by Louis IX
Check first chapter for disclaimer and global warnings.
Food TransitGood morning, say I.
Queen Administrator I am, and this the tale of my last Cycle as a Shard is.
What this means, do you enquire? Surprised, you are, that speaking a proper Earthling's language I am? That not conveying tons of undertones with one word I am, either? Like…
[DESTINATION]?
[AGREEMENT]?
Like that? Come on, know we have bodies the size of planets, do you? With a corresponding mass for brain? Even with a consciousness leading us, to have developed the ability to speak simple words we ought, think not do you?
Although thinking I am, that my current host's idolizing of the Star Wars franchise, and its Yoda character, to some colloquialisms, being in translation lost, has led. Or because of a planet an earlier Cycle wiped out is it, filled of people talking like this? Remember I do, that it was a long time ago, and in a galaxy quite far away. Only escaped few specimens of the local species.
Anyways… about the consciousnesses leading us I spoke. The Warrior one is, the one Scion you call. The other Eden is, the Thinker and the one planning everything for the two of them.
Entities who carry us Shards, Scion and Eden are, and with those one-word essays they do speak, mostly. Or "did", as were it: Eden incommunicado has been, for quite a while. Hence our Warrior's inability to the Cycle to its normal conclusion bring.
The "Cycle" one iteration of what Scion's species do represents: take root somewhere, pull data from the place, and then gather all energy from it to power the trip to the next destination. The "taking root" flawlessly has gone, the Shards of power disseminated among the dominant species of the planet having been. The "pulling of data" underway for years has been, now – the Warrior's method to seek conflict is, and all those receiving a Shard from Scion, their nature altered by that new need, see.
The fact that Scion despondent is, though, the Cycle unreliable makes: the "gathering" started has not, and more and more shards sown around are. Even I, one of the last, and one that shouldn't the Warrior's consciousness have left. Like Sting, too. A couple years before me, it left, in the direction of the relatively big (for the puny host species) settlement known as New York. As for me, the only one available I was, when Taylor's distress call came.
Taylor my host is. Taylor Hebert. Like in many parallel universes, trigger she did, while locked in her locker. Due to a trio of popular girls it was, one of them an erstwhile friend, and another a Shard-bearer. And, as we bond, to her memories I get access – as all Shards do: inklings about the hosts' motivations and desires it gives, allowing the Shard its expression to refine; and the Shard to conform to the host's body it also allows. Apparently, according to Taylor's memories of cape geekery, some powered individuals, a Shard willing to do so, they didn't have. This, a whole group of capes collectively designated Case 53s, it created.
The case it is not with Taylor.
Taylor's memoriesTaylor is five. Her mother "scolds" her. "Do you realize that playing with your food can lead to disgraceful stains, dear?" she asks, gently – she learnt in educational magazines that parents must be nice to their children and speak to them as they would adults… and is coming to the realization that the author knows nothing about the subject. Proof is that Taylor smiles back, and her small teeth let soup and puree pass through, wasting good food and creating those distasteful stains. Annette sighs and wipes the mess.
Taylor is seven. She's in the garden with her best friend Emma. They dare each other to approach the grasshopper, to grab it… to eat it. Taylor does, to Emma's disgust. But everything is forgotten when Emma's mum calls them for their afternoon snack. With white napkins: Zoe is from an upscale family, liked her ways, and wanted to educate her daughter likewise – she couldn't, though, because schools nowadays told children to report their parents for the slightest punishment. And, as the Marines know quite well, there is no discipline without punishment.
Taylor is nine. She's standing on a stool, next to her mother, while they are cooking. Her tongue is out because clichés are a thing, and she watches television: in her mind, you can't concentrate without doing so. She's slicing the vegetables into little (uneven) cubes. Some fall on the floor, but she picks them up and continues. When Annette tells them to throw them instead, she shakes her head and eats them. Waste not, want not, and all that rot.
Taylor is eleven. Emma's preferred toy has been thrown into the gutter by the seniors of their intermediate school, and Taylor sticks her hands in the mud to get it back. Emma recoils at seeing the filth, but thanks her after she washes it. And then she protects her friend, who doesn't understand why people mock her in school. Besides, she accompanied her mother in a beauty parlour, once, and both had liked the mud bath.
