AI experiments (ChatGPT and others)

[AntonioCC]

I couldn't breathe.

Every inhale scorched my throat with bleach and bile, thick with the stench of rot and death and cruelty. My lungs screamed. My skin burned. My mind—my mind was unraveling.

They left me in here. Sealed me in. Trash, dead animals, used pads, broken glass… and me.

I scratched at the door until my nails tore. I screamed until I couldn't scream anymore. No one came.

I started to fade. The panic gave way to something worse—numbness. Resignation. I was going to die in here, surrounded by filth, and no one would care.

Then I saw it.

At first, I thought I was hallucinating. Just a glint of light, impossible in this metal tomb. A faint blue shimmer, almost hidden beneath the slime and papers and—

Something metal.

It didn't belong. I knew that instantly. It looked… clean. Pristine. Like the light itself was coming from it, not reflecting off anything.

I pushed aside the garbage, ignoring the squish, the sting, the smell. My fingers closed around it—a handle wrapped in something like leather, cool and smooth beneath my cracked, bleeding hand.

And then—

The world shifted.

Something exploded inside me. Not pain. Not fear. Just… power. A vast, shuddering wave of it. The filth around me seemed to pull away. The locker walls shook. My mind filled with motion, sensation—tiny things crawling, flying, listening.

Insects.

I knew them. I could feel them. Hundreds. Thousands. Each one suddenly real to me in a way that defied logic. Like I'd grown new senses. Like I could reach out and command them.

But that wasn't all.

The moment I grabbed the thing—whatever it was—it spoke to me.

Not in words, exactly. Not with a voice. More like a feeling, heavy and ancient and impossibly vast.

A presence.

It looked at me, through me, and whispered a judgment.

You are broken.

I flinched. Curled tighter around the handle. I already knew that. What else was new?

Then came the second part.

But not unworthy.

A bolt of light erupted from the thing in my hand. Blue-white lightning licked across the inside of the locker, burning away filth, crawling up the walls. I gasped, but the air was clearer now. The weight in my lungs lifted. I could breathe.

The door in front of me shuddered. Bent outward. Then burst off its hinges in a single, screaming crack.

I stumbled into the hallway, the thing still clenched in my fist. Dazed. Shaking. Alive.

I looked down at it for the first time in the light.

A hammer.

Heavy. Ancient. Runes glowing faintly along the side. It pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat, almost like it was alive.

Somehow, I knew what it was now. Like the name was whispered into my mind.

Mjolnir.

My fingers tightened around the handle. Sparks leapt between my knuckles.

Footsteps echoed down the hall. Someone shouted. I didn't hear what they said.

I only knew one thing for certain.

Whoever I'd been when they shoved me into that locker—Taylor, the weak one, the outcast, the victim—she didn't exist anymore.

I was something else now.

And I wasn't going to be ignored ever again.

 

[AntonioCC]

The sky had turned dark by the time I walked out the front doors of Winslow. I didn't know how long I'd been in the locker. Minutes? Hours?

The air was different. Heavier. Charged.

I clutched the hammer tighter. It didn't feel like a weapon. It felt like… an extension. A part of me. I didn't know how I'd lived without it until now.

The students scattered when I appeared. Some just stared, slack-jawed and silent, like they couldn't believe I was really walking. Others ran, tripping over themselves.

Then the vans came.

White, armored. PRT insignia on the side. One after another, stopping with screeches and hisses of hydraulic brakes. Doors opened and agents spilled out in full gear—helmets, body armor, containment foam cannons.

A man stepped out behind them. Not as armored. Clean navy uniform, close-cropped blond hair, stiff posture. PRT captain, judging by the insignia. He had a comm clipped to his shoulder and a tablet in hand, which he kept glancing at before looking at me like I was something radioactive.

He didn't approach.

"Taylor Hebert?" he called out. "I'm Captain Randal, PRT. We're here to make sure no one gets hurt—including you."

I didn't answer right away.

The hammer hummed faintly in my hand. The air crackled. My swarm—growing by the second—buzzed just beneath the skin of reality, invisible to everyone but me. It danced along my arms, clustered behind my shoulders, coiling like a second spine.

The captain tried again. "We understand you've had a trigger event. We want to help. Medical care. Mental health support. Safety."

I took a step forward.

"No one helped me before," I said. My voice was steady, but too quiet. He flinched anyway.

"I understand you're scared," he replied. His tone was practiced. Diplomatic. "But that object you're holding—it's emitting electromagnetic interference. It's a containment risk. If you come with us, we can get answers. Help you understand what's happening to you."

"I know what's happening to me," I said. "For the first time in years, I'm not powerless."

More bugs came. A dark smear behind me now. They weren't attacking—they were waiting. For what, I didn't know. My command. A signal. A threat.

Captain Randal raised his hand, motioning to the troopers. I saw their fingers tense on triggers.

"I wouldn't," I warned.

He hesitated. Good. He was smart.

"We don't want this to escalate," he said carefully. "But if you're a danger to civilians, we will respond with force."

I lifted the hammer just a little—not in threat, but to let it speak for me.

Lightning flickered from the head of the weapon. Not wild, not violent. Controlled. It licked across the ground in veins of electric blue, scorching small cracks into the pavement. The bugs backed away as if in awe.

The hammer pulsed again.

Not unworthy.

I breathed in deep.

"You think I'm a danger now?" I asked, quiet and sharp. "Where were you when they locked me in that coffin?"

Captain Randal's face twitched. Either the files hadn't caught up yet, or he didn't want to admit he knew.

I let the silence stretch.

"Is Armsmaster coming?" I asked finally.

He nodded. "ETA eight minutes. He'll want to debrief you personally."

"Fine," I said. "I'll wait."

I walked to the front of the school steps and sat down on the concrete, hammer resting across my lap like it belonged there. The swarm settled in a loose orbit around me, a living barrier.

Nobody moved.

They didn't know what I was.

Honestly? Neither did I.

But they knew enough to be afraid.

 

[AntonioCC]

The longer I waited, the calmer I felt.

Not the calm of peace — the calm of control. The hammer pulsed against my thigh like a second heartbeat, steady and deep. The bugs around me had settled, but not dispersed. They were waiting, just like me.

For once, I wasn't the one backed into a corner.

The van pulled up right on cue. Matte blue, armored, with a stylized "A" insignia on the side.

Armsmaster.

I stood, hammer still in hand. I didn't lift it, didn't need to. Its weight alone made a statement.

The door hissed open. Out stepped a tall man in full combat armor: dark blue plating, white trim, utility belt bristling with nonlethal weapons. A long, high-tech halberd rested across his back. His helmet was sleek and angular, a glowing HUD display lit behind the visor.

He walked with precision—no wasted movement.

I could feel him analyzing me already. The hammer. My posture. The swarm. He was calculating threat levels, likely running some internal simulation of how fast he could put me down if I went rogue.

Let him.

He stopped about ten feet from me. Close, but not threateningly so. Arms loose at his sides. Formal.

"Taylor Hebert," he said, voice filtered through a modulator. "I'm Armsmaster. I've been briefed on the situation. Are you injured?"

"I was," I said. "Not anymore."

He tilted his head slightly. "The object you're holding is not local tech. Not Tinker-made. Not from our world, as far as I can tell. It's emitting low-level electromagnetic pulses and quantum field distortion."

I blinked. "Quantum what?"

"Exotic energy signature," he clarified. "You picked it up during your trigger event?"

I nodded. "It was… in the locker. Waiting for me."

His visor glowed faintly. Probably scanning me. Or it. Or both.

