Charm Learning Shard (Worm/Exalted) (COMPLETED)

[ses]

I cannot wait for some people to put 2+2 together and work out that it takes twice as many hits to kill an EB as a parahuman. And three more than a regular old human!

The Fallen will suddenly seem a lot less crazy when they claim the EBs are gods/angels when they have twice the soul of anyone that isn't Eidolon / Fairy Queen.

Haven are gonna have a bad time learning humans are worth far less, but at least it proves the whole "soul" thing!

Click to shrink...

You have your numbers wrong. Baselines are Essence 1, parahumans Essence 2 or 3, Eidolon 4, and Endbringers are Essence 6. Getting reduced to zero Essence extinguishes their life.

Also snuts has been using MHM as Martial Arts, but surely the telekinetic weapon options count as Melee for the purposes of Soul-Cleaving? If Taylor has figured out the alternate modes that means she has access to a ghetto version of Will-Crushing Force which could come in extremely handy for mindbreaking mortals, plus she has a Trump rating that's absolutely reasonable to add to Poltergeist's identity as a 200% believable second trigger from the S9 considering what happened to canon Grue. It's probably more useful to put the power negation on the Poltergeist identity than keep it on Esper if she's not comfortable making them both power-negators.

 

[OldSpartan]

So, the B in the last arc's chapter titles stood for Behemoth obviously. Anyone have an idea of what the K stands for in this arc?

 

[zapking5]

So, the B in the last arc's chapter titles stood for Behemoth obviously. Anyone have an idea of what the K stands for in this arc?

Click to shrink...

Khonsu is the obvious idea. He could just teleport to another city whenever Taylor got close to him.

 

[Omnomimous]

Utter retardation from a storytelling perspective.

Click to shrink...

That's part of why this specific method of power generation is kind of brilliant. Taylor's rate of acquiring powers is exactly as fast as the plot allows, and her method of gaining those powers is a strong driving force in the progression of the story. You need her to get this specific set of powers to pop an Endbringer? She's got to have a proper Watsonian justification for how she gets those powers, and most of the time that's going to dramatically affect the path of the story because she needs to spend so long with certain people to get them.

In retrospect, you could say that, given this specific point in the story (Taylor uses this power combination to slay an Endbringer), there are very few, or perhaps only one path that leads here. Would you call this fate? Or the providence of Ziz's suicidal machinations?

 

[ses]

In retrospect, you could say that, given this specific point in the story (Taylor uses this power combination to slay an Endbringer), there are very few, or perhaps only one path that leads here. Would you call this fate? Or the providence of Ziz's suicidal machinations?

Click to shrink...

I know we're fond of "everything is a simurgh plot" here, but this is painting the bullseye. Crusader and Murder Rat's powers were one way of delivering damage past endbringer soak, but there were other options. As is grandmother spider mastery to deliver PST at range, and resistance/invulnerability/mover charms to allow her to survive the kill aura long enough to close to melee. Also Taylor didn't have to get the behemoth kill.

 

[snthsnth]

I know we're fond of "everything is a simurgh plot" here, but this is painting the bullseye

Click to shrink...

I'm hoping this is actually Ziz seducing a solar the only way possible. Taylor does know her soul's price, after all.

Maybe with a side of Patricide to dodge daddy's master power.

 

[Omnomimous]

I know we're fond of "everything is a simurgh plot" here, but this is painting the bullseye

Click to shrink...

The Simurgh has explicitly, directly manipulated Taylor at multiple points in the story. Ziz spoke directly to Taylor through Ballistic's triggered memory. One of her feathers is part of Taylor's blade that can cut anything. Because Ziz gave it to her. And now it's in the Elsewhere space, with the Smaug unit. Wait scratch that, it got fucked after Aisha's attempt on Bonesaw, didn't it?

Metaphorically look me in the eye and tell me you don't think it's plausible that the Simurgh is arranging for events to lead to either her destruction or release.

 

[ses]

The Simurgh has explicitly, directly manipulated Taylor at multiple points in the story. Ziz spoke directly to Taylor through Ballistic's triggered memory. One of her feathers is part of Taylor's blade that can cut anything. Because Ziz gave it to her. And now it's in the Elsewhere space, with the Smaug unit. Wait scratch that, it got fucked after Aisha's attempt on Bonesaw, didn't it?

