AN: A Worm longfic! I do have a few chapters pre-written and a good idea of where to take the story, but no upload schedule for now.

This work is also available on Archiveofourown, SpaceBattles and SufficientVelocity, if you prefer one of those sites.

21/10/2023 edit: The opening scene of this chapter has been rewritten as the old version was of low quality. If you wish to read the old version, you can find it under the Apocrypha tag on SpaceBattles.

Disclaimer: My writing speed is highly irregular. Not day to day, but rather month to month. Sometimes, I write 2000 words per day, every day, for three months straight. Sometimes, I don't write a single word for five months. This means that when the writing is going well, I update regularly, quite possibly weekly. When the writing isn't going well, I might not update for several months. But I will always come back.

Amy removed the pathogens and other toxic contaminants from the girl's blood to avoid further complications, and finished off by healing her cuts. The black-haired teen – Amy's age – had already been thoroughly cleaned and showered by a nurse when she'd arrived at the hospital, yet Amy still thought she could smell whatever nasty biological waste she'd been exposed to.

Quite frankly, she did not want to know anything more. The hospital was always a gallery of the stupidest, most disgusting and most fucked up things humanity could conceive of, and there were already far too many people who told her about those things when she had not volunteered and was not volunteering to hear about them.

Though she hated herself for thinking it, she was kind of glad that the girl had gone through a trigger event this morning – that meant she likely didn't want to talk about it. Though, with the way the parts of the brain that were processing information were buzzing, she suspected the girl wasn't going to wake up for several more days in the first place, even now that she was completely healed. Amy figured she probably had some kind of power that gave her more sensory inputs.

Then, Amy briefly lost consciousness, though she hadn't even planted her face on the girl's bed before it returned. The memory faded too quickly for her to make sense of, but that didn't matter to her.

Amy had gone through this exact feeling before. A trigger event. Befuddled, she reached out to the girl on the bed and checked the information she received about her brain.

It didn't add up.

Her brain was far quieter now than it had been, no longer processing a flood of information, and Amy could only assume that this was because the girl had indeed been the one to trigger – second trigger, presumably. Rare, but possible. However, second triggers were said to require situations very similar to the first trigger.

Not only was there no such situation, but the girl wasn't showing any fresh trauma. Sure, there were some lingering traces from the trauma she'd gone through this morning, but that was all.

Also, she was about to wake up.

Amy backed off, standing next to the bed and trying to avoid showing a threatening posture.

Strange lights and incomprehensible noises invaded my senses. The constant torrent was overwhelming, unending. Amidst the impressions, a reduction in pain signals was barely noticeable, even when they were more vivid and familiar than the other constant pain signals, here and there and everywhere, like tiny pinpricks in the overwhelming whole. Because no matter how frequent, they were still negligible compared to the other sensations. Lights and sounds and feelings and smells and everything at once.

Then, an interruption.

And suddenly, all those sensations were gone. Before my mind had learned to comprehend them, they had been cut off, like they had never existed.

I stirred, realizing I was in an unfamiliar bed. I blinked against the lights, and as I looked around I realized I was in a hospital. To one side, a few steps away from my bed, was a person-shaped blur of white and red that I managed to interpret as Panacea.

"How did I end up here?" I asked out loud, even as memories started to return to me.

"You were covered in numerous cuts and bruises," Panacea said in a clinical voice. "Some of them had become infected, and several STDs had entered your bloodstream through them. I was called in when you developed sepsis."

While she spoke, I had looked around for and found my glasses, which I'd then put on, allowing me to resolve her facial features, partially hidden inside her costume's hood as they were.

Her response seemed somewhat blunt considering I, as her patient, had only just woken up. Then again, it was probably because she disliked spending so much time in the hospital and only using her power for healing.

I slammed the brakes on my thoughts. Where had that come from, and why did I feel so confident that it was right?

The answer was just as natural as the thought had been, and equally strange. My powers gave me an intuitive understanding of powers, apparently including my own, and also provided information about other people that'd help me recruit them.

Okay. Finding out about having powers because your powers are informing you both that they exist and what they can do is seriously weird.

I turned my head to look at Panacea, who seemed to be indecisive about something. "Say, just before I woke up I was having all these strange sensations. Flashing lights, weird noises, just all kinds of incomprehensible things. But all of that is gone now. Do you know anything about that?"

