Charm Learning Shard (Worm/Exalted) (COMPLETED)

"Huh," you say, staring at the rubble that used to be Alec's lair. "Did you guys do this?"

"Cherish did," Shatterbird says. "Managed to completely screw up her very first- wait, why are we here? Regent was one of your agents?"

"Heh. 'Was.'"

---

You find your minions in the second place you look, ie your own lair. The very first thing you do is walk up to Aisha and boop her with more smarts.

"There you-" boop "-uh? Thanks? I missed you too, but what was that for?"

"What was that for?" you repeat mockingly. "You thought it was a good idea to not only parade Ghost right under Armsmaster's-"

"He's calling himself 'Defiant' now, since he got fired."

"Fired? What for?"

"Uh, hello? The underage prostitute thing?"

Oh right, that whole thing had slipped your mind. "Allow me to rephrase: You thought it was a good idea to not only parade Ghost and yourself right under Defiant's nose, but also to leave Evil Taylor to her own devices?"

"Worked out, didn't it?" Aisha mutters sullenly.

"Point," you admit. Still, you don't like people being so reckless with your things - even if it is the things themselves.

"We specifically didn't tell her what we were doing, so she wouldn't get any bright ideas about anonymous tips," Alec says.

"And where is she now?" Your query is met with shrugs. Wonderful.

"Who's she?" Alec asks, gesturing to the bemused Shatterbird.

---

Spoiler: Miss-Milita-o-vision

I watch the footage of Bitten's latest heist. Poltergeist (hands amputated by the S9), Imp (arm amputated by the S9, and replaced with one of Crawler's), Ghost (none the worse for wear, as far as I can tell)... and their newest member, introduced as 'Banshee'.

They're not even trying to hide that fact that it's Shatterbird. She's using the exact same costume as she did in the S9, except made out of brown bottle glass. And instead of flaying people, she's battering them about with levitated spheres of glass. Like something a fortune-teller would use, except also brown.

"That's... very pointedly non-lethal," I observe.

"Are you suggesting we play along with this charade?" Director Tagg demands incredulously. "A change of alias doesn't absolve people of their crimes!"

"Of course not, sir. That's why Colin Wallis is still in custody."

The city has changed a bit in your absence. Since they got back several days ahead of you, your minions are able to fill you in.

"Biggest news is that the Teeth showed up and staked out some former ABB turf," Alec says.

Really? First the S9, now the Teeth? You arrange your legs into lotus position on the couch and hold up your hands in benediction. "The Buddha sits on the mountain, and all things come to him," you say. At this rate you won't ever have to leave Brockton Bay for fresh powers.

"The Merchants and the Empire are holding their own against them so far," Alec continues, ignoring your antics. The former is not surprising, they have a precog. But the latter? How the hell are they holding off the Teeth without capes? "Circus left, Bitch didn't." Bitch? Oh right, Hellhound. Rachel. "Faultline fled the city too."

"Do you know where she went?" you ask, and he shakes his head. "Find out."

Spoiler: Faultline-o-vision, some time later

There's a cardboard package on my desk. It wasn't there when I sat down, and no one has entered the room since then. The smiley face drawn on the side fails to be reassuring.

No, consider it logically. Whichever Stranger left it could just as easily have attacked me directly, had they wished me harm. Let's see what they want.

Oh. It's the amulet that was stolen. And a note.

Spoiler: Letter

Dear Faultline,
Smith would prefer that his products not enter general circulation.
Please be more careful in the future.
Love,
Dog Burglar

It would seem that I owe a favor.

"Oh, and Panacea went nuts and took over Captain's Park."

"Did she now?"

"They're calling it the 'Grove of Flesh' now. No one has entered it and returned."

---

You consider the trees that have sprung up to cover Captain's Park. Bark red as blood, foliage black as sin. Deeper in, you spot glimpses of bone white as well. It's probably bone. You know, from the stripped corpses of those who tried to enter. A rustle among the leaves, and a bladed tentacle shoots out to spear a pigeon on the wing.

Yeah no, you're not going in there. "Panacea!" you shout. "I killed Burnscar!"

Then you wait.

After a couple of minutes, the mistress of the grove appears. She stops a fair distance away from you, as she refuses to leave the treeline and you refuse to get within blade-tentacle range.

"Panacea," she says musingly. "Do they still call me that?"

You shrug. "Dunno, I've been out of touch. Nice dress, by the way. Very meaty." You especially admire the skirt, which is slit dangerously high. Both in the sense that it shows a lot of leg, and in that said slit is lined with three-inch fangs. "Can you see out of its eyes?"

