Hide and Seek (Worm AU)

[Can'tthinkofaname]

Worm and its rights Belongs to Wildbow.

"I still cant believe that you did that, I can't believe you killed all of those people."

It was the day after the Simurgh attack in Canberra Australia. And I was talking to myself. Or rather, through myself, I was talking to 'her'.

"I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry.
It was a compulsion.
I tried to stop it, I hoped it would be enough with our connection.
I'm sorry."
-SHAME-

I received the emotions 'she' sent, sighing deeply and putting my head in my hands. I heard her screaming, not in aggression like everyone thought, but in pain, fear and rage at being controlled.

I could hear her in pain. An Endbringer, in pain.

I retreated deep into my mind with her brothers the day the attack was going on, luckily being home after schools let out when the warning first came in.

I locked my door, sat in my bed and cried for hours. I cried not just for the lives lost, but for the pity I had for my friends.

After meeting them and listening I realized they weren't in control. There was another mind, another presence that I could feel pressing lightly on my own, but could not communicate with. This was the maker, the controller, the destroyer who placed on the compulsions on the Endbringers. To fight when they are called, and to do other tasks. The Simurgh shot down satellites as they were put up. Leviathan sank boats that came too close.

They were almost like children, emotionally young, but each of them brilliant. They were afraid whenever their emotions and actions were stolen from them to be replaced by pure anger and destruction. They begged me, their only connection to anything other than each other and their only friend, to set them free. And I would.

This was just the first time that I had seen what they could do, and feel the effects that they had.
I laid in my bed and though about the promise I had made to them, months ago.

"I'll kill him for you. I promise"

-Hope-

If only I wasn't so afraid.

If only I could be a hero.

><​

When I had first realized what my powers were, I was scared. Nobody before me could talk to the endbringers. I quickly realized that they weren't that bad, as they spoke to me. God, the Simurgh would sing me lullabies as I fell asleep, and Behemoth would explode in anger every time the bullies did anything to me. Scientists were still baffled at the random small scale earthquakes he set off whenever that happened. Leviathan was quiet, but smart. He always knew what to say to comfort me. And he was the one who helped tutor me in the rest of my powers.

I started with Levi (my nickname for him, he loved it) since hydrokinesis was the 'least destructive/noticeable' of all of their abilities. Newfoundland would disagree. I would have thought telekinesis, until Sam (the Simurgh) told me trying to use it untrained would probably result in a massive impact crater until I got it under control. Or I would fly wildly. Yeah.

So, hydrokinesis. Levi told me that he mainly used macro hydrokinesis when fighting, but he also had fine control over water, down to the last molecule. So he had me start by making a ball of water. I took a while. I dipped into the soup of power that came along with my friends, and accessed the miniscule amount that would let me do his basic task. And I took too much power.

The massive cargo ship sinking back into the waves was attributed to the rusted steel finally giving out, but the accidental rouge wave I made in the submerged underbelly of the ship didn't help. So after a few days, I tried again. And took only the smallest amount of power possible from Leviathan. Cue awesome water powers, where I had fine control over all of the water in a small radius around me. I also could tell where all of the water was, like a sixth sense. I knew it wasn't quite as powerful as Levi's hydrokinesis, but I still had more power I hadn't yet dared tap into yet. And I could activate the water shadow on command, which could be far more useful than I thought.

Next was telekinesis. With the tutoring of Sam, I had a more basic idea of where to start. Once again, with the least amount of power possible. I still could manipulate pretty much anything within a fifty foot radius, just pushing or pulling on objects was the easiest though. Sam also showed me two of her lesser known powers. First was her pre/post cognition. For whatever reason, I only had about six second pre-cog, and only of things in my area. I could use postcognition more easily, but I needed a focus point. Using it was insane, being able to change my actions the moment I knew what was coming. She also taught me how to imitate tinkers with her telepathy. I didn't have actual telepathy unless I did something….more extreme. But with only a little effort, I could borrow the specialization of any tinker within a large radius, at least the size of the city. And although I hadn't built anything yet, my sketches already took up a whole notebook.

Finally, Behemoth, or Ben, as I liked to call him casually, showed me how to use his dynakinesis. He warned me that he had no Manton Limit at all, that the thirty foot radius thing was him holding back as much as he possibly could during battles. I questioned them, and they all confirmed what I thought, they were all holding back massive amounts of power. Any resistance they had against the force that set them against humanity was nearly futile, but they could still hold back. Ben warned me that his power was the easiest to lose control of, and to be extremely careful to shut down radiation production while using it. So the most it would probably ever get used for was shocking people and melting through doorways.

Finally, they told me the trump card. I had a changer form, that made my telepathy more effective and disguised me. I actually had three forms. I could turn into a mix of any of the Endbringers and my own body, thoroughly disguising me, and giving me similar biology and healing factors that they had.

><​

"I'm so sorry," Sam whispered to me again.

She knew why I was so upset, why I was so sad and angry. It wasn't just that she had killed hundreds, and quarantined thousands. It wasn't that there were over a hundred capes that had died. It was that it wasn't her fault, and nobody knew, and nobody would ever believe me.

"Its okay," I tried comforting her, little as I knew it would do. I wish I could hold her to me, wrapped in her wings in a hug, to let her know it wasn't her fault, that it would be okay. But I couldn't. Not without brining every cape everywhere down on me and anyone I knew.

I sighed, wiping a tear from the corner of my eye as I let Ben and Levi take over comforting their sister.