"Do you feel compelled to carry it?" he asked. "Any mental intrusion, influence, instability?"

"It's not controlling me," I said. "It chose me."

There was a pause. Armsmaster rarely reacted, but I saw the twitch of his helmet as he filed that away.

"And the insects?" he asked.

"They're mine," I said. "Part of the trigger. They listen to me."

"Understood," he said. "You're likely a Master-class parahuman with secondary phenomena. Possibly Brute or Thinker-rated, depending on the hammer's full capabilities. You're not displaying hostile behavior, but protocol still requires containment assessment."

"Containment?" I asked. "I just survived being shoved into a biohazard bin. Now you want to contain me?"

"To protect you and the public," he said evenly. "We're not here to punish you. We want to help. But we need cooperation."

"Help," I repeated, the word sour in my mouth. "Where was all this help yesterday?"

He didn't answer.

Didn't apologize.

Of course he didn't.

Armsmaster wasn't the kind of man who apologized. He just adjusted.

"I'd like to escort you to the PRT building," he said. "We can do this quietly, with minimal media attention. You'll be evaluated, medically cleared, and offered orientation. If you're interested in a Wards position, we can begin discussions."

I raised an eyebrow. "You want me to join the Wards already?"

He hesitated. "With your powerset, you're a valuable asset. But more importantly, you're young. You need structure. Support."

I looked down at the hammer.

It still pulsed softly. I could walk away. I could test its strength. See how far I could get before they tried to stop me.

But… did I want to?

I wasn't ready to make enemies. Not yet. I needed to understand what had happened. Why this had happened. Why I had been chosen.

"I'll come," I said. "But not as a prisoner."

"Agreed," Armsmaster said.

He stepped aside, motioning toward the open van. I walked forward, insects scattering and reforming around me like a cloak.

As I climbed inside, I caught him looking at the hammer again. Not greedily. Not fearfully. With curiosity.

He didn't know what it was either.

But he knew it changed everything.

So did I.

 

[AntonioCC]

Interlude: The Watcher in the Rain

The storm was not hers.

Not yet.

He stood across the street from Winslow, under the canopy of an old bookstore whose neon CLOSED sign buzzed faintly against the darkened glass. The rain soaked through his coat, ran down his neck, pooled in his boots. He didn't mind.

The hammer had returned.

It wasn't the lightning that told him. Nor the sudden surge in electromagnetic readings or panicked dispatch chatter from the PRT. It wasn't even the girl with the dark eyes and bloodied clothes stepping into the street with it in hand.

It was the silence.

A sudden hush, deeper than sound. The world pausing. Watching. Holding its breath.

He had felt it once before.

He watched as the troopers flinched from her. As the bugs danced to her will. As the weapon—no, not a weapon, a judgment—crackled in her hand, burning faint lines into the concrete with every pulse.

The girl didn't understand what she held.

Not yet.

That was the danger, and the hope.

He reached into his coat, pulling out a weather-worn notebook. Leather-bound. Smudged by time and smoke. The page he turned to was old, the ink faded, but he didn't need to read it.

The words were etched into him.

When the Worthy rises unbidden, so too shall the Veil thin. What falls shall rise. What lies buried shall wake.

He glanced back at the scene across the street.

Armsmaster had arrived. Of course he had. The man was a hammer of a different sort — blunt, precise, and built for containment. He would try to categorize her. Measure her. Reduce the divine to data.

Foolish.

She was still becoming. The girl with the power of storms and the voice of insects.

An odd choice, but not an unwise one.

"Taylor," he murmured under his breath. The name tasted mortal. Fragile.

Not like the old names.

Not like hers.

Mjolnir had not been lost. It had been waiting.

And now, it had chosen a girl covered in filth and rage and broken glass. A girl cast out by her own kind. A girl who had every reason to hate the world—and maybe, just maybe, enough strength to save it anyway.

The storm wasn't hers yet.

But it would be.

He closed the notebook, tucked it away, and turned into the alley behind the shop. No one noticed. No one ever did.

Lightning cracked above the clouds, not from her, but in answer to her.

He smiled.

Let the gods tremble.

 

[AntonioCC]

They called it "intake."

It sounded sterile. Clean. Like something that happened at a clinic, not after you'd shattered a steel locker door and walked out of a storm with a myth in your hand.

They took me to the PRT building through a side entrance, off the books. I didn't see any other capes, no Wards, no press. Just armored agents and glass walls. Hallways that smelled like plastic and over-polished steel.

Every time someone tried to take the hammer from me, they stopped before even reaching it. One guy in containment gloves got close, but the moment he touched the handle, lightning jumped to his visor and shorted his equipment. He backed away swearing.

So it stayed with me.

Always.

Even now, resting across my lap as I sat in the white room they used for evaluation. I was barefoot. In fresh hospital scrubs. My hands were clean for the first time in hours, but the grime still lived in my memory.

The lights above hummed, too bright. The cameras behind the mirror wall watched.

"Miss Hebert?" a voice came over the intercom. Calm, clipped. Probably a Thinker or psychologist. "We're going to begin with a powers inventory. Just answer as best you can. You're safe."

Safe.

Right.

"Do you have control over all insects or only certain species?" the voice asked.

"I don't know," I said. "I can feel them. Sense them. Everything in a certain range. The more there are, the louder it gets."

"And the hammer?"

I looked down at it.

Mjolnir didn't speak to me with words. But it didn't need to.

When I first picked it up, it unlocked something. Power. Presence. The bugs came with the trigger, but the hammer gave them… purpose. Structure. Like it magnified my instincts. Like it amplified who I was.

"I didn't make it," I said. "I didn't summon it. It was already there."

"Do you feel it's bonded to you?"

I ran my fingers across the runes. They shimmered faintly.

"I don't think I can put it down," I said quietly. "And I'm not sure I want to."

Another pause. Murmurs. Someone behind the glass cursed under their breath. I smirked.

"Let's proceed with physical testing," the voice finally said.

---

They took me to a larger room—like a gym, but with reinforced walls and hazard zones marked on the floor. Two PRT troopers stood at the edge, armed with nonlethal equipment. One of them had containment foam. The other carried something that looked like a net gun.

I stopped in the center, hammer in hand. My bare feet stuck to the cold rubber floor.

"Miss Hebert, we'd like you to demonstrate what you can do with the hammer. No pressure. Just swing it."

I looked at them through the observation window. I could tell they were nervous. They should be.

I gripped Mjolnir with both hands.

It was heavy—but not too heavy. It was the weight of judgment. Of potential. When I held it, I felt… more.

I swung.

Not at anything. Just a wide arc through empty air.

CRACK.

Lightning tore across the room in a line, vaporizing a foam dummy and splitting the floor open in a glowing seam. The room went silent except for the slow whine of the lights flickering back to life.

One of the troopers flinched. The other said something I couldn't hear and stepped farther back.

The intercom buzzed again.

"…Noted," said the voice. "Do you feel you can summon lightning at will?"

I nodded. "If I need to. I think it listens to me."

"And can you throw it?"

I didn't answer at first. But I felt the question ripple through the hammer. Like it was asking me the same thing.

So I tried.

I pulled my arm back and hurled it toward the far wall. It flew like it was pulled forward, not thrown—clean, precise, silent.

It hit the far wall with a boom that shook the floor. Sparks cascaded across the ground like rain.

Then, before I could even wonder how I'd get it back—it returned. Ripped through the air and landed back in my palm with a weighty thud.

I gasped.

So did the techs behind the glass.

