Jeskai Inspiration (Worm AU / Magic the gathering) [Planeswalker Taylor]

[Kokusho]

Winslow High had many hallways, but none like the one where the cursed locker laid. Everyone avoided that place since, six months before, a horrible prank turned into a news story, a scandal, and a whispered warning passed from upperclassmen to freshmen.

Six months had passed since Taylor Hebert vanished into the twisted metal of her locker and never came back out.

The floor had been re-tiled, the walls repainted a soft blue that someone on the board must have thought looked cheerful. It didn't help. The hallway felt wrong in a way that had nothing to do with paint. Everyone who passed through it knew why, though no one ever said it out loud.

The locker stood untouched. Cleaned, yes. Repaired, no. The dent on the lower left corner was still there, faint but present, like a scar someone never bothered to cover up. Students had to walk that hall to get to the computer lab, and the overflow lockers for gym, and the temporary classrooms down the ramp. So they did. Quickly.

A group of freshmen passed by, whispering nervously. One of them clutched her books to her chest like they were talismans and muttered a prayer under her breath. Another nudged his friend, pointing without making eye contact, then quickened his pace like he might be next.

A football player with earphones in slowed for half a second as if sensing something wrong beneath the music, glanced at the locker out of the corner of his eye, and then pressed forward, face tight.

The janitor pushing a mop bucket turned the corner, caught sight of the locker, and stopped. He muttered something under his breath, a mix of habit and warding, then wheeled around and left without touching a thing.

Emma Barnes turned the corner, posture perfect as always. Her friends followed close behind, keeping their eyes down.

"Let's go," she said. Her voice cracked just a little.

She saw it. Of course she did. The locker. The scar. The silence wrapped around it like a noose that never quite snapped. Her spine stiffened, but her pace remained steady.

Behind her, her friends chattered, each of them casting occasional glances at Emma to see if she was reacting.

"She probably just ran away. Total loser move," Madison said, glancing toward the locker with a theatrical shiver.

"Her dad was here again last week," another girl added. "Tried to talk to the principal like it was going to change something. Didn't he already lose that lawsuit?"

"Yeah. I saw him," a third chimed in, voice full of exaggerated disgust. "He smelled like a trashcan. I swear there were flies buzzing around his head. It was disgusting."

Their giggles faltered as they noticed Emma had gone quiet.

She was still staring at the locker.

Her friends followed her gaze, unease prickling at their spines. The chatter died completely.

Emma didn't look at them. Her jaw clenched, and she gave her head a short, precise shake.

"Losers don't deserve to be remembered," she said, more to the locker than to anyone else.

The locker began to hum.

Emma had just passed it, her friends trailing behind with unsure steps. She didn't look back, but her shoulders were rigid, her jaw clenched tight. Madison opened her mouth to say something else, but stopped mid-breath.

"Do you hear that?" one of the girls whispered.

They all turned.

A quiet vibration filled the air, so faint it felt like the building itself was holding its breath. The floor beneath their feet trembled slightly, as though something deep in the foundations had stirred. A few of the older kids further down the hallway slowed, glancing over their shoulders.

"It's the locker," said one of them, barely above a whisper.

Emma stopped walking. Her eyes were wide now, locked onto the metal door they had all learned to pretend didn't exist.

The hum was barely audible. Just a subtle vibration in the air, like someone plucking a piano string from inside a steel box. The sound wasn't heard so much as felt. Lights overhead flickered once, then steadied.

"No way," Madison said, stepping closer behind her. "That's just a—"

The hum sharpened, rising an octave. Overhead, the lights flickered once, twice. Somewhere nearby, a phone shorted out with a chirping buzz.

And then the locker door began to glow.

Red, then white, then blue. Not paint. Not graffiti. Sigils, drawn in the air by invisible hands, rippling across the metal like reflections on water.

The hum turned into a whine.

And then the locker exploded.

The door launched outward with a crack of displaced air and a flare of energy. Emma saw it all happen in terrifying clarity.

It hit a student square in the chest—a skinhead with Empire 88 tattoos curling up his neck. He was mid-step, sneering, and then he was airborne. He slammed into the lockers opposite and dropped in a heap, unmoving.

Emma's breath caught in her throat. The sound of the impact echoed like a gunshot. Her friends screamed. Madison stumbled back and dropped her phone.

All around her, students shouted and scattered. Someone hit the ground hard. Someone else bolted toward the stairwell. But Emma didn't move.

