Stand Proud Chapter 1
My eyes flickered before I shot awake with a strangled cry of panic. The last thing I remembered was the…filth and the bugs crawling over me, a trapped, suffocating feeling…
And, for some bizarre reason, the impression of some buff guy saying something along the lines of, 'Tch, it can't be helped. I'll help you out this one time' to me.
Looking around quickly, I could tell that I was in a hospital room of some kind and that I was wearing a very unflattering hospital gown that was a few sizes too large for me.
"Wha-?" I said…or rather, croaked. My throat, now that I was properly paying attention to it, was desert dry. How long had I been out?
After the nurses discovered I was awake, I finally had some much-needed wetting of my throat and some answers. I had been found on the steps of the hospital, my clothes covered in filth and thrashing like I was having a fit.
That had been three days ago.
My locker at school had been discovered with its door ripped off and thrown at the wall with enough force to practically embed it into it. Oh, and the pile of rotting and stinking trash that I had been locked in with as well.
The medical report on the contents of which, taken from my clothes (now burned) made it clear exactly what kind of diseases I had been covered with. One doctor was very surprised that I hadn't suffered from any sort of infection, given I had cuts on my elbows from trying to force the door open with my own strength before I passed out.
The police, and later PRT Agents, wanted to know how I got out of my locker and to the hospital. Good for them, I was wondering the same damn thing. I was no stronger than any ordinary girl who didn't exercise normally, and I had blacked out at some point, so I wished them luck and told them the truth: that I had no clue how and if they found out, they were to tell me.
Dad was, understandably, torn between relieved that I was alright, furious that I had been put in that situation to begin with and upset that I hadn't told him about my bullying. Let alone the fact that my ex-best friend Emma was one of the ringleaders.
He promptly withdrew me from Winslow by the end of my first day conscious after the incident and bluntly told Alan Barnes that until he took Emma in hand and acted like a responsible father again, they weren't friends anymore.
Last I heard, Alan was arguing with his wife, Zoe, about whether or not to send Emma to therapy or not.
It took another two days for the doctors to pronounce me fit to leave and infection free, during which time, I had developed this odd feeling that I was being watched, somehow, even in the bathroom. There was no one around though…
It was when I got home on the night of the second day after I woke up that I discovered why that was.
Bathroom, Hebert Home
My jaw dropped as I looked into the mirror and saw something floating behind me. It was vaguely humanoid and golden. Whipping my head around, my eyes widened at the floating figure behind me.
He or she was wearing golden armour that looked vaguely insect-like, as if it was made from chitin. Floating off the ground by half a foot, they seemed unaffected by gravity. Two things stood out about the figure; Number one, the figure's mask, while sinister-looking, had glowing blue eyes that put me at ease somewhat. Number two…the figure was missing their entire right arm. All there was in its place was a stump of an arm, as if it had been severed at some point in the past.
"Holy-!" I swore and moved back instinctively.
"Shh." The figure scolded me in a female voice. "You'll bring your father up."
"Who are you and how long have you been following me?" I demanded softly. If this was some whackjob, I wasn't about to risk harming my Dad.
"Why Taylor…you created me." The woman (?) laughed. "I am Khepri, your Stand. Your Parahuman power, as they call it around here."
I blinked. I…was a parahuman now? I had powers? That involved creating some kind of floating armored woman?
"Yup. Fortunately for you, I'm a Stand with both a personality and the ability to talk, so I can tell you what you need to use me effectively." Khepri informed me in amusement when I voiced this. "But a bathroom isn't the place to discuss such things. Tell your Dad you're tired and head to bed. I'll fill you in there."
With that, she faded from my sight.
While my head was abuzz with questions, I decided that following her advice would be the quickest way to get answers to them, so I very quickly cleaned my teeth and washed my face before heading down to tell Dad that I was going to bed early because I was tired.
He was a bit concerned, but not surprised, by this, so sent me off with a hug. Evidently he was of the opinion that there was nothing more tiring than lying around doing nothing for a couple of days.
Heading back up to my room at an unhurried speed (which took a lot of my patience to do), I finally closed my bedroom door and said, "OK Khepri. Time for some answers."
"Of course, Taylor." Khepri said from behind me. I stifled a scream of fright and whirled around to glare at my 'Stand' heatedly.
"Don't do that!" I hissed. "Why did you appear behind me like that?"
"I am a Stand; the name comes from the fact that I'm always behind you, standing ready to follow your orders." The golden armored woman replied in amusement. "Have a seat; this could take some explaining."
Huffing, I went over and sat down on my bed. "Fine. So, what's your deal?"
"Well…" Khepri seemed to think where to start. "So you know how there are parallel Earths?"
"Yeah. There are just over twenty, right." I answered.
