Worm/Ward/The extended Parahumans universe & All associated trademarks are property of John C. McCrae aka Wildbow.
I claim no ownership of anything except my own original characters.
I am making no money from this.
Chapter 01: Teenage Victim
Sophia Hess was easily recognisable in the corridors of Winslow High School with her lean and athletic, if not especially tall or imposing physique clad in attire which announced that she was part of the athletics department and her dark-skin and features that were widely regarded as pretty by her peers, save for those of the more bigoted variety which were in turn overshadowed by the almost palpable air of contempt that surrounded her, tempered by an immediate sense of threatening capability.
The fact that she was so easily recognisable ensured that as she leaned casually against a locker whose door had been recently sprayed with graffiti in easily recognisable gang colours she did not have to wait long to be spotted by the person she was waiting for; the sight of a slender arm that was perhaps a shade too-thin and certainly lacking in muscle in Sophia's opinion being raised above the heads of the students crowding the corridor and forming a slow moving traffic catching her attention and directing her attention towards a head of distinctive red hair.
Before Sophia could begin moving and slipping through the press of bodies with practised ease a reedy, nervous voice grated against her hearing.
"S-Sophia...Uh, can I please-Excuse me" Sophia craned her neck around to see that the speaker was the owner of the locker she had leaned against and their presence answered a question she had been harbouring in two ways at the same time. The newly sprayed graffiti was an ABB gang tag and the teenage boy whose name she couldn't remember currently stammering at her was white; he was also clearly physically weak, socially awkward and a nervous wreck to the point of being utterly useless to any of the gangs currently recruiting Winslow students.
Deciding that the matter was settled for now, but also that she would find out who the graffiti artist was and break their fingers later Sophia simply nodded without a word and walked away.
Heading towards Emma and allowing herself to be intercepted after only a few paces, with Madison predictably following close behind the redhead as if she were a particularly dependant little duckling.
"Hey Ems" she drawled, treating her friend to a genuine smile which faded slightly as she turned and paused to consider for a moment before adding a half-hearted "Mads"
"Hey Sophia, did you do something with your hair today….Oh is that a new eyeshadow?" Madison gushed as she adjusted the particularly offensively pastel ensemble she was wearing and leaned closer to inspect Sophia's face. The gesture left Sophia uncertain whether Madison was too vapid and naive to understand that she was barely tolerated and was largely allowed to associate with her so called friends because Emma enjoyed having someone to carry her belongings and fawn over her, or if there was a cutting wit beneath the self-imposed air-headedness. Sophia was indeed wearing more makeup than usual in an effort to cover up a slight bruise beneath her right eye from where her mask had been unable to absorb the full force of a blow to her face and Madison's scrutiny grew irritating in seconds.
Emma, either seeing a subtle shift in Sophia's body language and the coiling of her muscles or perhaps simply unable to contain her thoughts within her own head for any longer chose that moment to speak up; diverting Madison's attention and providing Sophia with a welcome distraction.
"So like, have you seen the state of the Sad Sack today?" she enquired loudly enough to be heard by anyone in the immediate vicinity, leaning close and wrapping both of her arms loosely around Sophia's bicep whilst looking up at her with a devious expression and a sickly sweet, playful tone which made it very clear that the target of Emma's torment was nearby.
"I mean it's like she's wearing an actual sack, like a potato sack" she continued, pushing strands of hair away from her face which allowed Sophia to see the faintest edge of a facial scar which most people missed entirely "But then I thought why would she even have potatoes? I mean she clearly doesn't have food at home all the time, that's why she's so bony and barely even alive most of the time. But then I realised….You can make vodka from potatoes, hey Hebert! Is your really drinking so much he has to make his own in a bathtub now?"
"She has a bathtub?" Madison chimed in, her voice a stage-whisper which managed to be playful and sneering all at once and for a single fleeting moment allowed Sophia to justify the presence of Emma's insufferable tag-along and her love of all things pink and saccharine.
Sure enough the was a blur of motion as Taylor Hebert, perpetual victim and target of the trios' malicious attention streaked passed them with her head ducked and her tall but spindly frame curled inwards as though she were defending herself, albeit poorly from an incoming blow. Sophia noted that Taylor's hoodie was a drab brown colour which had been further faded and left worn in places by regular use and was oversized enough to be entirely unflattering.
Sophia also found herself squinting and cocking her head slightly, she had a wealth of practice in hitting moving targets and she was certain that Taylor Hebert had gotten quicker on her feet.
"Where's she going?" she found herself demanding.
"Wherever she goes for lunch. The trash maybe, or would the rats and racoons steal her lunch money?" Madison sniggered to herself though the sound quickly petered out as she realised that neither Emma nor Sophia found her efforts at scathing insults to be particularly interesting.
"Ugh, who cares?" Emma rolled her eyes and tugged on Sophia's arm before releasing her grip and gesturing to the thinning crowd which had simply continued around them "Let's go and get lunch. If they run out of chicken salad I'll have to go hungry because I refuse to eat that mystery meat stew"
"You were the one who brought the Sad Sack up" Sophia shrugged, expression darkening as she glared in the direction Taylor had gone "I thought you might have heard some new gossip, maybe found out who helped her out of her locker"
"You're still upset about that?" Madison's question earned her withering glares from the other members of the trio, leaving her jaw shutting with an audible clack.
"Yeah I'm still pissed off about that. Emma, are you?" Sophia's voice took on a low, menacing edge as she leaned against another locker and folded her arms across her chest.