"No, but its reflexes are better than mine anyway. But enough pleasantries. You claim that Burnscar is dead by your hand?"

"Yes and no." You hold out your arm-stumps for inspection. "Which neatly segues into my purpose in coming here."

She narrows her eyes. "You seek a boon."

"I don't think a set of hands is an unreasonable price for avenging your sister. Do you? Oh, and if you could detach Bonesaw's control rods from my spine, that would be nice too."

She's silent as she considers this.

Panacea wants a loving family.

"You may approach," she says eventually. She rests a calming hand on her dress. "Don't make any sudden movements and it won't bite."

You approach, not entirely happily. But her domain, her rules. And it's not as if you won't be at her mercy anyway once she actually touches you. As you walk she caresses a nearby tree, coaxing it to bear fruit. Pulsating, veiny fruit, glistening and ripe with blood. Containing, no doubt, all the nutrients a fleshcrafter needs to craft flesh.

"Don't freak out when you recognize my biology," you request.

She raises a jaded eyebrow as she extends her hand. Her blasé attitude lasts right up until the moment she actually touches you.

"Ilsa!?" she squeaks. The trees rustle and her dress growls as they sense her agitation.

You sigh. You literally just told her not to freak out. "Must we be enemies, Panacea?" you ask instead. "Our every point of contention is dead. And some of them, avenged."

"Tell me how Burnscar died," she demands. So you do. She attaches a blood-fruit to each of your stumps and starts shaping them into hands while you speak.

The funny thing is, you can relate your entire interaction with the S9 without letting on that you're anything more than an uncannily perceptive Changer with mind-hands (and a minor Brute rating, and formerly a wolf companion). It's still more information than you'd like a non-minion to have, but it's the best you can do after she recognized you.

If only that deception didn't require you to leave sorcerer's sight off while she touches you. Will you ever get to actually study her power, that is so much better than you initially thought? Stupid impossible soul prices.

She remains stone-faced throughout your narration... right up until you relate how you approached Bonesaw with healing intent, in order to avoid waking Jack up prematurely. That provokes a small snort of amusement. Of course weaponized healing would speak to her.

"And then we got out of there before Dragon showed up, to avoid any kill order-related misunderstandings," you finish, carefully skipping over the exact mechanics of your escape.

"Jack and Bonesaw still live," she says.

"As far as I know - I imagine it would be all over the news if Dragon caught them."

"There," she says, taking her hands away from yours.

You flex your new fingers experimentally. "Close enough," you say. "A bit of shapeshifting will take care of the rest." Panacea grabs your hand again as you start shifting. You let her. Keeping her happy is a priority while you remain within blade-tentacle range. It's just... you purse your lips in annoyance. Figures that she gets to study your power today.

It occurs to you that you shouldn't let on that Poltergeist has hands again. After all, everyone already knows that neither Quicksilver nor Poltergeist could be Taylor, because they've been seen together courtesy of your clone. And now everyone will know that Quicksilver can't be Poltergeist, because Quicksilver has hands. You'll just have to design a new costume without arm holes before you go out as Poltergeist again, really play into the whole 'who needs (non-mind) hands?' bit.

Yes, there are now no less than three non-minions who know that Poltergeist is Taylor. But you don't imagine that Jack, Bonesaw or Nilbog 2.0 will cooperate with the authorities any time soon.

"Will you be going after Jack?" Panacea asks.

"My father remains unavenged."

She nods. "I'll remove the control rods. It's going to hurt."

"You could make it not hurt," you state.

"I could," she agrees. You suppose that answers your previous question. You must, it appears, be at least token enemies.

Spoiler: Aisha-o-vision

"I don't like this," Birdy says, twitching as Alec's power explores her body.

"Boss said you needed Master-proofing," I say. "Deal with it."

"Proofing? I'm being Mastered right now!"

"If you have a better way to counter the control rods in your spine, I'm all ears."

---

You finally track down Evil Taylor - or, should you even qualify her name like that any more? It's not as if anyone else has been Taylor for the last month. Anyway, you track her down. She is still bound to follow your orders or suffer a terrible fate, and the hundred-foot glass letters inquiring after 'Poltergeist's sister' were as impossible to miss as they were to misinterpret.

"What have you been up to, Taylor?" you ask.

She flinches when you speak the name. "I'm not Taylor, you are."

"I'd say we both-"

"I won't answer to it," she declares, crossing her arms.

"Suit yourself. What have you been up to, in your guise as Taylor?"