"Bzzt. Wrong." The Stand shook her head. "There is a reason it's called the Multiverse, Taylor. There are more alternate versions of Earth out there than there are stars in the sky. There is one world where humans possess the ability to concentrate their will and fighting spirit into invisible figures with special abilities…Stands. When you were in the locker and were mentally pushed to your utmost limits, you somehow resonated with that alternate Earth, and with its Stand users. As a result, you got me rather than whatever Parahuman power you would have otherwise received."
I contemplated this. "So…you technically aren't a Parahuman power…you're something that my willpower created?"
"Essentially, yes." Khepri nodded. "More specifically, you resonated with Jōtarō Kūjō, who possesses an incredibly powerful Stand of his own, Star Platinum. As a result, my own abilities will be in the same range as his, although they will be distributed differently. Also, I know everything about Stands that Jōtarō does, so I can tell you basically everything a Stand can generally do, but I am afraid I have no idea what my specific powers are. That requires experimentation and testing."
"Huh…well with me out of school, that leaves plenty of time for us to do that." I mused.
"It's a good thing that you aren't going back into that hellhole." Khepri stated grimly. "I'd be forced to break some bones."
"What?!" I squeaked.
"OK, Stands 101: All Stands automatically act to protect their Bearers." The floating woman explained. "It's an automatic reflex, one I can't stop or control unless you specifically order me not to. The reaction can vary depending on the degree of the action. If Sophia Hess tried to trip you down the stairs, for example, she'd find herself 'mysteriously' in your place."
"You'd out me if you did that!" I said sharply. I said nothing regarding Sophia; after what she'd put me through for the last fifteen months, I wouldn't mind it if she took a tumble down a flight of stairs or two.
"Second thing about Stands: only a Stand Bearer can see or hear Stands." Khepri sounded smug. "Anyone looking at us right now, for example, would be under the impression that you're talking to yourself."
OK, useful to know.
"So someone looking at a Stand picking something up will see it as just telekinesis or something like that." I nodded as I followed the logic. "So…you were the one who got me out of the Locker?"
"Yes. I also did it in such a way that suggested that someone from the outside ripped the door off, rather than from within." Khepri answered. "If nothing else, the authorities are highly unlikely to believe that it was you who affected your own escape."
"The PRT might; they have a lot of experience with Parahumans." I mused. "I'll have to act normal for a while in case they have people following me. No experimenting to see what my powers are, then. Hold on…how did you get me to the hospital without being seen then?"
"I can float, as you can see, but I also have insect wings to enable flight." Khepri responded with a tilt of her head. "As for the unseen part…that is a curious question. I…hold on…I had two arms at one point… Taylor, can you examine my armour for any markings or the like that looked out of place?"
Blinking, I nodded and examined her. The main symbol on her chestplate was a blue scarab symbol with an orb of some kind above it…this was one of the symbols of Khepri, the Ancient Egyptian God, if memory serves, so it fit her. Why she had a male name when she was female was beyond me.
Anyway, there was nothing on her chestplate, faulds, spaulders or greaves, so I turned my eyes to her single bracer-slash-gauntlet. There, I struck paydirt. Atop the part of it closest to the divide between the bracer's edge and the part that protected the back of her hand was a back circle about the same size of a dime coin. It was about three quarters full.
"Here." I pointed at it. "It's a circle about three-quarters full. Can't you see it?"
"No. I would suppose that regardless of how human I appear to be and the amount of independence I have from you, I am only a Stand." Khepri said with a rueful chuckle. "I cannot see anything there. Now, order me to use what is inside of it. I'll probably be able to use whatever power it is."
"If that's the case, how'd you use it the first time?" I wondered.
"In order to protect and save, you, I would guess that I accessed it instinctively." Khepri guessed. "Now, let's see what it is that this power of mine is…"
"O…K…Khepri! Access your power!" I ordered.
With a nod, my Stand focused and suddenly a black shadow surged out of the stump of her arm and formed into the vague outline of an arm. After a moment, it shaped itself into an exact duplicate of her other arm, albeit one that was entirely black. She flexed her new appendage experimentally and seemed to find it acceptable.
"Just giving me an arm wouldn't be the entire point of this power though…" Khepri mused. "A Stand is intangible unless it wants to be otherwise, so it can't be that either. Hmm."
Reaching out, she touched my bed and, in a burst of black shadows, it faded from sight, which was really freaky to watch, especially when I'm sitting on it!
"Holy shit. You made my bed invisible!" I said in disbelief.
Then Khepri removed her hand and my bed flashed back into visibility. Huh, a touch-based invisibility power? That was new. It would explain how she managed to get me from Winslow to Brockton Bay General unseen though.
