Charm Learning Shard (Worm/Exalted) (COMPLETED)

You look at the piece of paper Trousers gave you in exchange for her new gang. There's a single word written on.

CUFF

You have no idea what that means. But apparently the information will save your life at some point in the future, because fucking Thinkers.

An internet search does not turn up anything beyond the obvious. You guess you'll just... carry around a pair of handcuffs wherever you go now? And a set of the appropriate lockpicks. And a pair of tasteful cufflinks, because why the hell not? Maybe they'll save your life when... you're disguised as a man and somehow end up at a formal dinner with Accord present, or something. Who the fuck even knows?

---

The Travelers are holed up in Lisa's warlord lair - that much, at least, went according to plan. One of Coil's mercenaries lets you in.

"We were told to expect you," he says. "Though, we haven't heard from the boss at all since then. Do you know if-"

You don't know which boss he's referring to, but the answer is the same either way. "Tattletale and Coil are both dead," you say.

To your surprise, he reacts to this piece of news by inclining his head and tracing the sign of the cross. "May they rest in peace," he says softly. Then he looks up, and is all business again. "Will you be taking over the base? I would be willing to stay on under the same terms..."

You shake your head. "You'd have to take that up with the Travelers. Speaking of..."

"Of course, ma'am."

You look around as he guides you to the Travelers' quarters. The lair looks to be of recent construction, with a lot more exposed concrete than you'd normally look for in a home. But it's dry and intact and it has electricity, which is more than you can say for a lot of the city even now.

Your reception from the Travelers themselves consists of Sundancer walking up to you and slapping you in the face.

"That's for what you did to Luke," she announces (Luke himself is nowhere to be seen).

"I'd do the same, if I could reach that high," a girl in a wheelchair says. Genesis, clearly, because she then manifests a gangly monster with seven hands, all of which slap you in the face.

You stand there and take it, because the alternative is getting in a fight with Sundancer. Also you kind of deserve it, you guess.

"If you're quite finished," Trickster drawls. "Quicksilver has a job to do."

The slapping-monster dissipates, and Genesis turns around and rolls off with a huff.

"Thanks," you say.

"They all hate you," Trickster says simply. "I'm willing to give you a chance, but if you can't help her you might not be walking out of here. Just saying."

You make some token protests at his blatant threats - not because you mind, but to have enough of a conversation for soul's price to trigger.

Trickster wants Noelle to be cured.

Ka-ching.

You arrive at a door which he opens a crack. You can hear heavy breathing from within. Trickster's tone is completely different when he speaks again. "Noelle?" he asks softly. "Quicksilver is here." There's no response. "Remember how she was coming to help you?" No response. "Are you ready to meet her?"

After a long silence, during which trickster grows increasingly uneasy, he speaks again. "Noelle-"

"She can enter," a female voice comes from within.

"Go on," Trickster says, motioning you ahead. "Whatever you do, don't touch her. Don't make any sudden movements or loud noises. Do whatever she says - unless she asks you to touch her. Then you run away." You're reminded of Faultline taking you to see Labyrinth, though you take note of how he doesn't bother to threaten you anymore, just warn you.

Inside is a garage area, which has been repurposed as a cozy windowless Noelle-holding facility. Not because they don't want to be around her, but because they're the only doors she can fit through. Although they also don't want to be around her, because they're afraid she might go crazy and attack them (and also, as you discover as soon as you enter, because of the smell).

You've had Noelle described to you, which only somewhat prepares you for encountering her in person. She is the upper half of a reasonably attractive teenage girl, connected to... something less attractive. The words 'nightmarish amalgam' spring to mind. A hill of flesh with three giant mouths (responsible for the heavy breathing) and dozens of eyes both human and non-. It paces back and forth on a combination of hoofed feet and human fingers the size of legs, though it grows still when you enter.

"I disgust you, don't I?" Noelle asks.

You take a deep breath before answering. "Don't worry, that's what we're here to fix," you say, trying not to sound too insincerely cheerful. "Now, tell me about yourself."

"I don't really want to talk about... this." She gestures towards her lower half.

"Tell me about your life before, then."

"I... don't want to talk about that either."

"You're going to have to, if you want to get better."

Noelle swallows heavily. "Okay. Krouse, will you hold my hand?"

Trickster takes a step back. "Noelle, you know you can't-"

"Maybe it won't be so bad this time?"

"I'm sorry," Trickster says. Then he runs away, because Noelle asked him to touch her.

You retreat into a corner as Noelle starts to chase after him, before regaining control of herself. Her human half slumps in defeat.