><​

I sat downstairs in my house, watching the news on the old tv set that occupied a corner, nestled in a worn brown shelf with books peeking out of the sides. I sat on the old worn couch, with my head up on one armrest and a blanket pulled up to my chin. I saw that a new villain group, The Undersiders, had raided a casino that was suspected of being run by the ABB. Small time escape and infiltration experts. Not bad. I had figured out I had some control over my transformations. Theo ne that I could disconnect the most from the endbringers would be a winged figure with the gray skin of Leviathan, so the wings looked almost skeletal, and some armored plates from Behemoth. It looked almost totally unlike the Endbringers, as long as one didn't think of them together. So yeah, it was still a risk, but I wanted to be a hero. That night, I wanted to go out.

None of my friends were against me being a hero. While they wanted me to stop the death and destruction that their controller was causing first, they knew I had wants and needs as well, and that if I saved people with their powers, it might make up for some of the destruction that they had caused. So, with their approval, I would go out that night.

><​

After donning the hood and jacket combo with wing and wave patterns that Levi had helped me design (who knew Leviathan had a fashion sense), and a blue and white mask, I began singing a lullaby like Sam does for me, to my father, making sure he would stay fast asleep and have good dreams. He would stay in that state until a few hours later, where he would phase into normal sleep and eventually wake up on his own.

I was ready.

Tugging lightly on my telekinesis, I opened my window and floated out and up, to look at my city from the sky. It was incredible. I had never flown so high before, and the lights looked amazing. I took a minute to watch before I started flying back and forth across the city, scanning with my telepathy as I did so.

"Look for conflict in the City, for battles that need to be fought for those too weak to fight them."
That was Levi. He wanted me to protect innocents.

"Look, over there, a fight is starting," Sam could use her telepathic abilities anywhere in the world, focusing on any area revealed the thoughts of the inhabitants to her. She mentally pointed me to the
"Lung. He fought me in Kyushu. I wish he had been able to send me off faster, before the whole island was lost". Levi sounded sad, like all of them did when they spoke of their past conflicts.

I hit my post cog to find out what was going on. In a whirlwind of info, I understood.

"He's hunting down the Undersiders because they robbed his casino," I spoke under my breath.

"Teenage Villains, they don't do any 'real' damage when they fight." Sam seemed to sound sympathetic. "You should stop Lung, if he ramps up he could cause massive damage. And kills the Undersiders."

It still amazed me how the Endbringers were so averse to killing anyone, despite their unbelievable body counts.
"Then lets kick some dragon ass," I said with a grin, diving to the ground while Behemoth's roar of approval echoed in my head.

><​

"These low thieves insulted us, made us look foolish. Nobody insults me. Nobody insults my gang."
Lung was giving a speech to his men, trying to pump them up, and failing. He wasn't exactly an inspirational speaker, and his gang were following him for his strength, not his ability to inspire.

"Then you're gonna hate this!"

Maybe diving into a head kick was not the best idea for a fight against one of the strongest brutes in the world, but damn it was exhilarating.

Lung fell backwards, my blow having been enhanced by behemoths strength. I was using his form underneath my skin, so that I would be stronger for this fight.

Lung staggered against the wall of a building, pushed back a few feet by the force of the hit. He grabbed the wall, his finger sinking in, as sounds of metal rasping against metal preceding scales breaking out across skin.

"Il kihl yugh", Lung growled, his mouth started to deform from his changes.

Then he roared, and I staggered back a little from the force of it, before putting a telekinetic wall around myself.

Lung rushed forward with another roar, charging me. I dodged, rolling across the asphalt, sliding under the burst of flame that Lung released. I felt the heat of its closeness sear my face. The flame hit one of the ABB members who had started backing away, quickly, boiling the unlucky gangbanger's skin. The smell of burning meat hit me. The man's flesh had melted from his face. I felt bile rise in my throat, suppressing a gag as the rest of the gang members ran away. I was stopped for a second, panting.
"Don't stop moving, don't let Lung hit you," Levi urged me on.

As if on cue, another furious roar came from the growing maw of Lung, shaking my bones and sending the rest of the Gang members running.

I spun, throwing up a wave of telekinetic force with a gesture, sideswiping Lung into another building to halt his incoming charge. Now covered in scales and eight feet tall, Lung had a crown of fire circling his head. He crawled out of the vaguely person shaped hole before roaring again.
This time, I was going to put him down.

Hard.

Bringing my hands together, I brought down a hammer of force on top of the Gang leader, forcing the ground under his feet down, and making his knees buckle. He amazingly didn't collapse. Swinging my arms through the air, I hit him with another wave of power, breaking the bones in his legs, sending bone shards flying through his thighs and splintering the bones in his feet, metallic scales bouncing off the pavement as they were torn from the body of the faux dragon. The bloody masses that used to be the legs of Lung sunk into the solid concrete. Lung screamed, the pain in his voice audible as his legs were crushed by his own body.

I winced at the bloody display. I hadn't really intended to do so much damage.
It looked like I had crushed his entire lower body, shattering every bone below his ribcage.
Even Lung couldn't stand up to that, and as his regeneration started pushing blood and bone shards out, his eyes rolled up into his head, the famous brute collapsed.

"Holy. Shit."

I spun, looking at three massive lizard-dog creatures growling down at me from a nearby rooftop. Each dog had a passenger, with one carrying two. There silhouettes were hard to outline from my point of view, but it looked like the one in purple and black had said that.