She stared at the locker as the smoke and dust rolled out from it like breath from a dragon. The air shimmered with heat and sparks, and her heart pounded so loudly she thought it might drown out everything else.

She was afraid. Deeply, horribly afraid. But underneath it, a darker, colder awe crept in. Whatever had just stepped out of that locker, it wasn't a ghost.

It was something worse.

Or better.

From the dust and silence, Taylor Hebert stepped forward.

She was taller than most remembered. Her armor shimmered like molten glass over layered cloth, runes glowing faintly along the edges. Her hair was longer, the ends frayed. Her right hand rested on the hilt of a slender blade strapped to her back, etched with twin elemental sigils.

Emma stared, frozen in place. Her knees felt weak, and her fingers twitched involuntarily. She couldn't look away. It was Taylor. It had to be. But not the Taylor she remembered, the weakling who would break at the first sign of trouble, who had laid under her heel for nearly two years. This Taylor looked like a warrior stepped out of a storybook nightmare, glimmering with power, bathed in smoke and spell-light.

Emma's throat went dry. The temperature in the hallway seemed to drop, or maybe it was just her blood turning cold. Her mind scrambled for explanations.

Cape. Villain. Returned from the dead. Here for revenge.

She took a half-step back, heart hammering in her chest. Her hands trembled at her sides, and the hallway felt suddenly too small. She wanted to vanish, to melt into the floor or run until the pounding in her head stopped. She opened her mouth, thinking a snide comment would fall out automatically, but her tongue was dry and heavy. No words came. Only the growing certainty that whatever had returned wasn't there to forgive.

People took out their phones and began filming and taking pictures as Taylor's eyes passed over her and didn't even stop. Emma noticed. She saw the glowing screens surrounding them, dozens of students capturing Taylor's face from every angle, and her breath caught for a new reason.

Secret identities were a big deal. Sophia never shut up about it. Capes wore masks, helmets, armor that blurred their features. They protected their names like gold. Only two kinds of people walked around without hiding who they were, heroes from New Wave, and the kind of monsters who didn't plan on sticking around after they made their point.

Taylor didn't look like New Wave material. Not with that sword and that rugged look.

She looked like someone who had decided she didn't need to hide.

And that terrified Emma more than anything else.

The word 'murderhobo' came to mind.

Taylor looked around the hallway, face tight with distaste. Her lips moved.

"Of course. Of course it had to be the locker." Taylor's voice was quiet, almost thoughtful, like she wasn't really speaking to anyone. She reached into her satchel and pulled out a scroll, unfurling it with care. A slender quill hovered up beside her, suspended in a soft glow, and began scribbling across the parchment, lines of complex symbols and what looked like arcane geometry spiraling into tight formations.

"Got to take notes on the leylines here," she murmured, more to the quill than to the people around her. "This whole place is bent. Need to find a better anchor point next time."

A dozen students stared, phones trembling in their hands. Some whispered. Some backed away. No one spoke to her.

Principal Blackwell stormed down the hallway, her heels clicking sharply against the tile, each step louder than the last. Her face was set in a scowl, lips tight with frustration. Behind her, a gym teacher tried to keep up, and a nervous assistant Gladly attempted to look brave two steps behind. Blackwell had expected another gang scuffle, maybe one of the Empire kids going after some ABB tagger again. Typical Winlsow nonsense.

She was already rehearsing the speech she'd give about zero tolerance, about expulsions and liability forms.

But then she rounded the corner and stopped short. The tiles were scorched, and smoke hung in the air like mist. Lockers near the center of the hallway had been dented inward, one of them completely folded in. Glowing sparks still drifted lazily through the air like dying fireflies. And there, sprawled against the opposite wall, was a student with a shaved head and gang tattoos. Unconscious. Possibly worse.

That was alarming. Very much so. But what truly made the blood drain from Blackwell's face was the open locker.

The Locker.

It had never been opened. Not since that day.

And now it stood wide, bent slightly from the force of the blast, the hinges glowing faintly as if still hot. From its shadow, a girl had stepped forward, dressed in what looked like armor forged from glass and light.

Blackwell blinked, her mind scrambling for logic and finding none.

And the girl standing in the middle of it all, armored and radiant and unreal.

Blackwell stopped in her tracks. Her mouth opened, then closed. Her fingers twitched at her sides.

