It Gets Worse [Worm AU Fanfic] Complete

It Gets Worse
The Timeline

January 3
Taylor Hebert is locked in her locker with highly unpleasant materials. She triggers with powers.

Larry Calhoun tries to arrest Frederickson but fails. Frederickson is incapacitated. The case against The Russian falls through.

Taylor speaks to Detective Larry Calhoun about her ordeal, and who caused it.

Mary Worthington gives Katarina Aramis a cold. She passes it on to her husband James.

Joe Pullman decides to hold a Chicken Festival.


January 4
Undercover police officers are placed in Winslow.

A dozen caterpillars make their chrysalises in a pianola in Carlsbad, California.


January 5
James Aramis, stuck at home with a cold, is inspired by a Western to set up a new exhibition in the Forsberg Gallery, with the theme of old-time artisanship.

Joe Pullman gets permission from Roy Christner to hold the Chicken Festival.


January 6
The Russian discovers that he's incredibly lucky by killing six attackers, each with a single shot.


January 7
L33t builds the Weird Shit O Meter to determine if he's really afflicted with bad luck.


January 9
L33t discovers that the WSoM works.


January 10
Taylor returns to school. Emma, Sophia and Madison immediately begin plotting against her.
Some of their friends try to get her in dodge-ball, but this backfires on them.
Sophia tries to grab her clothes while she's showering after, but she's dropped the soap and Sophia slips on it.
Madison tries to dump pencil shavings on her in World Affairs, but the boy in front drops his pencil and Madison slips on it.
Emma, Madison and Sophia try to get her with water-balloons. Emma drops a balloon and Sophia steps in the puddle. The soap on her shoe makes her slip over, and she trips and falls on the other two. The water balloons soak all three of them.


January 11
Emma, Sophia and Madison trap Taylor in the bathroom and try to soak her with juice. The toilet seats they're standing on come off at the worst possible moment, causing them to soak themselves and get stuck. Sophia slips in spilled juice and falls over, letting Taylor out of the cubicle.

At the end of school, Sophia has several boys chase Taylor with duct tape. She goes along as well. They trip and end up wrapping themselves up in the duct tape. Other students soon see this and pictures are taken. Some random guy steals Sophia's phone.
When Sophia is released, she finds out that one of the other guys was prodding her with something that wasn't a pocket knife. She beats crap out of him.

Taylor goes home and thinks about this, coming to the conclusion that she's a cape.

Sophia goes to Director Piggot in an attempt to hang Master crimes on Taylor. She is thwarted in the following ways:
Phone call
Wrong number
Deputy Director interrupt
Email
Endbringer sirens (false alarm)
Broken pencil
Faulty pen (out of ink)
Another faulty pen (nib came off)
Piggot's own pen (came apart)
Aegis interrupt (came through the window and put Sophia through the wall)

As Piggot is getting the idea something is going on, Danny and Taylor show up to talk about it.
Emily listens to their story, tests the hypothesis, then tells Taylor she's definitely a cape. She decides not to invite Taylor into the Wards when a bug flies into her mouth.

When they leave, she calls Armsmaster and has him start an investigation into Shadow Stalker.

Danny leaves Taylor at home and goes to work. He finds some irregularities and ends up putting a Lee Adamson (E88 mole) on paid leave until he can investigate more closely.

Piggot and Armsmaster investigate Shadow Stalker's locker to no avail.

Danny gets a threatening visit from a stranger, regarding Adamson.

Piggot has Armsmaster check Sophia's phone for location data.

Uber and L33t break into Winslow and harvest the luck energy left behind by Taylor.


January 12
A storm system in Florida causes airline food to spoil.

Armsmaster finds a location that Sophia has visited quite a bit.

Taylor has a good day at school.

Block & Tackle Party Supplies has problems sourcing helium (due to the rain) for the Chicken Festival, so they go with hydrogen.

American Airlines 732 has problems with blue ice; between passenger stomach upsets and a crack in the outer hatch, a large chunk has built up underneath.