The trio had planned to utterly break Taylor Hebert some months ago and the fact that they had failed was a slight Sophia felt a need to repay her victim for every time she saw the taller girl.
The plan had been to fill Taylor's locker with all manner of filth, from used tampons and rotting meat crawling with maggots to broken glass and all manner of stained and stinking detritus and then lock her inside before first period began. Filling the locker had been Sophia's role, she had used her powers for the task but had been unable to think of herself to think of herself as Shadow Stalker whilst using her Breaker State to slip through walls and carry as much refuse as possible under cover of darkness one night before returning home and scrubbing herself raw in the shower to be free of the stench.
Only for it to amount to almost nothing; she had shoved Hebert into the locker whilst Emma and Madison cackled, locking the door behind her and yet Taylor had apparently been seen leaving the school barely than twenty minutes later.
Someone had helped her and even now Sophia and Emma were unsure of who it was.
"You wanna have some fun?" Emma mused with a wicked smile.
"Of course" Sophia almost purred at the idea of correcting Taylor's remaining audacity.
"You're buying me lunch over this" Emma made a show of pouting before leaning against Sophia again and giving her a conspiratorial wink "Got any plans?….It'll have to be something quick"
Frowning and sucking her front teeth as she realised that she was being put on the spot, that she didn't actually have plan of action and would have to come up with something on the fly Sophia looked around and shrugged to herself as she decided that she could afford to be a little juvenile.
It wasn't like Taylor was a threat.
"Mads, go get get me a couple of cans of coke from the vending machine"
As both she and Emma looked at Madison expectantly the waifish brunette of the trio quickly realised that she was not being offered any money and that she would be the one footing the bill for their prank.
Taylor Hebert had, through a combination of willpower and regular exposure to the point of desensitisation reached a point where she was entirely comfortable eating her lunch in a bathroom stall. The sights and smells that greeted her bothering her far less than the occasional presence of other people when groups of girls, often-times affiliated with one of the local gangs chose to smoke, or in the case of those connected to the Archers' Bridge Merchants enjoy other substances out of the view of teachers.
It was a testament to how miserable Taylor's life had become that she could consider reaching such a degree of desensitisation a positive.
It was a victory, simply because it gave her a refuge.
Today however the bathroom was mercifully empty and Taylor slipped into the stall she had chosen earlier, after deciding several days ago that she would not take the needless risk of using the same stall every day and locked it behind her. The cubicle walls were covered in graffiti and crude carvings, littered with everything from initials framed by hearts to approximations of gang logos, countless obscenities and even poetry that might almost have been meaningful if it had been written anywhere else at all; more importantly to Taylor however the space was small and cramped, uncomfortably reminiscent of the trio's most vicious prank against her to date and leaving her unable to fully move her thin and gangly limbs and frame.
Despite this Taylor managed to deftly and almost-silently remove the lid of the toilets' cistern whilst absently wondering, not for the first time why a school with such severe problems with drugs and gang-related crime hadn't found away to ensure the cisterns couldn't be used as an easy place to stash things; there had been more than one occasion where she had found knives, baggies or wads of illegally-gotten cash taped to the inside of the cistern lid whilst hiding her own belongings.
She had left the knives and drugs, the money she had taken some of however; amounts small enough that whoever had hidden it there would hopefully think they had miscounted rather than look for a thief. There had been a time when Taylor would have refused to consider stealing the money, now however she simply rationalised it as taking the profits of crime away from gang-members.
Crime shouldn't pay after all, certainly not as ridiculously well as it often seemed to.
After a few moments of careful, gentle fiddling Taylor managed to withdraw her own hidden and secured belongings from inside the cistern where she had taped them to the inside of the lid.
It was nothing so dangerous or dramatic as her peers' use of the hiding place or at least not outwardly so, an opaque, sealed and watertight folder full of papers which she did not want others to see. With being physically restrained and having her belongings taken from her in the hallways a distinct possibility and with the event which caused her breath to become ragged and shallow whenever she thought about it even now serving as proof that her locker was not safe Taylor had been forced to seek other options and this was the best she had been able to come up without drawing unwanted attention to herself.
Sitting down on the lid of the toilet Taylor let out a long sigh, setting her book-bag down on the tiled floor between her feet and then reaching into it to withdraw a brown paper bag containing her lunch and the beginnings of an assignment that she wanted to get in front of before it could become an issue, along with a hard-backed text book which would serve as surface to write on as she rested it on her knees. The routine was familiar to her now, she would eat her lunch, work on her homework in a futile attempt to maintain grades that had steadily spiralled in the last two years until her distraction grew too great to ignore before finally opening the sealed folder and attending to a project that had become far more important to her.
She was only a few bites into her sandwich and a few lines into a rough-draft of a first paragraph which already sported corrections and reworked sentences when the sound of the bathroom door being gently, subtly pushed open caught her attention.
Beneath her length of dark curls the much smaller hairs on the back of Taylor's neck stood up as something about the movements of the arrival set her on edge, whoever it was moved almost impossibly quietly and Taylor could think of no honest reason for someone to lurking and prowling through a bathroom with a sense that they didn't want to be noticed. Her worries were validated only moments later when the figure, still moving silently came to a halt directly in front of the door to Taylor's stall, legs bending in a way which suggested that the figure was crouching slightly in order to see something and it was here that Taylor realised that the figure was wearing a new pair of all black running shoes.
The exact same pair of new running shoes Taylor had noticed on Sophia Hess earlier that morning.