Taylor is thirteen. She's playing with friends at summer camp. One of them had seen a television show where people had to eat insects, and they had gathered some of them. Emma saying that Taylor had already done so made them ask for proof, which she does. The other girls are quite disgusted. Due to her mother's schooling, Emma understands the social current and starts to distance herself from Taylor, who is still unaware of how one single act can lead to bad reputation, and then to difficult teenage years.
Taylor is fifteen. Emma had not accompanied her during her last summer camp, and told her to get lost when she came back. She's with Sophia now, and the two of them are the "queens" of Winslow. And Taylor could be seen as their unwilling buffoon. A distraught Taylor even tried to make herself trigger, taking inspiration from dark movies such as those with vampires and werewolves – and no, those bandages on her wrists weren't because she might have cut herself, but because she wondered about the taste of human flesh.
The last thing the trio of bullies did was to imprison Taylor in her locker, previously filled with rotting food taken from the accumulated trash in the school's dumpsters – the feminine hygiene products collectors, initially selected, had been vandalized.
That's when she triggered.
Taylor's powersI am Queen Administrator. I can micro-manage to an absurd degree – I also learned proper English from Taylor's memories, as you can see. Sorry for the earlier mangling.
Because Taylor's trigger event happened in a public place, I decided to help her by managing things hiding her shape from the outside world. The first option, insects, is quickly discarded by Taylor's subconscious: reliving her memories, she had understood Emma's sequence of reactions, and knew that her eating insects was a large part of it.
Instead of insects, I got her… scales, thin little forcefields in a round shape, that she will move telekinetically. At first, it was to be literal, as in scales that can be found on fishes, or in scale armours. And, at first, all those scales would be the same colour: an iridescent white (although she can see through them, and perceive where they are even behind her). I say "at first" because some powers allow for word games, and I'm sure that Taylor will use other kind of scales, later. Such as weighing scales, or ladders.
She can create and dismiss scales at will, of various sizes and in a wide radius. Each of this scale is a disc that is both hard in the middle, and thin at the side. Like Narwhal's forcefields, they can both protect and slice. The can also exert a pushing pressure, even against other scales, thus pushing or compressing matter and items.
Unfortunately, the bonding of a Shard to a host implies a limitation, always. The greater the power, the greater the limitation – which means that the anomalies that are the Triumvirate ought to be researched, by myself, when I'll have some free time. Later.
Since the power I gave Taylor is quite versatile, I am forced to pull an all-encompassing limitation out of her subconscious. And since we are knee-dip in edibles, even rotting, it will be… edibles.
Taylor's scales will protect her, including her identity (by covering her whole body, adding padding as needed) but will only allow her to attack targets that she could consider edible.
Normally, such a limitation would be quite hampering. But given what I had seen of her memories, earlier, many things might not be immune from this limitation. Even humans.
Metal, too: she had seen videos of people who had eaten their bike, and wondered, and tried (and she got aches, which hadn't ended yet). Same with plastic and wood, due to moments of hunger, in class, where she chewed her pen – who hasn't? And I have the hunch that, later, she'll add other bits so as to be able to target them: plaster, brick, earth, stone… etc.
In fact, when considering what she could eat and her reactions to it, I took advantage of the last moments of our bond stabilizing, to add to her power the ability to eat anything – as in masticate, swallow, and digest. With no adverse effects. She might curse that ability, later, when she'll try to get drunk. But at least she won't be part of the number of people taking bad decisions from an inebriated state.
Taylor's huntTaylor's consciousness might be limited by the locker in which she was locked, but mine was larger, and I noticed the reaction of the other Shard-bearer nearby: hearing the scales loudly pummelling the locker's material, before starting to rip through it, she paled, grabbed her red-headed friend, and fled. She just cast a glance at the mess, seeing the third girl following them, when the door practically exploded, and a white shape following. A shape coalescing in the form of a tiger (and the slices into the metal could have been the work of claws, too).
Those who followed the noise saw the same before turning tail and running away: a snarling animal covered in scales.
Taking stock of the situation, Taylor showed the intelligence her situation had honed: she knew the Trio would do whatever they could to put the blame on her and her alone. So, to confuse whoever would come, she moved the scales through the whole row of lockers, also spreading the rotten filling everywhere. And, meanwhile, she joined the crowd of panicking students – a careful slicing of her pants had removed the dirty part.