Metaphorically look me in the eye and tell me you don't think it's plausible that the Simurgh is arranging for events to lead to either her destruction or release.

Click to shrink...

Because this is a well written fic and ascribing literally everything that happens to Taylor as the simurgh's 10,000 year keikaku is bad writing. For reference see WoW: Shadowlands.

 

[Amberion]

This fic is all about getting them powers, though. The combo used to defeat Behemoth is something I spent a lot of effort and attention on constructing - in the planning stage, and then it required a bunch of plot to get everything in place. Compared to the typical example of the 'power-accumulating' genre, I'd say my main advantage is that I carefully made the main character not story-crushingly overpowered, instead of the opposite of that. Though the genre itself ensures such things are fleeting, as we can start to see here closing in on chapter 100.

Click to shrink...

Oh, I have no problem with the getting of the powers, and the combining of the powers. The important part is, you don't get bogged down, and you're constantly moving forward with the plot.

It's definitely something I noticed, that Taylor is not OP, and I appreciate it. Plot doesn't move forward if the MC is safely ensconced within their comfort zone.

 

[Daniel Snuts]

Another important thing is that 'interesting MC' is an underexploited niche. Far too many people hear 'characters should be flawed' and produce 'blandness + weakness', which is worse than just plain blandness. Laudable and/or relatable protagonists are overrated! Look at the charisn'tma of Exalt!Taylor. Isn't she a mess? Aren't you eager to see what she's going to do next? Extra spicy in second person!

Not without its downsides, what is?

I mean I appreciate the emotional knife, it was masterfully executed. I guess I just didn't see it as breaking her positive intimacies towards the rank and file and her desire to care for her people. I'm going to miss Alex and Sven and Fake Swede and Big Brain. Feels weird to me that now that she's finally in a straight up leadership position with the power to decide such things she's not making an active effort to ensure that whites are the ones rebuilding civilization. Too much of a retread of post-leviathan?

Click to shrink...

Case in point. Taylor is ultimately self-centered, placing her own desires over ideals or the greater good. She's not virtuous enough to be a nazi.

Also snuts has been using MHM as Martial Arts, but surely the telekinetic weapon options count as Melee for the purposes of Soul-Cleaving?

Click to shrink...

No, 'Telekinetic Blow' and 'Telekinetic Stab' are technically ranged attacks, not melee attacks. But I'm not going to let them count for Ranged/Thrown charms either, because they're not ranged/thrown weapons. Crack the Sky slips past because the grappling rules are weird and off to the side a bit, as grappling rules tend to be.

One of her feathers is part of Taylor's blade that can cut anything. Because Ziz gave it to her. And now it's in the Elsewhere space, with the Smaug unit. Wait scratch that, it got fucked after Aisha's attempt on Bonesaw, didn't it?

Click to shrink...

No? Taylor charged it up, Aisha dropped it after she used the charges, Taylor picked it up and stuffed it Elsewhere again.

 

[ses]

Case in point. Taylor is ultimately self-centered, placing her own desires over ideals or the greater good. She's not virtuous enough to be a nazi.

Click to shrink...

Good job I burst out laughing and snorted so hard the spittle went down the wrong tubes. I needed that smile in my day.

 

[Daniel Snuts]

You wake up in pitch darkness - and that alone is enough to tell you that something is very, very wrong. You, sleeping? You must have been either terribly injured, or drugged. You call forth a pair of mind hands for light and blearily try to find any clues as to which it is.

The IV feed attached to your arm could go either way, but the way you're shackled to the bed is quite suggestive. And either whatever they gave you is messing with your sense of balance, or the rocking sensation indicates that you're on a boat.

Well then. You'll just go with 'drugged' until further evidence presents itself. You remove the IV with a mind-hand. You suspect that you were not meant to wake up at all, but whoever captured you misjudged the amount of sedative needed to keep you under. Shitty Brute powers saving the day once again.

The restraints prove to be shockingly durable, completely shrugging off your charm of unmaking. Some kind of Tinker material, then, because mere steel would not be able to do that. And the bedframe is made of the same stuff, you discover, so you can't just disassemble that either.