She had barely enough time to curse herself for leaving her bag on the floor where enough of it was visible for it to be used to identify her before the sound of a can being opened made her eyes widen. Realising what was about to happen Taylor reached for her bag and frantically tried to toss as many of her belongings back into it as possible but it was too late, Sophia tossed a well-shaken can over the top of the stall with an excessive amount of force and with all of the inexplicable skill and precision of a PRT Trooper throwing a containment foam grenade the way the news always seemed to be showing them doing. The can struck the top of Taylor's head and sent a violent spray of coke into her hair and down the back of her neck, soaking both her hoodie and the t-shirt beneath it whilst Sophia cackled and launched another can in rapid succession which managed to once again strike Taylor in the head, this time leaving her glasses in disarray.
"You're welcome Hebert!" the athlete and muscle of her trio of bullies jeered before heading towards the door. Taylor threw the cans aside, leaning down and tracking the footsteps of the girl who relished in making her life a living hell until she was certain that she had left and only then did she spit out a retort.
"Bitch!" the word left her in a fierce hiss, marred only slightly by a hitching crack in her voice. Taylor assured herself that one day she would tell Sophia, along with Emma and Madison exactly what she thought of them but was forced to accept that at present there was very little chance that starting an altercation with Sophia Hess in an empty bathroom would go well for her.
Again, unless she wanted to draw unwelcome and possibly catastrophic attention to herself.
It took Taylor a matter of seconds to inspect her belongings and realise that whilst her homework had been soaked it was still largely legible enough to be salvaged and would not require her to start over and that the text book she had been using as a surface to write on had suffered only superficial damage. Her lunch though had been doused in coke and was already too soggy to be enjoyable, with a sigh she simply set the paper bag aside and pulled a cereal bar from one of her hoodies' pockets before removing the garment and using the driest part of it to towel of her hair; it was not the first time the trio had tampered with Taylor's lunch or stolen her money and she had learned to prepare for the worst.
Eventually Taylor turned her attention to the folder, the one filled with documents so important to her that they had been hidden away within a toilets' cistern and let out a genuine sigh of relief as she saw that the waterproofing was as good as advertised; waiting several seconds and straining her ears for any sound of the trio waiting outside the bathroom door to unleash another of the pranks, or a more straightforward assault and robbery before deciding that she was as safe as she could be whilst at Winslow and finally opening the folder.
The documents within consisted of scores of pages of notes, printed-out research from PHO, news-sites and other sources, annotated maps and a collection of doodles; all of them centred around a common theme which she refused to share with another living soul, yet as she studied one of her most recent sketches, one which was more reminiscent of a blueprint Taylor couldn't resist the hopeful smile that tugged at her wide, expressive mouth before spreading uncertainly across her face.
She was going to be a Superhero and on the page in front of her, in black ink was her costume.
Evening was barely beginning to fade into nighttime and Danny Hebert was already in a stupor somewhere between detached and exhausted disassociation and actually falling asleep. His tall and slender frame, one his daughter had inherited was sprawled on the on the living room sofa where the sound of an ongoing game between the Brockton Bay Brigadiers and the Chicago Bulls was not enough to rouse him. He had been, as was often the case, too weary from work and the weight of the world in general weighing down upon him to have offered any kind of company to Taylor even if had sought it out and she had instead made dinner for herself and left her father a microwave meal. At present the half-eaten remains of the meal sat beside two empty beer bottles, pushed to the edge of a coffee table whose chipped and stained surface was covered by plans and paperwork. There was union work to be done and Danny was still adamant in his belief that he could get the cities' ferry running again; a determination that Taylor loved and respected even if it seemed that it would eat away at what little remained of her father after the death of his wife and Taylor's mother.
Outside of the house, a few houses down the street a car had pulled up to deliver Chinese food; its' driver accompanied by another young man who remained in the car and kept a close watch on their surroundings, likely being armed. It was unlikely that they were gang members, simply people trying to make a living whilst also being aware that Empire Eight-Eight made it unsafe for minorities to be travelling through Brockton Bay at night.
Two streets away a teenage boy a year or two older than Taylor had hopped over a fence and was carefully climbing a tree in order to reach an open window and slip inside to visit the girlfriend who had left the window open whilst her parents were unaware.
And from the basement of her home Taylor Hebert could see all of it.
The Taylor that escaped from the locker was not the same one who had been shoved inside it.
Her powers had two main facets and both of centred around the control and manipulation of shadows.
Firstly she could peer out of the darkness, any sufficiently dark place as though she were the lurking villain in some Earth Aleph horror movie. The power seemed to have very little restrictions on how small the shadowy area needed to be, presumably anywhere that could fit a disembodied eyeball though Taylor had found herself uncertain of how to properly test that; with a range between two and three city blocks depending on the area in question and the time of day. It was an awareness of her surroundings which Taylor now found herself fighting the urge to use in her day to day life, knowing that she could use this aspect of her powers in order to avoid the trio more easily by having eyes and ears in dozens of places at once, peering out vents and from behind doors however it was also something that would draw too much suspicion no matter how well she tried to hide it. People might suddenly start taking notice of her if she managed to dodge a spitball aimed at the back of her head several times in a row.
The second aspect of Taylor's power was one far more useful in her chosen course of action and it was also the part of her power that had allowed her to escape from her locker. She could animate shadows, or summon on animated minions from them; wispy and featureless things resembling a three-dimensional silhouette of the owner of that particular shadow with a faint haze of trickling darkness at their edges as though they were bleeding in and out of reality. Taylor had freed herself from being trapped by acting on instinct which managed to override her delirious fear, her own shadow emerging within the locker and slipping, entirely intangible through the material of the door and unlocking it from the outside.