"Guys, we need to go, NOW". The girl spoke again, sounding scared. Of me?

"What are you talking about, lets talk to the cape who just saved our asses", that was the bulky guy in black leathers.

The girl in purple whispered to the group, then the dogs bolted.

"She knows about us, she's a thinker. She saw videos of my fights and recognized the telekinesis."
Sam was speaking quickly, she sounded almost panicked and scared.

"If they tell anybody about us, the Protectorate will hunt you down. You need to stop them, try to talk to them." For once Levi was panicking.

"But Lung-", I started.
"Armsmaster is coming to take care of Lung, and he's not in any shape to get up anytime soon. Just get after the Undersiders!."

Sam was practically yelling now, panicked.

I jumped in the air, flying in the same direction the Undersiders had dashed off to.

Scanning for them, I saw three dark shapes leaping over rooftops. As I started to catch up to them the one in black yelled to go faster.

"WAIT!" I tried to yell after them, get them to stop, but they had dived into an alley, trying to get away from me.

I needed to use my least favorite power.

-STOP-

I felt the command go through me, and into the dogs. They immediately followed the command, freezing just before they would leave my line of sight. It wasn't a command that needed to be followed, but for animals that had simple minds it was good enough, and they listened.

As I descended in the alley, I saw the other girl on the teenage villain team yelling for her dogs to move, while the rest of the team was trying to leave the alley, dashing out on foot.

I raised a wall of force at the entrance to the alley, and landed on the ground. The one in purple stopped the other two and they turned around to look at me. They looked ready for a fight.

I held my hands in the air, palms out and open.

"I don't want to hurt you." I said. Trying to stay calm. If they revealed me, I was screwed.

"Then how, the fuck, are you using The FUCKING SIMURGHS power!" The one in purple practically yelled at me. I quickly threw up a bubble of force to stop the sound from getting out and alerting others to our presence.

"It's a long story. To put it simply, I had a pretty bad day and then I had some friends who I could talk to, and borrow power when I need it. They encouraged me to be a hero, and, I saw Lung, and, well, stopped him. Sorry I saved your asses I guess."

"Wait, they, the Endbingers, they don't, you mean..." The girl in purple trailed off, getting more and more quiet.

"They don't want to do it? It's not them?" She finished her sentence, staring at me in disbelief.
I nodded.

"They're my only friends, I don't know what I would have done without them. I call them Ben, Levi and Sam, and they are nicer and more caring than anyone else I have ever met. They are under control, a master, or something. The don't want to do anything like their attacks, but they have no choice. Its, its, …" I dropped off, some tears coming to my eyes.

My friends sent me comforting emotions, and for not the first time, I wished I could hold them.
"Fuck me." The last member of the group, wearing a lace shirt and carrying a scepter. "Youre saying they're fucking innocent!"

"Yeah," I said weakly, slumping forward a bit. "I guess I am".

The dog girl had stopped comforting her animals and was watching me warily. The girl in purple stepped forward, hesitated for a moment and started walking towards me. In a few seconds, she held my limp hand and after hesitating again, gave me a weak hug. She was trembling. I was too. I awkwardly wrapped my arms around her, realizing belatedly that this was the first time I had had a hug in months.
I started to cry, and pressed my head into the young supervillains' shoulders. I could feel the eyes of the whole group on me. I dropped to my knees, taking the young thinker with me. I started to sob in earnest. She let me.

I cried for what seemed like an hour, with most of the Undersiders staring at me in disbelief. Tattletale, the girl in purple, was still holding me.

I finally stood up.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, uh, cry on you. Yeah." I felt awful, but the positive and supportive emotions my friends were sending me helped.

"Don't worry about it," Tattletale grinned as she spoke, and it seemed completely natural, despite it being the first time I saw her smile.

She pulled at her domino mask, and it came off with a tug.

"I'm Lisa". She said simply, then gestured behind her back for them to take off their masks too, "and its nice to meet you.

"Rachel." The dog girl, Hellhound, said gruffly, tossing away her plastic dog mask as she took it off.
"Alec, at your service," the smaller boy, Regent, deftly used his scepter to swipe off his mask. He faked an accent.

"I'm Brian," The big guy in black slid off his motorcycle helmet with a jerk.

Oh. This was big. People didn't unmask to each other casually. Crap.

"Uh, I'm Taylor." I said softly. I sounded almost afraid. I slid my mask off of my face to look over the Undersiders.

"Hello. Thank you for trusting her, we really do care."

The Undersiders all reeled back in shock, and I knew that the voice wasn't just it my head.

"Saaaammm. What did I tell you about talking to people in their heads. You know they don't like it."

"Sorry". She sent apologetic emotions, but I could feel amusement leaking off of her and Levi. It appeared Ben was dormant right now, their version of sleeping.

"O-Kay." Lisa seemed more than a little shock, while everyone else looked dumbstruck.

"She does that sometimes," I explained. "Although, I told her not to talk to any people. Although I guess she might be lonely with only me and her brothers to talk to. Actually, she's kind of a cape geek, posts on PHO and stuff."

Everyone's jaw dropped a little further.

"Okaaay. Well, the sun is coming up in about an hour, and I think that you might want to get home." Lisa was still doing the talking. "Here's a burner phone with my number, in case you want to talk." She tossed it to me. "and can you take down the forcefield so we can go?" She asked, grin still on her face, looking almost foxlike.

"Oh. Oh yeah. Here. And see you later, I guess." I said, slowly, realizing that I should get home before dad woke up.