"Taylor…" the voice returned, quieter now. "We're revising your classification to at least Master 5, with probable Brute, Thinker, and Shaker potential. Possibly Stranger-class due to the psychological effects of the weapon. There are also elements we can't categorize."

I stared at the mirror, suddenly cold.

"Are you going to lock me up?" I asked. "Because you can't explain me?"

"No," the voice said. "We're going to watch you. Carefully."

That wasn't comforting.

---

Later, in the holding suite they gave me—a sterile, too-white cell with a bed and sink—I sat with the hammer laid across my knees again.

I looked out the reinforced glass at the storm clouds still churning over the city.

I hadn't called them.

But they'd come anyway.

Just like the bugs. Just like the hammer.

Just like me.

I wasn't just a cape.

I was a question they didn't have an answer for.

And part of me hoped they never found one.

 

[AntonioCC]

I didn't expect to be walking into a lounge with beanbags.

But here I was.

Vista led me through a quiet corridor deeper into the PRT's secure wing. No more labs, no more doctors. Just clean floors, white walls, and doors that locked with soft hisses. She didn't talk much, and I didn't feel like filling the silence.

She stopped in front of a thick, reinforced door with a keycard panel beside it. Swiped her badge.

"Ready?" she asked.

"As I'll ever be."

The door slid open with a soft mechanical clunk.

Behind it was the Wards' common room—but it wasn't some sleek, glowing sci-fi command center. It looked… lived-in.

A big, scuffed sectional couch sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by mismatched armchairs. A large TV was mounted to one wall, with a well-used gaming console below it. Posters of indie bands, movie nights, and cheesy propaganda hung alongside a whiteboard covered in chores and nicknames.

In one corner sat a mini kitchen: microwave, fridge, a box of protein bars. The floor was worn laminate. Someone had forgotten a sock near the laundry hamper. There were two laundry hampers.

It was just a decent, comfortable room. Something like a dorm. A clubhouse. Real.

Three people were inside.

Aegis stood near the window—broad-shouldered, posture straight, arms crossed. His armor looked like it had been repaired recently. Clockblocker was slouched on the couch, one leg draped over the back, boots still on. Browbeat was by the fridge, drinking orange juice straight from the carton.

They all turned as Vista and I entered.

"Guys," she said, with a sigh. "This is Taylor. You know, hammer girl."

Clockblocker sat upright. "That's her?"

"Yup."

"Holy crap," he said, eyes wide. "She brought the hammer. Like, in here?"

I held it a little closer. Mjolnir rested across my arm, calm and silent, but I could feel the attention it drew. Like everyone in the room was magnetized to it.

"It brought me," I said.

Browbeat gave a short, surprised laugh. "Okay, that's a line."

Aegis stepped forward, offering a calm nod. "Taylor. I'm Aegis. Team lead. We're not here to push you into anything. Just a meet-and-greet."

"Okay."

"Make yourself at home," he said. "Nobody's going to grab the hammer. We've seen the reports."

Clockblocker leaned forward, elbows on knees. "No offense, but… is it really Mjolnir? Like, Thor's hammer? Or just something that looks like it?"

I hesitated.

"It didn't come with a label," I said. "But when I picked it up, I knew the name."

He blinked. "So… yes?"

"Basically."

"That's nuts," he muttered. "I get timestop powers and she gets lightning and mythic swag? Not fair."

Vista elbowed him lightly. "Be nice."

"This is me being nice."

Aegis cut in before it could devolve. "Shadow Stalker's not here. She's suspended."

Vista gave him a look, but said nothing.

I filed that away.

"So," I said. "What is this, exactly? Recruitment?"

Aegis shook his head. "Not yet. Just the tour. The pitch comes later—if you're interested."

"I'm not sure I trust anyone in this building yet."

"That's fair," Vista said. "We didn't either."

"You all joined anyway."

"Sometimes the best bad option is still better than going solo," Aegis said. "But it's your choice."

I glanced around again. Despite myself, I could see the appeal. They weren't trying to impress me with tech or power. This was their space. Flawed, familiar. A place where people like us could exist without pretending to be normal.

"Can I think about it?" I asked.

"Of course," Aegis said. "You're not a prisoner."

"Cool," Clockblocker said. "But if you do join, I'm calling dibs on 'Thunderbug' as your codename."

"Absolutely not," Vista snapped.

"Come on, it's catchy!"

I tried not to smile. Failed, a little.

Maybe this wasn't a trap after all.

Maybe.

 

[AntonioCC]

Interlude: The One Who Watches

He walked among mortals like a shadow that had learned patience.

Not unseen — no, that trick was for younger things. He was seen when he willed it, forgotten when he did not. And today, no one looked twice at the old man in the long gray coat, tapping a cane along the sidewalks of Brockton Bay. A shape like any other in the rain.

But his eye — his one good eye — never left the girl.

Taylor Hebert.

He had watched her from the moment she stepped out of the locker, bloodied and storm-touched, clutching the hammer as though it had always belonged to her.

Because it had.

She did not know it, but the choosing had already happened. Not by accident. Not by chance. The world did not bend to luck. Not when artifacts like that moved. Not when stories reawakened.

The hammer had returned to mortal hands.

And that… that had consequences.

He stopped beneath an old rusted streetlight outside the PRT building. Looked up. The clouds churned, thick and bruised with rain, but not entirely natural. They pulsed in rhythm with something below. A storm watching from above.

Yes. She had called it. Or perhaps, more accurately…

It had answered.

He tapped his cane once on the concrete. The ground vibrated faintly — not in sound, but in presence. Old symbols shimmered faintly across the pavement before fading like dew.

This world had forgotten the weight of stories.

Forgotten that the old powers never truly died.

They slumbered. Waited.

And now, the child had awakened a piece of one.

She was not Thor.

No.

She was not blood of Asgard. She bore no crown, no destiny by lineage. But that was not the way of the hammer. Worthiness was never inherited. It was proven, in fire and pain and isolation. In endurance. In rage.

In need.

She had survived what should have broken her.

She had been cast out.

And when she rose — crawling, choking, burning with fury and grief — she had reached out with shaking hands.

And the hammer had come to her.

He smiled at that. The kind of smile that carried centuries behind it. Triumph, sorrow, inevitability.

"They will not understand," he murmured, voice low and weathered. "They will try to bind her in chains of protocol. Of control. They will call her unstable, dangerous, unfit. As they always do when power moves outside their hands."

His fingers traced a pattern in the air — lines older than English, older than Rome, glowing briefly like moonlight on steel.

"But the storm will teach her. And the hammer will remember. And when the time comes…"

He paused, head tilting upward again. Far above, thunder rolled. Not from her — not yet — but from the world waiting for her.

"…She will be ready."

The wind shifted. Cold. Clean. Carrying the scent of salt and old iron.

He looked down once more.

Then he changed.

Feathers grew from sleeves that melted into wings. His form collapsed in upon itself, shrinking, twisting. In a breath, he was no longer a man but a raven, black as night, with one eye gleaming silver like a star glimpsed through stormclouds.

The cane, forgotten, turned to ash.

The raven beat its wings once and took flight.

It circled the PRT tower only once before vanishing into the sky — a shadow swallowed by thunder.

 

[AntonioCC]

Note: generatd in Claude Sonnet 4

Taylor Hebert: Dragonborn Awakening

The smell hit me first—not the rotting refuse and industrial cleaner of Winslow's bathroom, but something else entirely. Pine needles. Wood smoke. The metallic tang of snow in the air.

