECTORATE, … *
*MATERIAL CLASSIFIED UNDER LAW J83-A9 CODE 786-4. UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS PROHIBITED*
*QUALIFICATION FOR 94th ANOMALOUS CASE UNDER REVIEW*
The list went on with at least five other members, lines, and vague legal threats that Lisa could care less about. She mused at those words on the screen. It wasn't uncommon to find files like this locked up tighter than some of the more secure military documents. What was uncommon, or flat out unheard of, was the level of secrecy needed for an injured cape. They were treating this person as some sort of possible major threat.
Also, the Case 94 designation, which Lisa had never heard of. Probably something recent.
\Related to temporal anomalies.\ Her power supplied.
With little effort, she opened the document. Surprisingly short at only five pages. The first page was full of non-info, the usual regulatory statements she had seen a thousand times.
The second page was where actual info started being presented, still heavily redacted to the point of uselessness.
*CAPE IDENTITY: [REDACTED]*
*CIVILIAN IDENTITY: UNKNOWN*
*AFFILIATION: [REDACTED] OR UNKNOWN / [REDACTED]*
*POWER CLASSIFICATIONS: [UNKNOWN]. STRANGER: [REJECTED]*
*POWER CLASSIFICATIONS: ASSUMING MASTER 6, THINKER 1. ALL OTHER CATAGORIES RATED AT 1 UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE*
*PARAHUMAN IDENTITY IS NOT KNOWN AT THIS TIME. CURRENTLY IMPOSSIBLE TO CONFIRM UNTIL PARAHUMAN REGAINS CONSCIOUSNESS. SEE CASE 94 DESIGNATION ON PAGE 5*
Lisa's power got to work the that little bit of information. The PRT knows who this cape is, but they also don't know who it is. She… didn't know how that could be possible. They had already dismissed Stranger powers at work.
\Identity and origin of cape was put into immediate question when cape's injuries were put under scrutiny. Unknown as to why a cape's injuries would cause PRT to question identity. Related to temporal anomaly anomalous classification.\
She continued on to view the basic descriptive information.
*GENDER: FEMALE*
*AGE: 17-20 YEARS*
*HEIGHT: 5'10"*
*WEIGHT: 122lbs*
The rest of the lines that would have given a physical appearance were all redacted.
*EXTENT OF INJURIES*
*SUBJECT HAS EXPERIENCED SEVERE PHYSICAL TRAUMA*
*RIGHT ARM AMPUTATED AND CAUTERIZED JUST BELOW ELBOW*
*RIGHT HUMERUS HAS NUMEROUS MICRO-FRACTURES*
*LEFT SHOULDER DISLOCATED*
*STEEL INSERT EMBEDDED IN LEFT HUMEROUS AT SHOULDER*
*NUMEROUS CUTS AND LACERATIONS FOUND ALL OVER BODY*
*HIGH AMOUNT OF SCAR TISSUE CIRCLED AROUND EYES. EYES BLOODSHOT*
*MAJOR ABNORMAL CORONA POLLENTIA FORMATION*
*PENDING FURTHER COMMENTS FROM PANACEA*
Yes, a horribly injured cape, someone who really got their ass handed to them. But an unknown cape is an unknown cape, regardless of how badly they got beaten. But for someone to get into a fight this bad, she should have at least have heard something. It was almost as if this cape appeared out of thin air.
She continued skimming the document, when she froze at the costume description.
*PARAHUMAN COSTUME IS A BLACK BODY SUIT CONSISTING OF WHITE PANELS AS ARMOR PLATING. BODY SUIT MATERIAL IS CONFIRMED TO BE SPIDER SILK. COSTUME HAS MULTIPLE CUTS ALL OVER BODY AND HAS MULTIPLE BLOOD STAINS. RIGHT ARM SLEEVE BELOW ELBOW IS BURNED AWAY*
What?
*HEADWARE CONSISTS OF A MASK FASHIONED TO RESEMBLE AN INSECT. EYEWEAR IS WHITE LENSES*
No no no no no.
She didn't even need her power to know what this meant.
Taylor, Skitter, was in PRT custody.
\Impossible. Taylor is currently-\
She violently pulled away from that string of information being fed to her. Yes, yes it was impossible! Taylor was currently here, at the loft, sleeping quietly.
\Document author is convinced Skitter is the captured cape. Adhering to the Unwritten Rules for now due to her being a Case 94.\
She scrolled through the document more, ignoring the short action report of Armsmaster retrieving her from some alley in Downtown.
On the last page of the document, she found it.
*CAPE IDENTITY WAS ORIGINALLY IDENTIFIED AS BUG-THEMED BROCKTON BAY VILLAIN, SKITTER*
*REJECTED DUE TO SKITTER BEING SPOTTED THE DAY AFTER SUBJECT RETRIEVAL WITHOUT VISIBLE SIMILAR INJURIES*
*THE EXTENT OF SUBJECT'S INJURIES AND SLIGHT DIFFERENCES IN COSTUMES SUPPORT THIS*
*COSTUME HAS PROTECTORATE STANDARD ISSUE ENCRYPTED RFID CHIP THAT IDENTIFIES PARAHUMAN AS [REDACTED]*
*PARAHUMAN CIVILIAN IDENTIFICATION UNDER INVESTIGATION. NOT CONSIDERED A PRIORITY AT THIS TIME*
*CONTACT WITH SKITTER OR HER ASSOCIATES IS CURRENTLY FORBIDDEN WHEN REGARDING THIS INFORMATION*
*SUBJECT WAS DISCOVERED WITH TINKER DEVICE DISOVERED TO BE A JOINT CREATION BY 'DRAGON AND DEFIANT'. ARMSMASTER CONFIRMED THAT HE WAS ABLE TO FIND HIS TECH INSIDE DEVICE*
What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck?
\Document author has already ruled out clone due to the apparent older age of subject. Document author has ruled out Stranger powers. Document author does not believe biotinkering took place.\
Her vision seemed to go in and out as she continued through the document. She finally settled on the Case 94 information.
*SUBJECT IS CURRENTLY BEING STRONGLY CONSIDERED TO BE A CASE 94, PER THINKER CORNELLEN'S RECOMMENDATION. PENDING APPROVAL FROM CHIEF DIRECTOR, VICE DIRECTOR, AND PROTECTORATE ENE DIRECTOR*
*ANOMALOUS CASE 94 AS THE FOLLOWING: TIME TRAVEL OF AN INDIVIDUAL FROM A FUTURE EARTH BET WHILE ORIGINAL INDIVUAL IS ALIVE. TIME PARADOXES ARE CURRENTLY NOT BEING ACCOUNTED FOR*
*PREVIOUS INSTANCE OF A CASE 94 OCCURRED IN 2008 IN-*
She stopped reading as her brain and power processed the words in tandem. A Taylor from the future, not even from a different Earth. A Taylor that has apparently been through Hell and back with those described injuries. What would Coil even do with this information? Hell, what is she going to even do with that information?
The best course of action, she figured, would to keep this between her boss and herself. No, fuck that, she wouldn't even give all of the information to him, he didn't need to know that there was time fuckery involved.
Taylor… Taylor also doesn't need to know this; she didn't need the stress of knowing that there was somehow a future version of her in PRT custody, with her civilian identity now being documented. If all goes well, this future Taylor is some fake, or she would succumb to her injuries and die, and nothing serious would come out of it.
She looked at the clock. 11:55pm. A sigh escaped her lips as she began typing her email.
She hated her job sometimes.