After some research on the local heroes in her city Taylor had noted that in certain regards her power bore some interesting resemblances to that of Shadow Stalker, one of the Wards and had pondered, with a fain childish hope the idea of the two of them working together and perhaps being friends at some point in the near future.
She had also learned, with some careful practice that had largely been conducted around Archers Bridge where any strange happenings could easily be dismissed as the product of a drug-addled mind, that she could talk through the shadows she controlled and that whilst doing so her voice was distorted into something unrecognisable. An admittedly sinister ability which was only made more imposing by the fact that people touched by her shadowy minions could be left numb and paralysed to varying degrees, an ability Taylor hoped would be received as a positive and not simply creepy after she had used it to apprehend some criminals.
She also seemed to be limited to only manipulating the shadows of other people, vague ideas of gifting herself a car or motorbike made of pure darkness being dashed.
Though the fact that these discovers had been made around Archers Bridge whilst Taylor herself had been sat several streets away one evening was still impressive in her mind.
Allowing her consciousness to retreat back into her own body Taylor forced herself to stop stalling and looked at the belongings gathered in front of her on the old workbench that she had faint memories of her father and some of his fellow dockworkers lounging in, either playing cards or using the various tools that had been sold or allowed to rust after Annette's death for various projects, from Taylor's first bookshelves to a small fishing boat in need of repairs. Arranged in front of her to be given a final inspection was the first iteration of Taylor's Hero costume, one that would hopefully be replaced by something more impressive and durable when she was accepted into the Wards but, thanks to several pieces which she bought with the drug-money found stashed in Winslow's toilets would be sufficient for now.
As far as Taylor was concerned it was at least a better use of the money that whatever the gang members would have done with it.
It was an utter mishmash of fashions and styles, unified by an overall aesthetic and general vibe as well as a single colour though Taylor was currently not overly concerned about style even in a voice in the back of her mind which had sounded remarkably like Emma Barnes had criticised almost every choice she had made. The core of the costume was a simple black pullover hoodie and matching black pants in a style that had been described as tech-wear, in Taylor's mind they were cargo pants with the looping braces which would hang down to her knees simply being more places to attach tools and equipment; both of these garments were far more slim-fitting than anything else she owned which would hopefully reduce even the slightest chances of her being recognised in costume whilst also giving any attackers no loose fabric to grab hold of in a fight. Taylor had thought about pairing the all base layer of her costume with some heavy, gothic platform boots to make herself even taller and give her something painful to kick an opponent with however her funds had been limited and there had been more pressing concerns; instead she had settled for a pair of converse and rationalised it by telling herself that boots would be too heavy anyway.
Over this would be a layer of armour, an admittedly generous description of a stab-proof vest she had managed to find whilst searching the internet at the library, a pair of black leather motorcycle gloves with armour plating across the knuckles and pads for her knees and elbows from a sporting goods store she had felt painfully out of place in.
After going back and forth on the appearance of the costume for a while Taylor had decided that having her body armour on display over her hoodie was too obvious and would only invite attacks on unprotected areas and also that costume was simply missing something. After trawling several charity stores however she had managed to find a sleeveless leather jacket that was an almost perfect fit, the kind riddled with patches and studs which had clearly belonged to a punk with very clear political beliefs they wanted to proclaim to world. Taylor has removed the patches but kept the ones she agreed with, considering reusing them elsewhere whilst at the same time keeping the spikes and studs on what she was happy to consider her 'Battle jacket'.
So long as nobody thought she was the wrong kind of punk, the kind who associated with Empire Eighty-Eight.
The final part of Taylor's costume however was one that she felt no reservations about. Her mask was an all-black and beaked thing, a plague doctors' mask intended for costumes of a different variety whose angled surface would hopefully make it difficult for anyone hoping to punch Taylor in the face. She had made small changes to the mask already, adding small hooks to its' outer edge which would correspond to fixtures on the inside of her hood and ensure that once her hood was pulled up to hide her hair it would stay in place; she had also replaced the lenses of the masks' eye-holes with green-tinged ones with a prescription which matched her own glasses.
The lenses had been the most expensive part of the costume but Taylor reasoned that appearing to villains as a midnight black figure with gleaming green eyes who strode out of the shadows she controlled whilst also being able to see where she was going and which direction the villains were running in was worth it.
Regarding her costume a while longer and taking several deep breaths to steady herself and begin the process of talking herself into what came next Taylor realised that she was still stalling, that there was nothing else to do but simply pack up her costume and head out into Brockton Bay, that her father would not be leaving the sofa any time soon and that this was the perfect opportunity. If she really wanted to be a hero then would simply have to power through her fears and doubts and do it.
It almost made Taylor wish that her goals were entirely noble and properly heroic.
She cared about her city to be sure and she certainly wanted to help others. The former because this city and its' downtrodden working class, forgotten by their government and plagued by Superpowered villains mattered to her father and she refused to let Danny Hebert pour what was left of his heart into Brockton Bay and his efforts be in vain; the latter simply a being a product of being bullied for two hellish years and being unwilling to stand idly by if there was a chance spare someone else from the fate of being a victim.
Beyond that though, at the true heart of her desire to be a hero and specifically to join the Brockton Bay Wards was a chance to escape from the misery of her own life and save herself as she saved others with a single fact that was an open secret amongst al of Brockton Bays' teenagers.
The Wards attended Arcadia High School.
If Taylor joined the Wards she would never have to see Emma Barnes, Madison Clements, Sophia Hess or the corridors of Winslow High School which had come to feature in her nightmares ever again and that hope alone was enough to justify any amount of risk.