I kept my eyes closed, afraid to open them. The last thing I remembered was Emma's cruel laughter echoing off the locker walls as they slammed the door shut. The darkness. The used tampons and worse things they'd stuffed in there with me. The claustrophobic panic as I'd beaten my fists bloody against the metal door until consciousness finally, mercifully, fled.

But this wasn't the locker. The surface beneath me was rough stone, not slick bathroom tile. And it was cold—the kind of deep, bone-numbing cold that Brockton Bay's humid winters never managed.

"Hey, you. You're finally awake."

My eyes snapped open. A man in rough-spun clothes and leather armor sat across from me in what looked like a wooden cart. Behind him, pine forests stretched endlessly under a gray sky, mountains rising like jagged teeth in the distance. Other figures sat nearby—a blonde man in blue and a dark-skinned man with a gag in his mouth.

This wasn't Earth Bet. This wasn't anywhere on Earth Bet.

"You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there." The first man nodded toward the blonde.

I tried to speak but only managed a croak. My throat felt raw, different somehow. When I raised my hand to touch it, I froze. These weren't my hands—they were paler, more angular, with calluses I'd never earned.

"Damn you Stormcloaks," the blonde man spat. "Skyrim was fine until you came along. Empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn't been looking for you, I could've stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfell by now."

Skyrim. Stormcloaks. Empire. The words should have meant nothing to me, but somehow they resonated with a knowledge I didn't remember acquiring.

I looked down at myself. Gone were my torn jeans and ratty sweater. Instead, I wore simple brown pants and a rough tunic that looked handmade. My body felt different too—stronger somehow, more solid. When I tried to reach for my power, for the awareness of every insect within several blocks, I found... nothing. No multitasking ability. No swarm sense. Just ordinary human consciousness in what appeared to be an ordinary human body.

Panic should have set in. By all rights, I should have been hyperventilating, demanding answers, trying to find some logical explanation for how I'd gone from being stuffed in a locker in Brockton Bay to sitting in a cart heading toward what looked like a medieval fantasy world.

Instead, I felt... calm. Alert. Like some part of me had been waiting for this moment my entire life.

"Where are we going?" I managed to ask.

"Helgen," replied the first man grimly. "Though I don't suppose it matters much where we're going when we're all heading to the executioner's block."

Helgen. The name meant something, though I couldn't place what. Like a half-remembered dream, images flickered through my mind: a town square, a chopping block, the whistle of something massive passing overhead...

The cart hit a bump, jolting me back to the present. I studied my fellow prisoners more carefully. The gagged man had the bearing of someone important—his clothes were finer, his posture proud despite his restraints. The thief looked nervous, constantly glancing around as if planning an escape. And the first man, the one who'd spoken to me, had the weathered look of a soldier.

"I'm Ralof, by the way," he said, noticing my scrutiny. "Of Riverwood. What about you? You don't look like a Nord."

I opened my mouth to say "Taylor," then stopped. That name belonged to someone else now—a skinny, powerless girl who'd been stuffed in a locker by her former best friend. Whoever I was now, in this place, I could be different. Stronger.

"I'm not sure," I said finally, and realized it was the truth. "I can't remember."

Ralof nodded sympathetically. "Head injury, maybe? That would explain why you were wandering around in a daze when they found you."

As the cart rolled on toward whatever fate awaited us in Helgen, I found myself studying the landscape with new eyes. Part of me—the part that was still Taylor Hebert—catalogued escape routes, analyzed the guards' equipment, assessed threats and opportunities with the tactical mind that had helped me survive Winslow's social warfare.

But another part, a part that felt ancient and patient and infinitely dangerous, simply watched and waited. That part wasn't afraid of executioner's blocks or Imperial soldiers or whatever challenges this strange new world might offer.

That part was eager to see what would happen when the dragon came.

I didn't know why I was so certain a dragon was coming, but I was. Just as I was certain that when it did, everything would change. Again.

The cart rolled on through the pine-scented morning, carrying four prisoners toward their supposed doom. But I was beginning to suspect that whoever was about to die in Helgen, it wouldn't be me.
After all, I'd already died once—stuffed in a locker by bullies who thought they were the worst thing that could happen to Taylor Hebert.

They had no idea what they'd actually unleashed.

 

[AntonioCC]

Helgen was smaller than I'd expected—a modest town built into the mountainside, all stone walls and wooden buildings that looked like they'd been standing for centuries. As our cart rolled through the gates, I noticed the Imperial soldiers stationed everywhere. This wasn't just an execution; it was a show of force.

"General Tullius, sir! The headsman is waiting!"

I followed Ralof's gaze to see a stern-faced man in ornate armor reviewing a scroll. The gagged prisoner beside us straightened, and I caught the flash of recognition in his eyes. This was someone important—important enough that his execution was drawing crowds.

"Good. Let's get this over with," Tullius replied without looking up. "The Emperor's schedule doesn't allow for delays."

The Emperor. I filed that information away as the cart came to a stop. Around us, townspeople had gathered to watch, their faces a mixture of curiosity and fear. Some looked sympathetic; others seemed eager for blood. It reminded me uncomfortably of the crowds at Winslow who'd watched my humiliation and done nothing.

But I wasn't that powerless girl anymore.

"Come on, prisoners. Move!" A soldier hauled me out of the cart with unnecessary roughness. I stumbled but caught myself, noting how my new body responded differently—stronger, more balanced. The Taylor Hebert who'd been shoved into lockers wouldn't have recovered so gracefully.

They lined us up in front of a wooden block stained dark with old blood. An executioner stood nearby, his massive axe gleaming despite the overcast sky. The sight should have terrified me, but that strange calm persisted. Whatever was going to happen, I knew with absolute certainty that it wouldn't end with my head rolling in the dirt.

"Ulfric Stormcloak," called out an Imperial captain, consulting her list. "Some here in Helgen call you a hero. But a hero doesn't use a power like the Voice to murder his king and usurp his throne."

The gagged man—Ulfric—stepped forward. So that was why he was important. A regicide, a rebel leader. The Voice. Another term that resonated with knowledge I shouldn't have possessed.

The captain continued down her list, calling names I didn't recognize. Then her eyes fell on me.

"You there. Step forward."

I did, keeping my expression neutral despite the hammering of my heart. The captain studied me with the dispassionate gaze of someone who'd sent hundreds to their deaths.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

The question hung in the air. Around me, I could feel the attention of the crowd, the soldiers, my fellow prisoners. In that moment, I made a choice that would have seemed impossible to the girl in the locker.

"I don't know," I said clearly, meeting the captain's eyes without flinching. "But I know I don't belong here."

She frowned, clearly annoyed by my response. "Captain, what should we do? She's not on the list."

"Forget the list," the captain snapped. "She was caught crossing the border with the others. Send her to the block."

"By your orders, Captain." The soldier began to guide me toward the execution area, but I felt no fear. If anything, the strange certainty was growing stronger. Something was coming. Something that would change everything.

The thief—Lokir, I'd heard someone call him—made a desperate break for freedom, sprinting toward the gates. He made it perhaps twenty feet before Imperial arrows cut him down. The crowd gasped, and I heard a child ask his mother why the soldiers had to kill him.

"Death or freedom," Ralof murmured beside me. "Those are the only choices we have left."

But he was wrong. I could feel it building now—a pressure in the air, a wrongness that made my new instincts scream warnings. The sky seemed darker somehow, though no clouds had moved to block the sun.

A Stormcloak soldier was called forward first. He went to his death with defiant pride, shouting something about Sovngarde as the axe fell. The crowd cheered or jeered depending on their loyalties, but I barely heard them. The pressure was building, building...

