AN: It's funny, I've never actually read Worm; at least, not the whole thing. My first introduction to the fandom was stumbling across a very old dead-fic staring everyone's favorite goddess of escalation. Now its one of my favorite settings to brainstorm for. Its funny how things go.
Anyway, I mostly wrote this because I really wanted to see Sophia getting some serious comeuppance. I actually prefer stories that manage to add some depth to her character, but there's something cathartic about watching a bad person suffer without having to worry about things like justice. So I figured I'd drop her in the worst place somebody could go, and see where things went from there.
Gotta say, I'm rather happy with how it turned out.
The last thing Sophia remembered was pain.
Then she woke up, and the air was on fire.
It took her a worryingly long time to realize that the effect wasn't literal, but simply a case where the air was so hot in burned. Her mouth went dry instantly, and her eyes stung badly enough that it took an effort of will not to clutch at them, possibly while screaming.
She fought off the urge, though. She didn't have time to cower, didn't have time to be weak. They had been fighting the Empire last she knew, and that meant she needed to get up, because they were going to need her, would need a real fighter on their side and-
This wasn't Brockton Bay. It wasn't the sight that convinced her, the great curtain of flames that seemed to appear from just beneath a distant balcony, because when Lung really got going he tended to turn city blocks into slag.
No, the part that convinced her was the smell. Even at its worst, Brockton Bay had never smelled like this. It had never smelled like sulfur and hot stone and great smoky clouds of suffering, and why had she never realized that suffering carried a scent before? Because now she could practically smell nothing else, it was practically choking her, and oh god the screaming was even worse.
She had never heard screaming like this, had never even imagined it-it was like listening to the videos about the Slaughterhouse Nine that she had watched online to prove how brave she was, only she had to keep pausing it halfway through because she kept vomiting. Only these screams were even worse, because they didn't stop, they didn't slow, it was like they didn't even need to breathe and what was worse than the pain in it was the despair.
Those were the screams of people who had given up, and had found out that it didn't help.
Sophia only realized that was shivering after the fact, her body trembling and her teeth chattering in a dry heat that should have baked her drier than an autumn leaf. Not even her instincts, honed by weeks and months of prowling the streets, could bring her to pull her gaze away from the horror on display, not even when she heard footsteps off to one side.
"It gets worse, you know," they said, and the voice was almost familiar enough to grab her attention, to pull her eyes over to one side and see. They were also terribly, awfully, calm. They were seeing the same things that she was, hearing the same screams, smelling the stench of burned and blackened flesh… and they sounded like they were discussing the weather. Like this awfulness… didn't matter. "Here in the first circle, they're still mostly focused on physical suffering. The third circle, now, that's where it starts getting really awful."
"Where…" The word was a croak, her mouth almost too dry for speech. She wanted to vomit. She was so very, very thankful that the flames obscured the worst of it, that the most she could even see were the tiny bodies hanging on a distant hill as flames came to engulf them, and she still wanted to spew the contents of her stomach all over the hot stone floor. "Where am I?"
"Oh? Haven't you guessed, Sophia?" Worse than the familiarity, that distant sense that she *almost* recognized the speaker, was the recognition woven into every word. This person, whoever they were, knew her, recognized her, and they thought it was funny. She could hear them, practically laughing at the thought that she'd ended up in this horrible place.
This time, she found the strength to turn away, to glare at the painfully familiar figure standing beside her, lounging on a massive three-pronged pole arm with a shit eating smile on her face. She took in the long, brown hair and a too wide mouth, a tall slender body dressed in a tight satin dress that concealed as much as it revealed, no curves to speak of but the ones in her arms, powerful muscles pressing out against pale skin.
"This is Hell," said Taylor Hebert with a cheerful wave and corpse's grin.
One of the most important lessons that Sophia had ever learned was, 'Fight, or die.' It was her guiding light, the only thing that kept her going when times were tough. Either you struggled as hard as you could, or the world would eat you up, and spit you out. It didn't matter if she was in pain, it didn't matter if she was scared or confused, it didn't matter if the weak part of her was screaming about this being a bad idea. Sophia was always, always ready to fight.
"Listen, I don't know why you brought me here, but you better send me back right now!" she shouted, struggling to her feet. Everything ached for some reason, but she had fought through worse, and she'd be damned if she showed weakness to Hebert of all people. "Right now! If the Protectorate hears what you've done to me-"
"And why, exactly, would the Protectorate give a damn about you?" Taylor countered, still with that fucking smile on her face. "It's not like they can be bothered to care about the dozens of people that Lung, Skidmark, or Kaiser have killed, so why would you matter to them? Unless, of course, they're especially interested in track stars?"
