Upon This Star (Worm Semi-SI CYOA-based)

[Swordchucks]

I was scattered. It wasn't that I wasn't conscious but that I was so conscious - so overloaded with a million different things - that I couldn't muster a coherent thought. It grew worse and worse, as I unraveled, lost in those sensations. Then it was dark and I knew nothing for a time.

Then there was… something. I pulled back together slowly.

"-to think, here, on this star-"

Words from somewhere else. More of my senses started to return, but they still seemed alien and useless.

"-than being forgotten."

The speaker… I had a vague impression of height and white hair and nothing more. I wanted to turn my head and get a better look at him, but I wasn't even sure I had a head.

"-gift. One I wish that I had-"

There was the sharp, almost impossibly loud sound of fingers snapping and I was instantly aware. It was like someone had spliced the movie of my mind so that in one frame I was in an insensate daze and in the next I was wide awake.

Of course, the world I became aware of was less than ideal. For one thing, I was naked. Completely. For another, I was laying on something rough, sharp, abrasive, and wet and it felt pretty cold.

I raised myself off the ground - my palms pushing against the painful roughness of concrete - to find that I was in a rancid puddle in what appeared to be an alleyway. It was getting dark, too.

"What the hell?" I mumbled to myself as I struggled to my feet. Vertigo hit me in a wave, and I fell back to my hands and knees, retching into the puddle of what I now realized was the runoff from the nearby dumpsters. Trash juice. Yuck.

Nothing came out except saliva and I managed to sort out the sensation of emptiness inside of me. I was starving.

That realization was secondary to the fact that I was naked, in an alleyway I didn't recognize, and freezing. Oh, and covered in trash juice.

I stood up again and fragmented memories started to come back to me.

Brockton Bay. My name was Taylor Hebert, and I lived in Brockton Bay.

More memories with a distinctly different feel collided with those. Something… another world. Something called 'Worm'. Most of the details were missing, but both sets of memories were clear on one thing.

There had been a moment of pain followed by a horrible, all-encompassing shredding sensation before everything became so impossibly intense and I plunged into darkness.

I came back together with the snap of someone's fingers. Here. Lost.

I hoped I was still in Brockton Bay for what was probably the first time in my life. As bad as the Bay was, it was at least somewhat familiar. Not this alleyway, of course, but in general.

I managed to get a grip on my swirling thoughts long enough to come up with an objective. Something to focus on.

Objective #1: Find some clothes. I could deal with the fact that I stank later. I could deal with the cold later, too, but without clothes… well, I was a teenage girl in the middle of a city with one of the highest crime rates in the country. Bad things might happen to me either way, but the odds seemed a lot higher if I was naked.

I managed to get back to my feet and stagger to the dumpster. It was either that or the soggy cardboard box resting against it, and I wasn't sure the box would hold together if I tried to wear it. How did you even wear a cardboard box, anyway? Like, poke holes through it for your arms and then shove your head through the other end?

Focus. I needed to focus.

The door beside the dumpster must have led to a restaurant of some sort because what greeted me when I opened the dumpster was the overwhelming stench of rotted meat.

I was back on the ground, retching up nothing within a few seconds.

"-some bitch," I heard and raised my head to see a couple of guys looking into the alleyway curiously. They were tall and white - maybe hispanic - wearing puffy winter coats. They looked warm. "Shit, she's naked."

The second figure laughed. "Damn, girl. You must know how to party. What did you take?"

I coughed and tried to get back up, one of my arms crossing over my chest - which felt distinctly weird, now that I was touching it - and the other going to preserve the rest of my modesty. What modesty could be salvaged while coated in trash juice, anyway.

"I'll scream," I warned, unable to keep the quiver out of my voice.

The first figure raised his hands up, palms toward me. "Fuck, man, we ain't going to do nothing to you. How the hell did you end up naked out here in the middle of January? You live around here?"

I took a deep breath. "Maybe." I didn't want to give them information if I didn't have to. They seemed - well, not exactly nice, but they weren't attacking me. "Where's here?"

"Twenty fifth, 'bout half way between Lord Street and-"

Whatever he was going to say was cut off by someone yelling harshly in a language I didn't quite recognize but felt the intent behind. A threat, question, and accusation all rolled into one. The fact that I understood it, though I couldn't speak the words, was an even more alien sensation than being naked in the cold.

"Ah, fuck, man," the second guy said and turned around. "We're just helping my cousin out. Someone gave her some laced shit and she ran out of the apartment and got lost."

I immediately felt grateful to the young men - maybe twenty years old - that I'd known all of two minutes.

The voice got closer and it had friends. There were three of them, all wearing the red and green that everyone in the Bay knew marked them as members of one of the largest gangs in town. They didn't have visible weapons, but gang colors were a weapon of their own. Even the cops would think twice about messing with them because once you kicked the ant hill, the ants were all over you.

"Uh, yeah, my cousin's just helping me out," I stammered, though the look I got from my 'cousin' said I probably shouldn't have said anything.

Five sets of eyes were on me and I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. Unfortunately, the only hole I had available was the inside of a dumpster and that wasn't much of a hiding place.

"Damn, she's hot," the asian guy declared and I really wanted to be somewhere else. "We'll help her get home."

"That's my, uh, cousin," my almost-savior tried again, though I could tell he didn't want to really push it. He had no idea who I was, but the Asian guy leading the trio apparently did. Helping me out might have been the right thing to do, but it could get him killed, too.

"We'll take good care of her," he repeated and his hand went into his jacket a little. It was a completely unsubtle hint that he had a weapon hidden there.

The two guys glanced at me and each other then at the gangbangers. There was a choice there and I knew how they were going to go. In their place, I didn't know what I would have done, but I really couldn't blame them for the decision they made.

"Just… uh… get her home," one of them offered lamely and the two sidled around the trio as they made their way out of the alley, never taking their eyes off the three gang members. I watched them go with a bit of sadness and a growing sense that I needed to act.

While the two moved past, the gang members turned to watch them go, no doubt to ward against a surprise attack. Apparently, the naked, shivering girl wasn't much of a threat. I took the opportunity to scan my surroundings. Time seemed to slow down as I took in the crumbling brick work of the alleyway walls - the building to one side clearly newer than the other. At the end of the alley, there was a chain link fence with some boards shoved through it - something I had never understood but seen plenty of times. There was also a fire escape, but the ladder was up. I'd never reach that.

With a desperate plan in mind, I waited till the gang members were turned the other way and took off running toward the fence. I was halfway there before they realized I was moving and my adrenaline gave me wings. I leapt at the fence and must have hit it almost three feet up before scrambling up with more speed than I would have thought myself capable of. Then I was over and falling off the other side into a different alley which was mercifully deserted.

I landed and rolled, springing to my feet - somehow, and kept on running. I had no plan or destination just… I needed to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

By the time I heard the distinctive sound of the fence rattling behind me as someone else started to climb it, I had hit the mouth of the alleyway and had to make a choice.

I didn't actually want to be running through the street with my ass - and everything else - bare, but the only other option was to stop in a completely unknown part of town and try my luck with hiding. I wasn't really eager to do that since the other guys almost certainly knew this part of town better than I did.

I went left as I hit the street, very aware that while it was getting dark, it was far from actually dark. The street was unfamiliar, but that wasn't that odd. It was a bad part of town, but that didn't really narrow it down much. Under normal circumstances, I mostly stuck to the parts of town that I knew.

Even the presence of the ABB didn't help narrow it down too much because I'd heard that there was an ABB presence pretty much everywhere that there was a significant Asian population. With the various forces driving refugees - Leviathan in Japan, the CUI in China, Phi Pop in Thailand, and others - there were little pockets of them all over town any time the neighborhood was bad enough to be affordable.

The adrenaline that was letting me ignore the cold and my state of undress faded quickly as I hit the end of the block. The buildings on either side so far had been squat apartment buildings and a couple of stores that were dark inside with their windows boarded up.

At the corner, I took a sharp right toward where I saw the flickering neon of an 'open' sign. The cold was making any choice that involved 'going inside' much more tempting than it otherwise would have been.

The sign belonged to a convenience store with heavy bars over the window and I steeled myself as I stepped through the doors with the soft jingling of the bells hanging from the inside knob. A gust of warm air hit me and I almost fell over in relief.

The place was tiny and cramped, which meant that the guy behind the counter had a good view of everything I was too tired to hide.

"You okay?" he asked in what sounded like Chinese. I didn't understand the words, but the meaning was clear.

"There were some guys…" I said and trailed off. It was really enough of an explanation even if it wasn't a good one. "Can I use your phone?"

He stared at me and blinked owlishly as though he was struggling to process what I'd said. I felt annoyance well up within me. I might have been naked, but I knew exactly how ugly I was even when I wasn't coated in trash juice. Him getting that distracted was just proving out the worst kind of stereotypes about men.

"Yeah, I guess," he said in rough English and started to fumble with the receiver of a cordless phone that had probably been purchased in the eighties given its size. "Boss has long distance blocked, so don't even try it."

As I reached for the phone, I felt a tickle on the back of my neck and paused. I turned my head just in time to see the door of the shop get kicked open by a guy wearing a hoodie that was pulled all the way up and a shotgun in his hands. The door bounced off the shelves behind it with a cacophony of abused bells.

"Gimme the money!" His voice was high, hysterical, and slightly slurred. I could tell that his hands were shaking even from several feet away and I was afraid that he was going to shoot someone without even meaning to.

Time seemed to slow down again, but it just meant I had more time to dread being accidentally murdered by this guy while completely naked and covered in filth. The door finally closed itself with a soft jingle.

"I'll get it! I'll get it!" the guy behind the counter yelled with one of his hands up in the air and the other groping for the cash register.

Just then, the robber's eyes landed on me and I shrank back. "The fuck kind of store you runnin' here?" he asked. His gun wavered to the side, away from the two of us.

"Here, take the money!" the clerk shouted, drawing the guy's attention back off me. I silently thanked him for the distraction but then things went to shit all over again.

"Hey, you seen a naked bitch?" a voice asked in Chinese as the door opened again, still loud but somehow more gentle than the last time I had heard it. "The fuck you doing here?" The second part was added on in rough English as his eyes caught sight of the robber. "This store has insurance!"

The ABB goon's finger stabbed viciously at a small paper lantern hanging in the window. It had red and gold designs drawn on green paper and looked rather pretty for something that was apparently a gang sign.

The gun swept past me - causing another shiver to shoot down my spine - and toward the gang member. The clerk dove behind the counter and I started scrambling toward the open doorway to the back of the shop. I'd just cleared the threshold when there was an impossibly loud roar - gunfire in a small shop was much louder than television had led me to believe. Dust exploded around me and I didn't bother slowing down to figure out where the shot had gone.

There was a door there, and I burst through it into another alleyway. One way was the street, but that was where the gang members were. I went the other way as quickly as I could, away from the gunfire which didn't seem to be dying down at all.

The alleyway I was running down split as another alley crossed it and I went right. I was thoroughly lost, but it barely mattered by that point.

Half way down that alley, I found myself with a choice. Ahead was another street, though I really didn't know which one. To the side of the alley, there was one of those awning style basement windows that had been left open just a crack. The room beyond it was dark.

The street meant more running and maybe finding help. The basement offered a chance to hide and the way I felt - starving, freezing, and with the worst headache imaginable - maybe take a nap.

Running was probably the smart decision. I'd met three people that had been willing to help, even if all of their attempts had been interrupted. I would surely find more, even if approaching more strangers while naked was mortifying.

However… I really wanted to rest. Even for a few minutes. I just needed to close my eyes and collect my thoughts. It'd be dark soon and then I would at least be a little harder to see. Part of me knew it was a dumb idea, but I pushed it aside and crawled through the window.

There was a drop inside, maybe five feet, but I managed it without much trouble and pulled the window closed behind me.

Inside, I could barely make anything out but as my eyes adjusted to the gloom I realized it was a sort of bunk room with a couple of small bare mattresses on narrow metal frames and lockers at the feet of them and a couple of shelves bolted to the otherwise bare walls. I opened one of the footlockers and found the most wonderful thing imaginable - clothing. Well, a couple of items of clothing. There was a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. I pulled them as quickly as I could. They felt divine, even if I knew they were kind of ratty and much, much too large for me. There were no shoes, but I wasn't going to complain.

