by Louis IX
Check first chapter for disclaimer and global warnings. This additional info also warns the reader that the following is a test of writing in self-reference style.
How Dense Can You Get?Next door has a sign in lead saying "this is a sign". It's a leading sign.
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This story starts with the usual scene of popular girls pushing the loner into her school locker, full of disgusting things.
This story makes a flashback to some point before, when Taylor was friend with Emma, before falling from BFF status to less-than-nothing, with the destruction of the social life (and priceless heirlooms from her mother) that ensued. With her resigned gait and her will to go through everything in order to please her mother, Taylor even looked retarded to some people, which reinforced the infernal spiral involving justifiable bad grades and people in authority looking down on her. Seriously, how dense can you get?
With the end of the previous flashback, this story continues with the assumption that when a potential parahuman triggers near another, the power chosen is the same, only with a different expression. And we then elaborate on the fact that Shadow Stalker, the underage hero (and previously a sadistic vigilante with an anger problem) was nearby when Taylor Hebert, the bullied girl, became a cape.
This story then tells what happens when Taylor gains access to a power that alters her body's density… with an iron will to be as different from Sophia Hess as possible. Instead of becoming ethereal to the point of traversing walls, Taylor get denser. In several senses. While her nemesis can choose when to apply her power, she doesn't. While the density change of her nemesis is fixed, she doesn't and gets denser progressively. And finally, while her nemesis has an anger problem, she doesn't. Instead, her default state will be quite unresponsive. Dense.
Some illustrative sentences continue the same line of thought, and we see Taylor keeping on banging the locker door after her trigger… except that the sound gets louder and louder, reverberating through the whole school at some point. People come and witness her blows fold steel and allow her to escape her unsanitary prison, at last. Some have seen her getting pushed inside, and realize that her new apparent strength might cause them problems in the future. Some haven't, but know that she's the unofficial school's scapegoat, and don't intervene. Others want to, but they are disgusted by the smell and the sight. The end result is the same: a corridor filled with negative faces. Taylor flees home, each heavy step resonating through the whole building.
This story then expounds on Taylor's power, in the fact that it had added mass to her body to increase its density. She's heavier without having to look heavier. And she seems healthier, too, the added matter filling deficiencies and otherwise trying to add to her shape without being too obvious. In fact, she could be walking next to Panacea, offering her own matter as raw fuel for the bio-shaper's use, and it wouldn't be even seen. But all this is only the physical aspect of things: mentally, she's a wreck. A dense wreck, feeling like a pariah, and who only puts one foot after the other, heading home.
This story loops back to the trigger events, then, with a focus on Sophia crumbling into a heap just as she was running leaps in PE – her specialty. Upon waking up, she remembers the space whales of her dream, and realizes that someone must have triggered nearby… and that that person was probably her nemesis, Taylor. Pushing aside her fussing hanger-ons, she pulls her phone and calls the PRT. With coded words, she implies that she had been attacked by a Master whom had tried to get her several times, and that she had only recently identified as Taylor Hebert – stomping over the Unwritten Rules all the way. And her grin is practically savage when she hangs up, sure that the lone loser would suffer for quite some time – the PRT was most aggressive towards human-targeting Masters (when they wanted to be: after all, Gallant was one).
And that's when this story returns to Taylor Hebert, when she walks over the damaged step of her home's porch, only for those undamaged steps to give way under her increased weight. Her dad is home, as walking through the city on autopilot had taken her quite a long time. And several muggers had tried to attack her, their weapon not piercing her skin and their attempts to move her unsuccessful. He storms out of the house and sees the damage, and behind him stand government officials, while behind her screech several cars which disgorge PRT troopers. "Is it true, Taylor?" he asks, disappointed. "You're a villain, now?"
At this point of the story, Taylor's tired, her mind works slower than usual, and any rage that she could muster at the PRT's abusive actions is swallowed into apathy. "So you don't want me either?" she asks, just as the nets and containment foam surround her in an attempt to immobilize her. It doesn't work, but she doesn't let them believe that. Since her own dad prefers her to be carted away, so be it. Interrogated in custody, her catatonia is taken as stubborn refusal to speak, and proof of her wrongdoings – and more physical attempts at making her speak simply… fail. With the hands that strike her ending up broken, the fact ending up as "wilful assault on government police force on duty".