"Will you tell him I'm sorry?" she asks. "I, I know the monster is lying when it says it would be fine if I touched him, but..."

"You can tell him yourself," you say.

Noelle shakes her head. "He won't come back for a long time now."

"You can tell him yourself once you're better. Which will be very soon."

"Okay." Noelle takes a deep breath, and start talking about herself.

---

Her name is Noelle Meinhardt, and her life sucks. She spends hours going into detail how and why, as you prod her for every detail she can remember. At one point a mercenary shows up to feed her. You watch with mildly disgusted fascination (and your sorcerer's sight safely off) as her lower half gobbles down an entire pig carcass, and another hoof grows out beneath her. So, the human parts are from people she's eaten? That's unreassuring to know.

Noelle wants to be cured. Obviously.

"Can you fix me?" Noelle asks once her narration is finally done.

"Yes. But I'm going to have to touch you."

"No!"

"Yes. Just one touch, and it'll all be over." Paradoxically, it's the giant monster that retreats into the corner, as you advance on it.

"You don't understand! They always come out wrong, and I can't-" Her words cut off as you touch her, and activate Flechette's power. Not to destroy, but to change.

The giant monster vanishes, and two girls appear in its place - one of them wearing clothes, the other naked. The first is Noelle, but with both halves made of human girl. The other is you.

She is already lunging for you as she appears, her lips peeled back in a smile that all hunger and malevolent glee (are her canines longer than they should be?).

"No, stop!" Noelle shouts, but it's too late. Before you can properly process what is happening, the other Taylor has touched you back.

Nothing happens. Her face falls.

"No!" she screams. "No no no no!" She slumps to her knees, whimpering. "Why does everything have to turn into ashes?"

You study your evil clone - for that is obviously what she is. That's what happens when you touch Noelle. Her skin is almost inhumanly pale, but otherwise she looks just like you. Or rather she looks like you would, if you didn't look like Quicksilver right now. She looks like Taylor Hebert. When you turn sorcerer's sight on, you can see that she has done the same. But she isn't using graceful crane stance.

"Let me guess," you say. "You're a clone of me, the girl whose only power is sorcerer's sight."

"Yes," Evil Taylor says. She looks up at you, glaring defiantly, but at the same time baring her throat. "Go on, then. End it."

"End it? We've not even started yet, newest minion."

Evil Taylor seems taken aback by your words, which only goes to show that the cloning process isn't perfect. "You... realize that my only purpose in life is to destroy everything you hold dear and watch you die screaming, right?"

Evil Taylor wants to destroy everything you hold dear and watch you die screaming.

Huh. That's almost word for word Sophia's new soul price.

"So it says on the tin," you agree. "But I won't kill you as long as you don't betray me." You hold out your hand to shake. "Servitude or death?"

She actually hesitates in front of that choice. "Servitude," she says finally, and takes your hand.

Golden light explodes out from you as you seal the pact, though you don't elect to become a dragon. Good thing Trousers explained how that works. What you didn't expect was the black anti-light exploding out from her in an equal but opposite reaction. Light and darkness clash against each other and boil around your clasped hands, and you feel the bargain being twice sealed.

Wait, you could seal pacts all along? And because of that, your dumb brain created a dragon power that only works for pact-sealing people? Trousers didn't mention that. Which, you suppose, means that you're not going to explain it to her in the future.

In the wake of your deal, the walls in your half of the room have been bleached as if they had been exposed to the sun for years on end, while those in her half are stained and corroded.

"What is even going on?" Noelle demands, looking back and forth between you.

"You don't need to know that. In fact, you shouldn't tell anyone about the clone at all."

"Okay."

"Oh, and give her your pants." Noelle is wearing pants, because of course a Noelle who didn't have her power would wear pants around the house. But you don't need the others asking just how Quicksilver fixing a malfunctioning power caused clothing to appear out of the aether.

Luckily the rest of her wardrobe (a couple of t-shirts in a laundry hamper) was on your side of the room, so the clothes are only faded, not destroyed. You won't have to exfiltrate a half-naked clone. For once your true form is good for something, as its complete lack of womanly curves or muscle definition lets your clone fit into a former anorectic's clothing without issue. Hmph.

"Stay here while I finish things up," you tell Evil Taylor. Then open the door a crack and stick your head outside. "Hey!"

"What?" Trickster startles awake from where he'd been dozing off against the wall. "What's wrong?"

"Noelle needs to borrow some pants. You know, unless you're into having your girlfriend display her charms to the world."