She swallowed once and forced her voice into something that resembled control.

"What was that explosion? Who did it?"

She saw Taylor and stopped cold.

Her brain didn't register it at first. Just another girl in elaborate cosplay or maybe a rogue parahuman making a spectacle. But then recognition clawed its way through the shock.

Blackwell had been pestered for months by a man with sunken eyes and a voice like a rasping engine. Danny Hebert had brought her photo every time. Shoved it across her desk again and again. Demanded someone look, someone care.

She'd brushed it off. Told herself it was grief, not evidence.

But now, staring at the armored figure in front of her, she realized she didn't need the photo.

The face had engraved itself in her mind long ago.

"You?"

Taylor didn't answer. She was listening to something distant, eyes flicking toward nothing. Her fingers twitched.

A Greg Veder stepped forward from the crowd.

He looked like he wanted to melt into the wall, but something in his chest pushed him forward anyway. Greg had known Taylor. Not well. Not deeply. But they had talked a few times, awkward exchanges in homeroom and after classes. She'd helped him once with a project about Eidolon, in return, he kept walking when Sophia punched her that one time.

And then she was gone. Just... gone.

Now she was back. And she looked like someone out of a fantasy novel. A terrifying one.

Greg's voice was barely more than a whisper.

"Taylor? Are you... are you okay?"

Taylor blinked. Her attention returned.

She studied the boy for a moment, then turned her gaze down the hallway. She looked back.

"No," she said. "I'm back in Bet."

Before anyone could speak, a shadow dropped from above.

A black-and-purple figure dropped from the second floor balcony, sleek and armored, a crossbow already aimed. The bolt loosed mid-fall, streaking across the space toward Taylor. It passed through her shoulder harmlessly, scattering like smoke. The attacker landed in a crouch, nearly silent, shadows clinging unnaturally to her form.

Some students gasped, recognizing the silhouette.

A Ward. One who did not normally show up at schools.

But no one said her name aloud.

Taylor moved. Not fast. Not sudden. Just perfectly timed. She stepped aside, her fingers brushing glowing runes in the air. The boots on her feet shimmered with pale blue light, lifting her smoothly into the air without effort or hesitation. She rose above the crowd, calm and balanced, as if the ground had simply become optional.

Another bolt came. She spun, dodged, and raised a hand.

"Arrest," she said.

Chains of golden light sprang from the glyph, wrapping around Shadow Stalker mid-leap. The cape dropped to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, body twitching as the spell pinned her in place.

Gasps rippled through the students.

Taylor landed gently. The light on her boots faded. She looked at them all.

"I didn't come to fight," she said. "But I will defend myself."

She looked down at the downed hero, one boot lightly tapping the tile beside the girl's mask. Then, with a faint smirk, Taylor gave her a gentle poke with the tip of her scabbard, just enough to be annoying. The pinned girl's body twitched slightly in response, her fists clenched tight beneath the glowing chains. Even through the full mask, it was obvious she was seething.

"Can anyone on this Plane show me the way to this moron's leader? I probably need to register with the PRT or something." She groaned. "Jace is going to kill me if the Gatewatch is declared a villain organization in Bet."

----

Authors notes:

I will be cycling through this, "Heir of ash and flames", and "Summer Chronicles". With this focusing on shorter chapters than either of those.

Taylor has just survived the War of the Spark and is a bit twitchy, being on a formal Gatewatch mission to Bet to investigate Parahuman powers and their possible connection to the Blind Eternities.

 

[phos]

I have to say that I've been waiting for this crossover for a long time, I'll just ask that she doesn't do something stupid like go back to school or something like that, she's a planeswalker, she doesn't have to give any real satisfaction to the guardian of youth or anything like that, especially considering that she just got out of the war of the spark

 

[phos]

 

[TooLazyToLogin]

That is one hell of a way to re-introduce yourself to the world. Looking forward to seeing where this goes.

 

[phos]

"Arrest," she said.

Click to shrink...

 

[Koolaid]

If she is true jeskai she is white blue red. The colors are so diffuse that you could argue that most people would be most colors.

 

[phos]

If she is true jeskai she is white blue red. The colors are so diffuse that you could argue that most people would be most colors.

Click to shrink...

I did miss this, lol

 

[Kokusho]

I have to say that I've been waiting for this crossover for a long time, I'll just ask that she doesn't do something stupid like go back to school or something like that, she's a planeswalker, she doesn't have to give any real satisfaction to the guardian of youth or anything like that, especially considering that she just got out of the war of the spark

Click to shrink...