Wow, you think as you shapeshift you hands and feet small enough to slip your bonds, someone wasted millions of dollars on an attempt to keep you confined. Slipping free of the cuffs (and subsequently also removing a catheter, but let's not talk about that), you sit up in bed and look around.

The room you're in is fairly small, with barely enough space for two hospital beds placed end to end. Yes, there's another bed behind yours, occupied by an unconscious Banshee. And here you thought kidnapping you was ballsy.

You remove her IV as well, and perform a closer examination of the room while you wait for her to wake up. The walls are made of more of the same Tinker material, raising your estimation of how much this cost by an order of magnitude. Maybe two. You also find the outline of what must be the door, but whatever mechanisms are keeping it closed are all on the other side.

The room is, as far as you can tell, completely airtight. Which explains the humming device with the pressure tanks under your bed, that industry and forge wisdom identifies as a carbon dioxide scrubber. A model that functions with no electronics whatsoever - because electronics are made of silicon, and you do not want to put any silicon in the same room as Banshee, sedated or not.

There are no cameras - either because they couldn't figure out how to make them without silicon, or because they didn't want to compromise the structural integrity of the cell by leaving holes for cables. It's almost cute, the way they think they're sufficiently paranoid.

But rather than protecting them, it just means they don't know you're up and about. You grin nastily in the darkness (you're not worried about making noise, either, because you don't spend this much effort on kidnapping Banshee without also soundproofing the shit out of her cell).

But speaking of Banshee, you need to get her out of the cuffs too. Alas, you never did pick up a proper flesh-warping power before Panacea went nuts, so you can't repeat the same trick. The locks are as over-engineered as everything else in the room, with all sorts of fancy features meant to make them harder to pick - that industry and forge wisdom helpfully tells you all about.

Between that, and the ridiculous dexterity of your mind-hands, you have the first cuff off her in no time at all. By which you mean, well, perhaps an hour. It's your first time picking an actual lock, okay, and your toolkit consists of exactly two IV needles (you're not about to unmake the CO2​ scrubber for parts, for reasons that should be obvious).

Banshee is stirring by the time you get the last cuff off.

"What happened?" she asks. "Where are we? Why is it so dark? ...why are you naked?"

You explain what you've discovered and surmised. Kidnapping, sedatives, miscalculated dosage. Extremely secure cell.

"So, desert time?" she asks, entirely unconcerned.

"We could do that," you agree. "But then we couldn't find out who did it, or explain to them why it was a bad idea." There's the matter of provisions, too - you have made it through the desert without water before, but it's not something you look forward to repeating.

"Oh, I like the idea of that," she says with a smile that's not friendly at all. "But-"

You hold up a hand. "Do you feel that? I think we're slowing down."

"...I think so too."

"Right. Unhook yourself, and get ready to fight."

"Unhook..? Oh."

You make your way over to the door, politely ignoring Banshee's curses as she works the plastic tube free. The door, however, remains closed. Instead, the entire cell is hoisted into the air. You maintain your balance like the graceful crane you are, but Banshee yelps as she almost falls off the bed.

When you're set down again, the rocking motion is still there. Did they just transfer you to another boat? No, a couple of minutes later you feel a much stronger acceleration, followed shortly by the world tilting upwards.

"A seaplane," you conclude. "Our kidnappers are certainly pulling out all the stops." When it becomes clear that no one is coming to check on you, you sit back down on your bed. "Looks like we'll be waiting for a while yet. How much glass are you packing?"

"As if they'd leave me any glass?" she says incredulously, gesturing at her naked form.

"Man, running with the S9 sure made you soft, huh?" Imagine being so dependent on danger-Thinker support that you don't even plan for being kidnapped, stripped naked and chained up inside an indestructible box. "Good thing I'm here."

You slip off to the side and squat down where the bed shields you from view. You might not be overly self-conscious about being naked in front of her, but there are limits. When you stand back up, you present her with a large - if somewhat smelly - glass marble.

"This," you say, "is what being sufficiently paranoid looks like. I expect better from you in the future."