Panacea sighed in annoyance, then stepped a little closer to the bed. "You triggered and got powers. Your brain was in overdrive for some reason that I thought was related to them. While I was healing you, you second triggered. Your brain was no longer in overdrive. You woke up. No, I won't tell anyone about your powers. Happy?"

"Second trigger?" I asked. "What's that?"

"Usually," Panacea said, still radiating annoyance, "a second trigger occurs when a parahuman encounters a situation very similar to their original trigger event. Here, I don't know why the fuck it happened because you weren't showing any signs of stress or trauma other than the last remnants of whatever did cause your trigger this morning."

Despite her disposition, I could tell she was intrigued by that.

"Weird," I commented in an attempt to strike up a conversation. The motivation for that was two-fold, I realized. Part of it was because my power was pushing me to use it, which was apparently something it was willing to let me know through my intuition about how it worked, which I found kind of surprising. And part of it was my own doing, albeit influenced by what I learned from my power. Namely, Panacea seemed to be lonely, just like me.

"What do you think could've caused that?" I asked.

"No fucking clue," Panacea said. "You don't seem surprised that you have powers."

I considered that. "I think it's because they seem to come with an intuitive understanding of them," I said. It was a rather varied collection, when I thought about it. There was the part that helped me understand powers and – to a degree – people, but there was also another surprisingly unrelated part to it, which I wouldn't be able to analyze properly until doing so wouldn't give it away to someone I barely knew.

"You mean that you know how to use them?" Panacea said. "That's normal."

"No," I said. "It's more… part of my power seems to be that I get an intuitive understanding of powers in general. Mostly meant for others, but it also works on my own power."

I hesitated. I was certainly feeling a push here, and my intuition – which was almost certainly augmented by my power – told me this would probably work, but it was still something of a risk. If Panacea reacted wrong, I'd probably forever lose the chance to get on her good side.

In the end, it was a very subtle feeling that something didn't match up about her power – beyond the obvious that I was about to state – that pushed me to take my chance.

"For example," I said, "my power tells me that yours is much more versatile than just healing."

Amy froze.

"I don't know what you mean by that."

That was some very dangerous information for a stranger to have. She reassessed the girl, who was still lying on the bed.

"Don't get me wrong," the girl said. "I think it's admirable that you decided to become a healer." She gave a small smile. "Most of the other ways you could've advertised yourself probably wouldn't have gone over nearly as well."

"No," Amy said, practically on autopilot as she considered the ramifications and tried not to panic. "No, I guess not."

"I'm not planning on telling anyone. Don't worry about that. You're doing great work, that shouldn't change just because some people can't tell the difference between a supervillain and a hero that's trying to help others and decide to raise a stink."

Assuming Amy wouldn't one day snap from all the pressure put on her. But at least the girl's assurance that she wouldn't spread anything around did help her not panic.

"You should probably experiment a bit more, though," the girl continued a moment later.

Amy's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean by that?"

"That you should actually use the powers you have for something that isn't healing on occasion."

"What, and reveal the exact thing I've been keeping hidden, which you said was a good idea?" Amy sniped.

"I never said you should create a species of man-eating super-mantises that overruns Brockton Bay. Just, you know… try out something new every now and then. Figure out how to make a tropical plant grow in our weather. Recolor an insect to have better urban camouflage. Things like that."

"Yeah. No, thanks," Amy said dismissively. That was a dangerous road to go down. Too dangerous.

The girl remained silent for several seconds, and Amy was about to say her goodbyes when she spoke up again.

"I'm still really new to this powers thing, but I'm getting the idea, from both you and myself, that powers want to be used. In new ways, if possible. I don't know, I just think it might improve your mood. Plus, I just think it'd be fun, you know? To fiddle around with things a bit. You don't need to create a crime against the natural order just because you can. You can also just explore why the natural order is the way it is in the first place."

"We've got biologists for that."

"And I'm pretty sure you can tell more about how a biological organism functions than all of them together, just from a touch."

Amy once more considered how to put an end to this conversation. It was touching on some uncomfortable topics, and she simply didn't want her thoughts to go down that road. Not in the least because of how appealing it was. Like whenever Amy's own mind suggested those same things.

"Look, maybe just think about it, okay?" the girl suggested. "Different topic. That second trigger you mentioned. Do you think it'd be a good idea to follow up on that? Meet each other in like, a week from now, and see how things are progressing? I get the feeling that even my own power finds it weird."

"It did your second trigger," Amy pointed out.

"Exactly."