Now, this story takes another turn, with a scene taken out of a zoo – or it looks like it: it's a kangaroo court, with a judge with a grudge screeching like a mad raptor, a defence lawyer that could very well be a sloth, a district attorney that was a pitbull terrier (and her case a bone) and a dismayed jury that resembled more frightened mice than reasonable human beings. They folded. And since she was tall and they conveniently forgot her age, she was tried as an adult. And sent to the Birdcage. The Trio couldn't believe their luck.
While these events take place, this story explains what's happening somewhere else: upon Dragon's request, Armsmaster runs Sophia's phone call through his voice-stress detection module (affectionately called "lie detector") and notices the massive truth alterations. But instead of doing the "right thing", he digs his heels and protects his Ward – after all, everything points towards the girl being guilty, right? It leads to several decisions that go perpendicular to canon. The first is that the famous singer, Bad Canary, learns that she could follow the same path if she wasn't careful. She decided to do a couple of things, right then: take a good lawyer on a retinue, clean her metaphorical house by asking for a restraining order against her ex (and moving away, too)… and then sing with her power emphasizing compassion and understanding. It was her way of doing good for the People.
According to this story, the other consequence of Armsmaster single-minded blindness to facts was Dragon's split from him, and her attempts to help the poor girl, right as she was remotely piloting the shuttle that would deliver her to the Birdcage's entrange. The parody of justice she has witnessed had generated a loop of mounting disgust that ends up giving her enough will to act against the inhumanely-applied law. Since she is a parahuman, though whatever quirk of fate, she can experience second trigger, which is what she does, and it frees her from the shackles her creator had imbued her with.
Of course, this story doesn't forget about the group ominously called the Dragonslayers: their continuous surveillance upon Dragon's thought processes allowed them to detect her attempt towards freedom, and they took the decision to launch Ascalon, the Dragon-killing virus. It works too well, and the AI crashes. Simultaneously, everything she managed crashes as well. The Birdcage's systems, notably: soon, most of the inmates end up dead from the lack of oxygen, and the others can't get food either and end up eating each other.
This story isn't clear about Dragon's real fate: is she truly dead, or does she have many backups all over the world, now ready to take over? Whatever the case, one thing is sure: her link to the flying shuttle ferrying Taylor to hell… was cut off. And the thing plummets and crashes, too. Dense as she is now, Taylor survives and ends up in the frozen Canadian woods. And she frowns heavily, trying to remember if she read anything about survival in the wilderness, among the many books of poetry her mother made her read. Answer: none. But she doesn't have to, as, and she finally notices it: she doesn't need food, as matter continues to increase her weight. She doesn't need sleep, as her body and mind are continually rejuvenated by new cells. She doesn't need to breathe, either, as the added matter is chosen according to the body's needs, and she can always summon more oxygen.
This story spends some more time following Taylor's investigations upon her powers: upon discovering that she can summon matter, she tries to find if she can summon anything to cover herself. Not that she's cold, thanks to her massive weight insulating her, but her clothes were ripped in the crash. And, yes, she could: the matter her power kept adding could be used to shape the outside layer of her body in an approximation of clothing. Or armour. Or even melee weapons and shields. In fact, thinking about the last marvellous comics of Earth Aleph she had read with her dad, she thought of herself as Iron Man – or Woman, as the case may be. And having thought that thought, she wonder if she can summon matter outside of her body, or in a form that would emulate the famous living armour's energy beams. Answer: not… exactly.
This story takes a strangely scientific turn (or a magical one, since, after all, any sufficiently advanced technology can be likened to magic) in trying to explain how Taylor could project energy. Apparently, her insides had changed at some point, her power not seeing the need for intestines for someone who couldn't eat. Instead, she got an explosion chamber, where matter could be brought and "burned" to generate energy, as well as burning plasma, and conduits would direct those into her palms, under her feet, and a large "hole" in the middle of her chest. Her mouth, too, like that character in the Fifth Element movie. And her eyes as well, like that Superman hero from Earth Aleph.