The shelves held several boxes and cans. The cans were full of something powdery - one smelled like coffee and the other vaguely like bread - but the real find was the box of individually wrapped bars. I opened and ate two before I even realized I was doing it.

With that much good luck on my side, I should have crawled back out the window and went looking for help, but the bed looked inviting. The room wasn't exactly warm, but it was much better than outside and I really just wanted to sit down for a minute.

I sat down and tried to get my breathing under control. I needed to collect my thoughts, though the headache was making that difficult.

Instead of managing that, I ended up falling asleep.

Spoiler: Notes

I've been spitting out parts of this for a few days in my drafts thread and went to edit the opening scene into something cleaner. They'll come over here in a trickle, probably.

 

[DaCoolEntity]

Being Taylor is suffering, even for a SI.

 

[Sypho.uad]

Threadmark? And aww it's not in NSFW? Sadge

 

[Swordchucks]

And aww it's not in NSFW?

Click to shrink...

The current drafts don't have anything NSFW in them. It may go that way, later, in which case I'll start a new thread over in the NSFW section or just post them as shorter side bits in the drafts thread.

 

[Sypho.uad]

The current drafts don't have anything NSFW in them. It may go that way, later, in which case I'll start a new thread over in the NSFW section or just post them as shorter side bits in the drafts thread.

Click to shrink...

Hope so hope so

 

[Nicohals J Westerberg]

I can't wait to see where this goes

 

[Swordchucks]

The creature was almost graceful as its countless legs danced about, weaving a magnificent golden pattern into the very fabric of reality. The intricate, precise movements were even more impressive when the scale was taken into account. The creature was the size of an entire world and the reality it was spinning was everything. I reached forward with my tiny hand to touch a strand of shimmering, golden material, but as I grew closer, I felt myself spiraling away.

I woke up. I still felt like dirt, but a better kind of dirt. Dirt that was no longer sitting on top of a septic tank, maybe, though I still stank.

I said a silent prayer of apology to whoever owned the little bunkroom with the food I had stolen and the bed that I'd just gotten filthy during my nap.

I could tell from the window that it was dark outside, but I could think more clearly, at least.

My name was Taylor Anne Hebert. I remembered someone shoving me and not much else after that. A feeling of tightness. A feeling of despair. Then that feeling of being shredded into a million little pieces followed by the all-encompassing sensory overload and the void I'd been in until I woke up in that alley.

I was also someone else. Someone whose name and face I couldn't recall, though I knew they were older. Someone that remembered things that were implausible, at best.

To that other person, my entire world was a work of fiction and one popular enough that people wrote fanfiction about it. That was… insane, actually. I was pretty sure there had been someone with that kind of delusion thrown into the Birdcage a few years ago after they killed a bunch of people. It had been on the news.

Some of the things they recalled matched up with what I knew, but some of them didn't. Like, they remembered the Endbringers, which were very real, but they also remembered some sort of golden god called Zion or Scion that flew around rescuing cats from trees and destroying nuclear weapons. We didn't have anything like that.

The pounding in my head was still there, but a little less than before. I still felt like I wanted to vomit everywhere and sleep for a month, but I was starting to get a better handle on things. Those other-memories said I should be able to control bugs - see through their senses and make them do things - and knowing that made it much easier to get a grasp on it. It wasn't enough to make it useful - I could make the lone cockroach hiding in the corner of the room come to me and dance around, but trying to 'see' through its senses nearly caused me to pass out again. My limit seemed to be getting a vague sense of the insects within a couple of small rooms and commanding the ones very close by and not much else.

It came down to information overload. The other-me in those other-memories had apparently spent a week in a psychiatric ward after getting her powers. Waking up naked in an alley was at best a lateral move from that, though it raised more questions than it gave answers. How, exactly, had I ended up there? I still had no idea.

I was startled out of my thoughts when the door to the room opened, spilling the blinding light of the hallway inside. When did the hallway light come on? I hadn't noticed, most likely because I had been trying to concentrate on the bugs.

I rolled off the bed and into a crouch in a fluid motion even as a voice cursed. "Fucker left the window open again," a deep voice grumbled before there was the sound of a couple of slaps followed by the click of a light switch.

"Shit, what are you doin' in here?" he asked as he caught sight of me. There really wasn't anywhere to hide in the small room.

"Some ABB guys were chasing me," I offered, doing my best not to panic. My luck with strangers had been very mixed all night. Hot and cold. I hoped this one was… whichever of those two was helpful and not the other kind. "I hid in here."

He took a long moment to look me over, and I did the same in return. He was tall and broad shouldered with a bald head. He was dressed in a jumpsuit with a little name tag sewn to it. It read 'Steven' in cursive loops of blue stitching. "You look like shit and those clothes don't fit you. Promise not to steal anything else and I'll show you where the shower is. Don't think I have any clothes that'll actually fit you, but there might be something better than that."

I relaxed a little. I'd apparently lucked out again. "I promise," I offered.

He gave me a nod and five minutes later, I was scrubbing myself with a harsh industrial soap in a little shower that either had boiling water or just-too-cold-to-be-comfortable water with nothing in between. I did my best to not think about what was growing between the cracks in the tile, too, but being at least a little clean was heavenly. There was, unfortunately, not a lot I could do for my hair and I doubted the bald guy had a brush.

"Those guys take your clothes, too?" I heard from outside the door. The guy - Steven - had let me have some privacy, but I could tell he wasn't really trusting me. Not that he should have, given the circumstances.

"Probably," I lied. I still had no idea what had happened to my clothes, but I doubted they were involved. "I just know I woke up naked in an alley with a bunch of guys looking at me."

There was a grunt from the other side of the door.

"You don't have a phone I can borrow, do you?" I asked hopefully as I shut the water off and used the ratty, stained towel to get as dry as possible before pulling the oversized Brockton Bay sweatshirt over my head. I didn't have pants, but the shirt hit me almost at my knees and made a stupid-looking kind of dress after I tied it off with a spare belt. Shoes were a bigger problem as my only real option was a pair of oversized flip-flops. Still, it was worlds better than being completely naked and barefoot.

"Nah, work rules won't let me have one."

I sighed, not entirely able to conceal my disappointment. I wanted to ask if there was a phone in the office or whatever, but I didn't want to push my luck.

"If you're done, I'll show you out. Through the door, this time," he joked.

That did get a little grin from me. He'd given me a ton of help, though I was still a long way from home.

"So, I got really lost when I was being chased. Where am I, exactly?"

He gave me an address and after a bit more questioning I knew where I was. I was a long way from home - at least two miles, in a straight line and longer the way I would have to go - but not so far that it was impossible to walk, even in terrible shoes.

"Thanks," I told him, genuinely meaning it.

"I like helping out our people when I can," he admitted and I tried not to think about what he meant by 'our people'. It gave me a bad feeling, but he was being nice. I could pretend everything was fine till I was outside, at least. "Come on."

I followed along obediently, already thinking about how I was going to find a way home. Or a way to call the police to get a way home. Those both sounded like good ideas for different reasons.

We walked through a couple of hallways which had a large number of doors off of them or were lined with slightly rusty metal cages holding back the shadows of machinery and bales of what looked like metal. There were a lot of padlocks on doors, and it all felt very much like the basement of a warehouse. Eventually, Steven led me up a staircase and through another door.

Suddenly, things were much louder. The staircase opened up to a big open space and my suspicion that we had been under a warehouse was confirmed. Around us, there were dozens of people milling around. I caught sight of a lot of shiny bald heads, questionable tattoos, and muscles. The bad feeling from before grew in my guts and that spot on the back of my neck started to tingle faintly.

"You don't want to get involved." Steven said and nudged me. I'd apparently stopped to stare at the crowd, none of which were really looking in my direction. "Way out's over here,"

"Whatcha got there, Steve?" another voice, just as deep as Steven's asked and I realized he'd come out of a door behind us while I had been focused on the crowd. He was tall - even taller than Steven and the other guys - and muscular. He would have kind of hot in a feral way if it weren't for all of the scars on his bare chest. And the Nazi tattoos. And the metal mask. Both sets of memories whispered at me that I needed to get the fuck out of there, immediately. Control over a handful - a literal handful - of bugs wasn't going to work against Hookwolf if he decided I needed to be cut to shreds, and I was pretty sure he was that kind of psychopath.

Fortunately, Steven came to my rescue again. "Fuckin' Jerry left the window in the flop room open again. Some slants were chasin' her and she ducked in there to hide. Fuckers stole her clothes, so I gave her a shirt and was gonna show her out."

Hookwolf nodded affably. "Fuckin' yellow assholes," he spat, and I had to use all of my willpower to keep from flinching. I was not going to chide him for his casual racism because I was not a moron. "Want me to get a couple of the guys to drive you home?" he asked, turning back to me. "Pretty white girl like you shouldn't be out alone this late in this part of town. Go one block the wrong way and it's crawling with squints."

"I, uh, I think I can manage. I just need to find a phone to call my dad." I didn't stammer. I was too composed for that. That was… not entirely true.

"We're having a meeting here in a bit so no one has a phone on them that you can use, but there's going to be a party after. If you want to stick around… you could be my guest. I'll show you a good time."

I shuffled my feet nervously. He wasn't old enough to be my dad, but he was definitely too old for me. Somehow, I didn't think he'd care if I said I was only fifteen. "I have to get home," I said, instead. I tried to sound like I wanted to stay a little, but I wasn't a great actress and I had no idea if it came across. Even if the idea of cozying up to a Nazi disgusted me on the inside, it didn't do to let him know that. "Dad's waiting and I'm really late."

He gave a slow nod. "Family is important," he agreed and turned back to Steven. "Get her out and make sure everything's locked up tight downstairs."

"Thank you," I answered almost without thinking. The idea of thanking an Empire goon, even if he was being nice to me at the moment, went against everything dad had drilled into me. I could still remember him telling me not to give them an inch, but I didn't think my current situation fit in with what he'd been talking about.

Just then, the tingle at the back of my neck got intense and my head snapped around to a section of the wall. "Get down," I half-yelled and threw myself bodily at Steven, knocking us both to the floor with a frantic surge of strength just as that part of the wall exploded inward in a billowing cloud of dust and brick.

//\\o//\\

Time lost all meaning for a few seconds as I struggled to form coherent thoughts again.

That explosion had definitely not helped my headache.

I was missing a shoe. That was the first thing that hit me, which was an odd thing to focus on, but I had been barefoot all night and it was fucking annoying.

I was also laying on top of the mass that was Steven and his bell had been rung even more thoroughly than mine.

I rolled off of him and into a crouch, bringing my legs up under me so I could see the wider warehouse. There was still a cloud of brick dust obscuring the rather large hole in the wall and the power had been cut leaving the room to be lit by the baleful red glow of emergency lighting and the strobing blue lights on the other side of the dust cloud. There was a lot of shouting, but one voice was amplified over everything else.

"PRT! Everyone on the ground!"

I cursed internally. If it had been a few hours before, running into the PRT would have been fine. Great, even. Embarrassing, but great.

Getting arrested at a Nazi rally in a bad part of town without any underwear on? Definitely not on my wishlist for the day.

I made a snap decision. I was going to run.

Steven took that chance to groan, and I looked down at him. He was a Nazi - or at least a Nazi sympathizer - but he'd also helped me out as much or more than anyone else. Leaving him would have been the smart decision, but the pang of guilt that hit me said I wasn't going to do that.

"Fuck," I cursed and grabbed ahold of his jumpsuit with the intention of dragging him behind some cover, at least. He was surprisingly light, and I managed to lift him off the ground with one hand.

I had been putting things down to adrenaline, but lifting a man that was at least two hundred and fifty pounds off the ground with one hand was too much. I knew I was supposed to be able to control bugs, but maybe I had more powers than just that? The tingling on my neck when something dangerous was about to happen. The strength. The way time slowed down when I needed to think.

Those were powers, too, and while it was confusing, I was definitely not mad about them.