Amy hesitated. That second trigger was one of the more intriguing things she'd come across. If that was what it was in the first place.

"Why do you want to meet up with me so badly?"

"I'll admit I do have a bit of an ulterior motive," the black-haired girl said, confirming Amy's suspicions. "I don't really have any friends right now, and I definitely don't have any parahuman friends. If I'm going to be a parahuman myself, then a heroic-aligned parahuman seems like the best place to start."

"Try talking to my sister," Amy deflected, pretty much reflexively. "She actually likes talking to people all day." She tried ignoring the voice that told her that Vicky was also the only person who was her actual friend, and that she could do with another. She was too busy for that anyway, between school, homework, her healing duties and trying to keep a sane sleep schedule.

"I've never even met your sister and I don't know if I'd have anything in common with her," the girl explained far too reasonably. "Meanwhile I know I've at least got the interest in my second trigger in common with you, plus I'm actually talking to you while I have no way to even contact her. Also, I think I'd rather have a friend who appreciates the quiet every now and then."

Vicky could be quiet. Sometimes. She was better at it than most people believed, at least. Okay, she was definitely an extravert, while Amy was an introvert, but still. She did respect the needs of introverts, Amy included.

Although having someone else to maybe talk to on occasion might actually be nice. Other than Vicky's friends, who never really were Amy's friends; they just talked to her because they were courteous and wouldn't exclude someone who was right there.

Together with the oddness of that trigger, it was enough to make Amy consider it.

"How about we just meet up in a week or so and see if we've got any common ground when, you know, we're not in a hospital with a doctor-patient relationship?"

And then there was the risk that this girl might be trying to take advantage of Amy. On the other hand, there was no way she could've planned being here and talking to Amy in the first place – doubly so because it was a trigger event that led to her going to the hospital – so she'd have had to come up with that plan on the fly, which seemed unrealistic.

Plus, a thought went through Amy's head, perhaps she needed some support in the wake of that same trigger event. Although there was absolutely no fucking way Amy would be the right person to provide that.

But maybe the other arguments were enough. She grabbed her phone.

"Alright, we can meet up once, somewhere in public. But I'm not making any promises about next time. What's your number?"

"Ah," the girl said, seeming a bit embarrassed now. "I uhm, don't have a phone right now. Though I should maybe get one. You know what, if you give me your number, I'll contact you. Either from my new phone, or worst case by landline."

"Oh, uhm, yeah, that's fine," Amy said, scrambling around for pen and paper. Luckily, both were present in her costume's pockets. "What's your name, actually?"

"Taylor Hebert," the girl introduced herself. "And yours? I've probably heard it before, but…"

"Amy Dallon." She handed over a strip of paper, now with her mobile number on it.

"Nice to meet you, even if the circumstances aren't the best," Taylor said. "Do you have any idea how long it'll be before I can go home? Or whether my dad is coming, for that matter?"

"You should be able to go home sometime today, I'll get the doctor to give you a final check-up. As for your relatives, I'm assuming they've been informed, but that's not something I handle."

Taylor nodded. "Well, either way, thanks again for healing me, and I hope things will work out. I'll get in touch with you in the next few days."

Amy nodded, said her good-byes, then stood and left, still feeling conflicted about accepting the invitation to meet up with the girl again. She might talk to Vicky about it. Then again, she already knew that Vicky would be enthusiastically in favor – but maybe it still wasn't a bad idea.

She sighed. She did rely on Vicky too much. It was just so easy and appealing. She talked to the doctor, keeping it down to relevant information only, and then set out to heal the next patient.

"Let's order food for dinner," Dad suggested as we entered the house in the late afternoon – it was just getting dark outside. "I don't think either of us feels up for cooking right now."

I voiced my agreement. I'd told him – in brief terms – about the bullying, mostly because I needed to explain how I'd ended up in the hospital in the first place. However, there was much more left to discuss, and I was starting to assemble a few plans in my head – plans with which Dad might interfere if we didn't discuss things, which meant we'd have to do exactly that. I hadn't even named my bullies yet, as I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to keep Dad from calling Alan if I did, but I wouldn't be able to delay forever.

"Let's sit down," Dad suggested.

I took my favorite place on the couch, mentally reviewing what I wanted out of this conversation.

"There's something I didn't tell you yet," I started.

"You mean apart from who your bullies are?" he asked. I couldn't blame him for not understanding why I was withholding the names for the moment.