She effectively spent three years in Prismari College, so she considers herself an adult and educated enough. I'm going with Bet being time dilated because Bolas. So six months in Bet were 3 years in Arcavios and then War of the Spark happened and Bet was synced back to the rest of the planes.

She'd rather be somewhere else, but she's on a mission for the Gatewatch to investigate the source of Parahuman Powers and if they have anything to do with the Blind Entities. Also, she needs to let her dad know that she's alive.

If she is true jeskai she is white blue red. The colors are so diffuse that you could argue that most people would be most colors.

Click to shrink...

She has access only to white, blue, and red spells. Leaning more on Blue and Red because she attended Prismari College.

Spoiler: Some spells in her arsenal

Instants/Sorceries:
- Brainstorm
- Expressive Iteration
- Shock
- Volcanic Hammer
- Electrolyze
- Memory Lapse
- Prismari Command
- Divide by Zero ( Which triggers the following Lesson spells: Environmental Sciences, Expanded Anatomy, Mercurial Transformation, Academic Probation, Elemental Summoning, Start from Scratch)
- Mana Tithe
- Ephemerate
- Sublime Epiphany
- Creative Outburst

Enchantments:
- Arrest
- Slimebind
- Circle of Flame
- Gravitational Shift
- Searing Meditation

Summons:
- Mulldrifter
- Kelpie Guide
- Dream Strix ( Also triggers Lesson spells )
- Taylor's Projection (Essentially the same as Jace's Projection but for Taylor)
- Charmed Stray
- Lightning Angel

Artifacts she owns:
- Arcane Signet
- Sword of Fire and Ice
- Winged Boots
- Robe of Stars
- Battlemage's Bracers

 

[chinlamp]

Prismari? That's... well, it makes me worry about 'in name only, why did you choose this character for this' fic incoming, because Prismari are the theatre and art club kids. Their motto is literally 'express yourself,' which is something Taylor spent a couple years having beat out of her a fair bit. Their magic is gesture and movement based, and puts more emphasis on the spectacle of making the magic than the effect itself, all of which is... very against the Taylor we know from Worm who yes, had the QA in her head, but she still was very 'suppress extraneous movement and gestures and emotional output' throughout. It's just... not something that jives to me.

Not saying it will be that, but that's the first thing that I think when I hear 'Taylor in Prismari'.

I'd have thought Silverquill or Witherbloom, but I guess I can understand the thought process for not. Witherbloom because you're avoiding her usual powerset, so you'd avoid the Pest magic. Silverquill a no because despite the colours generally jiving with her general personality and actions in canon and the whole 'mother was an English teacher' vibe, they're very cliquey and there's literally classes on 'how to be Emma but the words actually hurt,' which she would have found out in her first year before settling on a college.

So I can see where you ended on Prismari, but... darn does it make me wonder what her major is, especially if she somehow picked up White too, since the colleges don't have much if any crossover after you pick a specialty. You dabble in generic classes in the first year then choose a focus. Considering Arrest, that implies she picked it up on Ravnica, as that's the only plane we know she's been to that has that spell in its arsenal, so White should be her least explored and mastered colour. Are you planning to showcase that and show her inexperience with it compared to two colours she's had two years of specialised training on? What did she major in anyway? Blue or Red? What part of the colour the schools explore? Basically just wondering 'how do you plan to keep her actually acting like Taylor to an extent that is recognisable'?

Because despite what some people think, people aren't 'all colours'. The colours are selected by things that are core about them. It can be anything from strong personality traits, goals, their race, the society they grew up in, etc. So Taylore being Jeskai asks the question of how she got there. Are you playing into her sense of always being right leaning the White way, is the Blue from moving past her past traumas and putting herself above emotion, or did you go the Red route for that and she got therapy and became more empathic, etc.

All of which you might just answer in the text of the story, which if you do, kudos, good job. Just expounding on the immediate thoughts the premise gives me.

God, I really do overthink this stuff. I wish I had more to say on the actual substance of the chapter itself, but one chapter of a couple thousand words that's only really showing the fic setup doesn't lend enough substance to talk about.

 

[chinlamp]

I mean 3 years of prismari + war, she is not the same person at all, she didn't even look twice to emma

Click to shrink...

