Just a Phase [Worm]

You’ve never heard of the phrase being Taylor is suffering have you I honestly expect that when this blows up they blame everything on her and do a coverup

 

Well I think they do realize that the PRT is part of Taylor's trigger but seem not to accept the fact that Taylor blames the entirety of the PRT for her trigger instead of just the ENE department. Unfortunetly due to how things are run the PRT do not like letting go of a parahuman they already have even if that parahuman will be a hero on their own and hates the organization just look at Shadow Stalker, so them letting Taylor go is very unlikely, especially if she keeps up her hero thing because what court would let a minor go out a beat up criminals when a safer alternative is available.

 

Good luck when they would probable need the triumvirate to even try to affect her.

They will need to figure out something because they have more or less failed and alienated her to the point she has not run only because she has no where to go. If say the elite show up with a good offer she might just walk out giving them all the finger. They have already lost her they need to figure out how to keep her from going villain or corporate and try to mend things so when she does hit 18/20 the prt is actually a option she would even consider working with and becoming a walking narrative to the prts fuck ups.

 

Vetting candidates for placing Wards in their care in the first place eliminates any basis for further PRT concern, especially given the already established deleterious relationship and the fact she's not in any way a criminal. Since that's exactly what they do with independents (Not give a shit), and given her circumstances, I imagine the YG wouldn't have much trouble divesting them of "ownership" in exchange for less of what is happening thanks to the ENE.

Her as a ward was never happening. Boston just ensured Taylor's idea of them as an organization reached beyond Piggot's demesnes.

Given Armstrong's internal monologue on the YG, as I've covered extensively before, those protocols only matter if future Phases have future Jims. Otherwise, you'll see shit like Vista and Shadow Stalker. The first who should have been in a foster home like, immediately, and the latter who never should have become a Ward at all, as it would've evinced the Barnes's as the perjurers they were. Whether they'd helped hide bodies by then or not.

They can't really mend things without shoving Ampere, Shadow Stalker, and Piggot into very public pits. I'd almost say by now adding Armstrong and Gauss in too.

She's already become that narrative, hence 'angry teen is angry'. Their issue is how many more fuck ups they want to make before they decide to start thinking, issuing better orders, or paying attention to when people say things like "I don't want to be your teammate." and letting said individual simply live instead of deciding to force them to provide the evidence of why they're angry. Not that being angry delegitimizes anything she said, especially about why

thoughts like this are stupid. Since they don't invite gangbangers and villains into the Protectorate HQ for a nice, safe, refereed spar (where things can still go wrong and someone gets injured, crippled, or dead), said alternative isn't actually any safer, because as examples like Hero and Alexandria display, a brand new trigger or the wrong cape engaging you means you're just as susceptible as the expendables the likes of Piggot and Tagg have no problem nuking or abandoning to massive cape fights. Given that Boston can't even be bothered to listen to her wishes and simply sees 'oh cool a power let's get you out there', I'd say that being in their ranks is expressly less safe than being a rando by virtue of being in the system and therefore meaning your info can be found by the likes of Coil/Nine/whomever.

Courts in a world where vigilantism is legal, probably.

Not that it's really their business to be determining such remotely near a case like Phase's anyway, given that the only instances in which the Wards is mandatory is when the individual is serving a probationary term in lieu of incarceration.

 

Guessing this is an attempt to precog Taylor through a theoretical future. Either way I can see this going good for Taylor as it convinces the PRT/Protectorate to back off and leave her alone, or it can go horribly wrong and the PRT use the precog's warning as an excuse to act against her in some way as a means of preventing a catastrophe.

 

Yeah, the idea was that someone suggested looking past her in the future and the precog they used managed to see something connected in a future that the PRT's pressure went far enough that she decided the only solution was to, essentially, go for as close to a clean sweep as possible...and because Taylor ended up dead, the protection had only ended there.

It's the kind of thing where I see idiots trying to push superman or others into things without realizing that them viewing you as the villains and to their breaking point is likely to end with a whole lot of corpses...