She shrugs, arms still folded. "Just doing Taylor things. Following your orders."

"You're still with the Empire?"

"They're not called that anymore. But yeah. Wear something white and I'll show you."

You turn into a generic caucasian girl and fall into step beside her. "How the hell did you fight off the Teeth, with all your capes dead?"

She looks at you like you're stupid. "Guns?"

Oh right. Forget mutagenic vials, with a few hundred dollars and a background check any American can get a Blaster power shockingly competitive with that of the median cape. You remember having those very thoughts back when you were all but powerless. And now that you're well above the median, it didn't even occur to you. Good lord, you've become cape bourgeoise!

But Evil Taylor is an all but powerless you, so of course she thought of it (though you suspect she skimped on the background checks). The Teeth aren't exactly median capes, but sufficient quantity has a quality all of its own. If the Empire drafted the able-bodied population, they'd have thousands of ghetto Blasters.

Indeed, Empire territory is now delineated by barricades manned by armed men. When they see you approach they quickly open a path for you.

"Lady Fenrir," the guy-in-charge says, standing at attention and offering a salute (roman).

"At ease," Evil Taylor says. "This isn't an inspection, I'm just showing my friend around the neighborhood."

He gives you a respectful nod. "Ma'am."

"You took over the Empire?" you demand incredulously as soon as you're out of earshot of the troops.

"Eh". She shrugs nonchalantly.

"But you're-"

"The sort-of dowager empress? A living martyr? The diplomat who prevented a civil war, and the mastermind who took down Coil with zero losses? Oh, and while Mastering me with emptiness endowment you stuffed me full of 'useless' rhetorical ability and administrative skill. Can't imagine why they'd turn to me, with no capes left."

'A teenage girl with no powers,' you were about to say. But when she puts it like that...

Spoiler: Insubordinate-o-vision, the other day

"I'll not take orders from a woman," I declare loudly.

The presumptuous little girl looks at me with no change in expression. "Everyone else, leave," she says calmly.

They do, just standing up and walking out without even a token protest. The fuck is wrong with them?

"Imagine not being red-pilled on cape brains," Sven mutters as he brushes past me, shaking his head. He shuts the door behind him.

The moment it closes, the lights flicker and die, leaving only dim illumination from the streetlights outside the window. I turn towards the girl, and- Pale skin, but more than that. A living corpse stands before me, unnatural, wrong. Eyes like black pits. She leers at me (are those fangs!?) and my instincts scream for me to get away, that there are monsters in this world and that I am prey.

As I stumble backwards, the mirror on the wall next to me shatters, unable to reflect her hideous visage. Blood seeps from the wall where it used to hang. I flee. Expecting to feel ice-cold claws in my back at any moment I wrench open the door, stumble through and slam it shut behind me.

The lights are on outside, and the guys are waiting for me like there was nothing wrong.

"She scare you straight?" Ryan asks, laughing. They're all laughing at me. Except Nate. Nate just meets my eyes, and offers the tiniest nod. He knows.

---

My sleep is restless, but the light of dawn brings clarity. None of that was real. She was a minion-type Master, not some sort of monster. She must have slipped me something, some fucked-up Tinker LSD. I'll denounce her at tonight's meeting.

---

She meets my eyes when I stand up, and smiles - a smile with just the tiniest hint of fang. I sit down again.

"What about Alabaster, though?" Last you saw him he was still alive - it's sort of his schtick.

She winces. "He... refuses to leave his house anymore. They- you saw what they did to him?" At your nod, she continues. "No one dared go near the thing, he was stuck there for days before he managed to free himself. I can't imagine..."

You boggle at your evil clone as she trails off into silence. "Was that empathy?"

"Yeah. You never gave a shit about him, so I'm capable of empathy in this case."

You walk in silence for a while as you ponder the finer points of evil clonehood.

"He's still pulling his weight," Evil Taylor says.

"Hm?"

"Alabaster. He's a really good gunsmith. Secondary Tinker 0 power kinda like ours."

"Figures," you say sourly.

"How's that?"

"It's obviously what I'd get instead of immortality if I tried to study him."

"Oh boo hoo, you only have Siberian for immortali-" Something must have shown on your face, because she stops. "No? What went wrong?"

"Haven't figured out how to trigger the transformation yet."

"Another Lung, huh? And it's not pact-sealing?"

"It's not pact-sealing."

"How unfortunate for you," she says happily. "How very, very unfortunate."