Hence the 'Is this going to be in name only, why did you choose this character for this' worry mentioned at the very start of the text you quoted.

 

[Kokusho]

Taylor dragged Shadow Stalker through the parking lot with one hand raised, glowing lines of arcane script trailing from her fingertips and tethered to the restrained Ward like a leash. The chains of the Arrest spell still held, but Taylor had added a layer of magical grip for stability. Shadow Stalker hissed and struggled behind her, armor scraping against asphalt, but she was helpless to resist.

Emma stormed after them, cheeks flushed red and voice shrill with fury. "Let her go! You can't just drag a Ward around like she's a sack of potatoes! You're a villain!"

Taylor stopped. Blinked. Turned.

She looked at Emma for a long moment before recognition dawned. Her expression shifted, mild surprise, then something more distant. She gave a slight shake of her head, more disappointed than angry.

"I'm going to the PRT," Taylor said quietly. "Just giving them back their Ward. And introducing myself."

Emma stepped forward again, fists clenched at her sides, her voice rising in a desperate shriek. "It doesn't matter if you've got powers now! You're still a loser, Taylor! Everyone knew it then and it's still true! You're just another villain who wants people to think you're tough!"

Taylor turned her head slightly, giving Emma an unreadable look. Her voice came out calm, almost gentle.

"Entire worlds consider me a hero."

Emma opened her mouth to yell again, but Taylor flicked two fingers in her direction. A strand of golden light arced across the space and sealed Emma's mouth shut before she could say another word. The girl's eyes went wide with panic, hands flying up to her face.

"You'll be able to speak in about twenty minutes," Taylor said without looking back.

She rolled her shoulders, muttered a few syllables, and extended her hand. A creature shimmered into being above her, translucent fins catching the sunlight as it hovered with a faint, melodic hum. The creature's size and beauty drew gasps from the crowd that had been cautiously following a few steps behind. Several students stopped in their tracks, necks craning upward, mouths half-open.

"Is that a freaking dragon!?"

One of the teachers, previously rushing out with their phone in hand, lowered it slowly and stared, speechless. The creature's body glowed softly, fins rippling in the wind like banners of light. It looked like something pulled from a dream or a divine vision.

"No, totally different things," Taylor replied. "Mulldrifters are elementals." She eyed the creature up and down. "More of a fish than a reptile?" She shook her head not really caring much about the difference.

After it fully materialized, Taylor's eyes unfocused for a moment, information flooding into her awareness, the magical ecosystem of the area, the lingering energy of a recent catastrophe.

She floated up onto the creature's back, standing effortlessly as the Mulldrifter dipped slightly to accommodate her weight. Shadow Stalker was lifted along with her, trailing behind like a tethered balloon, still struggling uselessly.

Taylor gave the creature a gentle mental nudge.

"Brockton Bay PRT HQ," she said aloud. "Let's fly."

The Mulldrifter surged upward, fins sweeping wide, and they took to the skies. Wind whipped through Taylor's hair as she looked down over the city.

Rooftops still bore scars from a terrible series of disasters. Broken windows, sagging structures, and pools of standing water left behind even after months of cleanup. Taylor's eyes narrowed.

She reached into her satchel and pulled out a scroll, brushing one hand across it.

"Brainstorm," she whispered. Arcane sparks shimmered as her mind processed timelines, energy traces, elemental shifts.

The facts lined up. An Endbringer had been here. Recently. Her quill scribbled rapidly on her scroll.

She closed her eyes for a moment.

"Dad... are you still alive?"

-------

Getting to the PRT had been fairly simple. Having them lower their guns at her, however, was a different matter. She touched down in the courtyard, flanked by an ethereal creature and dragging a parahuman behind her, and of course the first response was panic. Armed personnel poured out of the entrance like a breached hive, weapons trained on her in tight formation. Orders were shouted. Warnings barked.

Taylor didn't flinch. She raised both hands slowly and summoned a glyph into the air to show she wasn't casting.

"This belongs to you," she said dryly, motioning to Shadow Stalker, still bound and glowering. "She tried to shoot me. I didn't appreciate it."

For several tense seconds, no one moved. Then someone from inside must have given the order, because the barrels dipped. with no small amount of hesitation.

Taylor released Shadow Stalker with a thought, letting the binding magic dissolve. The girl dropped to the ground with a grunt, twitching and snarling under her breath.

Taylor dusted her hands off. "You're welcome."