"Next, the prisoner with no name!"

This was it. I stepped forward, noting absently how steady my legs were. The executioner gestured for me to kneel, and I lowered myself to the block. The wood was warm with blood, and I could smell the iron tang of it mixing with the pine-scented air.

"Any last words?" the captain asked mockingly.

I looked up at her, and for a moment, I let something of what I was feeling show in my eyes. Her smirk faltered.

"You should run," I said quietly.

Before she could respond, a sound split the air—a roar that seemed to come from the very bones of the mountain. Every person in that courtyard froze as the sound echoed off the stone walls, primal and alien and absolutely terrifying.

"What was that?" someone whispered.

I smiled as I felt the earth begin to tremble beneath my knees. The pressure that had been building suddenly focused, like a lens bringing fire into sharp relief. And in that moment of focus, I understood exactly what I was.

"Dragon," I said, just as the shadow passed overhead.

Then Helgen erupted into chaos, and I finally came home.

 

[AntonioCC]

■► Welcome to the Parahumans Online message boards.
You are currently viewing: Boards > News & Events > U.S. East Coast > Brockton Bay
Thread title: [Breaking] New Cape at Winslow?? Lightning, Bugs, Hammer??
Started by user: HeroNerd42
Date: January 3, 2011 – 6:58 PM (EST)

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OP: HeroNerd42
Yo. Anyone else hearing this?? Winslow High went into lockdown this afternoon. Some kind of cape trigger. My cousin was on the third floor, says they evacuated the whole building after someone blew a locker apart and walked out covered in bugs and blood, holding a big-ass hammer.
Like, a medieval hammer. Sparks coming off it. PRT showed up within minutes. Whole place is sealed.
Anyone got video?

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Reply by: Bread_Knife

bugs
hammer
lightning
I smell an OC cape. No way that's real. You sure your cousin didn't mix up her D&D campaign with reality?

Click to shrink...

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Reply by: actualwinslowstudent (new user)
no joke
i saw it
she just walked out of the locker like it wasn't full of garbage and biohazard goo
there were beetles on her face and she had this THING in her hand like a sledgehammer but it glowed
she didn't even flinch when the PRT showed up

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Reply by: Greg_V
[Post hidden due to downvotes]
XX_VoidCowboy_XX
Guys. GUYS. LISTEN.
This isn't just a random trigger. That HAMMER?
It's Mjolnir.
Like, THE Mjolnir. Norse myth is real. Taylor (I'm 99.9% sure it's Taylor Hebert btw) must've found it somehow. She's WORTHY.
She's the NEW THOR.
This is HUGE. Government will probably cover it up.

---

Reply by: forum_mod_RichardU
Reminder: Do not post unconfirmed identities of minors. That includes speculation. Bans will be issued.

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Reply by: TwistedLemon
VoidCowboy, bro, I know who you are IRL and I say this with love: get help.

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Reply by: Reagent_Hazard
So the new girl triggers with bugs, lightning, and a hammer?
My guess: brute/shaker package with a fancy Tinker weapon. Probably one of those adaptive tools or something.
PRT will file her under some nonsense acronym in 2-3 days.

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Reply by: LaserLord88
Yeah, no way it's the "real" Mjolnir. Come on. This isn't a Marvel movie.
More likely she built the hammer or it's her power's manifestation. Maybe a psychological projection tied to trauma.
Ever heard of that one cape whose "dog" was just smoke?

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Reply by: BoneFlavoredSoup
Everyone's getting distracted by the hammer.
Why is no one talking about the bugs?
She was COVERED in them. They moved when she moved. That's some Skittery creepfest nightmare fuel.

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Reply by: 3SecondRule
Don't forget: she apparently downed three PRT troopers in like five seconds. No injuries reported though. She just… took their guns apart?
Master power? Or minor telekinesis?

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Reply by: TrustworthyNewsalt
Unconfirmed source says the locker she was in was full of used feminine products and garbage.
Like, actual biohazard material.
If true…
That's messed up.
Even for high school bullying.

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Reply by: XX_VoidCowboy_XX (Greg, again)
YOU FOOLS.
This is classic mythic cycle activation.
Taylor is the CHOSEN of the STORM.
She was locked in darkness like Thor in the cave of Útgarða-Loki and emerged reborn.
This is prophecy-tier.
You'll see.
(Also I have an essay on this if anyone wants the link. DMs open.)

---

Reply by: ClockoutCape
Downvoted and reported for Norseposting again, Greg.

---

Reply by: mod_jawbreaker
Thread locked pending more credible reports and moderation.
Reminder: No doxxing, mythposting, or wild speculation.
Official PRT statement pending.
Keep it civil or enjoy your ban.

 

[AntonioCC]

The dragon was impossibly massive, its black scales drinking in the pale light as it circled overhead like some primordial god of destruction. When it opened its maw, the words that poured out weren't just sound—they were power made manifest, reality bending to an alien will.

"YOL TOOR SHUL!"

Fire engulfed half the courtyard. Stone buildings that had stood for centuries crumbled like sand castles. The screams of the dying mixed with the roar of flames, and through it all, I knelt at the execution block and laughed.

Not the bitter, broken laughter of the girl in the locker, but something wild and joyous and utterly without fear. Because I understood now what that pressure had been, what the certainty meant. This dragon—Alduin, though I had no idea how I knew that name—wasn't my destruction.

It was my liberation.

"Move, prisoner!" Ralof hauled me to my feet as burning timber crashed down where I'd been kneeling. The Imperial captain who'd condemned me to death was nowhere to be seen, probably crushed under the stones of her own authority. "This way!"

But I wasn't running in blind panic like the others. Every step felt deliberate, purposeful, as if I was following a path that had been laid out for me before the world began. When Ralof led me toward a watchtower, I didn't question it. When he handed me an axe from a dead soldier, my hands closed around it like I'd been born to wield weapons.

"Can you handle yourself in a fight?" he panted as we climbed the tower stairs.

I hefted the axe, feeling its balance, the weight of steel and wood that could split bone and sever flesh. Taylor Hebert had never held a weapon in her life. But I wasn't just Taylor anymore.

"We'll find out," I said.

At the top of the tower, Alduin perched on the parapet like some impossible nightmare made flesh. This close, I could see the intelligence in those burning eyes, the ancient malice that had decided to return to a world that had forgotten how to fear dragons.

When those eyes fixed on me, I felt something stir in my chest—not fear, but recognition. Predator acknowledging predator. The dragon's lips pulled back in what might have been a smile, revealing teeth like obsidian daggers.

"Dovahkiin," it rumbled, the word carrying harmonics that made my bones vibrate. "At last, you wake."

I should have been confused by that word, by the implication that this creature had been waiting for me specifically. Instead, I felt pieces clicking into place in my mind like tumblers in a lock.

"Jump!" Ralof shoved me toward a gaping hole in the tower wall where Alduin's fire had melted stone to slag. "Jump now!"

I leaped without hesitation, landing hard on the burning roof of an inn below. The impact drove the breath from my lungs, but I rolled with it, coming up in a crouch as flaming debris rained around me. This body might look different, but it moved like I'd always imagined myself moving—quick, controlled, deadly.

Through the smoke and chaos, I could see people fleeing in every direction. Some Imperial soldiers were trying to maintain order, shouting about evacuation procedures and rally points. Others had thrown down their weapons and run. The Stormcloak prisoners who'd survived the initial attack were fighting their way toward the town gates.

But I wasn't following any of them. Something else was calling to me—a pull I felt in my bones, leading me toward the keep at Helgen's heart.