Finally confident enough to proceed Taylor checked her watch and began loading her costume into her backpack, pausing once she was finished to use her power once more and check that the coast was clear. Seeing that her father was still asleep on the sofa Taylor used his shadow, bringing it rising up from the ground and rearing up to the full height of the actual Danny Hebert and controlling ephemeral limbs of semi-solid darkness with the same natural ease as controlling her own body to first turn off the television and then take a blanket that had been strewn over a nearby chair, draping it over the man's sleeping form and leaning down to whisper in his ear with a distorted, unnaturally reverberating voice.
"Goodnight Dad, I'll see you in the morning….Hopefully things will already be better for both of us by then"
With that Taylor allowed the shadow to sink back into the ground, flickering unnaturally as it returned to its' proper place whilst Taylor opened the basement window before climbing out onto the street and disappearing into the night.
Taylor was not sure what she should have expected from her first night as a Hero patrolling Brockton Bay, though she had certainly not expected it to be so boring.
After sneaking out of the house and making her way to nearest bus stop so that she could ride deeper into the city she had found somewhere to change into her costume, a procedure that had been both tense and utterly mortifying, her cheeks flushed scarlet at the idea of someone seeing her in such a compromising position. Once changed Taylor had found somewhere to hide the backpack which now held her street clothes, something distressingly reminiscent of the way she was forced to hide her belongings at Winslow and from there she had begun slinking through alleyways; pausing periodically to cast her power out around her and peer from the shadows cast by dumpsters in search of crime or people she could help. Taylor had somehow seen nothing she could use and yet far more than she had wanted to; Brockton Bay had more than its' fair share of sex workers and her chosen domain of shadowy alleyways and backstreets was one she shared with them and their clients, with the only silver-lining being that Taylor had only encountered various people having sex in alleyways through her power rather than wandering onto the scene in person. She had also encountered a handful of vagrants, most of them in groups for protection and huddling around fires they had made with whatever was available to set alight, something that Taylor supposed was probably illegal on some technicality or other but chose to overlook for the simple reason that the lives of the homeless were probably miserable enough already and there was nothing about troubling them that would be impressive to the Brockton Bay Protectorate and PRT.
It had been over an hour since she had seen anyone in person however and she was beginning to wonder if the night was going to be a total failure. Unwilling to give in so easily given what was at stake Taylor's feet had carried her, almost entirely of their own accord as if her power or her own subconscious desperation were directing her, away from even the roughest parts of the city that she was familiar with and into the areas surrounding the docks where her father worked; a place where Taylor' parents had warned to stay far away from throughout her child and which she always had done until now.
A line from the Earth Aleph movie about Lions re-enacting the plot of Hamlet came to mind, a speech about everything the light touches being a characters' Kingdom which Taylor found amusing given her new relationship to shadows and dark places.
"Oh come on, where is everyone?" she breathed out, her breath uncomfortably hot against her face within the confined of her mask and hood; the combination of the two feeling even more cramped and stuffy with her mass of curly hair hair which had been tied back to make it more manageable but was still taking up a lot of space. As she continued through streets around the docks she cast her eyes around before pausing to cast her power out in all directions once again, viewing her surroundings from several angles and directions at once before the dizziness that it caused forced her to instead use every unlit alleyway and faltering shadow cast by a flickering street-light in turn and take stock of the nearby area. The place appeared to be exactly as run-down and potentially dangerous as Taylor had always been told, the docks were a hotspot for criminal activity and it was estimated that illegal smuggling and drugs made up a sizeable amount of what little shipping passed through Brockton Bay and as such the gangs were often vying for territory around the docks. From what Taylor understood her father was one of the Union workers who managed to keep the docks themselves from being infiltrated and taken over, keeping the cities' blue collar work honest and decent but there were still gang tags sprayed on walls and over one another forming a rudimentary scoreboard, giving context for the various turf wars which had lift bullet-holes in walls and pieces of roads and abandoned buildings ripped apart by the very same Villains that Taylor was hoping to find and test her mettle against.
Yet still there was nothing.
Dejectedly she wondered if doing this on a weekday was a bad idea. She would have to go to school in the morning and she found herself wondering that if the bays' villains had secret identities they too might have normal lives and were already in bed, sleeping soundly because they had to go to work in the morning.
"Not likely" she snorted to herself, dismissing the idea of some of Brockton Bay's most notorious criminals also having an office job at a legitimate company, somewhere like MedHall for instance as pure fantasy. From there she redoubled her efforts and pushed her power further afield until the strain of peering out from every shadow available to her made her head spin.
But finally she had found something.
A group of Asian men, ranging from their early-to mid teens to their early twenties who were clustered around a small collection of cars that had been modified and personalised with obnoxiously large spoilers, garish paint-jobs, lowered suspension, wheels too big for the cars themselves and for reasons Taylor could not fathom strips of neon lighting fitted under several of the cars. They had parked around a convenience store that was open all night and whose sign was written in Kanji and whilst the idea that this was simply an instance of illegal street racing occurred to her Taylor quickly abandoned the notion when she saw several baseball bats, some with nails knocked into them or barbed wire wrapped around them and at least one ludicrously oversized knife being carried and, as if further confirmation were needed that all of the young men were wearing dark green hoodies with red bandannas being pulled up to cover their faces whilst their shoes were tied with red and green laces.
The colours of the Azn Bad Boys.