I glanced at her real hand and saw that the circle on her bracer had been reduced from two-thirds to one-half. Was it from using the power or did it lose a quarter of the amount of darkness every time Khepri manifested the arm?
After my Stand made my bed vanish and reappear a few more times without the circle being reduced in amount, I was pretty sure that every time Khepri manifested her arm with that power, the circle would be reduced by one quarter.
"But what caused me to acquire this power?" the golden-armoured manifestation of my willpower mused aloud. "All Stands have a few generally shared abilities, as well as some physical abilities due to their form, as well as a specific ability which is usually unique to them. At a guess, acquiring other powers is my own special ability. The question is how I gained this invisibility power in the first place?"
I blinked as I considered that before a sudden suspicion made ice crawl up my spine. I felt like throwing up at the possibility.
"Parahumans." I breathed. "What if your ability is the ability to copy powers from Parahumans?"
Khepri tilted her head in consideration. "I was born from you, so I have all of the knowledge that you have, and the only Parahuman to your knowledge that possesses the shadows that appear when I use this power is Shadow Stalker, the former vigilante, and her PRT page lists her as primarily a 'Breaker' with the ability to become intangible in a shadow state."
"Yes, but you can already become intangible." I waved my hand angrily. "In the case of that happening, what if you randomly generate a similar category power that that parahuman has? It fits; although you are invisible to everyone but me, you didn't need to make yourself invisible; you needed to make me invisible, so you got a Striker ability to make me invisible with physical contact. That isn't why I'm mad though."
"Why are you…oh." Khepri's voice became flat at that as she quickly followed the chain of logic. She was at least as smart as I was, after all. "That…criminal…is a Protectorate Ward?!"
Yup. Shadow Stalker was infamous for being a black girl around about my age. It was one reason why the Empire 88, the Nazi bastards that they were, hated her guts. The Wards were known to go to Arcadia, the uptown and most modern highschool in Brockton Bay, so her being in Winslow made no sense, aside from the fact she was known to have been a vigilante before becoming a Ward, which happened around last September or so.
Right around the time Sophia became even surlier and more violent.
She probably dug her heels in about being moved to a different school, I thought icily. Probably complained she had friends at Winslow and how suspicious it would be for a black girl from a poor background to suddenly get a transfer to Arcadia out of nowhere at the same time a black vigilante joined the Wards.
My faith in the PRT was rapidly joining my faith in authority figures in general, somewhere six-feet under.
"I think this discovery rules out your becoming a Ward, Taylor." Khepri spat out, as furious about this as I was. "I will not permit you to join them if they overlook a veritable maniac in their midst!"
"Agreed." I said coldly. "So. Independent it is."
The fact I was going to become a hero was something that had been an unspoken assumption between Khepri and I from the start of our conversation. I had wanted to be one since I was a little girl and here I was with a power.
"While I am in agreement, you need to train yourself, Taylor." Khepri said, crossing her arms. "You are not fit and need to build yourself up to being acceptably so. I can tell you that only a Stand can harm another Stand, but any wounds inflicted upon you are reflected on me, and vice-versa. You are my largest weak point, and that needs to be minimized."
I grunted in irritation, but agreed. I had the muscle-mass of an average girl, less even. My getting into exercising wouldn't be suspicious to my Dad; Mom had exercised even as an English professor, so I'd be taking after her. Jogging was a must, but what else?
"Swimming." Khepri suggested. "It exercises your entire body. During the day, you can do your schoolwork, housekeep, exercise and plan. During the night, we can sneak out and test my power to its fullest. We need to determine exactly how this power copying ability of mine works. I didn't touch Hess at all, so it's likely an area of effect around you or me."
"We need to determine its range and if it has any side effects on the ones we copy from too." I added. "As well as if it's the same power each time, how long you can 'hold' the powers and if the limit before we need to copy the powers again is, as I suspect it to be, four manifestations."
"If it is, that will be irritating to constantly have to track people down to recharge my uses of their powers." My Stand said with an irked tone to her voice. "What also needs to be determined is how many powers I can have copied at once. My limit to using them is almost certainly one at a time, but if I can have a store of useful powers to fall back on…"
I smirked. "I think this will be a good partnership, Khepri."
Ok, so I once said to someone that I wouldn't be doing a Stand!Taylor ficlet. I now find myself a liar. The only Worm story like this that I can remember is when someone just gave Taylor Dio's Stand [The World]. I wanted to be a bit more original. Rather than a Parahuman power analysis, I'll do a Jojo-style one for her Stand.
Stand Name: Khepri
Stand Bearer: Taylor Hebert
Stand Appearance: Natural Humanoid
Special Ability: Power Copying and Synthesis
Range-Type: Mid-Range
Parameters
Power: C
Speed: C
Range: B
Vitality: C
Precision: A
Development: A+