"This way!" A young Imperial soldier appeared through the smoke, his armor blackened but intact. "I can get you out of here!"

His name was Hadvar, though again I had no idea how I knew that. Like Ralof, he seemed to think I was just another prisoner caught in this disaster. Neither of them understood what I was becoming—what I had always been meant to become.

"The keep?" I asked, gesturing toward the stone fortress that dominated the town's center.

"There's a passage that leads out into the mountains," Hadvar confirmed. "If we can reach it before—"

Alduin's roar cut him off as the dragon swooped low over the main street, its wings creating a hurricane of superheated air. More buildings collapsed, but I barely noticed. That word it had spoken echoed in my mind: Dovahkiin. Dragonborn.

The girl who'd been stuffed in a locker was gone. What walked through the burning ruins of Helgen was something else entirely—something that dragons recognized and feared and called kin.

As we fought our way through collapsing buildings and panicked crowds, I began to understand the true scope of what had happened to me. This wasn't just a transport to another world. This was a rebirth, a fundamental change in what I was.

Taylor Hebert had controlled insects. But the Dragonborn...

The Dragonborn controlled dragons.

And as Alduin's shadow passed overhead one final time before disappearing into the mountains, I felt the first stirrings of something vast and terrible awakening in my chest. A power that would make my swarm look like a child's toy.

Helgen burned behind us as we escaped into the wilderness, but I wasn't looking back. The girl in the locker was dead. What had taken her place was just beginning to understand what it could become.

And Emma Barnes, Madison Clements, Sophia Hess—all the petty bullies and small-minded tormentors of my previous life—they had no idea what they had helped create.

None of them did.

But they would learn.

 

[AntonioCC]

Scene: Wards HQ, mid-evening, January 3rd, 2011
Somewhere quiet. A break room off the main common area. A moment of calm.

I sat on the edge of the plastic chair, clutching the steaming mug Vista had handed me. Hot cocoa. It was too sweet, but it was warm, and that mattered more.

Vista sat across from me, legs swinging a little, fingers drumming a quiet rhythm on the table. She hadn't said much since we left the others. I didn't mind.

"I hate the first week," she said suddenly.

I blinked. "What?"

"After you join. Everyone's staring at you. You feel like a zoo exhibit. Or worse, like you're going to mess up and prove them right." She looked up, offering a tiny smile. "They're not all bad. But it's weird at first."

"I haven't even joined," I murmured.

"You will." She sipped from her own mug. "You wouldn't be here otherwise. They don't run all these tests and meetings if they're going to let you walk."

I wasn't sure if that was comforting or terrifying.

Vista shrugged. "It gets better. Eventually. You just... find your rhythm."

I looked at her — younger than me, but somehow more composed. She'd been doing this longer. That made sense, but it still felt surreal.

"You always wanted to be a hero?" I asked.

"Kind of." She smiled faintly. "I used to dress up as Miss Militia for Halloween. Once I figured out my powers weren't going away, it felt like the obvious choice."

"I didn't have a choice," I said, before I could stop myself.

She nodded like she understood. Maybe she did.

Then the door banged open.

"Ladies!" Clockblocker announced, grinning like he'd just won a prize. "Hope I'm not interrupting deep bonding time. Or secret plans to overthrow the city. Either's fine."

Vista groaned. "What now, Dennis?"

"Oh, nothing major. Just thought you'd like to see what the internet is saying about our newest maybe-member." He waggled a phone, then tossed it lightly onto the table in front of me.

The screen showed a PHO thread.

[Breaking] New Cape at Winslow?? Lightning, Bugs, Hammer??

I stared. Scrolled. My heart thudded faster with every post.

They were talking about me. About the locker. About the hammer.

Someone said I walked out covered in bugs. That part was true.

Someone else called me a Skitter. Not sure if that was an insult or nickname.

And then—

"Oh no," Vista muttered, leaning over my shoulder. "Not him."

XX_VoidCowboy_XX:

GUYS. IT'S MJOLNIR.
She's the NEW THOR.
This is PROPHECY.

Click to shrink...

I blinked. "Is that—?"

"Greg Veder," Vista said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Your classmate?"

I groaned. "Oh God. Of course he'd be on a conspiracy site."

"It's not even the worst part," Clockblocker said cheerfully. "You should see the full thread. There's already fan art. One guy called you Bug-Thor."

Vista smacked his arm. "Dennis. Not helping."

"What? This is a rite of passage! PHO memes mean you've made it."

I exhaled slowly and slid the phone back across the table. My hands were shaking, just a little.

"It's not Mjolnir," I said. "It's just... mine."

Clockblocker raised an eyebrow. "Sure. But you gotta admit, it looks cool as hell."

Vista nudged his shoulder. "Hey. Maybe cool it for a minute?"

He held up his hands. "Alright, alright. Backing off." He looked at me, a little more serious now. "Jokes aside… people are going to talk. Make stuff up. You can't stop that. But you can decide what kind of cape you're gonna be."

I looked down at the cocoa. Still warm.

"I don't know what I'm going to be yet," I admitted.

Vista offered a small smile. "You've got time."

Clockblocker nodded. "And a hammer."

 

[AntonioCC]

The keep's stone walls offered blessed relief from the chaos outside, though not from the heat. Even here, smoke crept through cracks in the masonry, and the distant roar of flames was a constant reminder of what lay behind us.

"Stay close," Hadvar warned as we descended into the keep's lower levels. "There might be survivors down here, and not all of them will be friendly."

I nodded, but my attention was elsewhere. The deeper we went into the ancient stonework, the stronger that strange resonance became. It wasn't just the Dragonborn awakening in me—it was something older, more fundamental. These stones remembered things. They had witnessed the rise and fall of empires, the passing of ages, the first time dragons had ruled these skies.

And they recognized what I was becoming.

"Look out!" Hadvar's warning came just as a Stormcloak soldier emerged from the shadows, sword raised. But I was already moving, the axe flowing through the air with practiced ease. The blade caught him in the side, and he dropped without a sound.

Hadvar stared at me with new respect. "Where did you learn to fight like that?"

"I didn't," I said, wiping blood from the axe head. It was the truth—Taylor Hebert had never been in a real fight in her life. But this body, this new self, moved like violence was its native language. "It just... feels right."

We pressed deeper into the keep, past cells that still held the bones of long-dead prisoners, through chambers carved from living rock. With each step, I felt myself changing. Not physically—that transformation was already complete—but mentally. The careful, analytical mindset that had helped me survive Winslow was expanding, taking in tactical assessments I shouldn't have been able to make, understanding the flow of combat like I'd been studying it for years.

"There," Hadvar pointed to an iron door set into the far wall. "That leads to the old escape tunnel. The previous lords of Helgen had it built during the—"

"Oblivion Crisis," I finished, the words coming from knowledge I'd never learned. "When the Daedra invaded and nowhere was truly safe."

He gave me a sharp look but didn't comment. We had more immediate concerns—like the sound of footsteps echoing from the passage behind us.

"More survivors," Hadvar muttered, drawing his sword. "Could be Imperials, could be Stormcloaks. Either way, they might not be in a talking mood."

But I was already at the door, my hands finding the ancient lock mechanism with suspicious familiarity. The tumblers clicked into place as if I'd opened this very door a thousand times before.

"How did you—" Hadvar began.

"Lucky guess," I said, pushing the door open to reveal a narrow tunnel carved from bedrock. Cool air flowed from the darkness beyond, carrying scents of earth and growing things. Freedom.

Behind us, the footsteps were getting closer. Hadvar gestured me forward, but I paused at the threshold, looking back into the depths of the keep.