Seeing her chance to act Taylor pulled her awareness back into her physical body and sprinted in the direction of the gathering gang-members, her routine of running every day allowing her to cross the distance relatively quickly and without winding herself. She slowed her approach in order to limit the noise she made as she drew closer, taking care to ensure that she approached the store from an angle that would keep her out of view and, upon deciding that she wanted to see the situation in person before she intervened directly she began searching for a vantage point.
"Should have learned parkour" she whispered into the inside of her mask as she realised that her best option was a rusty and rickety fire escape. Making her way to the stairs she managed to ascend them with minimal noise, each groan of ageing metal worsening the trembling of her gloved hands as she waited with bated breath and a sense of impending doom for the moment where she would be heard, then spotted and then killed. The moment never came however and Taylor found herself on the roof of the building in short order and staring down at the massing crowd of ABB as more cars pulled up and more gangsters clambered out of them.
With one figure in particular making Taylor's blood run cold.
"Shit! Shit, shit, shit oh shit!" the whispered in sudden terror as the sight of a man who stood a head taller than those who deferentially parted and made way around him, shirtless even in the chilly night air which allowed the winding, serpentine dragon tattoos adorning a body with well-defined muscles to be seen whilst the dragon theme was repeated on the metallic mask he wore and behind which bloodshot golden-red eyes gleamed.
Lung, the leader of ABB.
At the sight of one of Brockton Bay's most wanted criminals Taylor wished more than anything else that she had spent some of the money she had found on a cellphone, her mother being killed by a driver using their phone had rendered the devices somewhat taboo in the Hebert home but right now the idea of calling the PRT hotline and announcing that she was a Hero seeking to join the Wards and was currently about to engage Lung himself and a dozen or more armed assailants was an appealing one. Instead she would be forced to rely on the bottle of mace in one of her pockets, house keys held between her knuckles paired with a lack of any real knowledge of fighting and her wits which threatened to leave her in the face of sheer terror at any moment.
But she also had her powers.
"This is stupid, this is so damn stupid I'm gonna die….I should just go" Taylor whimpered under her breath before an idea solidified in her mind. She had change in her pockets, there was bound to be a payphone nearby and the PRT hotline was attached to every payphone in the city; she could observe the situation for a while and gather information before passing it on to the PRT and announcing herself. She didn't have to fight Lung alone, she could simply team-up with whichever member of the Protectorate arrived to fight him and use that as an introduction.
But then she heard Lung start talking.
"Search everywhere, every house or business unless you personally know the family….But be sure you don't vouch for someone who betrays that trust" Lung's voice was heavily accented a deep enough that Taylor felt the rumbling tones almost more than she heard them.
"When you find those children you kill them" he continued "Those of you with guns, shoot and don't bother aiming at legs. Those of you without, if see one of the children on the ground you finish them off and make sure"
Murmurs of what was surely assent passed through the crowd even if Taylor couldn't understand all the languages being spoken amidst the crowd.
They were going to kill children.
With that single, sickening realisation blotting out everything else Taylor realised that waiting and gathering information would not be enough; she needed to act now. Without hesitation and without anything more than the most meagre scraps of a plan she channelled her power downwards and outwards, singling out one of the gang-members heading towards one of the cars and opening the drivers' side door.
His shadow rose up from the ground behind him, a featureless and nightmarish facsimile which caused yells and panicked screams as it emerged with an obsidian smog trailing from it; before the would-be driver could either get in the car or turn around to face his own shadow he had been grabbed and with a push of her powers which felt like twisting something in her mind Taylor paralysed the man, a thrilling rush of adrenaline surging through her as his body first seized up and then sank slowly to the ground in a limp tangle of limbs.
Another gang member swung a baseball bat at the shadow only for the weapon to pass through it entirely, distorting the shadowy illusion yet doing nothing to damage it and as it reformed Taylor simply reached out with the things' incorporeal hands and clutched at the covered face of the gangster who screamed from beneath his bandanna, utterly helpless as his body betrayed him the moment the shadow touched him.
Suddenly the situation didn't seem hopeless any more and Taylor, in a burst of bravado rose up to her full height and stood on the edge of the roof in what she hoped was an imposing fashion as she stared down at the reeling ABB from behind green-tinged lenses. The word 'Cape' was being screamed and yelled by young men waving weapons around in search of their opponent and Taylor allowed the first shadow she had raised to sink back into the ground.
Then she singled out Lung, realising that if she could disable him even temporarily then she would be victorious and there was nothing to suggest that her power would not be able to do just that, even if she had never tested it on another Parahuman before.
With a new course of action decided Taylor shifted her stance on the roof, drawing her mace and palming it just in case before ensuring that she looked as heroic and impressive as her makeshift costume would allow and raising her voice, even managing to keep it from wavering as she yelled.
"Halt Villain!"
As Lung looked up, locking eyes with her and glaring Taylor realised just how stupid she had been.
Lung's fury was indescribable and fate seemed determined to push him to his limits with each new indignity that the night offered.
The Ruby Dreams Casino, one of the crown jewels of the empire he had built within Brockton Bay had been robbed, by a gang of children with ideas far beyond their station no less.
The Undersiders had come and raided the establishment whilst patrons were present, deciding that they were not content with emptying cash registers and breaking open machines but also robbing several of the paying customers; the staff unfortunate enough to have to explain themselves to Lung explaining that the blonde girl of the group had an unnatural ability to not only crack safes and guess security codes but also to detect which patrons were hiding the most money and jewellery for the rest of the group to relieve them of before escaping under cover of darkness on the backs of monstrous beasts which had ruined the casinos' interior. The thievery alone would have demanded an answer, but to threaten Lung's patrons was to suggest that neither he nor his people could make good on the promise of their protection rackets, that they would be too slow and too weak to answer the blow that had been landed against them.