In the dim light, I caught sight of a blurred red form whizzing past me followed by a clatter. My neck-tingles screamed at me and my eyes went to a silvery cylinder - no bigger than my smallest finger - spinning on the ground. I jumped to my feet and kicked the thing away. It hit the wall just as it exploded into a splatter of yellow-white liquid that was much bigger than I felt a cylinder that size should have held. Containment foam, which meant the blur was probably Velocity, the local speedster. I didn't know a lot about capes, but I knew most of the local Protectorate lineup.

"Fuck," I cursed again and grabbed Steven's jumpsuit and threw him over my shoulder before making a dash for the door he'd said went outside. His weight didn't even slow me down, though it was certainly awkward to carry someone like that. How much had I been ignoring not to realize I had those powers all night?

There were other people running around me, some in the same direction. The other Nazis had the same idea to beat a hasty escape, it seemed. A handful had found weapons - bats and pipes - and were squaring up to support Hookwolf who had turned into a monstrous wolf and was doing battle with Armsmaster just in front of the new hole in the wall.

Someone in front of me got to the door we were all heading for and it opened to reveal flashing lights and more shouting. We were all idiots for thinking the PRT wouldn't have the doors covered.

I pivoted and turned back the other way, looking for the stairs I had come up earlier. Steven had retained enough of his senses to yell at the movement, but I didn't pause.

It was dark in the staircase which I didn't bother to walk down. I cleared it in one long jump and the darkness was much better than the flashing blue lights. My night vision wasn't perfect, but between that and my memory of the path we had taken, it was just good enough to find our way back to the room with the bunks.

"What the fuck," Steven said as I put him down on his feet. "You're a cape."

"I guess?" I said, still not sure of that reality myself. I fished for an explanation and realized I had an easy one for a Nazi. I didn't exactly remember the locker incident - thank goodness - but I had those other-memories that told me what had probably happened. "I wasn't yesterday, but there was a black girl and she tried to kill me. That was before I woke up in that alley."

He growled. "Fucking animals."

I let out a shuddering breath, feeling a little dirty at having used racism to my advantage. "Is there another way out of here?"

"Just those windows," Steven said. I glanced at them and at him. There wasn't much chance he was going to fit with the way they opened and I could tell that he knew that. "Go ahead and leave me. I'll pretend to be asleep when they come down here. I do legally work for this warehouse so they won't have anything on me."

I wavered. That did sound like an okay plan, but it felt selfish. "I think I can manage," I declared and pulled myself up to the window ledge with one hand and shoved the window all the way up until the hinges snapped. After that, it was just a quick snap to break it loose from its frame and drop it back into the room.

Steven whistled, obviously impressed. "Shit, girl. Kaiser is going to want to meet you."

He made it sound like an honor, but it felt more like a threat. A pragmatic part of my mind suggested it would be better if the Empire wanted to recruit me than if they wanted to kill me, but that somehow made it feel worse. Regardless, that could be the consequence of helping a Nazi out and I would just have to deal with it when - or if - it happened.

"Not right now. I still have to talk to my dad," I said, fishing for an excuse. Dad was… dad was going to freak out. Those other-memories suggested he'd probably want me to join the Wards or something, but that wasn't a path I could take while Sophia was there. I'd murder her. Given my new strength and knowledge of her weaknesses, it probably wouldn't even be hard. I had a bad feeling I would enjoy it, too.

He nodded at that and looked back to the now open window. "Can you, uh, help me up?"

It was probably a little comical to see me helping a man more than twice my size up to a tiny window high on the wall, but it worked after a bit of a struggle.

The tunnel was apparently far enough away from the front of the warehouse that the PRT hadn't set up anyone to watch that particular alley - I wasn't even sure if it was part of the same building, but maybe a conjoined basement under a different building. That kind of weirdness happened sometimes in the older parts of the Bay. If we'd taken the time to look, there was probably a sealed off old staircase that would have led down from the building above, but we definitely didn't have the time for that.

"Good luck," Steven said as he headed in one direction and I headed in the other.

I hoped I wouldn't need it.

 

[DaCoolEntity]

Lmao. At the start, she met normal civilians, the next it's some ABB members, following that is what I assumed to be a Merchant with a shotgun, after that she stumbles upon a whole building full of E88 members, at the end a whole contigent of PRT troops alongside some Protectorate members came crashing in. Hahahahahah. Things kept escalating. Next thing we know, Zion himself shows up. Though it seems like he doesn't exist here. Maybe he's still somewhere? Perhaps it's Abaddon keeping this close to canon with several nudges? Can't say that it's Eden, because WoG from Wildbow mentions that she has a specific method is setting up the cycle, though maybe it is Eden or still Zion and you've just taken some artistic liberties.

Exciting read!

 

[Mukson_Pautinka]

Truly being an SI doesn't stop you from being affected by Worm tier 'coincidence' bullshit. One doesn't simply wake up naked, run into ABB gangsters, flee into a store that JUST SO HAPPENS to get robbed, then flee into another building that JUST SO HAPPENS to be an Empire gathering point (in ABB territory mind you) that JUST SO HAPPENS to have Hookwolf in it that then just as you're about to leave JUST SO HAPPENS to be raided by PRT. Man, I don't mind the setup, it seems like it'll interesting but please don't make this a habit throughout the story, it kinda kills any engagement. I guess 'worst day' + unmasked + antagonist of PRT, ABB (and maybe Empire if/when she tells Kaiser to get shafted)?

Also no Scion? Just an AU or Moonfall? Also not the first reincarnator? Seems like a cool premise, I'll keep reading for a few more chapters

 

[Swordchucks]

This is the "real" thread, so I'll be a bit more liberal with the comments.

This story is based on the Lt Ouroumov's fork of Worm CYOA V6 (perhaps with some liberties). Find it here: https://cyoa.ltouroumov.ch/viewer/

what I assumed to be a Merchant with a shotgun

Click to shrink...

The Merchants aren't really a big thing till after Leviathan in canon. They're just one of several small gangs trying to pick at the scraps of the drug trade that isn't firmly handled by either the ABB or E88. Coil's group is generally the #3 gang in the city at that point.

So... just a junkie with a shotgun.

I guess 'worst day' + unmasked + antagonist of PRT, ABB

Click to shrink...

Worst day just about covers this series of events (which isn't over). She's getting seen a fair amount, but it's mostly in poor lighting and/or she's naked. Change her hair (which is an absolute mess though this whole thing), change her clothes, there's very little chance she'd be recognized (without also having taken unmasked). The only one that really might is Steven, and there are all sorts of reasons why that might not turn otu badly.

Just an AU or Moonfall?

Click to shrink...

Technically, it's just canon Bet with the meta setting "Entities, what are those Entities you speak of?". It just removes the entities and makes the shards symbiotic colonies that don't destroy the worlds when they spawn off new colonies to send off into space. Everything else is the same as canon (though the reasons for that can be convoluted).

Also not the first reincarnator?

Click to shrink...

It's possible. It's also possible there was just someone with that delusion. I mean, how many Marvel/DC characters know or at least think they're in a piece of fiction?

 

[DeclanDSI]

This fic looks pretty fun so far.

 

[Mgunh1]

It's possible. It's also possible there was just someone with that delusion. I mean, how many Marvel/DC characters know or at least think they're in a piece of fiction?

Click to shrink...

Most of them can prove it to one degree or another, though.

Of course, the Joker used it as an excuse at one point and his grasp on reality is tenuous at best. Just because you're right, doesn't mean you're not delusional, it just means you got lucky.

 

[Swordchucks]

I was reasonably confident that if I had been able to go out the front door of the warehouse, I would have been able to find my way home. I knew where the warehouse was, more or less, and it would have just been a matter of following the street in a specific direction till I got somewhere more familiar.

As it was, though, I was back in the twisting maze of alleyways with one flip-flop and a sweatshirt-dress that was a lot better than being naked but extremely drafty. I was all turned around and had no idea where, exactly, I was except that one direction led to a bunch of cops, judging by the sound of not-so-distant sirens, and another direction led to ABB territory.

Going back and finding a cop sounded like a good idea, in general, but I was afraid that someone would claim I was with the Empire if I did that. It had been smoky and pretty dark, but Velocity had been close enough to drop a grenade at my feet. I had no idea if he could see me clearly when he was moving that fast and it seemed like an unnecessary risk. Give me a couple of days, a change of clothes, and a brush for the tangled mass that my hair had become and I'd feel a lot more comfortable about interacting with the Protectorate. Well, not really comfortable because they were still cops, but more comfortable at least.

I ended up tossing the remaining flip-flop before I left the alleyway. Being barefoot on cold concrete sucked, but walking with just one shoe was annoying in so many other ways. Plus it definitely made me look even stupider than the sweatshirt-dress.

I made it half a block away in a direction that was generally away from the sirens before I was nearly bowled over by a guy in a black leather jacket that came out of a different alley and ran straight across the street. That tingle at the back of my neck which I was learning to trust implicitly warned me in barely enough time to avoid him.

By the time I pulled myself away from the wall I had been forced to throw myself up against to avoid him, the sound of running feet from down the alley caused me to turn only to find three annoyingly familiar figures in red and green.

"You seen a guy-" the leader started to ask, but then his eyes locked onto my face and he started shouting. "Hey, it's that bitch from the alley! Your boyfriend almost shot us!"

They thought the strung-out robber that almost got me shot was my boyfriend? That wasn't very logical, but I realized that arguing that was probably a bad idea.

I didn't wait for the others to react before I took off running in the same direction as the guy that had just passed me. I had no idea why they were chasing him, but I had a bad feeling they were going to forget about him in favor of following me, instead. Good on the guy for getting away, but my night was already a ridiculous series of events and I just wanted it to end.

I gained some distance with my newfound ability to run at a pretty good speed - just another power that was serving me well, it seemed - and took a sharp left into another alleyway with the intent of doubling back to lose my pursuers. Unfortunately, the alleyway wasn't empty. In fact, it was full of five white guys with obvious Nazi gear on. Unlike in the warehouse, these guys had found real weapons from somewhere, including at least a few guns. One of them stood up from where he'd obviously been catching his breath and all six of us all looked at each other for a long moment.

"Hey, it's that bitch that showed up right before the raid," one of them said, obviously realizing who I was and, admittedly, my presence right before the PRT came crashing through the wall was at least a little suspicious.

"I didn't-" I tried, hoping to play up the 'scared white girl' angle long enough to put them between the ABB thugs and myself.

"Get her!" one of them yelled and that hope fizzled out before it could fully form.

Once again, I turned on my heel and ran back out of the alley. I could see the ABB guys were almost on me, too, and went down the street away from everyone chasing me.

The neck-tingles hit me hard, and I threw myself into a roll just before a gunshot sounded behind me. I had no idea which group that had come from and I wasn't going to stick around and find out. There was a puff of concrete dust a few paces ahead, in a line with where I had been standing.

"Stop shooting at me, assholes!" I screamed after I sprang to my feet and kept going. There was absolutely no way I was going to talk my way out of that one.

Strength, I had, and it came with a bit of speed, too, because I felt like the sound of pursuit was getting farther away as I ran. There were more gunshots but my neck-tingles didn't act up much and I started to think I was in the clear.

Of course, that's when a red blur crossed my path and turned into a man of fairly average height with a muscular build in a costume that left little to the imagination. He stopped a good twenty feet in front of me, but I suspected he could cross that distance before I could react. "Hold it right there. You're wanted for questioning in connection with Empire activity."

I stopped, surprised that I was barely out of breath from running at least three blocks. "It's just a misunderstanding," I managed, desperately wanting him to get out of my way. "A bunch of Nazis are chasing me right now, and they're trying to kill me. I think they might be shooting it out with a bunch of ABB guys that were… also trying to kill me."

That caused Velocity to stare at me. The visor on his helmet made it hard to tell exactly what he was feeling, but I imagined he was blinking at me.

That's when another gunshot sounded and he turned his head slightly, apparently looking past me. "Just… stay right here. I'll go deal with that."

"Alright?" I sort-of-agreed and he vanished in a blur.

I considered my options for a split second. I supposed running from a Protectorate hero would make me look guilty, but I really didn't want to get arrested. Or hit by a stray bullet.

"Fuck this," I decided, and started running again.

Two blocks later, I was both thoroughly lost and fairly confident that no one was going to try to kill me for the next few minutes. I wiped a little sweat off my forehead and tried to catch my breath. I wasn't physically winded, but the headache was killing me and I was emotionally winded.