"What is it?" he asked.

I tilted my head, listening to something he couldn't hear. Not sound, exactly, but... resonance. Like a tuning fork struck in a distant room, vibrating through stone and bone and soul.

"Someone's calling," I said softly.

"I don't hear anything."

Of course he didn't. This wasn't meant for ordinary ears. This was the voice of something ancient and vast, something that had been waiting in the dark places of the world for the right person to find it. The Dragonborn weren't just dragon-slayers—they were inheritors of power that predated human civilization.

But that could wait. The tunnel beckoned, and whatever was hunting us through the keep was getting closer.

We plunged into the darkness, following a passage that seemed to have been carved by running water over millennia. My feet found sure purchase on stones worn smooth by countless refugees who had fled through this route over the centuries. Kings and peasants, soldiers and scholars, all running from various disasters that had befallen Helgen over the years.

None of them had been running toward what I was running toward.

"Light ahead," Hadvar reported, and indeed, gray daylight was filtering through what looked like a cave mouth. "We're almost—"

The sound that interrupted him wasn't human. It was the low, rumbling growl of something large and hungry, echoing from the shadows ahead of us.

"Cave bear," Hadvar breathed, raising his sword. "Big one, by the sound of it."

I hefted my axe, but something made me pause. That resonance was stronger here, almost overwhelming. And mixed with it was something else—a sense of recognition that went both ways.

The bear that emerged from the cave mouth was indeed massive, its brown fur matted with old blood and its eyes reflecting the dim light like twin amber flames. It reared up on its hind legs, towering over us both, and roared a challenge that should have sent us running.

Instead, I stepped forward.

"Wait!" Hadvar hissed. "What are you doing?"

I didn't answer because I wasn't entirely sure myself. But something in those amber eyes wasn't quite right. There was an intelligence there that went beyond animal cunning, a depth that spoke of long years and accumulated wisdom.

When I opened my mouth, words came out that I'd never learned to speak:

"Hin daal wah nust kotin, lok vahzah."

The effect was immediate and startling. The bear dropped to all fours, its aggressive posture melting into something that looked almost like... respect? It padded forward, close enough that I could feel its breath on my face, and made a sound deep in its throat that wasn't quite a growl.

Then it turned and disappeared back into the shadows, leaving us with a clear path to the outside world.

"What," Hadvar said very carefully, "was that language you just spoke?"

I looked at my hands, still gripping the axe, and felt the truth settle over me like a mantle.

"Dragon tongue," I said. "Thu'um. The Voice."

"That's impossible. Only the Greybeards know the—" He stopped, staring at me with dawning comprehension. "Who are you?"

Through the cave mouth, I could see blue sky and distant mountains, a world spread out like a map waiting to be explored. Somewhere out there were ancient tombs holding treasures of knowledge, temples where monks studied the same power that had just made a cave bear bow its head to me. Somewhere out there was my destiny.

"I told you before," I said, stepping out into the light. "I don't know who I am."

But that was no longer entirely true. I was beginning to understand exactly what I was.

And the world—both this one and the one I'd left behind—would never be ready for it.

 

[AntonioCC]

The first breath of free air hit me like a revelation. Clean mountain wind, carrying the scent of pine and snow and something indefinably wild. No smog, no industrial chemicals, no underlying stench of a city slowly rotting from within. Just... purity.

Behind us, a pillar of black smoke rose from where Helgen had been, dark against the afternoon sky. From this distance, it looked almost peaceful—just another signal fire on a distant mountain. But I could still hear the echoes of Alduin's roar in my memory, could still feel the weight of those ancient eyes acknowledging what I was becoming.

"There," Hadvar pointed toward a cluster of buildings nestled in the valley below. "Riverwood. My uncle runs the mill there—he'll help us get word to Solitude about what happened."

Riverwood. The name stirred something in my memory, though I was beginning to understand that these weren't really memories at all. They were more like... inherited knowledge. The accumulated wisdom of every Dragonborn who had come before, sleeping in my blood until Alduin's return had awakened it.

"What will you tell them?" I asked as we picked our way down the mountainside. The path was treacherous, loose stones threatening to send us tumbling into the ravine below, but my feet found sure purchase. This body knew how to navigate rough terrain, even if my mind was still catching up.

"The truth," Hadvar said grimly. "That the World-Eater has returned, just like in the old stories. That dragons are real, and they're not myths anymore." He paused, glancing at me sideways. "And that we might have found something just as important."

I didn't ask what he meant. We both knew.

As we descended, I found myself cataloguing everything with the same analytical intensity I'd once brought to studying the social dynamics of Winslow. But this was different—instead of mapping alliance patterns and weakness hierarchies, I was reading the landscape itself. That ridge would provide good cover for archers. Those trees were old growth, their roots deep enough to anchor against even dragonfire. The stream we were following would lead to the White River, which connected to trade routes stretching across half the province.

Strategic information. Military intelligence. The kind of knowledge that won wars.

"You're thinking like a general," I said aloud, startling myself.

"What?" Hadvar looked back at me.

"Nothing. Just... processing."

But it wasn't nothing. The girl who'd been stuffed in a locker had thought small—how to survive the next day, the next humiliation, the next casual cruelty. This new version of me was thinking in terms of campaigns and kingdoms, of power that could reshape the world.

We reached the valley floor as the sun was beginning to set, painting the sky in shades of gold and crimson. Riverwood looked like something from a fairy tale—wooden houses with thatched roofs, smoke rising from chimneys, the sound of a mill wheel turning beside the rushing water. Peaceful. Pastoral.

Completely unprepared for what was coming.

"Hadvar!" A woman's voice called out as we approached the main road. "Thank the Eight, you're alive!"

She rushed toward us—middle-aged, flour dusting her apron, relief written across her weathered face. Hadvar's aunt, I realized without knowing how I knew.

"Gerdur," Hadvar embraced her briefly. "We need to talk. All of us. Where's Hod?"

"At the mill, where else?" She looked past him to me, taking in my ragged clothes, the bloodstained axe I still carried. "And who's this?"

"A survivor," Hadvar said simply. "She helped me escape."

I felt the weight of Gerdur's assessment, the way her eyes catalogued details that might mark me as threat or ally. It reminded me of my father's careful evaluation of new people, back when he'd still cared enough to worry about who I associated with.

Dad. The thought hit me like a physical blow. Daniel Hebert, widowed dockworker, who'd lost his wife and then slowly lost his daughter to depression and distance. He'd be wondering where I was right now. Probably blaming himself for not checking the locker sooner, for not seeing the signs of what Emma and her friends were doing to me.

He'd never know what had really happened. Never know that his daughter had been... translated... into something else entirely. Never know that she was safe—safer than she'd ever been in Brockton Bay.

Never know that she was coming back stronger.

"You look tired," Gerdur was saying. "Both of you. Come on, let's get you fed and—"

"Gerdur." Hadvar's voice was sharp with urgency. "We need to send word to Solitude immediately. And to Whiterun. Dragons have returned."

She stared at him for a long moment, searching his face for signs of jest or madness. When she found neither, her expression grew grim.

"Dragons," she repeated slowly.

"Alduin himself," I said quietly. "The World-Eater."

Both of them turned to look at me, and I felt that weight of attention again. But this time, instead of the helpless exposure I'd felt under the stares of Winslow's student body, I felt... powerful. Like their attention was a resource I could use, a tool to be wielded with precision.

"You know the old stories," Gerdur said. It wasn't quite a question.

"I'm beginning to," I replied. "And they're not stories."