Thirty minutes later, she was in an interview room deep within the concrete bowels of the PRT's Brockton Bay HQ. It was windowless and cold, like a holding cell disguised as bureaucracy. The walls were painted a lifeless beige, the kind of color that made the eye want to look elsewhere. A metal table sat at the center, bolted to the floor, and the fluorescent lights overhead buzzed with an unsteady flicker that felt more like interrogation than illumination.

Taylor sat at one end of the table, entirely relaxed. Her posture was casual, one leg crossed over the other, but her eyes scanned every corner of the room with calculated interest. Her sword leaned against the wall within arm's reach, its blade still humming faintly with residual mana. The enchantments around her bracers and boots pulsed in a soft rhythm, like a second heartbeat.

Across from her sat Battery and Renick. Renick had a notepad and a recorder. Battery's costume was different from the one Taylor vaguely recalled from before she left Brockton Bay. It was far more colorful, the lines more angular, and the insignia subtly altered. Her expression was guarded, her eyes never straying far from Taylor's hands, while her fingers hovered just a little too close to her baton.

Renick cleared his throat, the sound brittle in the air. "Miss… Hebert. You've been missing for six months since the incident at Winslow."

His eyes lingered on her face, as though trying to reconcile the girl in front of him with the one in the photo that had been burned into his memory by months of pestering from a frantic father. "We believed this was a trigger event."

Taylor tilted her head slowly, the corners of her mouth twitching into a faint, unimpressed smirk. Her fingers tapped a slow rhythm on the armrest, the metal bracers gleaming faintly in the sterile light.

"Six months is not a long time," she said, voice even but cool. "But it is long enough for people to build narratives they like." She leaned slightly, and the faint scent of parchment and ozone accompanied her movement, like the ghost of a spell freshly cast. "But it wasn't a trigger event."

"Then, how do you explain your powers?" Battery tensed as she said the question.

Taylor looked unimpressed at first, then tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing. "I'm more curious about something else," she said. "Why is Shadow Stalker still active? If you believed that I had triggered, then surely she should've been held accountable for such a crime, after all, Sophia Hess is the one who pushed me into that disgusting place."

Her gaze flicked between Renick and Battery, who shifted uncomfortably. Taylor gave a short laugh, humorless and sharp.

"Relax," she added. "I'm not here for revenge. You can stop looking like I'm about to burn the building down."

Then she sat forward, her expression sharpening. "It wasn't a trigger event anyway. It was my spark igniting. I planeswalked away, that's why I wasn't in the locker when you finally got around to check on me. I'm not a parahuman."

"Not a parahuman?" Battery arched her eyebrow slightly. "What do you mean, planeswalked?"

"I'm a Planeswalker," Taylor said, her voice calm but firm. As she spoke, she raised her hand and traced a fluid, arcing motion in the air. Ribbons of glowing red and blue energy flowed from her fingertips, swirling into a pattern that hovered above the table like a living sculpture.

The spell didn't burst or flare. It unfolded with elegance, runes spinning like a mobile, trails of fire curling into fractal patterns that shifted with every breath. A stylized hawk composed of flame and illusion dove from the center, flaring its wings and vanishing in a shimmer of sparks.

"That means I wield immense magical power, rooted in creativity, intuition, and knowledge. I don't need Tinker tech. I don't need a lab. I imagine, I will, and the world bends." She snapped her fingers and the magic collapsed with a soft pop. "And I can move between planes of existence with ease. Like stepping from one room to another."

"And where have you been all this time?" Renick asked, brow furrowed.

"Studying magic," Taylor said. "Strixhaven University. On the plane of Arcavios."

"Strixhaven is some kind of school?" Battery tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing behind her mask. "You're… supposed to be fifteen." Her gaze lingered on Taylor's face, then her hands, then back again. "You look older. And... magic doesn't exist. Powers aren't magic."

She didn't sound confrontational, more like someone clinging to a known reality as it slipped between her fingers.

"I'm almost nineteen, actually," Taylor replied, a flicker of annoyance crossing her features. "I had trouble wrapping my head around it at first too. The idea that time could move differently across planes seemed absurd... until it wasn't." She shrugged. "Jace told me there was time dilation on Earth. An enchantment placed by Nicol Bolas soon after my spark ignited. The Gatewatch believes that he blocked this plane to keep it from interfering with his plans in Ravnica. Time passed slower here."