Eventually you reach what must be her headquarters. More salutes are exchanged as you make your way inside. She leads you into a conference room, where a dozen or so people are waiting. You recognize several of them from your days spent hanging out with the rank-and-file. None of them recognize you.

"Who's that?" Big Brain asks, tilting his head in your direction.

"A friend of mine," Evil Taylor says. "You may speak freely in her presence." She makes a gesture as if brushing the matter aside. "Let's get this meeting underway." They must trust her quite a bit, because they accept her non-explanation without question and get down to business.

The agenda is exactly what you'd expect from people running an empire. Reviewing their stores of food (low, but not critical) and ammunition (overflowing). Ditto for gasoline, medical supplies, etc, etc. Cash flow and expenses. Construction, patrols, casualties, recruitment... It's quite tedious.

When it's over, they all stand up simultaneously.

"The gods are dead," Evil Taylor intones.

"But Fenrir's Children will live forever!" her minions all chorus.

You can't help it. You break down in tears. Evil Taylor grins like a lunatic - for all of about half a second, before she feels your twice-sealed pact break. But aside from wiping the smile off her face, it doesn't seem to do anything.

"How the fuck did that count as a betrayal?" Evil Taylor grouses once you're alone again.

"How was it not? You orchestrated everything specifically to hurt me."

She chuckles. "Worth it. Welcome to Fenrir's Children."

Really, worth it? Is she forgetting that with the pact broken, you can now kill her without consequences? Fucking evil clones. Speaking of consequences...

"So, what does happen when you break an oath?" you ask. "I'd rather hoped you'd suffer painful stigmata, or be struck by lightning, or something."

"Karmic retribution, just like your emptiness endowment. I can feel the doom hanging over me now, waiting to strike."

You purse your lips. "I'll take it, I suppose. Have fun with that." If she keeps this shit up, you'll learn to take equal joy in her suffering soon enough.

"Oh," Evil Taylor says suddenly. "That's funny."

"What?"

"Nothing."

You shoot her an aggrieved look.

"I wish I was a better dancer," she says. Daring you to use emptiness endowment to command her to tell you.

You boop her with dancing. "Don't betray me again," you command instead. You shan't give her the satisfaction of asking. If it'd been important, she'd have kept quiet instead instead of baiting you like that.

===

Spoiler: A/N

Taking over a criminal gang. Fighting the Teeth to a standstill without cape support. Remaking the gang in your image just to spite someone you hate.

"What have you been up to?"

"Just doing Taylor things."

Spoiler: Mechanics corner

Abyssal exalts were made by the Neverborn (that which was killed but cannot die) to destroy all life and existence. Whenever they go against their purpose (by saving someone's life, for example) they gain Resonance, which must be regularly vented into various death-related SFX lest it build up to catastrophic levels and explode out uncontrollably, killing everything around the exalt and doing the Neverborn's work for them.

Since Evil Taylor is an Echidna-clone, the purpose she was made for is "destroy Taylor", and she's been racking up Resonance at a steady rate by instead acting as Taylor's minion. Like the filthy little munchkin she is, she's been venting it very strategically.

Answering to their original name also gives them Resonance. Livenaming an abyssal is very rude.

Spoiler: Aisha-o-vision

Hey. Are you listening? I guess you must be. So, uh, you gave the boss her hands back, yeah? Because she killed Burnscar. I mean, I don't want to brag, but I was pretty important to that operation too. She couldn't have done it without me.

I mean, maybe she could have. She is all kinds of of bullshit. But I played a role, you know? Without me she couldn't have done it like that. What I'm trying to say here is, um...

Could you maybe fix my arm too? Please?

...

Maybe you're not listening. Maybe the boss just waltzed straight in like she owned the place, because she's bullshit like that. I'm not gonna do that. I, like, respect your privacy and shit. And no way in hell am I getting any closer to the meat trees. Nuh uh. I know my limitations. I mean, I do now. Only cost me an arm.

Speaking of arms... I'm just saying, fixing mine would be a seriously decent thing to do. Because it hurts. It hurts all the time. Bonesaw made it so it hurts all the time and I'm thinking you don't really like Bonesaw and wouldn't you want to thwart her plans?

...

Sometimes I dream about it, you know? I dream that tendrils of it are growing into me and slowly turning me into another Crawler. And maybe that's not really happening but maybe it is and anyway it hurts. It hurts so bad and the boss knows it does but she doesn't say anything so I have to put up a brave front and...

Please? I'm sorry for coming here and crying on your front porch but... please?

...

I guess I'll just fuck off then. Thanks for listening at least. If you were listening.