---

With a dull flight of indefinite duration ahead of you, you take the opportunity to finally finish up studying Banshee's power. Something you really should have gotten done long ago, if you really were as paranoid as you claim. But knowing that it would always be around later, you kept putting it off in favor of, well, everything else that was fucking your schedule in the ass. It's not as if Endbringers are vulnerable to glass.

You lean rather hard on this one, trying to shape it to your will. Ideally you'd want something that can conjure glass, rather than control it, because one smelly marble is less of a trump card than you'd like. Perhaps too hard, because when it finally sticks to your soul, it looks broken. Where are the power conduits?

No wait, that's not a break, it's a plug. One that fits perfectly into the weird truncated power you got from Newter's vision quest, way back when. You carefully bring them together.

Golden light fills the room, and hundreds - thousands - of glossily translucent black butterflies fly forth from your hands, only to shatter against the not-steel of the far wall.

Banshee hums a note, and the shards rise to dance in the air. You pluck one out with a mind-hand and bring it closer to study. Obsidian, that explains the color. A good news, bad news situation. The good news is that you're now carrying around a much larger reserve of emergency glass at all times, with none of the previous discomfort. The bad news apply entirely to your kidnappers.

"Nice," Banshee says. "Can you make more?"

Sure you can. It takes a bit of mental effort, connecting both parts of the power across the starscape of your soul, but nothing like the gargantuan hodgepodge you assembled to take down Behemoth. By the time the plane starts to descend you're almost waist-high in razor-sharp glass (a much better idea than it sounds, due to the company you keep).

As soon as wheels touch the runway, your knife is summoned into your hand and fully charged. Three long slashes open up a triangular doorway in the overpriced wall-stuff. Mind-hands lever it out of the way, revealing a rubbery white material beneath. Soundproofing, you assume. You reach out and lay your hand against it, only to find out that it too resists unmaking. More Tinker bullshit, or was it simply cast in one piece?

Still, whatever the white stuff is, it wasn't made with durability foremost in mind. Your knife may be spent, but your mind-hands are able to rip and tear the material, if slowly.

"Don't sing quite yet," you warn Banshee as she shifts impatiently. "I know you could do it faster, but they might hear you as you break through. We want this to be a surprise."

She fidgets, and starts to hum several times before catching herself while you tear away more and more material. How thick is this thing, anyway? You feel the plane coming to a stop, and the cell being hoisted up again.

"Hurry," Banshee says.

There! Tearing away the last bit of soundproofing reveals the ridged steel of an ordinary shipping container. That, you can unmake.

Fifteen seconds later the entire wall falls away, freed from the brackets and rails holding it in place. You throw yourself back into the cell and away from the opening. The mass of obsidian knives you were about to face-plant into pulls away in the nick of time, flowing over and around you to go shooting out of the hole you made. You have just enough time to be shocked at how much you must subconsciously trust this former S9 member to have pulled a stunt like that, before Banshee starts singing.

The sound of shattering glass and screams of pain accompany her song. Whatever was moving your cell has stopped, the machinery and/or operator taken out. Banshee sedately floats forward in a cloud of obsidian, which starts to form into her customary angel costume as soon as she's outside.

Only to be interrupted by a lance of light searing into her from above. She falls.

Shit! Your mind-hands grab the piece of inner wall you cut away and push it ahead of you as you leap after her, activating your own flight just enough to land softly beside her. A quick glance around shows you to be on a small airfield - no surprise there - with your former prison just about to be lowered onto the bed of a truck. You appear to be on the outskirts of a city, with skyscrapers visible in the distance. You don't recognize the place, but didn't really expect to either - you're not exactly well travelled.

Looking up, you see the cape who shot Banshee hovering above. He's wearing a red suit and broken red mask. Broken over the mouth and the right ear to be precise, which tells you that it used to contain a microphone and earpiece that did not like Banshee introducing herself. Unfortunately the man himself appears uninjured.

That's all you have time to see before he gestures towards you and you have to bring the piece of wall up to block another beam. Banshee, however, proves that she is down but not out as a cloud of obsidian flies up towards him. Peering around your shield you see him get cut to ribbons and start to fall, only to pop back to where he was a moment later - fully recovered but with his costume even worse for wear.