As we walked toward the mill, past houses where families were settling down to evening meals, I caught fragments of conversation through open windows. Talk of trade routes and harvest yields, of bandits on the roads and political tensions between Imperials and Stormcloaks. Normal concerns for normal people living normal lives.

None of them knew that the world had just fundamentally changed. That the dragons had returned, and with them, the Dragonborn. That the girl walking past their windows with blood on her axe and ancient words on her tongue was something that hadn't existed for centuries.

But they would learn. All of them would learn.

Because I was done being powerless. Done being overlooked and underestimated and stuffed into small, dark places by people who thought they were stronger than me.

Taylor Hebert had been a victim.

The Dragonborn was something else entirely.

And as the first stars appeared in the darkening sky above Riverwood, I began to plan what came next.

 

[AntonioCC]

Scene: PRT ENE – Armsmaster's Workshop, 11:14 PM, January 3rd, 2011

The lighting was dim, save for the multi-monitor array casting a pale blue glow across the cluttered workbench. Toolkits, power cells, and half-dismantled drone parts lay pushed aside — temporarily forgotten. Armsmaster stood still, arms crossed, helm on the table beside him. His eyes, sharp and scanning, were fixed on the footage.

PRT Body Cam: Unit 2
Timestamp: 15:27:41

[Static. Alarm klaxon blaring. The camera pivots down a fluorescent-lit hallway in Winslow High. Screams in the distance. Smoke.]

[Suddenly: a locker door explodes outward in a burst of shrapnel and steam. Insects — hundreds — pour into the hallway. A girl stumbles out, hunched, covered in filth and blood. She's barefoot. In one hand: a massive, angular hammer, crackling faintly with blue energy.]

Click to shrink...

Colin scrubbed the footage back five seconds. Then again. Frame by frame.

He adjusted a dial on his bracer, enhancing the hammer. Running shape-matching software. Cross-referencing databases.

[MATCH FAILED]
No registered Tinker signature. No known Maker ID. Composition: unknown alloy. Radiological output: intermittent. Electromagnetic bleed: variable.]

Click to shrink...

He narrowed his eyes.

"Not Tinker-built," he muttered aloud. "Not standard parahuman conjuration pattern either. No visible summoning event. Object was not present prior to emergence."

He typed in commands, isolating the moment the hammer first appears. But there's no materialization. No dramatic manifestation.

It was just… there.

She was clutching it in the dark. As if it had been waiting with her.

Colin scowled and brought up thermal imaging from another angle — exterior drone footage.

Drone 04
Timestamp: 15:28:02

[The girl emerges from the building. Police lines pull back. She walks with limping purpose. Bugs trail her like a cloak. Three troopers approach with restraint foam rifles. One raises his weapon.]

[She doesn't speak. She raises the hammer. A pulse — blue-white lightning — cracks across the pavement. The ground spiderwebs beneath her feet.]

[PRT units are thrown back. The hammer returns to her hand — it returns.]

Click to shrink...

Colin froze the frame.

Return trajectory: unnatural. No visible tether. No magnetic relay. The hammer arced through the air and bent in midflight.

He checked his telemetry.

Mass too high for casual throw. Force output consistent with Brute 6 or higher — yet her body showed no muscular hypertrophy. She was underfed. Malnourished, even.

"Insufficient strength to wield something of that mass unaided," he said aloud, recording a note. "Power-assisted? Or the weapon assists her?"

He opened a new file.

[UNREGISTERED PARAHUMAN: FEMALE, TEEN, ID UNCONFIRMED]
Codename suggested: SKITTER (per public chatter – pending approval)
Power classification: TBD

• Master (confirmed – insect control)
• Blaster/Trump? (uncertain – lightning event, unknown energy source)
• Striker/Thinker? (possible integration with weapon)
• Weapon anomaly registered: requires investigation. Potential Tinker-adjacent. Or... anomalous.

He hesitated at that last word.

Colin Wallis did not believe in "magic."

But the hammer wasn't Tinkertech. It wasn't conjured. It wasn't built.

It was found.

And it didn't want to be taken.

He glanced at the metal casing of the thing as it glowed on-screen, and for the first time in hours, his fingers paused above the keyboard.

Then he typed one final line in the margin of the report:

Item bears resemblance to mythological Mjölnir. Investigate cultural resonance vectors. Cross-reference with artifact reports.

A pause.

Note: delete this line before final submission.

He closed the file.

And stared, quietly, at the girl in the frozen frame. Eyes full of fury, hands clenched around something impossible.

 

[AntonioCC]

Scene: Hebert Residence, Brockton Bay Docks
January 3rd, 2011 – 10:52 PM

The house was too quiet.

Danny Hebert sat at the kitchen table, hunched over a cold cup of coffee that had gone untouched since the moment he poured it. The small kitchen smelled faintly of salt and engine grease from his coat still hanging by the door. The wall clock ticked like it was mocking him.

She was alive. That was all they'd told him, at first.

Then came the rest, in trickles: There had been an incident. Taylor had manifested powers. She was safe. In PRT custody. There'd be an official debrief. A handler would contact him soon.

They wouldn't let him see her.

That last part had made him put a hole in the drywall.

He sat now, staring at the old landline phone, daring it to ring.

His hands trembled. Rage and guilt warred in his gut, twisting. He had known she was struggling — a change in posture, the way she avoided eye contact, the things left unsaid over dinner. But she'd always said "I'm fine," and he, stupidly, had believed her.

Because he had wanted to.

Winslow. He had trusted the school. He had gone to meetings. He had signed forms. Teachers had nodded, and counselors had spoken in circles. They hadn't told him she was being shoved in a locker and buried in filth. They hadn't told him she had been breaking.

But now the city knew. The whole damn internet probably knew.

He'd seen it, on a laptop someone from the union had shown him at the Yard — a blurry video. Taylor, covered in grime and blood, stepping out of smoke and insects like a ghost from a battlefield. Holding a hammer.

That hammer. Blue sparks. Impossible weight. It felt like something out of a dream.

People said things online. Some cruel. Some breathless with awe. And one lunatic swore it was Mjolnir.

Danny didn't care what it was.

He only cared that it had saved her.

No — she had saved herself.

His daughter had been locked in a coffin, and she had ripped it open.

He couldn't protect her. Not then. Not from the people at school. Not from the silence in the house after Annette died.

But maybe now… maybe now someone would have to listen.

The phone rang.

He snatched it up before the second tone.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Hebert?" A woman's voice. Cool, measured. "This is Agent Corbin with the PRT. I'm calling about your daughter. She's safe. She's resting. I understand this is overwhelming, but we'd like to schedule a meeting tomorrow morning to discuss next steps. Rights, options, medical evaluations."

Danny's jaw clenched.

"She was in that locker for hours. You know that?"

"We're reviewing all available information—"

"You have footage, don't you?" His voice rose despite himself. "You saw what she walked out of. And how many people let it happen."

A pause. Then, cautiously: "Yes. We did."

"I want names," he said. "Teachers. Staff. Whoever was supposed to be watching. You tell Director Piggot I'm not going to let this be swept under the rug. Not this time."

Another pause. A faint sigh. "Understood. We'll arrange for a meeting. There are… considerations."

"I'm sure there are," he said coldly.

He hung up before she could speak again.

The coffee was still cold. He threw it out and poured another, hands steady now.

Taylor had always been quiet. Gentle. Too much like her mother, really.

Now she carried a weapon the size of a fire hydrant and walked through lightning like it was hers.

They'd called her dangerous.

They had no idea.