Half-way across the street, my neck tingles suddenly became intense and I instinctively looked to the left. There was nothing there.

I stared into the darkness for a second, trying to figure out what I was being warned about when there was an impossibly loud car horn and then the air itself smashed into me with the force of a speeding truck. An invisible, speeding truck.

Time slowed down again, but all that let me do was feel the impact more clearly and how my body gave way against it. Zero out of ten. Do not recommend.

Then I mercifully fell into darkness.

//\\o//\\

What happened next was a jumble of conflicting images and sensations.

I remembered a formless black void.

I remembered a sky strewn with so many stars it was hard to wrap my head around their number.

I remember a man with white hair and a put-upon expression lecturing me. I didn't remember most of his words, though a few stuck with me.

"-you don't see the other one helping-"

"-you are a soul, you have a body-"

"-even a child! Though I suppose you are-"

When I swam back to coherence, I immediately noticed two things that were becoming all-too-familiar.

One, I was freezing. Two, I was naked.

I cracked my eyes open and saw the sky. Naked outside in the middle of the winter. Again.

At least it was daylight this time and my headache had lessened a little more. That overwhelming sense of sensation was still there - the feed from my power - but it was mostly being held back by the fact I refused to think about it.

I sat up with a start as events came back to me. My hands roamed over my body, but there were no shattered bones and torn skin from where I had been flattened by a speeding truck. An invisible speeding truck. Squealer, my other memories helpfully supplied. She was a Tinker with some gang called the Merchants that I had never heard of. If I ever saw her again, I was going to do something nasty to her, even if I was back to normal. If you didn't count the freezing and naked parts.

With that immediate panic taken care of, I took stock of my situation. I was outside, but it definitely wasn't an alleyway. No, it was more familiar than that.

I was resting under a tree in tall, dead weeds. I recognized the tree. I recognized the yard. I was in my own back yard. That meant I had made it home. Somehow.

Had it all been a dream? Being chased by the ABB, stumbling into a robbery, being chased some more, ending up at an E88 rally, getting chased by the cops, getting chased by the ABB again, then getting chased - and shot at - by the E88, then almost getting arrested byVelocity, and finally getting hit by a truck. It was a surreal, almost impossible set of events, but there were too many things consistent with my current reality to write it off.

Like the fact that I was again outdoors in the middle of the winter with no clothes on.

I stumbled up to the back door and found it locked. Not surprising. No one with any sense left their back door unlocked in the Bay.

I had to trudge back into the overgrown garden, count out the stones that edged the path, and look under lucky number twelve for the key. You also couldn't hide your key under the mat in the Bay. You had to get more creative.

Inside, things were blessedly warm. I couldn't stop myself from moaning as the heat washed over me, pushing away the cold. I could ignore the naked part for a few more minutes, but being not-cold was heavenly.

The house was dark. There were beer bottles on the kitchen table and some paper - probably bills - stacked up. I didn't spend much time on it as I crept deeper inside, wondering if dad was home.

He was, as it turned out. He was passed out in his recliner, a scatter of beer bottles on the floor around him. He'd taken the phone from across the room and rested it on one arm of the chair, the cord stretching dangerously across the path we normally walked in. It wasn't really a scene I was prepared for nor one I understood.

I looked down at myself and decided I would wake him up once I had a shower and got some clothes on. There was no scenario where being naked when I woke him up worked out better.

Ten minutes later, I was cleaner. I seemed to have only accumulated the dirt from waking up in the backyard and none of the grime I had built up from running around half the city barefoot. I didn't have time for the whole hair routine, but it got a rinse, at least. It didn't seem like it needed much. Dying was apparently a cleansing experience.

When I got out of the shower and went to brush my teeth, I got my next major surprise.

I looked… different. Well, that was an understatement. I looked hot. I still looked like Taylor Hebert, but a version of her that had been fed through all of those image editing programs they used to make models on magazine covers look even hotter. My glasses were gone, too, something I hadn't noticed in the rather dizzying events of the night. I was probably an inch or two taller, too, with visible muscles and padding in all the right places.

No wonder my boobs felt weird when I touched them before. They were both much bigger and had a new kind of perkiness to them that hadn't originally been there. The latter was a good thing because there was no way that any of my bras would fit now. I spent a minute or two in fascination checking out my new body and flexing my new muscles. Eventually, I got embarrassed at what I was doing and shuffled off to my room to find some clothes.

My room looked like someone had ransacked it. Most of my drawers were stacked beside whatever had originally held them with the contents obviously gone through and most of the contents of my closet were piled on my bed. Things weren't scattered everywhere, but it was clear that someone had done a thorough search of the room.

Given that my binders were stacked on the desk - the ones filled with my notes on the bullying campaign and now spread out everywhere - I had a bad feeling that I knew who had gone through my stuff and why.

I pushed the thought aside and rummaged through my clothes for something that fit. Mostly it didn't, but my style for the last year or so had been 'cheap and oversized and shapeless and good for hiding inside' and there were a few things I could squeeze into, even if they were decidedly less oversized and shapeless after my makeover. I even managed to rummage through the drawer that should have been in my bedside table and find an older pair of glasses. I popped the lenses out and put them on so that I looked more like the old me, even if it made me feel a little silly to wear just the frames.

I spent a little more time preparing than I strictly needed to because I was procrastinating. I needed to talk to, and I had a nagging suspicion that there was a lot going on I wasn't aware of. There had been more beer bottles in the kitchen and around his chair than he could reasonably drink in a couple of nights. Aside from the bits where I was being chased, I had no accounting for time since the day I went back to school from winter break - and even that was only due to my other-memories filling in the blanks.

How had I gotten from the locker to that alleyway? It was at least a mile away, maybe more. How had I gotten from that street - after being smashed into a paste by a speeding truck - to my backyard?

I had no answers. Getting answers required waking up dad, and somehow that seemed more daunting than the prospect of partying with Hookwolf had been.

//\\o//\\

"Dad, wake up," I tried as I jostled his foot. It took a few more tries, but his eyes eventually came open and he adjusted the glasses that were askew on his face.

"Annette?" he asked groggily and my heart hurt a little. Dad had never recovered from mom's death - neither had I - and I supposed the fact that I looked a lot like her didn't help things. If i changed my hair, it probably would have made it easier for him… but it wouldn't have helped me.

Before I'd been shoved in a locker and gotten some sort of cape-driven makeover, my hair was my one real source of vanity. It was kind of a living shrine to my mother since it reminded me of her every time I looked at it. It was like a living legacy in a way. I kept it long and took the best care of it I could because of her. In a very real way, it was a touchstone that got me through the last couple of years.

"No, Taylor," I softly corrected.

"Oh, Taylor." His thoughts seemed to finally connect themselves. "Taylor! You're back! Where have you been?"

I winced a little. "I don't really know… how long was I gone?" It was a terrible answer, but the only one I had.

"You didn't-you didn't come home on Monday, and I started to get worried. I called the police, but they said something about 24-hours, then I called Alan and he said that was bullshit, so I went down to the station and… well, it's been five days? I think? It's morning, right? One of the guys that used to work with the union before he joined up with the Empire gave me a call to tell me he thought he saw you Wednesday night and the PRT might know where you are, but they said they didn't know anything when I went down there."

There was a lot to unpack in all of that, but I focused on the basics.

"Yeah, it's morning. So, five days? I don't remember most of what happened. I was…" I had debated what to tell dad and had decided on a watered down version of the truth, but I still struggled to find the right words. "...attacked at school and then I woke up on what I guess was Wednesday night in an alleyway. It… well, it was a lot of stuff, but I got knocked out again later and woke up in our backyard. Somehow."

"Taylor, that's not…"

I nodded. "I know. I think I'm a cape now, dad." I admitted the last in a rush. I'd decided to level with him. The part of me that was entirely Taylor Hebert never would have done that. The part of me that was someone else, however, thought it was the best course of action. He'd either work with me or he wouldn't, but sneaking around him was just adding complication and uncertainty to my life that I didn't need. The worst case scenario was that I'd have to run away and fend for myself, but at least I'd know if I needed to do that now instead of when dad randomly found out in a few weeks or months.

Well, the real worst case scenario was that he did that and also told everyone in the world who I was and that I was a cape. I had a bad feeling that I'd already made my face known to a few people, but it could always be worse. I didn't remember giving my name and my hair had been a mess, but I'd shown off some cape-like abilities to quite a few people before I got run over. Hopefully people had been too distracted by my new boobs to really look at my face.

I winced again as I realized I had no idea if the whole 'dying and appearing somewhere else naked' thing left a body behind. That would be awkward. Dad hadn't said they found one at the school, but I could just see Sophia being the kind to dispose of a body. Emma was the kind to order it, but I couldn't see her getting her hands dirty to do any of the heavy lifting. The less said of her other useless hangers-on, the better, but Sophia was at least a capable monster.

There was a long moment of silence before dad threw himself out of the chair. My neck tingles didn't go off so I was caught by surprise and grabbed in a hug before I knew it. Without even having to think about it, I started hugging him back. I wasn't entirely sure how long that lasted, but there was some crying involved.

"I have to make some calls," dad declared after a long moment of awkward silence, doing his best to wipe his eyes while pretending he hadn't just broken down a little. "Why don't you-why don't you clean up a little? Your room is… well, I was looking for clues and… We need to talk."

"I know," I admitted. I didn't want to. I didn't even want to deal with putting my room back in order, not with my head still killing me and the awkward feeling in my limbs that seemed to come with returning from the dead. However, it would have to be done eventually since dad wasn't going to kick me out right off and I might as well do it sooner rather than later.

I disappeared back upstairs to take a second much longer shower and properly wash my hair.

I also had more time to mess with my closet so I could fully understand what I was working with. My selection of clothing before the makeover wasn't great, but now it was downright pitiful. My shoes still fit, at least, though I only had two pairs that were worth wearing and my 'good' shoes were missing. I'd worn those to school on Monday, I vaguely remembered, and I wondered where they had ended up.

My jeans were mostly too small now because I had actual curves. The few pairs I could squeeze myself into if I held my breath before I buttoned them were more recent purchases. They were cheap and had an unflattering cut to them, but they still somehow looked good on my new body. I felt a completely irrational pang of jealousy at the new me's booty. It made no sense, but I kind of hated how hot I looked now.

I was a little better off with tops since I had been favoring oversized hoodies for a while and I had more of them to pick from. They weren't any more flattering or less cheap than the jeans had been, but at least they fit for a given definition of 'fit'.

The end result was that I had a fairly tiny pile of stuff that either fit or was too sentimental to get rid of with the rest split between 'try to sell' and 'donate to charity maybe'. The last pile was everything too stained or damaged by the bullying campaign to even bother with attempting to sell or that was close to being worn out. The 'sell' pile was mostly stuff I'd bought back when Emma and I were better friends and that completely failed to fit now. It was the more expensive stuff, if a few years out of date, and I thought one of the thrift shops might actually take it for credit if nothing else.

"I need to go shopping," I reluctantly admitted to myself and then chuckled a little at the absurdity of that being the thing I focused on.

I cleaned up the worst of the rest by the simple expedient of cramming the drawers back into their homes. It took a little shuffling of the contents, but it was easy enough, especially when I could lift even the heaviest of them with no real effort. There wasn't anything really important in there, just junk of various descriptions, so it wasn't worth worrying about.

What was more worth worrying about was the fact that dad had obviously been through the notebooks. He had mentioned talking to Alan so he either hadn't realized that Emma was behind most of it, or he'd chosen to ignore that until I could be found. Either way, it was something that would have to be addressed.

I flopped back on my unmade bed and stared at the ceiling. Dad would come and get me when he wanted to talk, I decided.

My mind went back to the whole alley-to-truck scenario and I cringed a little at the absurdity of it all. I definitely had powers now. I could jump several feet in the air, vault over a fence, and then manage to tuck and roll a landing on the other side. I had been in such a panic I had written my scaling of that fence off as adrenaline, but looking back, it had been the first superhuman feat of the night. Then I'd pretty much proven I was superhuman when I ripped that window off its hinges.