Interestingly enough, in this story, burning off matter like that was a way for Taylor to lose weight – because she wasn't getting any lighter otherwise. In fact, she was now heavy enough to crush any support underfoot. Soil was soft as snow, wood splintered, and roads cracked much like a thin layer of ice. That's when her power answered with a Mover ability. Shadow Stalker could emulate flight, by getting a head start before transforming, so that the unfettered cloud of loosely-held particles that she was ended up moving in a straight line. In Taylor's case, the expression of it was the ability of anchoring parts of her body against other matter… including air – it was conceptual, not the actual molecules, and only allowed her to walk (or run, if she ever got to it) on thin air. And stop a fall at the first obstacle, either slamming heavily on it or stopping by anchoring herself to it. At least she could envision a future where she wouldn't be entombed in the planet's crust.
After these ruminations, this story returns to the outside world, leaving Taylor to trudge back towards civilization – a trip that would take days. On the aftermath of Dragon's disappearance, the whole world held its breath. The AI helped coordinate response to Endbringer attacks, and her loss was quite heavy, both on morale and because it lowered the fight capability of all the capes. The fact that the Dragonslayers, a group of villains, came forward with claims that they had done so to help humanity was… unusual. And quickly decried. They ended up in prison as well – but not the crushed Birdcage. Speaking of which… the Winslow Trio had learned about the crash of Taylor's transport shuttle, and were oscillating between glee that Taylor might have been killed in the Birdcage… and fear that she hadn't been there at that time.
This story then illustrate why this fear is justified… and shared by all the people Taylor came across during her trudge across two countries: gangsters and villainous capes tried to hit her with weapons and powers, but those failed when facing the unnaturally dense and resilient body. Those attacking with potentially lethal means got their projectiles thrown back at them, killing them. Those attacking with powers got massive blows (to both their body and pride) or beams of energy. And it didn't matter whether they introduced themselves as the corrupt PRT, the smashing Elite, or any other group: attacking her was asking for retaliation. And she wouldn't speak, either. Soon, the PRT had a moniker for her, as well as some guidelines: she was Implacable, and she was to be left alone – less damage that way. In fact, they realized that, with no one antagonizing her, she wouldn't damage anything. Instead, the peace would allow her to take time to enjoy the surroundings, helping the place if she could, notably by repairing things using her summoned matter.
Of course, this story then places Taylor, or Implacable, back in Brockton Bay. Witnessing her slow-moving form walking down the street led Armsmaster and Shadow Stalker to uncomfortable truths: each of them had participated in a subversion of the justice system of the United States. As such, they could be tried. Everyone in the chain of command could, including Director Piggot. As a result… everyone covered their own ass and tried to push her away despite the standing order to leave her alone. She ignored them, bashed them when they insisted, and delivered plasma to those who still came at her. And when she found herself home, she hugged her father, walked up to her bedroom, and laid in her bed – she couldn't sleep, but she could still rest for a while. And her father wouldn't move, since her hug had transferred unto him a thick layer of matter, making him both immobile and unable to be damaged by attacks. They had to talk. And then she would hunt her tormentors – provided that they hadn't fled to the four winds already.
How she deals with the bullies is not explained in this story. Nor is it indicated how her immovable body faced the various gangs and those extraneous invaders such as the Slaughterhouse and the Teeth. And the Endbringers. And Scion. Some things are better left forgotten.
Towards the end of this story, Taylor becomes so dense that she had her own gravity well, attracting loose objects and ammunition. Any incorporeal effect or body will be drawn to her. She has no control over this, except by shedding massive amounts of mass. She does it by covering her whole house with a layer of matter, then her neighbourhood, then the whole city. The layer of matter is under her control, and she can feel anyone walking on "her". She can manifest any creature, and dismiss them too. Including humans. Including herself. It looked like teleportation, too, if you watched such a duplicate get swallowed back into the "ground" while another emerged from it. And since she doesn't really want to destroy her home planet, she lifts the accreted matter away and into space. There, more and more matter come to her as she travels, becoming her own little planet. Much like that character, in yet another movie, called Ego.
All in all, a compelling story. Too bad nobody ever wrote it down.
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To be continued… with enough matterAuthor's Notes: This note explains that, despite the cumbersome writing style, the author likes the pitch, and would be glad if somebody writes it :-)