As a side note, Glimpse is more of an idea for limiting a precogs power while, at the same time, giving more than expected. He can view the future from a location for a short period of time and get more information there, but it begins to fade rather rapidly...essentially similar to how your memories of dreams fade. In the end, the only real benefit is a mere glimpse of the future that may or may not be helpful

 

Apropos.

 

I was thinking more "Superman vs the Elite" when Superman (allegedly) takes the gloves off.

 

Probably closer to Injustice Superman or The Batman who Laughs since Taylor is actually taking her gloves off with the PRT.

 

Not bad. See how far Emma can get before she completely snaps but yeah if they are not punished at all Sophia is just going to start pushing and causing problems and Emma might break and surprised she is not the full pariah now. Who ever took over should be making sure the bitch 3 don't get ideas after all.

 

She is a pariah with the Wards due to them knowing what she did but her isolation at school is entirely self inflicted due to her guilt making it impossible to keep her queen bee position. As for her mental state yeah it is pretty bad with self loathing added to her preexisting issues. With Sophia as far as we know she simply isn't talking to Emma anymore and probably believes she has gotten away with what she did by this point so she will probably be back to doing her usual routine sooner rather than later.

 

This is great! I like how Emma compares herself to the thugs in the alley, and finds herself unable to think about anything other than Taylor at school. I’ll admit that I haven’t thought too seriously about how Emma is handling school post-Taylor leaving, but this is probably close. Madison being an irritating little shit is the cherry on top.

Thank you for sharing this!

 

Thanks for the compliments, and I am happy I managed to get somewhat close to this story's Emma's mind set here considering the last time we saw her in story she was wallowing in self pity/loathing. As for Emma comparing herself to the thugs it was just something that popped into my head and seemed pretty natural the more I thought about it within Emma eventually coming to the conclusion that she has become the very same person that caused her own trigger event only with Taylor no one was willing to save her, kinda based on Emma's second trigger in Inheritance. With Madison out of all three members of the trio she was the one who could be considered annoying rather than harmful so her unknowingly provoking Emma seemed pretty natural.

Also just to mention it there are several other omakes you never thread marked throughout the thread the most recent being this one:

 

Good advice, and a good omake — sorry I missed it! Don’t be afraid to ping me if I go too long without threadmarking things.

It’s fun to read omake where Taylor goes nuts, because her power is rather limited in some ways but ridiculous in others.

 

Have to wonder what her limits are, considering what we have seen so far her defenses are pretty much perfect so long as she actually reacts to the threat and combined with her danger sense her reaction times are pretty much superhuman, maybe Velocity could stick a tranq in her if moves quick enough. Other than that the only issue I can think of is her lack of non lethal options in combat, which shouldn't be much issue if she fights brutes or carries around a taser or baton for non brutes.

Personally I have a theory that Taylor might be vulnerable to gas based attacks, since she does seem to take in air when she phases, which might be a hint to some uncomfortable power interactions with Sophia at some point.

For her anti-thinker power it seems not to protect her from non-targetted thinker power, since Lisa seems to have gotten something from her power after looking at her, but Taylor did detect Lisa using her power so it kinda muddles the water. There is also the question of if her anti-thinker power only works on thinker powers since Shards don't use the same power rankings the PRT uses so her Trump power might work on any targeted ability like Quarrel or Lily's perfect aim ability being unable to lock on to her or Victor being unable to steal her skills if he tried to (which if true will make the Wards ENE lossing her as a member hurt even more). Hell I had a theory a while ago about Taylor being immune to the Butcher inheritance due to her Trump power canceling out the Butcher Shard from locking onto her for transfer, makes me want to write an omake for that but I don't think I am good enough to do it.

Honestly the more I write this out the more it seems that Taylor's power is all about ignoring threats to herself, like what she was doing at Winslow regarding the bullying ignoring it and hoping it goes away. Which does fit the Shards' gimmick of giving ironic powers that reinforce bad habits. By giving Taylor the ability to ignore pretty much anything she will have a harder time moving past her isolation be it enforced by outside elements (Emma and Sophia) or self imposed like what she is currently doing in Boston. That really puts a different spin on her trigger event, it wasn't about getting out of a harmful environment like the locker it was about ignoring her issues no longer being enough.