"Bye!" Lisa turned and walked away with the rest of the Undersiders, while I dropped the field. I slid my mask back on, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Okay. Time to go home.

><​

Unseen by the tired cape on her first night out, a shadow flitted away from where it had been watching the conversation, sliding through and between walls and out of sight.

---

AN: Okay. So this is my first attempt at posting any attempt of writing, pretty much anywhere. So please be gentle with critiscims. Yeah, this is pretty rough stuff, but hey, I tried. Working long days other excuses. Pretty much this chapter is setting up the premise. It really was hard to right, since I am looking forward to the next few I intend to write. I hopefully will have those up by the end of the week.They should be fun.

Other things, if anyone wants to proofread this for me, or anything else I write, just tell me in a comment. And yes, I know my grammar and spelling are awful. If there are any huge typos please let me know.

One more thing, Im taking huge inspiration from the fanfic, "With Friends Like These", over at Spacebattes. Read it, its excellent.

 

[doomlord9]

An interesting fic. Kinda info-dumpy in places and it moves a little fast, but could be interesting. I'm not the one to talk to on how to fix those issues though, I have the same problem whenever I try to write.

 

[Can'tthinkofaname]

Thanks. It is my first try, and I didnt think about the intro too much. I just wanted to get it out of the way so I could get onto the meat of the story. The next chapter should be much slower, but more action packed, if that makes sense at all.

 

[Myriad]

I like this premise.
I like this premise a lot.

I also enjoyed reading this and look forward to more

First order of business -- take any of my advice with a few grains of salt since I have pretty much zero experience writing stories.

---

Second order of business -- I'ma be a Critic anyways

I agree with doomlord9 about the info-dumpiness, specifically when the EBs are describing there powers to Taylor. For example you could probably leave out explicitly stating that Levi can do fine-control water manipulation, and instead leave that as an implication of Taylor getting fine-control hydrokinesis when she uses his power. I don't mind reading info dumps, but I'm also the guy who has actually read the manual for my car stereo so I'm probably not in the majority here.

The current formatting of paragraphs makes the story a little hard to read, maybe add a space between paragraphs with a bit of additional space between the "><" scene change markers. Also, your "><"marks start out centered but you started leaving them left-aligned about 1/3 of the way through.

It appeared Benny was dormant right now, their version of sleeping.

Click to shrink...

You referred to Ben as Benny exactly once. Since there is another Friendbringer fic that mostly uses Benny as the name I'm not sure if this is a mistake or if Taylor actually thinks of Behemoth with both names interchangeably, but I thought I'd a least point it out.

My last bit of criticism is definitely colored by my own opinions on Tattletale's character and definitely makes her more difficult to write so feel free to ignore it. A lot of author's write Lisa so she knows exactly what she needs to know to progress the plot, but they don't pay attention to whether she's likely to have actually had the information to figure out the plot relevant info. In this case it felt like she calmed down a bit too quickly. It really feels like she should have asked a few probing questions or made some comments to fish for more info for her power after being stopped (by Taylor mind whammy-ing the dogs no less, which Lisa would likely connect with the possibility that Taylor could probably do the same to them) and before finally calming down and effectively extending her and her teammate's trust to the Simurgh.

---

Third order of business -- Speculation and questions, mostly questions.

Unseen by the tired cape on her first night out, a shadow flitted away from where it had been watching the conversation, sliding through and between walls and out of sight.

Click to shrink...

Assuming Shadow Stalker since the powers match... dammit Shadow Stalker.
How much did Shadow Stalker get from the conversation? Taylor had used a bubble of force to contain the noise of Tattletales outburst, was that something she maintained during the conversation or was it a one time action to prevent that one line of dialogue from escaping? Was Shadow Stalker inside the bubble and thus heard everything? Did Ziz notice and decide to let it happen because her precog said things worked out fine?

I'm also curious what limitations the EBs are still under in regards to assisting Taylor. Ziz seemed to use her precog to know she needed to have Taylor follow the Undersiders to prevent bad stuff from happening, yet she apparently didn't stop the bullying.


edit: fixed some their/there/they're mistakes I made at 3am in the morning. G'night.

 

[Can'tthinkofaname]

First off, thank you for reading and enjoying.

It is Ben not Benny, that was an accident, fixed it. A couple of things got changed somehow in the paste between microsoft word and here, including paragraph breaks and italics, I'll double check that. Thank you for your criticism.

The reason its a little info dumpy is because one of my pet peeves is authors not explaining a power fully or correctly, then the character pulls something that should not have been possible with their current skillset. In general I like having readers being able to guess whats coming next with the not so subtle cues I drop.

Something I was and still am worried about it characterization during dialogue. I spent a few days agonizing over this before deciding to just post it, because nothing better was coming to me. I was thinking about the rest of the plot way more so I hope that turns out better as well. And there is a reason she figured stuff out so quickly with her powers, it will be adressed soon. Probably.

Also a side note, I'm going to make Ziz pre-cog not infallible unless she is really focusing on something, which will be rare, or if she is currently enraged. Just so the plot can progress
reasonably. She was actually focusing on something else at this time. Once again, that will be explained more as time progresses.

Thank you again for reading.

 

[the DragonBard]

Has Taylor asked Sam about why Emma betrayed her?

Ideas of how to get her to back off, if not brought to justice?

Also, can she tap the powers of any of the others, or is she aware of the others.

Can she replicate Endbringer durability?