For a second, Sophia was almost afraid that she'd made a mistake, but then she felt the swish of her cloak against her back, and the weight of the crossbow at her hip. A hand reached up to touch the hard surface of her mask, proving that she was still Shadow Stalker, still a hero-
…And Hebert had called her by name. "Unmasking a Ward is a crime, Hebert," she snapped, and behind the anger the fear was waiting. She could take care of herself, but her family, her mom and sister and little brother weren't so strong, and she knew what cowards would do to take vengeance on the strong.
"Is it really?" Hebert said, and her surprise was almost painfully fake, almost cheerfully mocking. "And here I thought that things like false imprisonment and attempted murder were the real crimes. You know, like when you stuffed me in a locker full of used tampons and left me to rot. Silly me, for thinking that stuff was more important that knowing the identity of the bitch who tortured me for years."
"Is that what this is about?" Sophia demanded, managing to take a shaky step forward, fingers wrapped around the handle of her bow. She'd only need one shot. "The fucking locker? It was just a prank, you fucking wimp! A stupid fucking prank! Of course it's not as important as a weakling like you, trying to threaten someone like me!" Just one shot…
"Huh," was all Hebert said. Just that, and she sounded so thoughtful when she said it, like Sophia had just handed her a clever little riddle to solve. "If it makes you feel any better," Hebert finally said after a careless shrug, "it wasn't actually my idea to bring you here to begin with. Sorta outside my jurisdiction, you know? I just punish the damned, I don't decide who's guilty. That's what the big man upstairs is for."
"So what, you're saying that 'God' put me down here?" Sophia asked, putting as much scorn as she could into the word. "Why? Because you're such a wimp that you can't even fight back, instead of sitting there and taking it?"
Hebert giggled. The fucking bitch giggled at her, like Sophia had just made some kind of joke. "Oh, if only you knew," she said, reaching down with one hand to pull a small booklet out of… somewhere. "But no, I suspect that your incarceration down here has more to do with the murder, violence, theft, torture, betrayal, pointless cruelty, and seemingly endless spite. Not to mention your chronic criminal inaction." Hebert peered at Sophia over her stupid fucking glasses, a wry cast to her mouth. "The Almighty does not require one to intervene in every crime, but to deliberately stand aside, and allow harm to those who should be under your protection? He does look fondly upon such things at all, Sophia."
"It's not my fault that they weren't strong enough to fight back," Sophia retorted. So what if she had allowed some fucking weaklings to get hurt or raped or whatever? It was the least they deserved, for not being strong enough to at least try to fight back. Anyone who expected someone else to fight their battles was too dumb to live regardless; she wasn't about to waste her time saving their skins over, and over again.
Not that anyone else seemed to agree with her. No matter how many times she said the truth, how often she tried to show people how the world really worked, nobody else ever really got it. Nobody except Emma. "Whatever. It's not my fault that they were dumb enough to wander around gang territory after dark," she finally said.
"By that logic, I suppose it's not the almighty's fault that you ended up down here, then," Hebert retorted, still so fucking smug. "After all, if you were smart enough to dodge when Krieg threw that big rock at you, maybe your brains would still be on the inside of your skull, instead of being splattered all over the street."
"…what?" she snapped, feeling a hand clench itself around her heart. Somehow, her crossbow was pointed straight at Hebert's smug face, and she couldn't remember drawing it out of its holster. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You mean you haven't figured it out?" Hebert giggled. "Honestly, isn't it obvious? You see, a basic requisite for ending up in Hell is that you're supposed to die first." She flipped through that stupid booklet again, grinning at whatever it was that she saw in the pages.
"It was all very tragic, of course," she continued, like she was talking about a show or a movie. "They had an entire day of mourning, for you. Shut down the city and the whole shebang. And of course Krieg is in some seriously hot water. The way I hear it, he'll be lucky if he gets the Birdcage. Which is the other reason i'm not especially worried about the Protectorate right now," she added, peering over the pages like a sadistic librarian. "After all, they're too busy hunting down your killer, to pay too much attention to what happens to your soul-"
"Shut up," she spat, trying to hold her weapon steady despite the trembling in her arms. It was ridiculous and stupid and of course it wasn't true, she wasn't, couldn't be dead. It was impossible! She was a survivor, there was no way that someone like Krieg had taken her down.