"Yes," I said. "Panacea told me after I woke up, though I'd probably have realized it quite quickly myself, but… I got powers, with what happened today."

His eyebrows rose to meet his hairline. "You mean… you're a cape?"

I nodded. "Yeah. That's got to do with the other things I only wanted to talk about now that we're home, as well."

He looked pensive for a second or two. "That's going to require some getting used to. But perhaps, before anything else, I should ask you what your powers can do?"

"I don't quite understand the limits myself yet, but I do have some instinctual understanding."

I stood, checking that I had enough space to my left and right. Things should fit, so long as I was careful. Then, with a mental command, I changed. My body and clothes turned to something that could only be described as solid light, no matter what physics thought of the idea, and two large wings unfurled from my shoulders, almost touching the wall on one side and the window on the other – and I didn't have them extended all the way. My wingspan had to be close to twenty feet. The wings were made from the same solid light as the rest of my body, though they showed a pattern as if they were made from feathers, and every part of my body glowed softly, though it was difficult to see in the late afternoon light of January.

Dad looked at me with wide eyes. "Wow… You definitely look the part of a cape, Taylor."

"Thanks," I said with a smile. My voice had changed with my appearance; I sounded powerful, yet not overbearing, and my intuition told me that a very faint echo was present – though I couldn't discern it through the distortion inherent in hearing my own voice.

Dad returned the smile – and how long it had been since I'd seen him smile. "Is it your power that's making me feel better?"

"Probably," I said. "While I'm in this form, I inspire hope and resolve in my friends and allies, and doubt and fear in my enemies."

"Hope that things might get better…" Dad said softly. "I don't think I realized how much I missed that feeling until now." He refocused. "So can you fly?"

I hovered a foot into the air. "Yes," I replied. "And I don't need my wings for that, though I'll probably use them if I'm outside, just because it feels more appropriate." I held up my hand and formed a sword out of the same solid light that I was currently made of. "I can also make a variety of weapons like this, mostly medieval stuff, I think; no guns, but I can make a bow and arrow. I'm also difficult to hurt or harm, and I heal more quickly."

I changed back to my normal form, gently dropping the foot back down to the ground, and sat down again.

"A very impressive power indeed," Dad said, still working to get over his surprise.

"It's not quite all I can do," I said. "The things I showed you, they only work while I'm in that form. The other stuff… I don't understand it as well as my alternate form, but I think that when it comes down to things, it makes me good at being a leader, or just being in charge of people? It's like… I'm better at figuring out how to convince people to follow me and listen to me, and after that I'm better at decisions like who should do what? I'm not sure, my intuition isn't as clear as it is on the other form I can take."

"Either way, it sounds like parenting you in the future is going to be a breeze, with no difficulties at all," Dad teased. I was pretty sure he was still riding the high from feeling hope for the first time in years.

"Of course," I replied magnanimously. "Also, I think I can recognize other parahumans with it, but I'm not certain of that. It feels right, but maybe the only reason I recognized Panacea as a cape was because I already knew that she was. Oh, right, and I'm pretty sure I can help other parahumans understand their powers better, or something."

"That's… a lot," Danny said. "Don't most parahumans have just one single ability?"

"There's… what are they called?" I snapped my finger a few times, trying to remember. "Oh, right! Grab-bag capes. Maybe that's why? I don't know."

And then there was the bit Panacea had told me, about the weird trigger event or whatever it was in the hospital, and the strange, unfocused sensory inputs I'd received before that. But I kept that bit to myself for now. It would probably only make things more confusing.

Dad asked me what I wanted for dinner and then went to make the phone call, briefly leaving me alone with my thoughts.

"Alright," he said, after hanging up. "With that out of the way, let's talk about what happened at Winslow next."

I nodded. "Yeah. But there's a reason I wanted to tell you about my powers first."

"And that is?" Dad asked.

"I want to know what I can get done myself, using my power," I revealed. I'd considered keeping Dad in the dark on this plan, but I'd decided there was no way he'd leave things alone long enough for me to actually have a chance of executing it, unless he knew about it.

"Explain," he said, seemingly barely refraining from using his Dad Voice.

I took a deep breath. "The main bullies are two girls I've never told you about, Madison Clements and Sophia Hess, and… Emma."

Dad looked shocked for a second before anger overtook his expression. "Emma? As in Alan's daughter?" He practically jumped out of his chair, clearly meaning to give his old friend a call.

"Dad, wait!" I called out.