Battery opened her mouth as if to argue, her jaw tightening and her hands curling into fists at her sides, but something in Taylor's expression made her pause. She exhaled through her nose, frustrated, and settled instead for questions.

"Who is Jace? Who is Nicol Bolas? What is the Gatewatch?" she asked, her voice clipped, each name spoken like it tasted sour in her mouth. Her eyes flicked to the fading embers of the magical display, then back to Taylor with open skepticism.

Taylor shrugged, her fingers brushing the air as if flicking away a cobweb of memory. "Jace Beleren. He's a telepath, a manipulator of minds, annoyingly fond of speaking in riddles but mostly trustworthy. I guess he leads the Gatewatch, more or less. He found me after my spark ignited, made sure I didn't get myself killed before learning the basics."

Her voice dripped with dramatic weight. "Nicol Bolas, on the other hand, was an Elder Dragon. A planeswalker older than many stars. A tyrant with a voice like poison and a plan to become a god. He failed. We stopped him. Ravnica still stands. The multiverse still turns."

She smiled then, small and wicked, like a magician revealing the final twist of a performance. "You're welcome, by the way."

Renick didn't look convinced, eyes narrowing. "Are you aware of the laws regarding extra dimensional travel from alternate Earths?"

Taylor smiled faintly. "Earths, yes. But Earth as a whole is a single plane. Every alternate Earth you know about is part of the same restricted universe, like Bet or Aleph, or whatever other Earth you have found since. I've been beyond that. So those laws don't apply. I've gone further than the closed loop your Thinkers and Tinkers call alternate Earths."

Renick muttered under his breath. "Doesn't matter how far away the other dimension is…"

Battery changed the subject. "Your gear. It appears to be highly advanced. Some of it may be Tinker-level."

"Artifacts, powered by magic, I believe they're superior to most Tinkertech," Taylor said, her tone growing more reserved. "Let's just say I've acquired some gear during my travels. I'd rather not go into the details."

She paused, eyes drifting to Battery. "Actually, I was expecting Armsmaster. Isn't he supposed to lead the Protectorate here?"

Battery's expression tightened, and placed both palms flat on the table. "I'm the leader of the Protectorate now," she said, her voice steady but lined with something colder underneath. "After Armsmaster... someone had to step up." She didn't say the name with reverence, but with the kind of steel that came from carrying too many burdens for too long. Renick glanced her way but said nothing, the weight of unspoken history settling between them like a third chair at the table.

"He died. A few months after you disappeared, in fact," Renick said, the words coming out slow and bitter. "Lung scorched him inside his armor. Cooked him alive like some kind of twisted trophy." The distaste in his voice was palpable, as though just speaking the name left a foul taste in his mouth. "We couldn't even recover the body intact."

Taylor's breath caught for a moment, her posture still. "Oh," she said softly. "I see." She blinked slowly, then added, "I saw something like that during the War of the Spark. A planeswalker got caught when Bolas's eternals locked down a Leyline channel. There wasn't much left. Just... ash. Some things stay with you."

Renick took a moment before speaking again, the bitterness still fresh in his voice. He seemed to need the pivot. A reason to think about something other than the smell of scorched steel and the memory of the hollow clunk they heard when Armsmaster's armor was pried open.

"War of the Spark?" he asked finally, his voice rough around the edges.

Taylor nodded. "When Nicol Bolas tried to take Ravnica. The Gatewatch stopped him. I was there." She grimaced. "Well, technically I was dragged there by Bolas. But I did my part."

Battery hesitated. "You keep talking about the Gatewatch. What is it?"

"We're a group of Planeswalkers who protect the multiverse from existential threats," Taylor began, her fingers already weaving in the air. Thin trails of red and blue magic spun upward, sketching a shimmering outline of five swirling spheres connected by glowing filaments. "Threats that only those who can move between planes can deal with."

She flicked her wrist, and the spheres rearranged themselves, morphing into a miniature representation of the multiverse, like a carousel of worlds suspended midair. In its center, a dark void twisted and pulsed.

"That's the Blind Eternities," she said, pointing with a finger. The miniature dark void writhed as if aware of being observed. "It's not a place, not exactly. It's what exists between planes. Jace thinks your powers, parahuman powers, might be tapping into it."

The construct flickered, and symbols began scrolling through the void, equations in impossible geometries. Taylor shook her head, smirking faintly. "It's fifth-dimensional math. Or poetry. Honestly, I've never been sure which."