The neck tingles were apparently some sort of danger sense, too. I could sense when something bad was about to happen and a general direction, though it was a little vague on details. If I hadn't stood in the middle of the street trying to see an invisible truck, I probably wouldn't have gotten flattened.

Spiderman, other-me's memories whispered. Those powers were reminiscent of a fictional hero called Spiderman. Or Spider-man or some variation of that. There were some variations, though. For one, I didn't remember being bitten by a radioactive spider. For another, my powers seemed oddly weak for Spiderman. The versions other-me could remember all seemed to get their full powers right off, or near to it. Maybe I just needed to practice more?

Regardless, there were supposed to be spider-people in all sorts of realities and they had slight variants on the same powers. They were all totems of the great spider that wove the web of life. Could the powers I was supposed to have - controlling bugs - have somehow gotten me tied into that? It was possible. I had dreamed of a thing the size of a planet weaving something, though calling it a 'spider' or the thing it was weaving a 'web' seemed a bit of a stretch.

On a hunch, I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing. Mentally, I reached out to that bubbling ball of chaos I knew was my bug-control power and focused very hard on the concept of eight-legged spider creatures.

The resulting burst of sensation was more manageable. I could feel spiders… all the spiders. It was hard to judge distance through the power, but it felt like a lot. Thousands of them, even in the middle of winter. When I had tried using that power to sense bugs in general in that basement, I'd gotten disoriented from trying to extend the sense more than a room away, but if I was focusing just on spiders, it flowed much, much more easily.

Maybe there was something to the idea that I'd somehow linked myself to the spider-spirit when I got my powers? Wasn't one of the first signs that the new spider-person found themselves sticking to everything? I hadn't experienced that, yet, but I would need to experiment with it. Later. I couldn't bring myself to move right then.

The only thing was… how did Spiderman style powers explain the whole 'come back from the dead' thing? How did the white-haired man fit in with everything? Those dreams felt important, somehow. Those were something else going on and I just hadn't figured it out yet. Given that whatever the other thing was, it was the only reason I was alive - re-alive - I wasn't going to second guess it too much, but it felt like I was missing a huge chunk of information.

I was still turning over the possibilities when there was a knock at my door.

"Taylor, we need to talk."

I took a deep breath and got up. Dad was right. We definitely needed to talk.

Spoiler: Notes

I made some notes in the thread, but this is based on a CYOA with a "Worst Day" drawback. The MC has that one.

 

[Poparakelis0.2]

Don't understand much but it seems good

 

[DaCoolEntity]

Worst day indeed. But, hey, not being able to permanently die seems great!

 

[Spelloyal]

Kind of sad that you chose a new worm fic instead of continuing the old ones, especially xianxia, but to be honest this was an interesting start and it left me excited for the next chapters.

 

[ShadowkingMS]

Looking forward to what comes next, hope you enjoy writing the story!

 

[Swordchucks]

instead of continuing the old ones

Click to shrink...

This is kind of common for me because using a CYOA is the easiest way for me to get back into "writing mode". Once I'm back in, I will continue... something. I'm just not sure what. It's kind of a long list at this point.

 

[Swordchucks]

I had decided to give dad a nearly-full rundown of everything that had been going on in my life. I started with the bullying, then hit the locker, and finally went through the events after I woke up in the alley. I didn't give him everything of course, and I softened up quite a few of the worst bits - like spending hours running around naked and the part where I got hit by a truck for being an idiot - but he got the most of it.

I shouldn't have been surprised that the hardest part to talk about was the bullying campaign. It had been bad, but my other-memories were useful in that regard. They gave me distance and even some emotional maturity that helped me fight through my own feelings.

Those memories also came with a more mature perspective that let me see how my own actions had helped things go on as long as they had. There were times when I'd made exactly the wrong moves that made it easy for the school to ignore what was going on, for instance. The school was far, far from blameless, but the tactics my bullies used had been tailored to make me seem unreliable any time I tried to complain. Then I had just stopped complaining at all which was even worse in the end.

"I don't think there's enough evidence to sue them," I admitted sourly. "At least, there isn't enough evidence that they'd throw money at us and quietly brush it under the rug. I don't even think there's enough to get them to push through a transfer to a better school, but maybe they would let me do homeschool, instead? If I have to go back to Winslow for any length of time, I'm afraid someone will figure out that I have powers because I really don't know how I got from my locker to that alleyway or who knows what."

"I'll have to look into it. I do know a few people…" Dad let out a heavy sigh. "And what about Emma?" He said her voice with a particularly sharp tone, though it might have been my imagination. She was a sharp note in my thoughts, after all.

"She was behind a lot of it, but… well, I think something happened that sent her off the deep end." Other-memories filled in that blank, at least. I certainly was not happy with her, but I kind of almost understood why she went crazy even if I sincerely wished I hadn't been the target of it. I wasn't going to forgive her, probably ever, but I could at least understand it enough that I wasn't going to go out of my way to murder her for revenge. Probably.

"I'm going to kill Alan," he grumbled, oddly mirroring my own thoughts but with a different target.

"No, Alan is your friend, and I doubt he has any idea what Emma's been up to. I-I think he'd back her up if you pushed it - you know how much he babies her - but I don't think he knew about it or approved. Keep being his friend, but maybe cool down a little before you try hanging out with him?" As long as I could remember, Alan had favored Emma. Some of it was probably that Emma's older sister, Anne, had fought with him over just about everything. Emma had said it was because they were too alike, but I never really saw it.

Emma was a much more agreeable child and her dad had responded to that by making her his obvious favorite. In retrospect, it hadn't done Emma any favors.

He sighed again. "I guess that's the mature thing to do. I just… I just hate that I never noticed what was going on. That explains why you haven't wanted to go over there in a while."

"I didn't want you to notice," I admitted. "I didn't want to break up your friendship, and Uncle Alan did a lot for both of us after mom died. It's not…" It actually was his fault, at least in part, but Alan was also the one that took me in when I couldn't do much more than cry and dad was a complete mess. He was the one that hauled dad out of his despair and forced him to be a functional parent again. I could be furious at his daughter and annoyed with him while still being grateful for those things. "He couldn't have known what Emma was going to do. He might cover for her after the fact, but I am sure he wouldn't approve, even if it's just because he's a lawyer and things could have gone really, really badly if she'd been caught."

We both lapsed into silence as we thought dark thoughts.

"Well, we both agree that going back to Winslow is off the table, don't we? Do you… have you considered the Wards? Rumors say they all go to Arcadia. It's supposed to be really nice."

"I've thought about it," I answered slowly. This was a topic where diplomacy seemed best. I really had thought about it before rejecting it. "I don't think it will work out. Sophia, Emma's new friend and probably the one that assaulted me on Monday? She's a Ward."

"Ah," dad said knowingly. I imagined that he had seen plenty of altercations between dockworkers over the years. "Yeah, I can see why that would be a problem. I'd say that working with difficult people is just part of life, but working with someone that has tried to kill you is an entirely different thing."

I nodded. "Yeah, I don't think I'd stop punching her in the face if I got an opportunity to start. If I was working with her? I'm sure I'd get that opportunity."

"Maybe we could go to the Protectorate or the PRT? Doesn't one of those groups have a responsibility to make sure the Wards aren't breaking the law? If they did something about her, maybe it would be alright?"

I honestly had no idea what I would do if I could join the Wards without dealing with Sophia. Wards had rules - which would suck - but Wards also had backup - which wouldn't. I had powers, but I also understood exactly how big the gangs in the city were. One person standing alone against them? It wasn't going to happen. "That's a big 'if'. If we had rock-solid proof, maybe, but with the way things are in this city… even if one of their capes is an asshole and causes problems, do you think they'd get rid of them for anything less than getting caught red-handed? Even if you count all the Wards and Protectorate, just the Empire has more capes than they do. They aren't going to toss one just because of some stuff that wouldn't hold up in court."

"Maybe not," he agreed sourly. "But they definitely can't do anything if they don't know. Maybe they could trade her off for a rookie from another team or something?"

I could tell he was joking, which caused me to grin a little, but it didn't seem likely to work.

I had no way of knowing if Cauldron was real or not - there was no Scion, so why would there be a shadowy organization dedicated to fighting him? It. Whatever. There was some evidence, of course. I had heard rumors of a villain called Coil, so maybe they did exist. Battery, too. Wasn't she supposed to be a Cauldron cape? And the Case 53s were their fault, too? All of that stuff was very real, which didn't make a lot of sense when I tried thinking about it.

Even if they existed, I had no proof that would convince anyone. I'd sound crazy, at best. I'd be targeted for elimination, at worst. I might have some sort of secondary power that kept them from noticing me with powers - those seemed common enough in the fiction my other-memories remembered - but if I started making waves there were all sorts of mundane ways they could remove me or at least make my life very difficult. Best not to draw attention I wasn't ready for.

"I guess… but they might also kind of recognize me from that Empire rally that I was accidentally at." Velocity had, afterward, but I'd been wearing the same clothes with the same messed up hair and no glasses. Maybe I could Clark Kent my way to plausible deniability? It might work.

"There is that. We can wait to approach them for a while," dad agreed, eventually. "About the rally… you didn't listen to what they were saying-"

"No, I know better," I declared. "One of them was nice to me, but they were gross. The way they talked about people…" I didn't have to fake a shudder. The casual racist statements. The statements I realized afterward were rooted in misogyny. The Empire always talked big about 'family values', but that meant something very specific to them. White families where the women knew their place. They certainly had female capes, but they never seemed to be in charge of anything.

He nodded again. "They are good at being reasonable. You can't let them get to you that way because their ultimate goal is to be unreasonable. The union has lost some people because of our stance on racist tattoos and language. There are probably some guys on the inside that wish they were Empire, but the second they let us know their leanings, they're gone. Dockworkers aren't known for being politically correct, but there is a line."

That seemed reasonable to me. "I haven't forgotten." It had been a topic around the dinner table quite a few times over the years, especially before mom died. Grandpa had been in the war and dad had lots of his stories to share, even if he'd died before I was born.

"Well, that's good, at least." There was a long moment of silence. "Taylor… I'm so glad you came home. I was so worried."

I wasn't crying. My eyes were just blurry. "I know. I'm sorry. I tried… I tried so hard, but things just kept going wrong. But I made it home in the end."

"Yeah, yeah you did."

//\\o//\\

After a long, emotionally draining talk, there didn't seem to be anything incredibly pressing to do with the rest of my day. At least, nothing I felt up to tackling. I was still under the weather with my head aching fiercely and dad was busy making phone calls to call off the manhunt he had apparently mobilized to find me. Well, that and he was recovering from drinking himself to sleep for a week. He wasn't enough of an alcoholic to do that at his age without facing some serious discomfort afterwards.

One of his many calls was to the school. Since it was still Friday, he was able to arrange a meeting for Monday afternoon. He pointedly told me that I wasn't invited, which was fine with me. It would probably give him some freedom to shout at people if I wasn't there and they wouldn't be able to use me as a distraction.

One thing I definitely needed to do was go out and find some better clothes, but I just wasn't up for it. Instead, I did a little 'light' power testing, mostly focused on the physical aspects of my powers. With one hand, I could lift just about anything in the house. I could also stick to walls if I wanted to, though it felt weird to do. I only ripped one section of wallpaper off in my attempt to figure it out, and it had been ugly and peeling to start with.

I was pretty glad that I didn't have the kind of spider powers that resulted in spinning my own silk, at least. That sounded like it would be really, really gross. I did, once I really thought about it, have a good idea of how to make web-shooters. I would need some parts and chemicals, but nothing I couldn't find pretty easily. None of it was the kind of exotic stuff that people claimed got new Tinkers caught either. I didn't think so, anyway. There were a lot of websites with advice on that subject, but I wasn't dumb enough to check them from my house.

It also wasn't exactly the highest priority thing. Being able to shoot webs could be handy, but I didn't exactly live in a city with highrises everywhere. Spiderman could swing through the city all the time because he lived in New York. In the Bay, that was possible within an area that was about three square blocks of downtown and nowhere else.

After I was done with that, I lay in bed with a pillow over my head and tried to get a grip on my newfound affinity for spiders. I could definitely sense them, but doing more than that was another level of challenge. My one attempt at seeing through one's senses resulted in a few seconds of blurry, impossibly wide vision with a small splash of color and sharp vision in the very middle. It ended in me having to throw up into a trashcan and hastily sever the connection.