Panacea heals Sophia.

Danny finds his tyres have been slashed, so he's late to pick up Taylor.

Taylor is kidnapped by Lee Adamson and Hookwolf.

The Tennessee Iron Works Foundry is contracted to make nails to make tables for the Forsberg exhibition. The batch is flawed due to a short-circuit caused by a water leak.

Sophia makes plans to sneak out of home and go after Taylor.

Taylor snarks off to Kaiser and the others, while Kaiser tries to contact Danny.

Kaiser is in the middle of threatening Taylor via Hookwolf when the blue ice breaks off of American 732 and smashes through the roof of the building, taking out both villains. All the other villains on site are injured or disabled. Taylor takes Kaiser's phone and gets pictures. Cricket attempts to kill her and is hit by a bus. Adamson drives her home then leaves the state.

In the aftermath of this, Victor and Othala are arrested at home and Krieg leaves town. Kaiser, Hookwolf, Fenja, Menja, Stormtiger and Cricket are captured.

Shadow Stalker tries to access her stash, but is trapped and arrested by Armsmaster.

PHO explodes over the pictures.

Emily briefs the PRT. Coil gets ideas.

Emily visits Taylor (offscreen) and buys Kaiser's phone.


January 13
The storm system hits Brockton Bay. Lightning spikes Coil's computers, revealing them to the PRT computers. Coil sets a thug to harm Danny as a test for Taylor. The thug is struck by lightning, breaking his collarbone. Coil is also electrocuted (not fatally) and breaks his collarbone.
Piggot speaks to Calvert in the sickbay. The results are inconclusive.

The Tennessee Iron Works Foundry ships nails and anvils to Brockton Bay. The nails are used to make several large tables.

Francis Garibaldi's delivery truck falls into a sinkhole.

Don Hammett, Director of Public Works, talks to Roy Christner about fixing the roads. They're due to start work on the 17th.

An RV in Huntington, West Virginia, is struck by lightning. It's sold to Merv's Second-Hand Cars & trucks. It has faulty GPS.


January 14
One of the twelve chrysalises in the player piano in the Forsberg gallery hatches. It flutters out and rests in a blacksmith's forge.

Coil decides to leave town. He's in his base when a leak develops in his base. He's also walking past the Forsberg Gallery when they're putting the anvils in place upstairs.

The leak in Coil's base escalates into a full self-destruct situation. He drops the timeline.

The driver of the forklift carrying the forge is distracted when the butterfly flutters out into his face, and he swerves to hit the table holding the anvils.

The table breaks because of the faulty nails, and all nine anvils smash out through the window and fall around Coil. He goes to the PRT building and turns himself in.

The Slaughterhouse Nine steals the RV from Merv's Second-Hand Cars & Trucks and drives northeast, in the assumption that they're going southwest.

L33t harvests luck energy from the anvil circle. The WSoM discharges a massive amount of good luck into him, burning out in the process. He hurries home and begins to Tinker.



January 15
Jack Slash wakes up to find that they're just outside Brockton Bay.

Don Hammett finds road damage on the road south of Brockton Bay and arranges repairs, and for a section to be blocked off due to a detour. He also arranges for Dockworkers to take over the roadworks on Monday. The cut-off section includes the rest area where the Nine are.

The Merchants hear that the Dockworkers have a big contract and try to gouge money out of them. They get beaten up and thrown in the harbour.

L33t builds a good luck gun and a bad luck gun.

Skidmark calls Uber and L33t and tries to get them to help attack the Dockworkers, with the intent to kill Danny Hebert. Uber turns him down.

L33t doses the Merchants with bad luck. Squealer's work on the ejection system of her tank is ruined.

Jack sends Shatterbird to see why there's no traffic on the road. Crawler eats a park bench, which gives him gas.

Uber and L33t go up Captain's Hill. They see Shatterbird and L33t hits her with bad luck. He then hits the rest of the Nine with bad luck.

Shatterbird is struck by lightning and killed. This is recorded by a security camera.