 

Just wanted to say how happy I was when I saw that this got an update. Have re-read it four or five times now. Can't wait to see what comes next.

 

Anyone else curious about what happened to Sophia's parole officer, and Blackwell and the other teachers at Winslow after the locker, because it is unlikely that the Heberts got hush money after the locker like they did in canon plus with the YG investigating I imagine things might not be looking good for the school. Or the PRT just said they were gonna do an 'investigation' like they said they were gonna investigate Sophia and Emma's crimes. Most likely they were forgotten about which is a shame since they deserve to be punished since they are also at fault for what happened just like Sophia and Emma.

Either way Blackwell is probably pissed that she won't be getting extra funding from a third Ward at Winslow.

 

Unfortunately I can see this post being taken down rather quickly since it exposes the identity of three Wards, even if one of those Wards is outing herself, and the PRT/Protectorate and Dragon have bots and people on the lookout for those things so the chances of Taylor's story staying up there long is very unlikely. Of course that wont stop people from seeing it in the meantime but considering this is a new account with no verifications on PHO I don't see her thread getting a lot of traffic except from the prementioned bots scanning for cape IDs.

Still it is a good omake and I hope to see more, especially the reactions from Brockton and Boston.

 

They might remove it but won't change fact they have a rogue "ward" running about with no reason not to tell her story. At least a few will see and copy the post and the more the authorities try to hide it the more people will question what is going on and oh yeah Dragon is probably the one to see it and unless ordered otherwise will investigate and probably cc in what passes for prt internal investigation if not the FBI themselves. Things could get very interesting fast.

 

Plus Taylor can go to the press and directly tell her story. While the PRT/Protectorate can legally squash many elements of it, investigative journalists can do independent research on Winslow and reveal most of the story without the obvious links to the Wards and then the legal office of the PRT will not have a clear cause to ban the story while still making life hell for every burocrat involved as well as the girls who caused the incident in the first place.

 

Squashing parts of the investigation also causes different issues. If they cover up the fact that the two bullies were Wards then it looks like they don't actually care about parahumans because they let people who attempted to murder one off scot free which will alienate any potential parahuman recruits. If they let the fact that the two bullies are Wards then it looks like they are making a protected class of people which will alienate the normal civilians. So in short their is no winning option for them if the story gets out, but the issue for Taylor is getting the story out at all.

 

Sadly, going nuclear will never happen. Worm writers are incapable of actually making the PRT antagonists, let alone having Taylor actually strike at them.

 

Might I point you to Implacable? Or perhaps anothvortex's Taylor: Hero Of Legacy, Sharp Reflections of A Diamond, or their Worm/Now You See Me snippets would prove you wrong.

 

Which has Taylor working with them anyway because "moral high ground" stupidity and redeems the organization in the name of happy thoughts. My point stands.

 

Probably because despite all the issues the organization has as a whole and in Brockton it is still one of the few things keeping America together in the face of villains, and Endbringers. So while it is satisfying to see the PRT taken down a peg every so often going nuclear on them will just create more problems in the long run, so it is better to focus on specific individuals in the organization rather than it as a whole to minimize damage.

 

.....Have you even read those fics? Implacable has Taylor destroy the Wards ENE within a month of being press-ganged, she destroys Piggot and Co's reputation in HOL (and only works with the PRT after since the new heads actually want to help her), SROAD had Taylor second trigger thanks to her treatment by the PRT, and the NYSM snippets have her out Shadow Stalker because she hated the PRT's attempts at silencing her.

 

Plus with the trigger stuff that is publicly known, there becomes a major accusation that the PRT is condoning (and potentially encouraging) this kind of activity against the people they're supposed to be protecting in order to make more parahumans...and potentially opens the doors to go through a lot of villains and others to see how many ended up that way due to the PRT being assholes