I might have skipped the week an alternate version of Taylor spent in a psychiatric ward, but I certainly hadn't skipped the whole 'have to learn to use the power' part of things.

I had better luck with giving the spiders instructions. I didn't need to give them detailed commands, though I could do that if I concentrated. Instead, I could project general concepts like 'move to this place' or 'stay hidden' or 'weave a web here' to them and they would fulfill them as best as their little spider brains could manage. Getting them to do anything with any accuracy when I couldn't physically see them was very difficult, but I had a feeling it would get easier with practice.

Working with that mental power was even harder than my physical powers and I was soon exhausted. I went to sleep early and dreamed about school all night. At least, I thought it was about school. I couldn't remember any of the details, though I woke up humming an unfamiliar tune.

Saturday morning - because it was apparently Saturday now - I felt a lot better. I still wasn't one-hundred-percent, but I was a lot better than I had been. I still felt wiped out, but I could at least walk and talk at the same time without wanting to throw up.

Dad looked distracted as we shared a light breakfast and I tried to make conversation.

"Are you going to the office today?" I asked and he looked a little guilty. Apparently, I correctly guessed what he was thinking about. "Go on, please. I can fend for myself and I'm sure you have a lot of work piled up."

"I don't want to abandon you. I just got you back," he said with uncertainty. It was an unfortunate truth that dad tied a lot of his identity to his job, and forced time off always grated on him. Even when he'd been absolutely shattered after mom died, he'd still gone to work every day he was supposed to.

"I'll be fine. I need… I need to get out of the house, anyway. Go to the library. Go shopping for clothes. I'll be back before you are."

He frowned. "That… are you sure you should be out and about? After what happened the last time you left the house, I'm not sure it's safe. You'll probably trip and fall face-first into Lung's birthday cake or something."

I laughed nervously. "I… I really hope that was a one-time thing. If my luck was always going to be that bad, I don't think yesterday would have been so peaceful."

He mulled it over for a while, but he really couldn't afford to be a helicopter parent. At some point, he'd have to leave me to my own devices so he could go to work, and I was a cape now. I could get myself out of trouble. Probably. "Just… be really careful, alright?"

I nodded. "I will be."

Dad hesitated a few more times, insisted on giving me forty dollars, and then left for work. I breathed a sigh of relief as he pulled out of the driveway, though I felt a little guilty for that. The day we spent together was the most intensely 'together' time we'd had in a long time. It had been good for me, but I still felt relieved to be alone in the house again.

I closed my eyes and rolled my head back, facing the ceiling and breathing a long sigh of relief.

And then the moment was broken. I opened my eyes and headed upstairs to get a few things. I had stuff I needed to get done.

//\\o//\\

It was early afternoon by the time I climbed off the bus near the thrift shops I planned to start with. I had spent more time than I intended to at the public library - not the one closest to my house but one farther away - looking up information on how to get started as an independent cape. I had been rather embarrassed that the first step was 'log off immediately and use a VPN to reconnect', but I followed that instruction along with several others that would minimize my chances of being traced. The fact that I was using a public computer was already a step in the right direction.

The majority of the information I found had been for Tinkers. That wasn't exactly me, but I did need to build my web-shooters so I still devoured that advice. There was also the possibility that I might be able to make some things that people would want to buy, like spider silk. I had spent a few minutes looking up industrial applications of the stuff, but most of it was theoretical because the processes to produce useful quantities of synthetic silk weren't there yet. That wasn't a problem for me and it could possibly be an avenue for making money. It just wasn't something I'd want to risk getting kidnapped over.

I made a mental note to look into it later. Carefully.

When I was done, I took the bus to the Boardwalk, which gave me ample time to watch people on the way. There weren't a ton of tourists out given the time of year, but there were enough to be amusing. People came to the Bay because of the capes, and it seemed like they were either overly cavalier about being a victim of a crime or overly cautious. There wasn't really an in-between.

They were heaviest around the Boardwalk which was a tourist trap, but it was also one of the most active economic zones in the city for small businesses. The Boardwalk proper was protected by the Enforcers which were kind of a 'legitimate gang' that provided real security services. Stores off the main drag could contract with them, but most didn't bother. The big gangs didn't cause problems within a block or two of the Boardwalk and the Enforcers were known to make examples of the small-time groups that tried to move in on the general area.

The fact that you could quite literally see the glowing dome of the Tinker-created forcefield that protected the Protectorate base out in the Bay had to help, too.

In any case, if you were looking for a small business, like a thrift store, you'd find plenty in the area adjacent to the Boardwalk.

I was never much of a fan of haggling over prices, but it was a necessary evil if I wanted to have clothing. Over my first few stops, I managed to trade about half of the stuff I had brought with me for a nice, only slightly used pair of jeans, a pair of fashion glasses with clear glass lenses, and a new bra that actually fit. The salesgirl had been a little too into doing the bra fitting, but I couldn't argue with the results, even if I'd felt a little groped afterwards.

I'd hoped to stretch my trades a bit farther, but good bras were incredibly expensive.

The fourth stop I went into was the one where things went a bit nuts. There was a blond girl buzzing around the shop, piling things on the counter while the cashier tried to keep an eye on everyone. Another girl was staring at her phone and obviously waiting for one of the other two to get finished with whatever they were doing. I found the whole thing a bit distracting but tried to do some browsing, anyway.

Eventually, the blonde girl decided on three or four things from her pile, paid for them, and walked out, leaving the rest of the pile for the poor employee to put back. Her companion - the one that had been looking at her phone - watched her go, but instead of following, she let out a heavy sigh and went to help the salesgirl restock everything.

"Sorry about that. She's been having a rough time this week, and she's even more flighty than usual."

That got a tired laugh out of the cashier, but she didn't turn down the help. I considered offering to help, too, but that felt like it would be weird. I went back to what I was doing, mostly ignoring them.

A few minutes later, I heard a soft 'woah', and my danger sense tingled faintly. I turned and time slowed down as I watched the girl and a full rack of clothing falling in my direction. I could have just jumped aside, but if the other girl died or something, I would feel really guilty about it. As carefully as I could, I moved to catch her and get the both of us away from the rack a little. I wanted to make it look natural - like I had been closer to her than she realized and she'd fallen into me and we'd both ended up falling away from the rack - but that was kind of secondary.

It more or less worked like I expected, the two of us kind of falling over and to the side, the racks crashing to the ground beside us. I could hear the cashier yelling and time suddenly snapped back to full speed as I scrambled to my feet.

"Oh my god," the girl groaned.

"Are you okay?" I asked. She looked winded and a little panicked but physically alright.

I offered her my hand to help her up. As she took it, time seemed to slow down again as everything faded away.

Reality surged back as soon as it was gone, leaving me standing in a half-destroyed room with seven masked figures. All of them ignored me in favor of arguing between themselves though I wasn't feeling any danger.

At first, I couldn't quite follow what was going on, but then it all solidified for me. One of the figures - the one that seemed to oppose the other six - coaxed a small child out of a hiding spot.

"Brigade, meet Amelia."

"Oh, no," I mumbled to myself. "I shouldn't be seeing this." It felt like I was peering into something private. Something secret.

The scene played out for a few more moments as Marquis gave himself up to the Brockton Brigade and the Brigade started to discuss where his daughter would go. No one so much as glanced in my direction.

Then, just as abruptly as it started, I was back in that thrift shop. I was frozen with my hand in Amelia's - rather Amy Dallon's.

She was staring at me with suspicion in her eyes.

"What-Who are you?"

 

[Kono Dio Da]

wow, this is interesting, I like it

 

[Spelloyal]

Thanks for the chapter, so far it's an interesting fic, but not knowing exactly what Taylor's powers are is killing me so I'm going to accumulate a few chapters to give the power time to be revealed.

 

[Swordchucks]

"Uh, I'm nobody," I mumbled in a bit of a panic and pulled my hand free. She tried to hang on for a brief moment - probably out of reflex - but there was nothing a normal girl, even one with non-Brute cape powers, could do to hold me. "Sorry, I didn't… Just sorry…" I mumbled and beat a hasty retreat out the front door of the shop. The few items I had picked out in my attempt to shop had been discarded as part of my attempt to catch a falling girl.

I think Amelia - Amy - Panacea - whatever - tried to follow me, but wasn't waiting around. I headed out the shop and took a couple of quick turns then virtually flew up a bare brick wall to lose her. I was very aware that her sister could be flying around, but after ten minutes of crouching up against an air conditioning unit, I didn't see anyone. With the coast apparently clear, I headed away from the Boardwalk.

The first time I left my house, I ran into a cape? What kind of luck had I been cursed with?

I hugged my shopping bag like a stuffed animal as I rode the bus toward home, thinking dark thoughts. How did that vision of Amy's past fit in with Spiderman themed powers? There was someone… Madame Web? Something like that. Hadn't she been able to see the future along the web of fate or something? Could this be something similar but in the past?

I cursed my other-memories for being spotty.

"I have approximate knowledge of many things," I mumbled, earning me a strange look from the little boy clutching his mom's hand a couple of seats forward. Ironically, I only sort of knew what that quote was from.

There was something about the way that vision had presented itself that was striking a vague recollection of something, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I didn't think it had anything to do with Spiderman, though.

I got off the bus several blocks from home and took a circuitous route, just in case I was being followed. I tried to be casual about it, but I wasn't exactly skilled in the art of losing a tail. I did remember to look up, though, since fliers were a thing. Even more of a thing than normal, considering who might be after me, really.

I arrived at home without incident and waited just inside the door for a minute as I let my heartbeat settle down to normal.

"What is going on?" I grumbled to myself as I tossed a load of laundry in the machine, including my new purchases. I wasn't going to wear something from a thrift store without washing it first, even if it appeared new.

I needed to think and I needed to plan. Going out had been… well, not stupid. I needed to go out. I couldn't live like a recluse in fear of something happening. If I did that and some cosmic force really was out to get me, it would find me anyway and probably flatten the house getting to me.

My mistake was that I hadn't been prepared. A relatively peaceful day at home on Friday had lulled me into a false sense of security. When nothing happened at the library or the first store, I let my guard down, and that's when I ran into a pair of capes. In retrospect, it wasn't even a bad encounter. I had freaked out, but that was because in the heat of the moment, I had assumed Panacea had seen me peeking into her memories and thus wanted to kill me for learning her secrets.

In hindsight, that didn't necessarily fit with what had happened. She'd definitely sensed something, but maybe it was like when two Spiderpeople met each other, only it was just her? No, that still made no sense and I wasn't likely to know the real answer until I met her again. That was an event that I was vaguely sure would happen at some point, whether I wanted it to or not.

I collapsed on my bed with a groan. What if she was just really into me? I mean, that would be flattering, but I wasn't… okay, I wasn't not interested. I just hadn't considered it. I pushed those thoughts aside before I could go down that rabbit hole. If that was what was going on, it was better than the alternative where she was mad enough to give my asshole taste buds. I would deal with it when I got there.

I crawled back out of my bed and fetched a notebook and a pen to start a list.

Number 1. Why?

Why… why all of it? Why were my powers different? Why did I have a modified version of the powers that I - Taylor Hebert, anyway - should have? Why had I vanished from my locker? Had I died there or just disappeared? Did I leave a body behind? Had it been discovered by the school, in which case I was going to have to answer some really awkward questions, or had someone - Sophia - buried it in a shallow grave?

My head throbbed. It was like I was scratching at the right questions but I couldn't connect the pieces.

Where did the other-memories come from? They were definitely part of another person, but why had they been fragmented?

That question sparked a feeling. A desire that felt foreign, like it came from just the tatters of the being the other-memories belonged to. The desire was that I should live. It was an answer, but it just raised more questions.

I stabbed the pen into the paper where I'd only written one number and one word. I braced for more revelations, but none came. That desire faded and I was back to my new normal within a few seconds, but I had learned something important.

"It was intentional," I muttered to myself as I thought over the other memories. Was I in a story? Possible, but it didn't quite fit. Capes tended to only have one strong power or a bunch of related powers unless they were part of a cluster - a concept I only really understood because of my other-memories. I probably wasn't part of a cluster with Spiderman, which meant I had some seemingly unrelated powers. At best, that would make for a confusing story, though that couldn't entirely be ruled out.