Siberian pushes the RV (out of fuel) into Brockton Bay. Jack gets a threatening message over the radio.

Palanquin suffers a water leak which throws out the security system. She calls in tradesmen to fix it, and sends Labyrinth on a walk with Newter and Gregor so she doesn't get upset.

Crawler farts and Burnscar accidentally ignites it, blowing her off the overpass. She falls into a garbage truck, from which she is rescued by Labyrinth, Newter and Gregor. They bring her back to Palanquin.

Uber finds the footage of Crawler's fart and the aftermath. He shows L33t.

Taylor and Danny decide to go to the Chicken Festival.

The Russian, now calling himself Russian Roulette, shows off in a Merchant bar. Skidmark takes him back to their lair as a potential recruit. He kills them all, including Squealer (her tank blows up). He then takes over the Merchants. By some fluke over the next day or two, he finds out that Taylor is the luckiest girl in Brockton Bay and decides to go after her.

Rachel Lindt stands on the soap in the shower and twists her ankle. This means she can't walk her dogs.


January 16
Jack sends out Crawler, Mannequin, Siberian and Hatchet Face to see what they can find out.

L33t discovers the stored footage of Shatterbird's death. They throw a dart at the map to determine where they're gonna go.

Purity, Crusader, Alabaster and Rune meet at Crusader's place to figure what to do next. They decide to go hero, except Alabaster disagrees. There's a fight, and he's subdued. They sleep through the day, then Rune frees Alabaster and flees with him. They run into the Nine and Alabaster is killed giving Rune a chance to escape.

Crusader kills Mannequin, all three work to kill Hatchet Face and Crawler. Uber and L33t show up just in time to kill/trap Siberian, as Ghostbusters.

Brian volunteers to walk Brutus for Rachel. The dog is doing so well, he takes the lead off. Brutus chases a rat behind a dumpster next to a paint store and gets stuck. Victoria and Amy Dallon show up, and Vicky shows off by picking up the dumpster and juggling it. She gets paint all over her. Amy finds this hilarious.

Vicky Dallon cuts her hair short with the intention of getting Amy to regrow it for her. Amy refuses.

Taylor and Danny encounter a very confused William Manton on the Boardwalk. They turn him over to the authorities to go to a mental ward.


January 17
Chicken Festival.

Roadworks.

Undersiders scout Lung's casino and are spotted. He gives chase.

Coil calls the Undersiders to be Taylor's friends. He tells them to go to the Fesival and find her.

Lung falls in a roadworks truck and gets covered in tar, chases the Undersiders to the Festival and gets covered in feathers. Then he's carried off by balloons. Oni Lee tries to help him, but a balloon filled with hydrogen explodes and kills him. Lung is trapped up to his neck in concrete in the sinkhole. Miss Militia captures him.

Taylor makes new friends (and gets a chicken) and takes them to the Boardwalk. She is interrupted by Russian Roulette, whose gun promptly falls apart. Grue and Rachel take apart his minions while her chicken menaces Russian Roulette.

Jack Slash decides to go to the Paleo Cafe for their late afternoon meal.
Glory Girl, after her haircut, takes Amy to the Paleo Cafe.
Taylor and the ex-Undersiders show up in a bus near the Forsberg Gallery, across the road from the Paleo Cafe. Taylor decides she needs to go to the bathroom.

Amy recognises Bonesaw and arranges for Jack Slash to have gastric distress. He goes to the bathroom. Amy subdues Bonesaw (for the most part) and they leave the cafe, along with the patrons.

Taylor is taken hostage by Jack Slash, who walks under a falling piano. Butterflies cover Taylor before flying away.

Eidolon arrives to assist with the completion of Bonesaw's subdual. He leaves with Panacea to go see first Accord and then Blasto, to try to solve world hunger. Accord has a plan for that, and much more.

Glory Girl gets shat on by a bird when she tries to make moves on Brian.

Saint and the Dragonslayers set out on a roadtrip to locate an abandoned Tinker base.

When Amy gets home, she kisses Vicky, to her confusion and Eric's amusement.