Which meant that this, this whole thing was some trick of Hebert's. She slapped another hand on her crossbow, forcing it to stay still long enough to point it straight at that dumb bitch's face. "Shut up!" she said again. "Send me back, now! Now, dammit!"
"No can do, Sophia," Hebert drawled. "I'm afraid that was a one way trip. Besides, I suspect that the world is much better off with you down here, instead of up there."
"Fuck you," she snapped, before pulling the trigger.
She was expecting a flinch of fear from Hebert, maybe a desperate dodge to the side. What she wasn't expecting was for Hebert's hand to dart up and pluck the arrow out of the air, still with that same fucking bored expression on her face.
Sophia stared blankly for too fucking long, before scrambling at her belt for another bolt. Reload, she had to reload-
Then Hebert picked that stupidly fuck huge trident, spinning it around with unnatural ease as she pointed its three-pronged tip directly at Sophia's face.
Sophia was almost, almost expecting the lunge, but it was still so fucking fast, way too fast to be normal. Too fast to dodge, but she wasn't some weak normal, she was Shadow Stalker. Months of practice had her turn intangible seconds before the weapon could reach her, already planning her coun-pain!
Pain! Pain! It hurt! It hurt so badly. It was burning, her chest was burning, and she looked down in shock and fear at the weapon that had struck right through her shadowy body like nothing. She tried to drift away, but that only brought more pain! She was stuck, an immaterial shadow impaled to the ground like an insect on a pin.
"You might as well turn back, you know," Hebert said, still with that same bored tone of voice. "Or not, I suppose, doesn't matter to me. My authority means I can hurt you no matter where you are, or what you are. Or what you do, for that matter, so don't think suicide will help you. On the other hand, it'll be a lot harder to conduct a discussion when you're in shadow form, so…"
Sophia didn't want to. She wanted to run, to fight, but if it meant getting this fucking burning out of her then she had no choice. She let herself change back to normal, and felt the pain multiply by what felt like a thousand times. She felt blood fountain out of her mouth, spilling across the ground as she writhed against the pitchfork like a worm on a hook.
"That's better," Hebert said. Sophia bit back another scream when the bitch leaned against the weapon pinning her down, jostling it in her chest. "You know, for what it's worth, I am genuinely not enjoying this right now."
"Fuck you," Sophia spat.
"No, seriously. I mean, I'm not exactly fond of you, but I had to go through a lot of shit down here, way worse than what you guys put me through. Heck, I doubt you're even in the top twenty of my shit-list anymore. Besides, physical pain?" Sophia cringed when Hebert gave the pitchfork a solid thwack, tearing the wound even wider. "It doesn't mean much, down here."
"See, the thing is, you can't die in hell. It's completely impossible. You can be beaten, burned, broken, blended into a million pieces, feeling every single second of it… and then, ten or fifteen minutes later, you're perfectly fine again. Like it never happened. As you can imagine, this changes things." Hebert ripped the pitchfork out in a spray of blood, twirling it with one hand to leave it leaning against her shoulder. "Without permanent physical damage, merely physical pain quickly becomes largely… irrelevant. An unpleasant, but temporary, and largely meaningless condition. This right here, seeing you on your knees with a hole in your chest? It's about as interesting to me as watching you get a haircut."
"No, if you really want to make somebody suffer, you send em down someplace like the third layer," she continued, her voice as idle as if she was discussing the weather, or a recipe for chicken pot pie. "That's where we start getting psychological, doing shit like pulling out people's worst fears, and watching them tear themselves apart trying to get away. Sometimes literally! And that's not even getting into some of the bastards stomping around down there. You wouldn't think that a adding a bunch of stuffy paper pushers could make a literal hell forest even worse than before, but let me tell you-"
"Why am I here, Hebert?!" Sophia managed to shout, still stranded on her knees on the ground. She was, to her own surprise, still alive; her wound continued to pour out blood, but the trembling weakness at the corners of her eyes was already starting to fade, and she could almost feel her wound closing. "Why are you talking to me, instead of just dumping me out there, with the others? Or do you really expect me to believe that you do this for every new arrival?"
"Huh." For the first time, Hebert lost that fucking smile, replacing it was a curious look, head cocked to one side. "Smarter than I expected. Then again, I suppose you'd have to be," she continued as her grin came back. "Considering I thought you'd have the brain of an orangutan."
"Just get it over with," Sophia groaned. "What do you want, Hebert?"