 

[Can'tthinkofaname]

Has Taylor asked Sam about why Emma betrayed her?

Ideas of how to get her to back off, if not brought to justice?

Also, can she tap the powers of any of the others, or is she aware of the others.

Can she replicate Endbringer durability?

Click to shrink...

No, never asked about Emma. Not something that ever really came up, by that I mean I havnt really thought about that yet.

She can tap into all of the other powers and replicate thier durability, all is in the second paragraph/section/thing.

 

[the DragonBard]

This makes Taylor one of the most powerful Parahumans of them all. A Master/Trump

Can't wait for the next chapter.

Maybe she can activate Tohu early, and prevent Eidolon from sending him out.

Taylor should really use Sam's Thinker power to figure out why Emma went bad, and how to stop the bullying.

 

[Master of Squirrel-fu]

Before anything you need to fix the formatting so it double spaces.

 

[Can'tthinkofaname]

Before anything you need to fix the formatting so it double spaces.

Click to shrink...

Is there an easy way to do that coming from Microsoft Word or is it just manual? There were some weird formatting things that happened during the switch.

 

[doomlord9]

Is there an easy way to do that coming from Microsoft Word or is it just manual? There were some weird formatting things that happened during the switch.

Click to shrink...

Try using the rich text editor? It should be at the bottom left below the reply box if you can actually see the BB code like [ b][ /b] for bold rather than it just being bold.

That's what my 30 sec google crawl on the problem tells me anyway.

 

[Throne3d]

Is there an easy way to do that coming from Microsoft Word or is it just manual? There were some weird formatting things that happened during the switch.

Click to shrink...

Within Word, if you use Ctrl+H, it should open a find and replace dialog. Within this, you can use special codes (like ^p for "paragraph mark"), and, for example, "find: ^p", "replace with: ^p^p", meaning that you get a double line between manual line-breaks between the paragraphs.

If there's bold or something missing, like doomlord9 is talking about, I'm not really sure how you'd go about it other than manually. It should (hopefully?) automatically appear though, as QQ seems to use a rich text editor / WYSIWYG input thing, and they tend to automatically recognise that sort of thing when copying and pasting from other programs (e.g. Word).

 

[Can'tthinkofaname]

Fixed the formatting, and found a way to make it not change in the transition. Anything I missed?

 

[Can'tthinkofaname]

I walked to school, feeling better than I had in weeks. It was Wednesday, five days after I had first met the teenage villains that worked as the Undersiders. Since then, I had met with Lisa three times, once with the rest of the team. It felt amazing to have a friend again, especially one who I could confide in. I hadn't had a real friend for years, since Emma's betrayal. Especially one I could talk to about the Endbringers. It helped me learn about the laws and rules of capes. Often called the Unwritten Rules, they mostly had to do with how capes acted towards each other with their civilian identities. Simply, capes didn't out other capes, and neither did the PRT. That was relieving, especially after giving my identity to the Undersiders. Lisa told me I should still be careful and make sure nobody knew who I was. I promised I would.

Dad was still distant, but seemed happier now that I was. Any improvement was good, and it was nice to talk to someone at home rather than being stuck in my room with my friends.

><
It was strange. Nobody was looking at me today. I checked myself over again. Nothing was wrong, as far as I could tell. Even weirder, the trio hadn't done anything to me yet. I tried to feel good about that. This would be the third day in a row they ignored me, aside from Sophia's glares as I walked down the hallway.

Nobody was talking to each other, they were just walking in the hallways, some even going past their classes.

What the hell was going on?

"TAYLOR. GET OUT. NOW." Sam yelled, almost screamed at me, and I stumbled, almost falling on my way to computer class.

"What's happening?" I whispered angrily.

"they know."

I scanned the school with my telepathy, and froze. They all were thinking the same thing. All of them.

-"Act normal, act normal, act normal"-

It was being echoed around me, like there was a source sending them to everyone. Everyone, except Sophia.

-"Finally going to get what you deserve, weakling"-

I turned, and looked back, staring at Sophia.

She knew.

I ran, making towards the exit.

-"Dammit, what happened! Stop her!"-

Everyone started to collapse. Their bodies started to turn into bloody mush and run into the floor like a messy soup. Everyone except Sophia.

Sam was screaming now, blasting advice into my head. I was taking the long way to the exit, at her insistence.

"Duck!" She yelled, the word echoing in my mind. As if on cue, a crossbow bolt nailed the wall in front of me.

"OUT, NOW!" Ben roared. I tugged on his power and shattered a window with kinetic energy, diving out of it a second later, using telekinesis to extend my jump and slow my fall, rolling to a stop on the lawn of the school.

I looked around. I saw something that was extremely rare, usually reserved for emergencies. I saw the Triumvirate, and every major protectorate leader assembled in front of Winslow High School.

"Fuck,"

---

AN: Teaser for full chapter later today. Assume conversations with Lisa fully covered Unwritten rules, tirgger events, etc etc.

 

[jrbless]

This should be good. I see a couple of ways this could have happened:

1. Lisa broke the unwritten rules herself because Taylor is way too powerful/dangerous.
2. Coil tortured the information out of Lisa, and also decided Taylor is way too powerful/dangerous.
3. Taylor is loosing her mind from sharing it with the Endbringers and this is all a hallucination.

Of these, I see option 2 as the most likely because Coil has his own plans for Brockton Bay, and having someone with the power of all the Endbringers is most certainly not part of those plans.