He took a deep breath and turned to me. "Why?" he asked. "What made her decide to do… this?"

"I don't know," I responded honestly. "But I was thinking, with the power I have now… I might be able to finally figure it out. And maybe… just maybe…" my voice grew small, "maybe I can use it to get old Emma back. My Emma."

I choked down a sob, and just like that my resolve broke. Dad was next to me in a second, holding me as I cried into his chest. And for the first time, in a year and a half, I cried for Emma. Not tears of anger over the hurtful things she said, not tears of grief over my loneliness, not even tears of hate over how she'd ruined my life. No, tears for the friend I'd lost, my sister that had been consumed by a monster wearing her face. Never before had I actually lamented her; first I had been in disbelief, then by the time that wore off, she was already so distant that I thought only of the demon that used me for her own amusement.

Please, I thought to myself, please let her still be alive, somewhere in there. I wasn't sure if I could live with the alternative. It certainly hadn't been a success so far.

There were days Rebecca was incredibly glad for her eidetic memory.

Today was absolutely one of them.

Dozens of cape profiles were freshly burned into her mind, every single cape known to the PRT that operated in Brockton Bay. From big hitters like Armsmaster and Lung to small-time thieves and rogues like Regent and Parian. Even Cauldron's resources had chimed in, with files on Coil – the PRT didn't even know whether he was parahuman – as well as a few other vial recipients.

This morning, Contessa had reported major changes in her active Paths, some growing and others shrinking in length, and she'd determined the source of those changes to be Brockton Bay. Most likely, a newly triggered parahuman that was going to quickly rise to prominence, potentially to the point of removing or taking over one or more of the gangs.

This meant that, when Contessa suddenly video called Rebecca, it didn't exactly do wonders for Rebecca's mood.

She accepted the call, turning her attention to the screen. On the other side, Contessa was of course not doing the same, instead typing away on two keyboards at once and using tinkertech eye-tracking software to operate a third computer. Her feet were likely active as well. Perfect motor control made typing with your toes surprisingly possible.

Rebecca was used to not having eye contact with Contessa during these calls, so she just moved on. "Please tell me it's not Brockton Bay again."

"It's Brockton Bay again," Contessa said.

"Did it start already?" Rebecca asked. That was unlikely, however; if unrest in Brockton Bay was already starting right now, then Contessa would've known about it this morning already, and she'd have told Rebecca. Well, unless her Paths had told her not to.

"No, worse," Contessa said.

Well, fuck.

"Worse?" Rebecca repeated.

"A blind spot appeared in Brockton Bay just earlier this afternoon."

Fuck, indeed.

The total number of blind spots Contessa had across all of Earth Bet could be counted on two hands. Scion, the three Endbringers, Eidolon, Glaistig Uaine, Jack Slash and the Butcher. There were a few more capes that gave her trouble, such as that one leader of the Fallen, but actual blind spots were vanishingly rare. And this was the first one to appear since the Butcher in 1992 – in the same city, in fact. Well, the first one since then unless you counted the Endbringers, but this wasn't one of those.

Or was it?

"Could it be a fourth Endbringer?" Rebecca questioned. She was sure she would've heard something about that already, right? She did a quick check-up. Brockton Bay had sent no distress signals, and neither were normal communications interrupted.

"So far, I haven't seen anything to imply that," Contessa said. For this very reason, she had Paths that would trigger automatically if a blind spot appeared. They would look for sudden cape deaths, large-scale civilian casualties or a number of other, similar things happening in the area near the blind spot.

"Let's hope it stays that way," Rebecca said. "Not that it's worth much, considering all blind spots are major headaches anyway."

"Except Eidolon."

"I said what I said."

The woman giggled. Rebecca sometimes wondered how she could be amused by things when her Path saw everything coming a long time in advance, but when she'd asked, Contessa had given a somewhat vague reply that it 'just worked that way'.

"I'll keep an eye on Brockton Bay," Rebecca said. "If it's not an Endbringer, it has to be a cape unless it's something completely new. That means they'll have to show up in the regular reports at some point, at the latest when they first act in public."

"And blind spots don't have a habit of sitting around doing nothing," Contessa finished her thoughts. "Send all information you gather on them to me immediately so I can start working on the model."

"Of course," Rebecca responded.

Contessa ended the call.

Rebecca sighed. It was amazing how much she could feel like she had a headache even though it was impossible for her to have one. And that on the first day after the Christmas break.

AN: Join my discord server here: /xKJKNjY