I tapped the paper, still staring at the word 'Why?' which had no answers to give me. There were still several possibilities. The source of my other-memories remembered several framing devices where one could choose powers to mix and match along with parameters about the setting they would be used in. That seemed to fit, more or less, with what I was experiencing, but the problem was that there were simply too many of them for me to narrow it down.

"So, my reality was warped by some sort of game? And now I'm stuck with it?" I frowned at the other-memory of a one-armed version of me getting shot in the head on a different world after she'd done irreparable brain damage to herself in order to save the world. Truth be told, if that was the best life could give me otherwise, I'd take a little reality warping.

"Assume it's true. What does that mean?" I asked myself. A few things sprang to mind.

For one, it probably meant that whatever had warped reality was still twisting things, at least occasionally. My first night after getting powers had been a hellish onslaught of bad luck, and several of those frameworks would have allowed for such a thing. That part seemed to have run its course, but now… well, one data point wasn't a lot, but I had experienced a mostly peaceful day that included a random interaction with some capes that could be allies - or enemies, if I really stepped in it.

For another, it probably meant that there was nothing I could do about it. A force strong enough to alter a trigger event and then set all of those dominoes in motion had to be godlike, and I doubted I could do anything to an actual god. Other-me had managed to kill Scion, but he was hardly a real god.

I stared at my one-item list and flipped to a clean page to start a different list. I titled it 'encounters' and then listed off all of the people I had met my first night out and everyone that stood out since then. That first night was a lot. There was definitely something to the theory that I'd suffered a 'one night of terrible luck' curse of some sort.

Then today's encounter with the two New Wave kids… it had been slower. I hadn't been in that alley more than five minutes before the first guys had appeared and not more than ten before the gangsters showed up. It had been almost six hours between leaving the house and the New Wave encounter. Meeting them also wasn't strictly a bad thing. I'd discovered a new power, if nothing else, and while I think I pissed Amy off, my other-memories told me she was supposed to be bitter and surly, so that might not even mean much.

I heard the front door open and dad's voice yelling that he was home. I put the notebook down and got up to go see how his day had been.

No sooner had I walked out the door of my room than I turned around and came back inside. I closed the notebook and stuffed it in among a few others on my shelf, shifting a book in front of them to hide it a little.

No use tempting fate, right?

//\\o//\\

I stared at the piece of paper like it was going to bite me.

"I'm sorry, what?" I repeated softly, finally tearing my eyes off the paper and back to dad.

"You start on Monday," he repeated and my eyes drifted back down.

It was a letter inviting me to attend Arcadia. Just like that.

"I… how?" I asked after a long moment.

"Well, your dad does know a few people around town. I've been in Mayor Christner's office at least twice a month for the last few years, and while I wouldn't exactly call us friends, he usually answers the phone when I call," he bragged, puffing out his chest a little. "Did you know that Bernard Carter - that's the current superintendent of the school system - was his pick? It's become a bit of an issue lately because of that hazing scandal over at Westmont High? Well, I talked to him yesterday and let him know that Winslow is going to be his next ticking time bomb. In the middle of an election year, too."

It couldn't be that simple, could it? In that other world - the one with the glowing man - I had been stuck at Winslow… but maybe it could? In that world, dad had gotten the school to cover medical bills and promise to improve things all within a month or two. He hadn't known that Emma was the culprit until much later. By then, the deal had already been made so he no longer had any real leverage. Using what we had, even if it was weaker this time, just to get the transfer had apparently worked better. Or did my version of dad have more pull? Or was this another example of reality warping shenanigans at play?

I had no idea. It could have been any of those things or all of them in combination. The one thing I knew for sure was that going to Arcadia meant I wouldn't be able to avoid Amy Dallon for long. Did they make a greeting card for 'sorry I used my super powers to view the most traumatic moment of your childhood'? I only winced a little at the thought, but luckily dad wasn't paying that much attention to me as he continued his story.

"I had a quick discussion with him. Like you said, we don't have the kind of case that would make the school settle things quickly, and we don't really have an easy sum of monetary damages we could ask for. However, if we were willing to really put in the effort, we could probably get some concessions. The case would end up all over the news in the process, of course, because it would be so slow-"

"Dad, did you… did you blackmail the mayor?" I asked, both a little horrified and a little impressed.

Dad waved his hand. "Blackmail is such a harsh word. I think we came to a mutually beneficial arrangement. He's going to quietly investigate the situation at Winslow and make a big public deal about it as he fires Carter. They were planning to make a public statement on Monday, and they were still on the fence over whether or not they were going to back him. If the mayor claims it is all part of the same investigation, it's much cleaner and minimizes the damage to his campaign. He might even be able to spin it in his favor. If this came out after he doubled down on his guy… well, it would be a different story."

In that other world, if the same events were in play, it might have explained why the school was in such a rush to sweep things under the rug. The idea that other-dad had been able to get money out of the school system in just a couple of months was, in and of itself, kind of crazy now that I thought about it.

I pointed at the invitation which dad was still holding out in my general direction. "And he just… had an invitation to Arcadia on hand?"

Dad chuckled. "Not quite. He called the principal at home and they chatted for a bit before he sent it over. It took about an hour."

"In spite of the sacred code of teenagers everywhere, I have to - reluctantly - admit that I am impressed."

Dad laughed louder. "High praise, indeed." He then sighed. "Unfortunately, doing all of that meant I only barely got into the office today. Can you fend for yourself again tomorrow? I know it's a Sunday, but-"

"Dad, it's okay. This whole mess is-well, it's not really my fault, but I have more fault in it than you do. Do what you need to do."

"Do you need anything for school on Monday? How did shopping go today? No more gang members chase you around, I hope?" He tried to make the last part sound like a bit of a joke, but there was a bit of a nervous edge to it.

"No, nothing that bad. I did accidentally run into a couple of the kids from New Wave, but we didn't get into a fight or anything." It was my turn to try to play off a complex statement as innocent, and I didn't quite succeed.

Dad still frowned. "Which set? I think Alan works with one of the moms. If I didn't want to choke him, I could probably get her number - the mom, I mean - if you need to meet up with them or something. As long as you're not planning to try to join up with them."

I shook my head. "I think it's the same set, but I expect I'll see them at Arcadia on Monday. I don't think I would want to be part of that team, and things have been…" I made a wiggly motion with my hand. I had no idea exactly what I was trying to convey with it, but it seemed to fit. "... lately."

We chatted for a bit more before dad went to make dinner while I spent some time staring at the Arcadia acceptance letter.

Maybe it was all down to the timing? In that other world, maybe dad hadn't tried to get me transferred for a few weeks and by then the public relations crisis with the superintendent was over? It still strained credulity that anyone - mayor or not - had managed to get me a transfer in the course of an hour.

I sighed. It was probably whatever reality warping force kept trying to make my life 'interesting'.

"You can stop now. Really," I grumbled at the universe at large.

It didn't answer, which was probably better for my sanity in the long run

"Did you say something?" Dad did.

"Oh, just wondering what was for dinner," I covered. "Need any help?"

//\\o//\\

Nothing much changed on Sunday. In theory, I needed to get out and practice with my powers, but I was worried that doing so would invite the universe to mess with me even more. It was kind of a Catch 22 situation - I needed practice so the next time I needed to use my powers, I would be better at doing so, but if I went out to get better with them, I would probably need to use them right then.

With my head and body still aching - but less than before - I decided to give it another day or two before I risked it. I had enough to worry about with starting Arcadia on Monday - a thought that was so surreal that it still hadn't quite sunk in.

Instead, I spent most of Sunday digging through the old stuff that mom and dad had shoved into the attic and basement over the years. I wasn't lucky enough to find a whole wardrobe of clothes or anything - I was pretty sure that dad donated mom's stuff to charity because he couldn't stand looking at it anymore - but I did find an electric sewing machine from the seventies or eighties with a yellowing plastic case and a few items that would be useful for 'Tinkering' together my web-shooters.

Making your own costume and Spiderman-powers. Name a more iconic duo?

Unfortunately, sewing skills weren't really part of my powerset and the best I managed over the course of an hour was to turn one of my stained hoodies into a lumpier stained hoodie. I was a long way from making my own costume, and I didn't even have the right materials for it, really.

Poking around in the basement also gave me a chance to lift some heavy stuff. I still hadn't found anything that I couldn't lift with one arm, which matched up with what I expected. Balancing really heavy stuff on one hand - even if I used my other power to stick to it - was only difficult because it was awkward to balance some stuff.

After noon, I gave up on diving for junk and spent some time building a web-shooter. The actual web-shooter part went together better than I had expected with parts from several ancient appliances and an old alarm clock making up the bulk of it. Being strong enough to bend steel with your fingertips was very handy for that part.

I was pleased with my progress, though I still wasn't done. I still had to figure out a way to rig the mechanism to some sort of bracelet or wristband so I could actually use it and I hadn't even really started on the fluid that made it work in the first place.

My earlier assessment that I could make the web fluid with household chemicals was technically correct, but also undersold how complicated it would be to go that route. I strongly suspected that science-nerd Peter Parker had spilled a lot of the steps in his reality by being able to obtain the processed chemicals. In theory, I could go that route, too, but I knew from my reading that ordering chemicals on the Internet could land you on a Tinker watch list.

That left me with the process of cooking down a lot of household cleaners and other chemicals over the course of a few days. Not exactly ideal, but I wanted the web fluid. It was supposedly not Tinkertech, but it might as well have been with how complicated it was. In essence, it was a synthetic liquid spider silk with an activating agent that, when cooked over a low heat, transformed the whole mixture into the amazingly strong, short lived stuff that Spiderman used. It wasn't Tinkertech, but without a sample of the liquid before it was activated, there was no way anyone was going to figure out how to reproduce the formula. Well, unless a Tinker with just the right skillset got a sample of it, anyway. Even then, their version might be Tinkertech with all of the associated drawbacks.

Regardless, in the middle of the afternoon, I decided it was worth venturing out of the house to see what I could find. There was a janitorial supply place not too far from the house that I suspected had almost everything I needed, but they proved to be closed since it was Sunday.

Being on a nice walk was fine, though. It was cold, but I actually had clothes on so it wasn't so bad. The fact that those thoughts didn't even phase me probably said bad things about my mental health, too. I was a little worried about more improbable coincidences, but that was probably going to happen regardless. I was feeling restless, but I suspected it was more the nerves about my sudden transfer to a different school.

"Mew," a soft feline voice interrupted my thoughts as I wandered back toward home, taking a different route to see a bit of scenery and stretch my legs a little.

"He's in the tree," a tired voice offered when I looked around for who was meowing at me. "Old coot doesn't know how to climb down trees anymore, but he is insistent on running out any time someone doesn't close the door fast enough."

The woman was blonde and while she looked young, she probably wasn't that much younger than dad. She was bundled up against the cold and watching the cat from the front stoop of a brick-fronted duplex.

"Do you want me to get him down for you?" I offered. Maybe all of this thought of being a hero was going to my head, I realized. "I mean, if you want."

"If you could, but don't hurt yourself. I'll usually get my husband to get out the ladder to get him down, but he'll be at work till late. I was kind of hoping the old man would figure out how to get down on his own before that." She huffed and directed a look of annoyance at the cat who didn't seem to care.

I laughed awkwardly and decided it was a decent enough challenge. I could flex my powers a tiny bit and make it look innocent. "I'll give it a try."

I made things look much, much more complicated than they really were. Sticking to things was simple, and the cat really was old. He didn't want to be picked up, but he wasn't going to avoid me.

"Bring him inside, if you don't mind. I can make some coffee or cocoa for you as a thank you, and it's probably best that you don't put him down till he's on the other side of a door. He'll be right back up that tree if you give him half a chance."

I wanted to tell her no, but I was freezing and cocoa sounded good. I told her as much and I was soon sitting in a tiny kitchen sipping instant cocoa out of a chipped mug. It was good, if only because of the warming sensation. It felt good to do something nice for someone.

If I had any doubts that whatever effect was forcing me into improbable events was in motion, they were dispelled when the front door of the duplex opened and someone came in. "Mom, I'm home!"