Lasers and Alabaster-style immortality? If it wasn't for sorcerer's sight, you'd think you just found another Trump like yourself. Not that you understand what sorcerer's sight is showing you. The cape is suspended in a web of glowing lines, some leading all the way to the distant city, others spreading out across the airfield. The web if shifting, too, almost if-

Yes. Another node in the web - another cape - comes flying over the shipping container. Forewarned, you thrust out with a mind-hand at extreme range and manage to stab him in the chest before he can get a bead on you. Then a second later he's fine again, and firing a laser that you only barely manage to block in time. You stab him some more to get him to back off.

They are sharing powers through the web, you realize. And there's another ten or so of them spread throughout the immediate area, all of them converging towards you. You drag Banshee off to hunker against the cab of the truck. This lets you have some cover from the rear, but unlike your makeshift Tinker-alloy shield, you do not trust it to absorb lasers in the long term. Still better than trying to make a run for it over open ground.

On a happier note, Banshee is rapidly emptying your cell of obsidian, and filling the air with same. Even as more and more of the Yangban - for it is clearly them - arrive, they are kept too busy restoring themselves to manage a coordinated offense. Wait, you mean restoring each other, you can see the little licks of power reaching out between them.

Some of them are flying, others zoom back and forth along the ground - trying to flank you, or possibly just trying to get away from the glass storm. Some of them try to put up forcefield bubbles to protect themselves - but the bubbles are not soundproof, and they invariably trap at least a few shards in there with them. So they are still getting sliced up, only slightly slower. Bubbling up is also an excellent way to gain Banshee's attention, and the bubbles quickly pop under the increased bombardment.

Despite having to focus almost entirely on simply keeping each other alive, they do still manage to get the odd laser off. But each beam is quickly interrupted by them having to be restored, and they can't manage a proper barrage. So far you've managed to catch every attack on your shield.

In other words the entire battlefield is a horrible, screaming, bloody mess of a stalemate, and their morale is unbelievable. Literally, you don't believe it. They must have some sort pain nullification and/or mind control mixed in there that you're too busy to pick out with sorcerer's sight, or they would have routed twice over by now.

Oh, no, you get it now. That's not healing, that's time travel. They're constantly sending each other back in time to before they were injured, so none of them actually remember any pain. No wonder they're having trouble coordinating their attacks - with the pounding they're taking they're barely experiencing the passage of time at all.

Over the next minute they do gradually start switching tactics, though. Some of them conjure vacuums to try to drag your shield away from you or pull Banshee out of cover, but your mind-hands hold strong. Thank Manton they can't make a vacuum covering you, because that would cut off Banshee's sound-based power in an instant.

One strange attack comes out of nowhere and leaves every inch of your exposed skin - which currently means all of it - covered in a thin layer of ice. It's almost a relief, actually, because the residual heat from their lasers was starting to get uncomfortable. The ice quickly melts under the cherry-red glow of your shield.

Banshee's song stutters, and enemies appear to flicker across your vision, changing positions from one moment to the next. They're using their time rewind power on the both of you too, trying to disrupt your concentration. But it has little effect when you're just hunkering down and defending yourself / telekinetically killing everything that moves. Neither of you need to know what you were doing two seconds ago to understand what you need to do next.

One of them almost gets you when he sneaks around behind you and starts cutting through the truck itself with a sustained laser. But you're able to deduce his position by the strands of the web reaching back to connect him to the others, and warn Banshee in time for her to send a gale of glass to meet him. The strands of power connecting him to the web flicker out, and don't come back.

Ha. With him going off on his own, none of his comrades were able to get line of sight on him in time to reverse his mortal injuries.

A slightly smarter fellow realizes that the shipping container suspended above you is a potential weapon, and turns his laser on the, uh, the crane vehicle thingy holding it up. He's interrupted before he can finish, but others take up the job. It's not exactly quick or subtle, though, and you have plenty of time to lift up Banshee and get out of the way.

Or so you thought - instead of falling straight down, the back end of the container drops first, causing the whole thing to swing forward. Then when the front end falls, it hits the cab of the truck and tips sideways on top of you. You're forced to throw Banshee out of the way, and your shield along with her.