"You mean-" Trickster lunges forward and tries to barge through the door. You draw back and shut it in his face.

"Pants first!" You shout through the door.

"Right." you hear from the other side. "Mars! Noelle needs to borrow your clothes!"

---

You trail behind a (re-)clothed Noelle as she rushes out to hug her teammates. As Aisha would put it: It's all heartwarming and shit. A good 5/6ths of the Travelers are crying tears of joy. Ballistic may or may not be a bit misty-eyed as well, but he's steadfastly refusing to even turn in your direction, so you can't tell. As if your awkward outsider status needed any reinforcement right now.

Then Noelle pushes Trickster away, breaking the hug. "It's happening again," she says, her face pale.

"What?" Trickster asks. "Wh-"

"Don't touch me!" Noelle cries, backing away from him. "I can feel it happening again!"

Trickster whirls around to face you. "I though you were going to fix her!"

"I thought I did!" you protest. "She looked fixed to me."

"The monster is still there," Noelle mutters to herself, curled up in a corner while the others stand uncertainly around her - wanting to comfort her, but getting yelled at whenever they approach.

Trickster is the odd man out, too busy hurling threats and imprecations at you to hover ineffectively around his girlfriend, but her next words cause him to forget all about you.

"Kill me," Noelle says.

"Wha-" "Noelle!" "You can't-"

"Please! I can't go through that again!" She fixes Sundancer with a stare. "Before the monster gets too strong, while I'm still in control. Burn me to ashes so it can't regenerate."

"I- I can't." Sundancer chokes out.

"Noelle, no," Trickster says. "It, it didn't work completely, but you're better now. We can keep looking for a solution, and Quicksilver can do her thing again if it gets too bad-"

"If it gets bad?" Noelle demands. "If it gets bad!? I killed and ate forty people the last time it got bad!"

Sundancer, Genesis and the nameless Changer all recoil at this, then turn to look at Trickster.

"You said-" Genesis begins.

"He lied!" Noelle shouts. "He lied to protect me! Please, Mars. If you have any love for me at all. Help me. Keep me from hurting anyone else."

Sundancer is shaking her head, tears streaming down her face. But she holds up her hands, and flashes of solar plasma start appearing between them. The others back away from her.

"No," Trickster says. "Don't you dare, Mars." He tries to approach her, but the sheer heat of the miniature sun forming in front of her sends him staggering back.

"I'm sorry," Sundancer whispers. Once the sun has grown to be the size of a person, she sends it flying towards Noelle.

Just before it hits her, she vanishes and Ballistic appears in her place. He dies before he can even cry out.

"Krouse!" Noelle shouts from where Ballistic just stood.

Sundancer screams, a wordless noise of rage and pain, and sends the sun careening towards Trickster. Genesis starts to manifest another monster.

You, on the other hand, run the fuck away. As much as you'd like to know how it's all going to turn out, this is an excellent time to not be in Trickster's line of sight.

"We're leaving!" you shout at your clone as you burst into the garage. You keep running right across it and slap the 'door open' button. When that has no effect, you channel the charm of unmaking into the door itself. There's a time for subtlety and scrupulously remaining within the powerset of your current persona, and that time is not now. The fold-up door collapses into a neat pile of metal slats, which you leap over.

Evil Taylor keeps pace with you as you sprint away - which is weird, now that you think about it. She gets the benefit of the exercise you've been getting over the last couple of weeks, but not the powers?

Behind you the entire building vanishes, consumed from within by a growing sun.

===

Spoiler: Mechanics corner

Of course the twisted clone of Taylor's eclipse caste solar is a moonshadow caste abyssal.

If you're not familiar with Exalted and the above statement means nothing to you, don't worry about it. The pale skin and elongated canines mean exactly what a naive observer would take them to mean: She's basically a vampire. But because she draws power from a parahuman shard just like regular Taylor and doesn't have to worry about essence pools, she's not an obligate haemovore.

Pattern Spider Touch can't really be used to modify a single aspect of a person as such. On application, it rewrites them into some other person. Changing 'a random rat' into 'a random cat' doesn't require any particular thought, but Taylor needed to know Noelle's entire life story so that the new person she created would be a properly accurate Noelle-but-without-powers. Unfortunately the new Noelle was such a realistic imitation that the shard was able to find her again and reattach itself S9000 style.

Well, either that or she replaced Noelle with a slave puppet programmed to reassure the Travelers that Quicksilver had done her job as well could be expected, and then self-terminate before they could examine her in detail. How would anyone tell the difference?