It was tantamount to spitting in Lung's face and his mind the only possible recourse was for the Undersiders to die horribly.
Before he could deliver his preferred, fiery brand of retribution however a fresh test of his patience had come in the form of yet another upstart child; this one a lanky girl who had the audacity to try and pose victoriously after taking down a mere two footsoldiers.
"Did-did that bitch just say 'Halt villains', really?" one of Lung's henchman demanded incredulously, proving that he and the others like him were beginning to rally now that the initial surprise of the attack had passed and the unknown cape was not properly pressing their early advantage though the wordless snarl that escaped Lung was enough to silence any amused chatter and remind people of their duty. He hadn't been attacked directly yet and as such his powers nowhere near their peak but Lung strode forwards regardless, shouldering his way passed any of his henchmen who were too awestruck to move and maintaining eye contact with the new Cape as he drew closer to building she had perched themselves on.
He could see that she was shaking even from the ground.
"GIRL! YOU ARE GOING TO DIE FOR THAT!" he thundered, ensuring that their could be no misunderstandings. Privately he hoped that she would simply flee. She had sounded young and the Yakuza he had admired as a teen in Kyushu had instilled ideas of honour and properly manliness in him which were largely incompatible with killing a little girl as he would be forced to if she tried to stand and fight; she was also clearly not a member of the Undersiders and the gang of thieves were his highest priority.
For a moment the unknown Cape faltered, a single foot jerking backwards to betray a desire to run for her life and yet she forced herself to stay. Balling her fists and revealing that she carried a bottle of mace in one hand, revealing how truly underprepared she was before making a wide and sweeping gesture which Lung already knew was purely to distract him.
He guessed that the attack would come from behind even before the yelled warning reached him.
Seeing half a dozen shadows rise from the ground and set themselves upon his men like a pack of demons from the folk-tales he'd heard from old drunks, more than one of the shadows wielding a shadowy weapon of it's own did not surprise Lung, but it did force him to begrudgingly respect the temerity of his foe. Deciding that the new Cape would be permitted to die like a warrior, honourably and in single combat Lung whipped back around to face the roof she was stood on and began striding deliberately towards the building; his power already building and bubbling with a familiar heat and pressure beneath his skin as the first jagged metallic scales began to stretch and press against the flesh of his back and shoulders, his nails lengthening steadily into cruel claws whilst the first glowing sparks of a fireball flickering into existence in the palm of his hand ready to be thrown.
Then Lung came to a halt, something cold washing over him as his power simply ceased.
It was like being doused in freezing waters, like being cast beneath the waves as Kyushu sank all over again except the feeling flowed from the inside outwards to freeze and choke him. Kenta, for in that moment he longer felt like Lung would have thrashed if he was capable of moving his limbs but as he let out a gasp of surprise which was mask fortunately muffled he was relieved to find that he was not entirely immobile. He couldn't move and his power was simply gone yet he could still breathe and as he let out another growl of anger he found that he could still speak, which would be enough to deal with this new problem.
"LEE!" he boomed and a moment later the rear door of one of the cars opened, an imported Japanese thing that was not considered to be worth a small fortune given that the manufacturer no longer existed which had been given a glossy black and gold paint job. A single figure emerged from the back of the car, someone who had not needed to receive orders from Lung about the Undersiders simply because they already knew what was expected of them, someone whose familiarity with the leader of ABB allowed him to lounge in heated comfort rather than stand to attention like the common grunts.
He was clad in a black bodysuit with a minimal amount of body armour attached to it, creating a look not dissimilar from the new would-be Hero themselves, though he also sported a bandolier filled with grenades and the various belts wrapped around his waist at odd angles sported a collection of ornate and vicious-looking knives. His mask was a fearsome thing, a deep crimson stylised to resemble a leering demonic face.
Oni Lee, Lung's right hand man and a prolific killer.
Lung understood what this new Cape was doing by singling him out early on in the exchange, not just removing a major threat from the battlefield but also seeking to sow fear and possibly dissent within his subordinates by breaking the dissent.
If she were allowed to succeed it would be much the same as letting the Undersiders go unchallenged, Lung's mystique and reputation was what held the gang that he raised up from the discarded dregs of Brockton Bay together and every insult he accepted weakened the foundations his domain was built on. He was lucky that he had been paralysed in a strong and commanding looking position however, remaining upright unlike his followers whilst his eyes were still locked on the new Cape which allowed him to maintain an illusion of power.
As if he were remaining where he was by choice and simply deciding that the girl was not worthy of his attention.
Oni Lee stepped into place at Lung's right hand, head bowing silently as he waited for orders which Lung eagerly gave; calling out loudly enough for all of the ABB members still standing to hear so that none of them could question his version of what had happened here afterwards.
"GIRL, YOU WON'T ESCAPE FROM ONI-LEE!" he bellowed, voice a ragged snarl as he addressed his lieutenant directly "Kill her"
Author's Notes:
So, I thought I would never write an "Alt-Power! Taylor" fic because the trope has been done to death, but here we are.
This was actually inspired by a post I made on Tumblr a while back (In November 2023 which is also when I started writing this fic, I'm not actually sure when I'm gonna start posting it though).
Premise was "What if Taylor Triggered with a Trump power/Bud of Sophia's Shard" because powers are a response to the trauma that caused them and let's be honest Shadow Stalker would have a pretty easy time getting out of that locker….Those ideas rattled around and we get a version of Sophia's Power that's got Master/Stranger/Trump and possibly Shaker ratings.