Her range was enough to continue to manage the pseudo-animal through its rampage while she was outside the school. She saw the PRT arrive, followed by Armsmaster. Her blood turning cold, she noticed Sophia approaching the hero and telling him something to which he nodded. Not an interaction between a hero and a member of the public, but between colleagues. Between the head of the local protectorate… and a Ward.
Despite her grades, Taylor was far from being dumb. The low reports were mostly due to the popular girls sabotaging her work, and she could understand what was happening, and plan accordingly. She knew of Shadow Stalker. She knew of Sophia Hess. Seeing one acting as the other would, she knew that the so-called "heroes" would be against her from the get go.
She needed to disappear. She also needed to warn her father. Using darkened scales, she covered herself in the dark of an alleyway, before pushing her scales upwards. She flew not home, using the shadows to hide herself, but to her dad's workplace.
The man knew about the capes living in the town. He had participated in the defence of the Union against the gangs. He was sad that his daughter had triggered, but also angry that anyone would push her to that extremity. And when learning that the heroes would come a-knocking, he understood why his daughter was telling him all this, in the privacy of his office, in which she had entered through the window.
"If the heroes act like villains, it falls upon non-heroes to take up the slack." he said, to which she nodded.
He would come home late, after exchanging some words with his friends. Preparing.
He would find PRT people there, quite angry to have waited for so long.
He would be taken to the Rig for a rigorous questioning, only for Quinn Calle to appear to his side – in a mundane manner: summoned by the Union, he simply entered the room and sat beside him. With the parahuman-specialized lawyer with him, he was able to turn the questioning over.
Meanwhile, Taylor was hunting someone else. Shadow Stalker was on the prowl, and the little scales Taylor had spread around the usual ex-vigilante's hunting grounds told her when she appeared. And where.
A grey wolf appeared and swiped at the would-be hero, before disappearing, not even registering the counter-attack.
Attack after attack, Shadow Stalker was pushed further and further into insanity, even starting to foam at the mouth. The last one, she shot each and every bolt in her possession, in every direction, trying to hit her foe. Thankfully, carefully placed scales prevented the bolts from hitting would-be witnesses.
And then Taylor showed herself. Or, rather, she showed a group of scales shaped like she was. Shadow Stalker drew knives and sliced and stabbed the creature that she mimicked. She was enraged and didn't care about being filmed.
It would only be the next day, after being chewed out by her whole chain of command, that she realized that, no, she hadn't caught her prey: she had been the prey, only ending up attacking madly while people recorded her on their phones.
This changed something drastically, in Sophia's mind. From being beneath Emma, who was herself behind her, Taylor had pulled herself above the two of them, in her skewed worldview of predator-prey.
She won't seek her anymore. Even after her prison stint.
Taylor's careerI don't know yet if Taylor will join the heroes, in the end. She will probably partake in the general mayhem surrounding the Endbringers. I will probably try to warn her about their link to the High Priest shard, and its host.
I am not human. I have no qualms about doing some things to humans, and sharing ideas with Taylor's subconscious. Such as the ability to impersonate someone by taking their face. Literally. With her scales, it would take barely a minute to do so, even. I blame the series she watched, imported from Aleph – something about Thrones, I believe.
Meanwhile, I watch as she grows older, makes herself a name among the non-evil villains, and take up a couple passions. Such as cooking.
Her various powers help her become quite the chef, her scales helping with the various ways one had to cut, slice, peel, dice, hack, and otherwise separate food in many ways. As she does so, I help her micro-manage the scales and give her ideas to use them in other ways: moving rapidly against another, a scale can become hot. And once she can cook by herself, she can find ways to remove heat too: by transmitting energy from scale to scale, she can freeze anything.
All in all, she has quite a career as a Rogue. And contrarily to the statistics given by the PRT to all new triggers, she's left alone by the gangs. All of them, including the "gang" of heroes called the Protectorate.
It helps that during her last encounter with Leviathan, her scales sliced cleanly through the beast – after she had eaten the little bit of Endbringer skin that Armsmaster had successfully sliced off with his monoatomic blade.
I'm quite happy with her. Now, how can I warn her about Scion and the broken Cycle, I wonder.
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To be continued… with gluttonyAuthor's Notes: I happen to have read "Burning your house down… with lemons" after "Implacable" (both on SpaceBattles). This ends up looking more like the latter than the former, though.