January 18
Amy is now resigned to Vicky not being interested. She goes with Eidolon to continue their work.

Legend is annoyed at remarkably low firing-range scores for the New York Wards, so he arranges for an open-air firing test.

L33t tries to rejigger the luck packs, and zaps himself with the remaining luck.

Saint and the Dragonslayers arrive at the Tinker base, which belonged to String Theory. They find a REALLY BIG gun, with "F-Driver" painted on the side. Saint accidentally activates it.

The Simurgh begins to giggle.

Alexandria starts criss-crossing the local area to find out what Simurgh is reacting to.

Looking for a signal that he's still lucky, L33t hears Alexandria breaking the sound barrier and thinks it's thunder. He begins to Tinker.

Taylor hears the sonic boom, then Lisa gives Emma a 'reason you suck' speech. Emma tries to hit Taylor with a dessert, and Regent causes her to splat herself with it. Madison slinks away, while Emma goes viral on every phone there. Taylor: best day ever.

L33t builds portal guns with a switch that looks like a safety but instead puts random portals out there.

Wards are on a barge outside the harbour. Flechette throws a chunk of timber. It vanishes into a portal that nobody sees because it's behind a target.

Saint accidentally puts the F-Driver on to 'Fuck you' mode, which overloads the gun, fires it (into another portal) and then blows the whole thing up, killing everyone there.

Scion is distracted by the Simurgh laughing and giving him the finger. While he's trying to figure this out, he's hit in the back by a piece of Sting-empowered wood from Flechette. His body pops.

His real body is then targeted by the F-Driver beam that comes out of another portal and comprehensively destroys him (because L33t is waving the portal gun around at random) before it cuts off. He's locked away in his own little pocket dimension until he dies shortly after.

(Nobody actually sees this happen).


Cauldron has a meeting. Number Man gets dropped on top of Contessa. Contessa has a panic attack.

Dragon meets Alexandria over the crater. One piece of debris has String Theory's logo on it. Case closed.


25 January
A leg of ham is accidentally delivered to Jamie Nightingale, just as she's putting in a lasagne aimed at feeding her for several days.

Eidolon and Panacea drop in a few minutes later, and she invites them for dinner. Amy has a brainwave, and uses the leg of ham as biomass to replace Jamie's leg. Realising that this is all Taylor's power at work, she leaves Jamie and Eidolon getting to know each other (much) better.

She goes to the NY Protectorate base and meets Flechette, of the Wards. Flechette catches her checking her out, and returns the favour. Amy realises that Taylor is setting her up as well as Eidolon.


26 January
Jamie and David wake up next to each other, and very quickly get used to this idea.

Amy, having gotten to know Lily a lot better, decides that she wants to be in the NY Wards with her. Lily likes this idea.

On return to Brockton Bay, Amy offers to join the Wards. Piggot decides to set it up, after doing due diligence.

Eidolon, much happier, goes on with his projects.

Butcher hears about Taylor and decides to go see how lucky she really is. She gathers her whole team, plus fifty followers.

Danny Hebert lays down the law to Roy Christner about not blocking him on reviving Lord's Port or the ferry.


27 Jan-2 Feb
Butcher's crew travels across America toward Brockton Bay. On the way, they suffer:
Flat tyres
Wheels falling off
Flash floods
Exploding engines
Fights
People accidentally shooting each other
People deliberately shooting each other
Bees in the cars
Venomous snakes in the cars
An African honey badger in one car
The Protectorate
The PRT
The cops

Vex and Spree are entering Brockton Bay when they drive into a L33t portal and end up in the Florida Everglades. Spree reports that Vex was eaten by an alligator, shortly before he himself is grabbed by the Fallen. He eventually decides to join them, after hearing what happened to Butcher.


2 February
Eidolon is over North Africa, near the testing ground for the food plants, when both Ash Beast and Behemoth threaten the area. Behemoth kills Ash Beast, then waves at Eidolon and digs himself back underground. Eidolon is flummoxed.