You don't have time to get yourself out of the way, and you hear a joyous exclamation in Chinese as it lands on top of you. A few of the others start to join in, only to swallow their words when the tendrils of your shadow form slip out from underneath and reform, unharmed. Joke's on them, now you have a properly laser-proof backstop and don't need to worry about them sending a bigger group sneaking behind you.

Banshee, to her credit, never stopped singing at any point during this. But she seems disoriented, less able to react to what's happening. Three people manage to bubble up long enough to take proper aim, and you're not going to be able to block them all. You manage to catch two of the beams on your shield - it's now glowing more yellow than red, but still holding strong.

The last beam - you make a snap decision to not throw yourself in front of it. Banshee is a critical asset in this fight, yes... But between the two of you, she's the one who still sports Bonesaw-brand subdermal armor, and you know first-hand how well it handles heat-based attacks. Her song finally cuts off - but the song itself is just window dressing. The sound that actually propagates her control is generated directly by her power, not by her throat, at frequencies far above human hearing.

Despite the apparent silence, the storm of glass surges with renewed fury as she lashes out in pain. The three attackers are shredded (and instantly restored), and for a while no one manages to coordinate another attack. You don't think she can keep this up for long, though.

Then again, it's not as if you've been sitting idle this whole time. No, you've been studying the web, trying to trace the origin of the time rewind power. There! The Case 53 towards the back of their formation. You grip your knife, waiting for the right moment.

A man shifts position, a shield bubble pops... leaving you with a clear line of sight towards your target. You stab out, and a golden beam shoots from your knife to strike the rewinder - leaving him unhurt, but powerless. The same attack that brought Behemoth low. This technically outs Poltergeist and Esper as the same person, but every camera and communication device has already been destroyed by Banshee's song, and the witnesses will die momentarily.

Suddenly unable to restore themselves, the Yangban start dropping like flies. They are still getting regular regeneration from somewhere back in the city - multiple sources of it too, if you're any judge - but that only helps so much when your organs are 60% obsidian by volume. Finally the last one goes still, and obsidian rains down around you as Banshee releases it from her grip.

You slump down, letting your shield fall to the ground. The Behemoth-Felling Strike takes an awful lot out of you, and between it and all the obsidian you conjured, you're about as tired as you've ever been. But you can't rest now. You need to check on your partner.

Banshee's breathing is fast and shallow, and there are terrible burns all down her left side, speckled with globs of black glass that melted onto or into her. She's also scraped and bleeding all over from rolling naked across the tarmac when you threw her. But despite all that, her expression is gleeful. "We got them," she pants.

"Yeah. Can you get up?"

"Don't think I can. Manage the control. To fly right now." She's meant to have pain overrides along with the subdermal armor, but you know how it goes with tinkertech. One of these days you're going to have to bite the bullet and emptiness endow yourself enough surgical skill to get in there and do maintenance.

Despite her words, Banshee struggles against you when you try to lift her up, insisting that she can at least walk. She sort of can, as long as you support almost all of her weight with a pair of mind-hands. "Let's find you some painkillers," you say.

She stops walking at looks at the distant buildings for a while. "Yes. Painkillers. And a lesson. For those who. Would oppose us."

Certain applications of her power do not require fine control, after all. You watch a wave of shattered car windows travel down a congested highway at the speed of sound, until it washes over the city itself. Countless fragments glimmer in the sunlight as skyscrapers are denuded. It's beautiful, when you're too far away to see the people.

You could perhaps have stopped her. But you didn't. The CUI committed an act of war when they violated your borders and abducted your citizens. For their hubris, a Banshee raises her voice, and a city goes silent.

===

Spoiler: Updated status

Charms:
Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom
Lung: By Rage Recast
Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation
Cricket: Mantis Form
Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking
Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique
Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment
Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach
Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion
Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance
Circus: Graceful Crane Stance
Ballistic: Crack the Sky
Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi
Purity: Eagle-Wing Style
Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch
Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack
Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt
Murder Rat: Unstoppable Lunar Wound
Siberian: ???
Animos: Soul-cleaving Wound
Cuff: Willpower-Enhancing Spirit
Shatterbird: Death of Obsidian Butterflies

Spoiler: A/N

There are certain requirements for writing a Worm fic that is faithful to the source material. And while I've hit the Taylor happiness requirements with room to spare, I'm way behind on my 'pointless and tedious cape fights' quota.