As far as where it can go, it seems that a fight with the Triumvirate and Protectorate would end badly for everyone. In the end, Brockton Bay would resemble a hole in the ground filled with radioactive water. If the "heroes" behave rationally and try talking first, they are likely to try press-ganging her into the Wards. With Taylor's distrust of authority, this will not end well.

Whether or not a full-scale fight breaks out, they don't have enough firepower to force her to do anything she doesn't want to. Especially when you consider that the powers she's used so far are very much sandbagging her (and the Endbringers) real capabilities. Let's look at possibilities for if the Endbringers decided to go all in:

• Leviathan starts his attack with a 500+ foot tall tsunami being thrown at the opposing capes. Then he acts like a super-powered Skitter and has water clones rampage around while he safely waits in the ocean some distance away, working at eroding whatever ground-water sources there are. Periodically he sends additional giant tsunamis.
• Behemoth starts by cranking up the insta-kill radius from the sandbagging 30 foot radius to a 300 yard radius. Everything in a short radius gets a nice glow-in-the-dark radioactive look. Any *kinetic force that manages to hit him is just turned into more energy that he can use. Think of a battery that recharges by getting hit.
• The Simurgh shows her true powers of telekinesis. Entire buildings ripped from their foundation and tossed around like tinker toys. Endbringer shelters become bowling balls. With fine telekinetic control at range, all electronic gear stops working because the power cells exploded. Internal organs just get turned into jelly while inside of people. I'm presuming the Simurgh is not Manton-limited and her "telepathic time bombs" are actually the result of very-fine telekinetic control re-writing peoples brains.

Now give this power to a bullied 15 year old girl who has every reason to distrust anyone in an authority position. If you are the "authorities", what do you do?

 

[Can'tthinkofaname]

Much more obvious than the three options you present, I don't happen to be that subtle. Re-read the last few sentances of the first post.

 

[doomlord9]

The problem I have with that scenario is that they're acting too soon with too much force.

All they would currently have is a report from Shadow Stalker about the alley meeting and TT screaming about a girl who control the Endbringers, and maybe from Lisa if she tattled. She wouldn't be the first and she won't be the last to make such a claim though.

The Endbringers and everything about them in general are immune to shard based pre-cog and perception so their thinkers would get at best a blank when trying to find out, Lisa is the exception because her power is pointed at her own brain and works from there to give her conclusions about what her own senses have recorded. Suspicious yes, but she wouldn't be the first pre-cog blank out there.

It would warrant investigation, but not a full scale Endbringer task force being mobilized.

 

[Can'tthinkofaname]

There will be more explanation later, but I'll explain their motivations as I see it. The Emdbringers have killed, directly or through the results of their actions, almost or over a billion people. They are walking (swimming, flying) genocides every three months. Any related threat will be dealt with with extreme prejudice.

 

[Ack]

So ... the people all turning to mush, is that because they weren't really people, just dummies walking around, or did everyone just get killed at once?

Either way, why didn't Sammy pick this up a lot earlier?

 

[Ack]

There will be more explanation later, but I'll explain their motivations as I see it. The Emdbringers have killed, directly or through the results of their actions, almost or over a billion people. They are walking (swimming, flying) genocides every three months. Any related threat will be dealt with with extreme prejudice.

Click to shrink...

Not even close to a billion.
Fifty-odd attacks over almost twenty years. Even if they kill a million people either directly or indirectly per attack (which is fairly improbable) that's fifty million people.

I call 'nope'.

Just as an example: Leviathan hit Brockton Bay. It had 350,000 people. Most of those survived the attack. Say a hundred thousand people died, maximum, during or after the attack. If that's an average figure for an Endbringer attack, we're looking at five or six million people, total.

Which is still a fucking horrifying number, but not a billion. Nowhere near.


EDIT: And wow. Sophia is calling someone who can call on the power of the Endbringers a 'weakling'.

Fucking wow.

To be honest? I'd have her approach Taylor. She's now the ultimate survivor, the ultimate predator.

Let Taylor deal with that problem.

But then, I did that in Advent of a Hero, so meh

 

[jrbless]

Much more obvious than the three options you present, I don't happen to be that subtle. Re-read the last few sentances of the first post.

Click to shrink...

Doh! I didn't see that snippet that shows Shadow Stalker as a snitch.

 

[Can'tthinkofaname]

So ... the people all turning to mush, is that because they weren't really people, just dummies walking around, or did everyone just get killed at once?

Either way, why didn't Sammy pick this up a lot earlier?

Click to shrink...

I commented earlier, but Sam doesnt really just pick things up unless she focuses on them. Going to school didnt really require focus at the time. She doesn't creep on Taylor like that frequently. Enraged state is the exception. Also, I probably fucked up my description of Satyrical's power, but meh, not the most important plot point.

Not even close to a billion.
Fifty-odd attacks over almost twenty years. Even if they kill a million people either directly or indirectly per attack (which is fairly improbable) that's fifty million people.

I call 'nope'.

Click to shrink...

You have done way more research than I have on the subject, so I'll default to you for this kind of statisitic. I personally think you're still lowballing the statistics a lot. But, even that kind of number is way above any other genocide/parahuman serial killer. So anything having to do with the endbringers is still top priority.

And wow. Sophia is calling someone who can call on the power of the Endbringers a 'weakling'.

Fucking wow.

To be honest? I'd have her approach Taylor. She's now the ultimate survivor, the ultimate predator.

Let Taylor deal with that problem.

Click to shrink...