Renick blinked. "And who exactly assigned you this mission?"

"Jace. My boss. More or less."

There was a beat of silence.

"We'd like to extend an invitation for you to join the Wards," Renick said carefully.

"I'm eighteen," Taylor replied.

"Then the Protectorate."

Taylor leaned back in her chair and smiled. "Appreciate the offer. But I already have a job with the Gatewatch. I'll help where I can. I'm not here to chase bank robbers. My concern is what's coming from Outside. Not the local flavor of villain." She uncrossed her legs and shifted in her seat, glancing at the magical aura still flickering faintly across her bracers. "This isn't permanent. I expect to be here a few months at most, long enough to understand what's going on with your powers and if it ties into the Blind Eternities. After that, I'll be off to wherever I'm needed next."

Battery tapped the table. "What about Endbringers? Do they count as a local threat?"

"I should probably look into them, yes. I can help with those. I'll even send a signal to get a few more of my team to help out." She turned to the side and focused on something past the wall, her eyes shone with ethereal blue light. "Behemoth is going to attack New Delhi soon."

The Protectorate hero and the Deputy Director of the PRT exchanged a look. "You're claiming you can predict Behemoth?"

She inclined her head a little, as if confused by the question. Her gaze wasn't on Battery or Renick anymore but fixed somewhere far past the walls, past the moment, as if watching a future unravel before it happened. "Yes. To a point. Infinite ideas flow through the Multiverse, you just need an open mind to listen." Her voice was thoughtful as if answering a question posed by the universe itself rather than the people in the room.

"And this allows you to predict Behemoth."

"Yes. I'm not an expert in temporal magic, so I can't give you more head ups than that. But by the end of the month New Delhi will be attacked." She sighed. "From the way Brockton Bay looked, it seems it itself struck by an Endbringer, yes?"

"Leviathan, back in May." Battery replied, his expression grim. "We lost a lot of good heroes that day."

Taylor stared at the woman with a hard look on her face. "And Villains?"

"Not as many." She replied, tense. "The Empire is outnumbering everyone else these days."

She drummed her fingers on her head. "And you're not getting help from the outside?" She asked.

"A number of heroes offered to transfer here, but only a few were approved." Battery threw her hands at her hair and messed it. "I don't know if any of what you told us is the truth, but it's clear that you're pretty powerful. Any help you can give us would be appreciated."

Taylor grimaced. "It's not the focus of my mission, but I could spend my off-the-clock time punching Nazis." She stood up and dusted her clothes. "Well, I'm off. Got places to go."

"You still have to answer for attacking a school and a ward!"

She cocked her head slightly, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear with the back of her fingers. Her voice was light, almost breezy, but her eyes held an edge that could cut steel.

"I didn't attack the school. It just happened to be my anchor point in this realm, the only place I could reappear. Believe me, I wouldn't have chosen Winslow if I'd had options."

She tapped her fingers against the table, nails clicking softly. A small flicker of golden energy danced across her knuckles, like a candle flame caught in a breeze.

"And as for Sophia," Taylor continued, leaning back in her seat with an exhale, "she came at me firing with that crossbow of hers. I could've turned her to vapor, or at least rearranged her atoms into a more polite shape. But I didn't. I just neutralized her. A kindness, really."

Battery's lips parted, the beginnings of a protest curling behind her teeth, but Taylor was already smiling knowingly. Then, with a shimmer like sunlight on water, she vanished. One moment she was flesh and blood, boots planted on sterile tile, the next she dissolved into a lattice of glowing sigils and light. The air snapped shut where she had stood, leaving a faint trace of ozone and the smell of parchment scorched in fire. Battery took a slow breath through her nose, the question dying unspoken in her throat.

Renick blinked, slowly dragging a hand down his face as if trying to wipe away the last five minutes. His eyes followed the fading shimmer of where Taylor had stood, then flicked toward the scorch marks left behind like footprints from another dimension.

"Well," he muttered, his voice dry and just a touch hoarse, "that happened." He didn't look at Battery, but the twitch at the corner of his mouth hinted that he might laugh if it wouldn't cost him his last shred of composure.

He sat back in his chair, exhaled hard, and stared at the empty space like it might still explain what the hell just walked into their world.

 

[phos]

This chapter was very good, coil won't be able to simulate anything, right?