Besides, what's even the point of having 'all the powers' if you never get to use them?

 

[queermunist]

For shame Shatterbird Banshee, you should be carrying a string of glass anal beads with you at all times!

Jack was right, you aren't creative at all.

 

[space turtle]

The goddamn hubris to transport Shatterbird within a hundred miles of any city you find even vaguely important.

The only thing worse would be to dump her in a desert or a beach.

So, you're thousand of miles from home, surrounded by hundreds of enemy capes with myriad powers, cut off from home nation support, naked, and kinda woozy.
Fortunately you're the scariest trump since the fairy queen alongside your trust sidekick, the biotinkered shaker that comes second only to sleeper in the "fucks up very large areas" category.

I like those odds!

 

[zapking5]

I wonder if Taylor will straight up conquer China. If she can take control of Zero and the imperial family then she could use the resources of the entire country to collect power.

A man shifts position, a shield bubble pops... leaving you with a clear line of sight towards your target. You stab out, and a golden beam shoots from your knife to strike the rewinder - leaving him unhurt, but powerless. The same attack that brought Behemoth low. This technically outs Poltergeist and Esper as the same person, but every camera and communication device has already been destroyed by Banshee's song, and the witnesses will die momentarily.

Click to shrink...

Spoiler: image

 

[Aurora Raven]

I hope that's not Hong Kong (I live in hope that one day my home city will return to British rule), but the rest of China is fair game.

 

[John Doey]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but she got the capacity for Sorcery from Newter and a spell from Shatterbird?

And I'm very much enjoying the copious amount of flashy Exalted bullshit lately, very cool.

Also kind of a sad waste of Yangban power stealing, but oh well.

 

[tronax]

Yeah, people in that city absolutely must had been killed for living near the route of some assholes. That's our Taylor!

 

[Fernando]

When you stand back up, you present her with a large - if somewhat smelly - glass marble.

Click to shrink...

... prison wallet get?

 

[Whitesnake Pelinal]

I sigh. "I'm going to explain this once, and then we will never speak of it again.

"Esper is visible to Contessa. Contessa is following a Path for dealing with her, a Path that requires that the rest of us know nothing of her. If we were meant to know anything, or do anything, she would have told us. So we will not try to contact Esper. We will not try discover her whereabouts, or her identity. We will not speculate about her motivations or actions, past, present or future. Not the PRT, not the Protectorate, not Cauldron. We will act in all ways as if Esper does not exist."

Click to shrink...

O...kay? That sounds like a Cauldron plan.

"Thank you Colin. Later tonight we have an interview with one of those people: Former villain Dr. Atom, who says that the death of Behemoth made him reconsider his life choices and gave him hope for the future.

Click to shrink...

Awww, a feel-good story and PRT propaganda.

No, you do the behind-the-scenes work of governing in the guise of 'Esper's most trusted minion', an unassuming older lady who, unlike Esper herself, won't be instantly recognized and mobbed wherever she goes. And, as the situation demands, in the guise of her third, fourth, seventh and ninth most trusted minions. Did you mention that you have no free time whatsoever?

Click to shrink...

Didn't you used to have people who did that for you? I mean, sure they were only good at lower-case loyalty, but that could suffice in a pinch.

You wake up in pitch darkness - and that alone is enough to tell you that something is very, very wrong. You, sleeping? You must have been either terribly injured, or drugged. You call forth a pair of mind hands for light and blearily try to find any clues as to which it is.

The IV feed attached to your arm could go either way, but the way you're shackled to the bed is quite suggestive. And either whatever they gave you is messing with your sense of balance, or the rocking sensation indicates that you're on a boat.

Click to shrink...

Oh hey, turns out showing face in public all the time makes you vulnerable. Taylor really has become a cape bougie. I guess it could be a way to bait out more master powers so Taylor can expand her Loyalty program...

Lasers and Alabaster-style immortality? If it wasn't for sorcerer's sight, you'd think you just found another Trump like yourself. Not that you understand what sorcerer's sight is showing you. The cape is suspended in a web of glowing lines, some leading all the way to the distant city, others spreading out across the airfield. The web if shifting, too, almost if-

Click to shrink...