"It's not what I want," the other girl retorted, turning away. The butt of her pitchfork tapped against the floor with every step as she wandered over to the balcony, the glass doors flinging themselves open at her approach. Sophia fought her way to her feet and followed, fingers wrapped tightly around her weapon. She wasn't dumb enough to try the same trick twice, but if she saw an opening she was going to take it, consequences be damned.
"It's what the man upstairs wants," Hebert continued, leaning down across the balcony with almost insulting ease. "Your crimes are significant, but he has also noted your intentions; even at your worst, you wished to stand between all that is good in the world, and all that is not. Certainly, your methods could use some work, but the Boss has a soft spot for people who fuck up while trying to do the right thing."
"So what, am I gonna get a second chance or something?" Sophia spat, hesitantly peering over the railing. The closer distance did nothing to improve the view, and she felt her gorge rise at the pitiful, broken creatures that writhed on the ground beneath her. Even the Slaughterhouse Nine, at their worst, had never imagined such torments.
"Innn a manner of speaking, sure," said Hebert with a shrug. "Make no mistake, you are certainly damned, but as it happens we seem to have an opening for a violent vigilante who's willing to kick some righteous ass in the name of justice." Her grin turned wry as she twirled in place, leaning against the railing with uncanny confidence. "They'll start out as suicide missions, and only get worse from there, but if you succeed He is willing to let you skip the whole 'eternal torment' rigmarole, and skip straight to the redemption."
"Sounds like a good deal."
"It really isn't," Hebert said, and for the first time something approaching seriousness entered her expression. "I wasn't kidding about the whole suicide mission bit, Hess. I fully expect you to die two, three, maybe four times before you figure out what you're doing. And every time you do, you'll end up right back here, so I can send you back out again. And that's if you're lucky. If you're not, then you'll end up getting captured at the hands of somebody who makes Bonesaw look cuddly by comparison."
"Can't be any worse than this," she spat, as she felt the last of her wound seal shut. She slipped out a second bolt, twisting in her fingers, but she couldn't quite find the will to slip it into her bow.
"Oh trust me, it can," Hebert replied. "Hell is unpleasant, true, but that's because it's meant to purify souls the hard way. In the end, you're supposed to leave, to either enter salvation or reincarnate for a second try. If a floofle or a maggledeister manages to catch you then the most you can hope for is having your soul obliterated entirely."
"You want me to be scared of something called… a floofle? You're shitting me, right?"
Somehow, seeing Hebert grimace in genuine distress was more worrying than seeing a whole pack of skinheads coming into an alley from both ends, and remembering she'd left her crossbow at home. "They look like stuffed animals, they call themselves by the silliest names, and they reproduce by coring out human souls into hollow shells, before filling the empty vessel with what I can only refer to as 'pure childish spite'. They seem to exist solely to inspire people into abusing, murdering, and otherwise defiling children."
Okay, Sophia was no soft-hearted goody goody, but she still had fucking standards. "So what, you want me to bring those things down ?"
"What?" Hebert asked, before the question registered. "Oh. Oh God no. I don't hate you enough to send you after those things on your first mission, Sophia. I was thinking something less…existentially abominable." Somehow, she pulled a file out of nowhere, and handed it over to Sophia, that same fucking smile back on her face.
She flipped it open, and stared at the face she saw within. "You've got to be fucking kidding me," she hissed, staring at the familiar face of mother-fucking Steven, the same bastard who had caused her fucking trigger.
"Yes, I'm afraid that your step-father has been a very naughty boy," Hebert hummed. "Theft, mutilation, attempting to influence the living world, soul-trafficking… we're pretty sure he's only a figurehead, but he's still got a few thousand idiots working for him, and he's causing quite a lot of trouble. Now, I simply don't have the time to go and squash him properly, but if you felt like strolling over to his base, and putting a bolt through his head, well…"
Hebert shot her a look, quiet and calm and so flat out frightening that Sophia felt her heart stop, just for a second. It was like looking into the eyes of an Endbringer, she realized, all that power but with nobody home inside. Then Hebert bared her teeth, her entire face contorting from the sheer pleasure she was obviously feeling. "If somebody happened to put a few bolts into Mr. Hess's head, well, that would be just fine with me."
Sophia licked her lips, as she tried to work it out. On the one hand, a chance to get her hands on her bastard of a step-dad. On the other hand, working for a psycho like Hebert.
On the other, other hand, trying to say *no* to somebody like Hebert…
Well, when you put it like that, it was rather simple, wasn't it? "When do I start?"