Which just screamed 'Slasher movie villain' to me.
Also, the name "Invidiak" comes from Pathfinder, they're a creature described as a sinister, incorporeal shadow demon.
But anyway, let's summarise:
So we're starting off fairly close to canon, just switching perspectives.
Sophia being the only Ward at the school where the gangs do most of their recruiting is something that she definitely uses to her advantage, just keeping track of who's wearing what colours and whoo associates with who so she can get leads on what the gangs are doing on the street level.
Madison is definitely that "Friend" in the group who gets kept around to be the victim/sidekick, the one who gets sent to the shop and is the butt of everyone's jokes….Which makes me wonder if that's how Emma treated Taylor when they were younger?
So I've only wrote a little bit of Sophia before and that was a post-Ward setting, this is my first time writing 'The Trio' and I needed those insults to get into the characters' voices….They are terrible people.
So the comments about the locker are actually why I started with Sophia being the focus, because specifying from the start that she used her power to fill the locker means that Taylor's trigger was at least on a technicality the result of a Parahuman using their powers, which allows for a Trump rating.
Okay so it wasn't coke that got thrown into the bathroom stall in canon but a) minor change and b) freshly dropped cans out of the vending machine are basically an improvised explosive.
I feel like the opening sentence of the bathroom scene alone is enough to paint a picture of where Taylor was at mentally at the start of the story….So downtrodden that "Well at least I don't notice the smell of the public toilets I'm eating in" is a win.
Bathroom stall poetry in 2011, definitely included some plagiarised MCR lyrics.
So the fact that Taylor hid her stuff like that a) I feel like she would not use her locker for anything after her Trigger if she could help it b) I just feel like Winslow needs a few more touches to make it actually feel like the hellhole it's supposed to be, I remember the school I went to and c) Since Taylor doesn't have her bug powers in this story she needs money in order to buy a few pieces of costume.
Okay so in Gestation 1 the trio slammed the door open by kicking it but they didn't even know Taylor was there and I feel like Sophia just sneaking in like that makes more sense.
Sophia definitely used things that she learned in the Wards and from her time as a vigilante, like how to sneak and how to throw a Containment Foam Grenade as part of her bullying.
But yeah, she's still got her plans and rough drafts.
We've got three Taylor scenes in a row, so starting the basement scene with a focus on Danny felt like a good way to break it up a little and at the same time lead into a description of what Taylor's powers are here.
Also, "Brockton Brigadiers" is a head-canon I put in a different Tumblr post a while ago; that the cities' NBA team changed their name in honour of the Brockton Bay Brigade and that was one of the things that got Victoria into basketball as a kid.
So in short, she's got eyes and ears everywhere like canon Taylor but with less than half the range and she can turn people's shadows into a damn sleep paralysis demon, which she also talks through like canon Taylor does with her swarm. Her shadow minions can pass through walls but I'll probably give them the same limitation as Sophia's breaker state in relation to electricity….Also worth noting that Taylor doesn't know about her Trump rating yet.
She got out of the locker by literally helping herself since nobody else is going to.
She's going out in converse, tech-wear pants and a hoodie with a stab-vest and some padding, second-hand battle vest, gloves and a plague doctor mask with prescription lenses….And somehow it's not even in five worst costumes in Brockton Bay. If I had any artistic talent at all I'd draw it, but alas.
I need to reread the first few chapters of Worm again, I know Taylor used the Undersiders as a form of escapism at first but I can't remember exactly why she wanted to be a hero in the first place; to me the fact that joining the Wards would get her out of Winslow and away from her bullies feels like a pretty solid motivation though.
If you lurk around a city at night, you will see some shit of the variety Taylor saw eventually.
If you want to interpret Taylor wandering towards the docks without even thinking about it as Shard stuff and conflict drive then be my guest.
The Lion King "Everything the sun touches is your Kingdom" thing juxtaposed against someone whose power centres on shadows just made me chuckle.
Couldn't resist the MedHall comment either.
I know the Ruby Dreams Casino robbery happened on a Sunday but consider….Does it matter?
So just like in canon Lung talks about killing kids and Taylor can't leave it alone, but clearly things are gonna go very differently from there.
So that's what Taylor's powers do….Not the same fear factor as the 'Biblical Plague' effect, but definitely scary.
Taylor cannot do witty repartee but I wanted her, on her first night out in costume to at least try….Just so we can watch her fail.
Lung thinks in the most straightforward "Gangster" terms of the Bays villains, the line between fear and respect is minimal and the fear is the cornerstone of everything so he can never afford to look weak.
I'm not saying that Lung won't kill a fifteen year old girl, I'm just saying that a voice in his head that sounds like Kirishima from MHA is gonna make sure he doesn't enjoy it.
So there's the Trump aspect of her power in action, she doesn't just paralyse people she can also turn off a Capes' powers for a while regardless of whether they would involve moving….No spoilers but the Trump aspect is there mainly for a couple of scenes at the end of the story, including one fun power interaction.
We don't really see much of Lung and Oni-Lee interacting but I do like the idea I've seen before that Lee is probably Lung's only real friend in the Bay, or that he was before his powers ate away at him.
Lung absolutely went cartoon villain at the end, trying style out the fact he was paralysed as if it was by choice.
But now it's Taylor Vs Oni-Lee for the obvious reason that it's gonna be a lot more of a challenge for her to use those new powers on a teleporter.
As always thank you to everyone that reads this, with a special thanks to those of you that follow, favourite and review.