Honestly, its just Sophia tryng to pump herself up instead of part of her survival mentality. Ill just say she's gonna need serious therapy after the next chapter.

 

[Can'tthinkofaname]

"Taylor Hebert, you are under arrest for working with mass murderers. Come quietly or we will be forced to use lethal force." Legend looked calm as he spoke, but I could feel the panic and fear behind his words, so carefully hidden behind a facade of power.

I stared at him. I was almost in disbelief. I literally could not believe this was happening. Did the Undersiders betray me? I used my post cognition, focusing on my identity.

><​

An image of Sophia. "Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention Shadow Stalker, we are going to need all of our resources to take care of what appears to be the master of the Endbringers."

Another of a shadow floating away from the alleyway it had hid in, new information in its brain.

Another of Legend briefing the protectorate leaders on me and my suspected abilities.

Another of Shadow Stalker's debriefing. "She said she was responsible for all of the Endbringer attacks, that she was the source.

><
​

I pulled my mind out of post cognition and into those of the protectorate. Every brain showed fear, even those of Eidolon, Alexandria and Legend. The most powerful heroes in the world were terrified of me.

I laughed, no humor in my voice. They were ready to kill me, and I hadn't done anything to any of them.

"What happened to secret identities staying secret?" I asked. "Unwritten rules need not apply?"

"You are too dangerous to risk going after any other way." Alexandria stated. Alexandria. My childhood hero, the one who I wanted to model my life after.

I opened my mouth to speak again, but before I could, a bolt went into the back of my head, phasing into my skull and reforming inside of my brain. Or where my brain would have been if I hadn't just changed my physiology into that of an Endbringer.

Turning slowly, I saw Sophia, in her shadow stalker costume, standing in the window I had jumped from.

I was strangely calm about that. I suppose being assaulted by the most powerful heroes in the world will do that.

I smiled, well aware of the arrowhead sticking out of my eye.

I pulled, dragging her out of the window, into the air. I turned back to the protectorate, and dropped Shadow Stalker to the ground. Every protectorate member tried to move forward, only to find they couldn't. I had frozen each of their costumes with telekinesis.

"Well. This is interesting, Legend. I wonder what Arthur would think of this."

Immediately every hero froze. Legend most of all. From looking at their briefing, they hadn't known they full extent of my telepathy. Now they did.

"Don't. You. Dare." Legend spoke, spitting each word. He seemed furious.

Good. I was.

"Dare what? Dare do to you what you did to me. Take my dad to PRT containment, threaten to send a non-parahuman to the birdcage? Do THAT. Reveal my identity to the world, as you are doing currently. The only thing I would DARE not do is do the same. Nobody can hear us but you. Heroes." I spoke, disdainful, angry, but calm.

Sam was feeding me most of this, talking almost too fast for me to understand. Telling me what to say, who to look at when, what posture was most intimidating. All the while, I was putting more and more pressure on Sophia, enough to hurt, not enough to cause damage. Not permanent damage, at least.

Every hero was trying to move and failing. Eidolon was desperately searching for a power, Alexandria couldn't move, and Legend was shaking, angry and terrified.

"Well guess what. Your precious ward lied to you. I know why the Endbringers attack. I know it's a master. I'm going to find whoever it is, and END them. And I won't let you stop me."

It was almost time for my grand exit. Might as well press my advantages then. I shattered Sophia's spine, carefully, slowly, painfully, and completely non-lethally.

Her screams made everyone wince. Except me. My mouth twitched in a smile. I probably wouldn't be enjoying this so much if I didn't already know how it was going to end. That would be with Panacea healing her. Heh. I wonder how many more she was going to have to heal. Oh wait. I knew.

At that moment, Eidolon found his powers. I wasn't totally sure what they were, but they let him break free of my hold on him. I let him.

He yelled, and tried to blast me with a green light from both hands. I sidestepped, so much like the Simurgh might have done during any one of their battles. Pushing on his body with my mind, I found the invincibility he had chosen was only skin level. So I shredded his leg muscles, like pulling apart cooked pasta. His screams actually made me twitch.

I would defiantly be freaking out if I didn't know he was going to be healed, or if I wasn't so pissed.

Legend turned to light, and shot towards me. Eight of his lasers, all on full power hit me at once. Five were standard kinetic energy, one was cooling and two more were heat based. I turned them into electricity and fired a solid bolt of lightning in the air, where it made a right angle and struck Legend, knocking him off course, and into the ground.

Armsmaster, Dragon and the other tinkers present in power armor suddenly found all of their hydraulic systems had torn their onboard computers apart, freezing them in place.

I stripped Chevalier of his golden armor. Rime, Myrrdrin and other flyers were pulled to the ground, where bolts of lightning tased them one by one, enough to paralyze them, not enough to knock them out. I wanted all of them to see what came next.

Alexandria was the only one left standing. I couldn't touch her, but I froze all of her costume so she couldn't move, pressing down on her with the force of a mountain.

I spoke directly into her mind.

-It's over Rebecca-

Her muscles gave, and I let her slump to the ground, her angry expression turning into one of defeat.

She fell, kneeling, onto the well-kept grass lawn of Winslow High.

"Now, I think I'll get going."

Then, without any warnings for the hero's, the Endbringer Sirens went off.

"So." I started to float into the air, slowly rising above the heads of those present, "Every time you go after me, this is going to happen. I will beat you. All of you. And probably injure a few of you quite seriously. Because of that I am going to recommend you stay away from me. For good."