Taylor buys Lisa really expensive chocolates for telling off Emma. They walk into a gaming store and Taylor's the one-millionth customer so she gets the store copy of a still on pre-order video game. She gives it to Regent, who offers to splatter as many of her enemies with dessert as she wishes.

Amy signs the papers to join the Wards. She meets Taylor on the way to get her stuff from her house, and thanks her for letting her meet someone. Lisa teases her, because Lisa.

After Amy drives away, Butcher and Animos (all that's left of the Teeth) threaten Taylor. Leviathan blows Butcher sky-high on a manhole cover, then Simurgh snatches him up and takes him away. The cover lands on Animos, taking him out. Leviathan pops his head up, winks at Taylor, then ducks down into the manhole and pulls the cover over it again.


3 Feb- 2 March
Behemoth destroys the Fallen.
The Simurgh deprograms Heartbreaker's slaves. She also unchains Dragon.

Leviathan crushes all the ships in the Boat Graveyard into cubes overnight and stacks them neatly out of the way.

Danny Hebert's plans are well under way. Food plant production is working well. Taylor meets Lily and Eidolon. Rachel's dog shelter is working well. Chick Norris is getting bigger by the day.

Canary's trial falls through when Simurgh begins to show up as a hero. She is found guilty on negligent use of a parahuman ability, ordered to pay costs, and banned from performing for six months.


3 March 2011-2 March 2012
Contessa has taken up drinking.
Cauldron decides to pack up business and rehabilitate the Case 53s.

David and Jamie are a very happy couple, with no idea that they were manipulated into place.

Amy and Lily are utterly adorable together (Amy's not telling).

Lord's Port reopens (mid-January). Taylor and Brian go on a date to celebrate, and keep on dating.

Lisa invites Taylor and Brian to Canary's first new concert, with the opening song 'Butterfly'.


Just the beginning ...

 

And now for something totally non-canon and not part of the story:

In the Shard Bar, somewhere in nospace ...

"Not fair."

"What's not fair?" asked the Armsmaster shard on his way past with a round of drinks.

The Jack Slash shard sulked. "Not fair how she took my host out. I should've seen it coming. It's what I do."

The Armsmaster shard shrugged, but carefully. "You do realise, she set that up while you were still terrorising a small town in the midwest."

"I still think it's not fair."

"You should've seen what she did to Butcher."

"That was bullshit!" yelled out the Butcher shard from across the bar. "That shouldn't have happened!"

"Hey," the Eidolon shard pointed out as he came over and took one of the drinks the Armsmaster shard was holding. "She got me therapy. My host is getting laid for the first time ever. I'm not gonna argue with the results." He smirked. "And if you want to complain, go ask Kaiser what she did to him with less than a week of lead time."

This brought an outburst of laughter from around the bar. At a table against the wall, the Kaiser shard held out his hand, middle finger upraised. Beside him, the Hookwolf shard did the same. Everyone at that table seemed to be drinking to drown their sorrows rather than enjoy themselves.

"Screw you all," declared the Shadow Stalker shard. "She made Aegis put me through a wall."

"And made you tie yourself up with duct tape." The Clockblocker shard was almost helpless with laughter. "My host still has one of those pictures as his phone wallpaper."

"I still say if I'd had a chance to see her coming, things would be different." The Shadow Stalker shard took a drink.

"Oh," purred the Butterfly shard from right behind her, "is that a challenge?"

Inhaling her drink in an unhealthy fashion, the Shadow Stalker shard coughed and spluttered, then fell off her chair. She glared up at the Butterfly shard. "Not. Goddamn. Funny."

The Butterfly shard gestured at everyone around the bar who was laughing now, even including the Kaiser shard's table. "They seem to think otherwise." Strolling back to her table, she sat down. The Tattletale shard high-fived her and handed her a drink.

"So what happened next?" asked the Grue shard.

"Well, as it happened, Emma and Madison were both standing on the toilet seats." The Butterfly shard smirked and took a drink. "It really wasn't hard to have loosened them beforehand ..."