And it's the jerks who were teamkilling at the other Behemoth fight. I'd even called them to save Taylor from a Thanda master kidnapping, too.

You could perhaps have stopped her. But you didn't. The CUI committed an act of war when they violated your borders and abducted your citizens. For their hubris, a Banshee raises her voice, and a city goes silent.

Click to shrink...

A harsh lesson, but better dead than red.

 

[Requiem_Jeer]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but she got the capacity for Sorcery from Newter and a spell from Shatterbird?

And I'm very much enjoying the copious amount of flashy Exalted bullshit lately, very cool.

Also kind of a sad waste of Yangban power stealing, but oh well.

Click to shrink...

Keep in mind, she never actually studied Newter. Just got high as fuck.

She's always had Terrestrial Circle Sorcery. The essence bump her vision quest gave her just made her aware of it.

 

[queermunist]

A harsh lesson, but better dead than red.

Click to shrink...

They have an emperor actually. Ironically, they mirror Taylor's regime in a lot of ways.

 

[omni001]

The goddamn hubris to transport Shatterbird within a hundred miles of any city you find even vaguely important.

The only thing worse would be to dump her in a desert or a beach.

So, you're thousand of miles from home, surrounded by hundreds of enemy capes with myriad powers, cut off from home nation support, naked, and kinda woozy.
Fortunately you're the scariest trump since the fairy queen alongside your trust sidekick, the biotinkered shaker that comes second only to sleeper in the "fucks up very large areas" category.

I like those odds!

Click to shrink...

They transported them by boat, over the ocean. You know the place whose bottom is basically endless beach.

 

[Whitesnake Pelinal]

Genuinely surprised there was no mention yet of where the E88 mortals are. I actually really do hope they can continue their thing under Taylor's guidance.

Click to shrink...

Edit: Guess it was the Fenrir's Children thing and not the inconvenient soul prices and lack of powers to acquire.

That has the problem of being stupid though. Contessa-hours are literally the most valuable commodity on the planet, even with Cauldron's terminal retardation she has better things to do than play silent bodyguard.

Click to shrink...

Well, yeah. The whole thing is run by Doctor Mother and Contessa. Their unofficial motto is "We fight the Entities by handing out all the powers Eden couldn't."

They have an emperor actually. Ironically, they mirror Taylor's regime in a lot of ways.

Click to shrink...

Come to think of it, so they do.

 

[GAMB42]

So China is about to have a bad time as Taylor decides to go gallivating around it. She needs to find a way to talk to Jack so she can show him how real villains can get things done and tgat she can depopulate cities too.
Also this is precisely why trumps and tinkers are so prized in the Wormverse. In a world of specialists like all the other parahumans they are the ones capable of changing the rules.

 

[Doc Sithicus]

I cannot say I'm surprised, considering Taylor's previous companions (E88, S9) it was inevitable that Yangaban fuckers would make a move. And yes, I'm expecting Gesellschaft to make an appearance at some point.

 

[tronax]

precisely why trumps and tinkers are so prized in the Wormverse. In a world of specialists like all the other parahumans they are the ones capable of changing the rules.

Click to shrink...

...or so it seems, as they jump thru the hoops set by yet another Thinker.

 

[Zax Zaubererglück]

The goddamn hubris to transport Shatterbird within a hundred miles of any city you find even vaguely important.

Click to shrink...

May I remind you, that a Chinese perspective on losses is very different from anything that's considered politically correct everywhere else.
Mao Zedong: "Don't make a fuss about a world war. At most people die..."

If they realise the level of trump Taylor is, then a dozen more cities will be considered acceptable losses.

So. Yeah. Taylor will likely try to kidnapp and mind control a few members of the Yangban. Fun times ahead!

 

[Dakkah]

I loved how smug she was about her XL tactical anal bead.

(Though fairly safe to assume that if Banshee had been carrying one that they would've discovered both.)

 

[Amberion]

Aw, I can't help but feel that there was a missed opportunity for Taylor to join the Yangban cult, learn all the powers, and subvert from within.