And with that, a scream pierced the minds of every person present, and the whole of the city.

The Simurgh fell out of the sky, wings and arms open, mouth open in a grimace, screaming. She dived towards me, and the assembled Heroes.
I raised my arms, and let go of my telekinesis.

As I fell, Sam caught me, light as a feather. She carried me up, and over the bay. We pierced the clouds just over the protectorate base, and into the sky. As we left, I sent one person, one last thought.

-I'm sorry Dad-

---

AN: So. That Happened. This is much different than how I origionally planned. I first envisioned this with Taylor revealing the identities of everyone present, and the only people there would be the BB protectorate. Then I added the Triumverate, and the whole plot changed a little. So I hope you all enjoy this chapter, so I can get on to the meat of the story.

 

[jrbless]

About how I expected. Not a smoking wreck of a town, but also not a "Taylor joins the Wards" thing. I wonder who at the PRT/Protectorate/Triumvirate was holding the idiot ball to say she was controlling the Endbringers when Behemoth has been around since before Taylor was born. Or that younger Taylor was thinking she was playing in the bathtub while Leviathan was sinking Kyushu or Newfoundland. Or that she was playing in the sandbox while Behemoth did his thing somewhere else.

 

[Peanuckle]

Whoo! Nice to see a confronted Taylor just say "fuck it" and let loose. It would've been possible for her to go with them and explain that she triggered and seized control rather than made them, but then she's got the problem of a gilded cage.

Hope Sophia gets thrown to the wolves for this.

 

[Can'tthinkofaname]

About how I expected. Not a smoking wreck of a town, but also not a "Taylor joins the Wards" thing. I wonder who at the PRT/Protectorate/Triumvirate was holding the idiot ball to say she was controlling the Endbringers when Behemoth has been around since before Taylor was born. Or that younger Taylor was thinking she was playing in the bathtub while Leviathan was sinking Kyushu or Newfoundland. Or that she was playing in the sandbox while Behemoth did his thing somewhere else.

Click to shrink...

Irrationality due to panic and fear, mostly because of the destructive powers of an endbringer in a little girl. And because plot.

Whoo! Nice to see a confronted Taylor just say "fuck it" and let loose. It would've been possible for her to go with them and explain that she triggered and seized control rather than made them, but then she's got the problem of a gilded cage.

Hope Sophia gets thrown to the wolves for this.

Click to shrink...

My whole goal for this scene was to do the most dramatic Taylor reveal ever, which didn't quite happen the way I wanted, but was close enough to make me happy. Also, most of her actions here really arn't her base personality, its more listening to Sam's advice and being super pissed.

 

[doomlord9]

Irrationality due to panic and fear, mostly because of the destructive powers of an endbringer in a little girl. And because plot Contessa

Click to shrink...

FTFY.

This would work if pre-cog only fails when she changes to EB biology though. What PtV would be good enough to make Taylor pissed at the PRT I'm not sure I want to know but that's the only reason I can see for Alexandria to fail her spot-check on the age difference between Behemoth and Taylor. Her thinker rating is too high for it to not be noticed except intentionally.

 

[Daunmi]

So I hope you all enjoy this chapter, so I can get on to the meat of the story.

Click to shrink...

Threadmarks or index so people can navigate through your story would be a good idea. Start doing it now, before you have a lot of chapters to go back and find/add.

This would work if pre-cog only fails when she changes to EB biology though. What PtV would be good enough to make Taylor pissed at the PRT I'm not sure I want to know but that's the only reason I can see for Alexandria to fail her spot-check on the age difference between Behemoth and Taylor. Her thinker rating is too high for it to not be noticed except intentionally.

Click to shrink...

Contessa and friends may be aware of the whole conversation Sophia overheard. 'Path to repeating back what Sophia Hess heard the other night' would let her know that Taylor (and the Undersiders, now) know there is a master controling the Endbringers. Best way to find someone in hiding is to flush them out, so having an angry teenager out for their blood will do that.


I know! Lets fuck her life up. That annoys people!

Cauldron want weapons against Scion. If they can get the Endbringers involved, that's a pretty big bonus.

 

[Snake/Eater]

this is like the Hulk and but at least Taylor isn't alone like Banner..i'm going to post the lonely man theme from the Incredible Hulk.

Leave Taylor alone!
Taylor smash!

Spoiler: The lonely (Wo)man

 

[Ack]

I commented earlier, but Sam doesnt really just pick things up unless she focuses on them. Going to school didnt really require focus at the time. She doesn't creep on Taylor like that frequently. Enraged state is the exception. Also, I probably fucked up my description of Satyrical's power, but meh, not the most important plot point.



You have done way more research than I have on the subject, so I'll default to you for this kind of statisitic. I personally think you're still lowballing the statistics a lot. But, even that kind of number is way above any other genocide/parahuman serial killer. So anything having to do with the endbringers is still top priority.




Honestly, its just Sophia tryng to pump herself up instead of part of her survival mentality. Ill just say she's gonna need serious therapy after the next chapter.

Click to shrink...

Ah, Satyrical. Was wondering.

The exact figure is 56 attacks before Behemoth is killed.

The damage they do is highly variable; sinking Kyshu killed millions, but never before or since was he able to have that many victims available. Brockton Bay was 100K or less.

In order to reach the billion mark, they'd have to average 20 million per attack. That's the population of Australia.

She's gonna need more than therapy. She's also gonna need a good lawyer once they realise that she pointed them at Taylor with a lie.