The voice was familiar. The hair was familiar. Now that I thought about it, I could see the family resemblance, too.

"Close the door behind you! All the way, this time! The cat got out when you left. Again!"

"I'm sorry," the girl apologized as I watched the trainwreck playing out in front of me. "Do I need to get the ladder out for dad?"

"No, this nice young lady helped me get him down," the older woman declared and gestured toward me.

A pair of blue eyes landed on me and widened. "What are you doing here?"

I had honestly expected her to be more angry. Instead, she just sounded shocked.

"Hello, Madison."

 

[Kuroji]

Ooh, the plot thickens. I am quite interested in seeing where this goes.

 

[SoaringJe]

fun story, looking forward to where it goes.

Thanks for writing!

 

[Swordchucks]

My initial reaction to Madison's presence hadn't been exactly what I would have expected. Part of me hated her. A lot. Another part of me - the other-memories - said that she was the only one of my tormentors that actually had the potential to change. To feel remorse and try to be a better person, even if it would come far too late.

It was probably those other-memories that kept me calm. I wasn't going to forgive her or even forget about what she had done, but fate was apparently handing me a chance to get some answers and I wasn't going to turn that down. As for what she was thinking? I had no idea, but I intended to find out.

"We haven't seen each other in a while, so why don't we take a walk and catch up?" I offered after Madison spent a long half-minute gaping at me. Spider powers were cool and all, but adult-ish maturity that let me not flounder around like a teenager all the time? Best super power. I put the half-finished mug of cocoa back on the table and got up. "Thank you for the cocoa, Mrs. Clements."

Madison didn't even protest as I nudged her to turn around and head back outside. I collected my coat and did the same, making certain to close the door firmly to stymie the efforts of feline escape artists.

"How are you-" Madison started, as soon as the door shut, but I shushed her.

"Let's take a walk," I said forcefully and either my tone or my look caused her to shut her mouth.

There was a little park back the way I had come earlier that day, and it had the bonus of being farther from my house. I didn't know if Madison knew where I lived, but I felt better with the distance, anyway.

"Now, talk. Why so surprised to see me, Maddie?" Madison flinched. I was being glib, but having the strength to literally twist someone's head off could do that to a gal.

"I thought you were dead," she said in a heavy whisper.

I nodded. That wasn't unexpected, but I need to understand more. "Why did you think that, exactly?"

She couldn't meet my eyes. "After… after we all went to class, Emma made up some excuse to go check on-on things. The plan was to just-that things were only supposed to go on for like half an hour. An hour, tops."

I frowned. I didn't really remember much about what had happened here, but that wasn't the impression I had from my other-memories. Then again, how long did it really take for someone to break when shoved into a tiny space like that? Other-me might have gone nuts in the space of five minutes. Maybe I did, too.

"And what happened then?" I prompted.

"Sophia got a text and then she made an excuse and rushed out, too. Then when the bell rang, they were still in the hallway acting like everything was fine and keeping people away from your l-locker. There was a mop and stuff beside it. I-I don't know what was going on, but she gave me a look and… well, she looked freaked out. I tried to ask what was wrong, but she ordered me to go back to class and I did. I looked out the window from my next class and saw Sophia dumping some bags and stuff in one of the dumpsters-"

"Bags? Like… big enough for a body?" That was one of my biggest worries - that I was leaving a string of corpses around town. I was going to get outed in a hurry if that were the case - or I could just stop dying so much. That was probably the better option all around.

"N-no, like, normal trashbags and stuff. I didn't get a good look, but I didn't… I didn't see enough bags for a body. I don't think," she stammered, fretting with the hem of her coat. "It was just… evidence, I guess? All of that gross stuff they put in there, probably? Then afterwards, Emma claimed that they let you out and you ran away screaming or something." Her staring at the ground intensified. "But she didn't make a video or anything of it, and I can't see Emma letting that chance pass. I can't… Along with the rest, it just didn't make a lot of sense."

"And no one noticed when I didn't show up for the rest of the week?" I prompted. Sophia being the one that had to clean stuff up definitely fit with what I expected. Unfortunately, I couldn't be sure if there had been a body or not - Sophia might have hidden it in a wall or something. She could do stuff like that, right?

"There were rumors…" she admitted. "Most of them were from Emma. She said you had a psychotic break and were in the hospital because-" she caught herself and stopped talking.

"I'm sure she made up something stupid," I agreed. Madison looked pretty scared and a dark part of me liked that. It felt - well, not exactly nice, but it felt satisfying. "And you thought I was dead?"

"I… suspected Sophia did something. She's… she's dangerous." She looked up and there were tears in her eyes. I couldn't quite feel bad for her, but I did feel a little guilty for enjoying her suffering.

"Well, I'm not, and I'm not coming back to Winslow." I didn't feel the need to explain anything further. "But you're right about Sophia. If I were dead and she thought she'd get something out of it by hiding my body? She absolutely would have. She'd do the same thing to you, too."

Madison screwed her eyes shut, the tears coming faster. "I didn't want to believe that, but…"

"It wasn't just a bunch of harmless pranks," I admonished. "Someone that was less stubborn than me would have killed herself by now, and that would have been partially your fault." It was blunt but true in a way. I'd never even really considered it, but I could see how someone else in that situation might have.

"I'm sorry," she whimpered.

I just frowned. "I don't care if you're sorry," I said. I wasn't being exceptionally harsh, just matter-of-fact. "I'm… I won't say I'm over it. I'm actually pretty mad at you, but I don't think it matters in the end. I'm going to leave here in a few minutes, and if I have my way, we'll never see each other again. The thing you should be thinking about is how you let things get this out of hand and how you can be a better person going forward."

I let out a short, harsh laugh before I continued. "I used to think of you three as the 'trio'. You know that Emma has a dozen cronies, but it was always you, her, and Sophia that did the worst of it. Both Emma and Sophia are broken in ways that neither of us will ever be able to fix. You're the only one of the three that's going to wake up one day and realize that you were the bad guy in the story of your own life. When you do? Then you're going to regret it forever."

There was a long moment of silence, and I shivered as a few flakes of new snow started to fall.

"I think I already realized that," she admitted. "After you vanished, Emma and Sophia were almost in a panic for a few hours and then they were back to normal. I wanted to pretend that they were telling the truth and everything was fine, but something about the way Sophia was carrying that bag - disposing of the evidence." She shuddered. "You're-you're right. I can't… I am the bad guy. I'm so sorry."

"Again, I don't really care." I kind of did care, though. Watching Madison cry made me feel… something. Not good, exactly, but not bad, either. It was… satisfying in a dark way to have one of the trio admit that they had been wrong to treat me the way they had, even if it was the least of them. "If you are really sorry, change. I know I wasn't the only person to suffer from the bullying campaign, and with me gone, Emma's going to find a new punching bag."

"What… what am I supposed to do?"

I had some ideas, but those were what might have worked for me. Madison was a very different person in a different situation. "Figure it out for yourself." I took a deep breath and let it out, the fog pouring out as the cold stole the moisture from it. "Just… have a good life, Madison. One you won't be ashamed of."

I turned to walk away, but Madison's voice stopped me. "Wait! What… what should I tell them?"

I didn't turn back around, but instead shrugged. "If I were you? I wouldn't tell them anything. Pretend I was never here and when Emma eventually finds out, it won't be your problem."

I didn't stick around to wait for further protests, but walked back home, the snow swirling around me as the weather picked up a little.

//\\o//\\

I was in a dark mood that evening. Dad, with a newly forged ability to pay attention to me, picked up on it almost immediately and asked if I was alright.

"I guess. Saw someone from school today, and apparently I vanished last Monday. Emma told everyone I ran away screaming and somehow no one questioned that or the fact that I didn't show up the rest of the week."

Dad frowned and took his glasses off so that he could use his other hand to rub at his temples better. He had a temper. I knew he had a temper. He tried not to show it around me, but I had seen him fighting with it from time to time.

"Alright. You're definitely not going back there. Even if I didn't already get you transferred. I was going to cancel that meeting with Principal Blackwell, but I might just keep it so I can go yell at her."

That mental image made me chuckle, breaking my bad mood a little. It would be a petty waste of both of their time, but it might be cathartic for dad. If the mayor really was going to clean house, Blackwell would be getting yelled at a lot in the coming weeks, anyway.

"You don't need to miss more work for that."

"That's true. Her incompetence has already made me miss enough work." It was his turn to grin. I grinned back, even though it wasn't really funny - the fact was that we'd both had a hellish week that was caused by bullying that the administration had been willfully ignorant of. With my other-memories, I was pretty sure that they weren't actively malicious, just… callous and indifferent. My suffering had not been a priority for them. They were busy and didn't want to know about the bullying, so they just didn't know about it.

It's where the fact that I'd let myself stop reporting the bullying worked against me so much. Without being informed over and over and over, how could they possibly know it was still a problem? Nevermind that they'd brushed aside every past complaint. Nevermind that there had to be some gossip floating around about it. Nevermind that at least some of the worst incidents had been recorded - badly - and posted all over social media. They didn't want to deal with it, so they just didn't.

It made me a little mad, but mostly sad. Winslow had been a good school, once. There were trophies on display in big cases - now with bars over them, of course - and pictures of the place when it had opened sixty years before. Then the demographics changed. White flight kicked in - coming to the Bay a bit later than a lot of places, but still coming. Money trickled away from the docks and into the suburbs which just made more people leave the city proper.

Eventually, the only people living on the northside of town did so because they worked there or because they couldn't afford to move. Well, that or they were a stubborn idiot like Alan Barnes. I remembered hearing him rant on more than one occasion about how he didn't plan to move no matter how bad the neighborhood got.

The modern Winslow was a sign of that slow rot. A festering boil that was a sign of the infection underneath. It was something I wished I could fix, but it was beyond what one person could reasonably do.

"You're brooding," dad said as he poked me in the forehead.

I swatted his finger away. "Sorry, just… thinking about that school."

Dad nodded. "I get it." He clapped his hands making me jump a little. It also distracted me from my dark thoughts. "Are you ready for tomorrow?"

I fidgeted. "I'm a bit nervous, but it has to be better than going back to Winslow."

"Low bar, there," dad agreed. "Do you need anything? It's a bit late on a Sunday, but there are probably stores still open."

"I'm just going to wing it, I think. Most of my school supplies are missing and probably in the trash." It grated on me a little, but it was just more insult added to my injuries. I had heard that Arcadia relied on computers much more than Winslow, in any case, so I might not even need much. "If I need stuff, we can go shopping tomorrow evening. I just want to get through my first day."

"Sounds like a plan," he agreed.

That night, I dreamed of the vast creature again, this time recognizing it for an aspect of the Spider though I didn't remember much of what actually happened in the dream. I woke up wondering if it was a memory or if the Spider was actively trying to communicate with me. Or if it was just a product of my cosmic connection with something vast and ancient and powerful.

Getting ready for school felt like preparing for my own execution.

Well, that was overly dramatic, but I still had a lot of anxiety brewing. What if Arcadia was just as bad as Winslow but with better PR? What if my luck kicked in and Hookwolf was my gym teacher? What if Amy Dallon came after me with an axe? What if Arcadia had a brand new invisible bus program and one of those ran me over?

I had enough new clothes to get me through a day at Arcadia, though I continued to 'hide behind my hair' a bit and wore the fake glasses. I could always claim I got contacts if I ditched them, and they did make at least some difference to my face as part of a disguise.

I paused to check myself out in the mirror before I left to catch the bus. I was… cute. Actually, I was kind of hot in a 'dressed down nerd' way. Intellectually, I knew that I had some self-esteem issues brought on by the bullying and just natural body image issues, but there was something about my power-induced makeover that broke through that.

"I'd date me," I decided and then blushed at the fact that I had said that out loud. It didn't quite feel real. It was like I was wearing a 'hot Taylor' costume. Maybe I would flirt a little today? It could be fun. No one at Arcadia knew me as old-Taylor, so I could be a completely different kind of Taylor. A fun one. A happy one.

I blushed and giggled at the thoughts and forcibly turned away from the mirror. That bit of embarrassment aside, it was time to go. It was time to face my first day at Arcadia.

I really hoped that my luck just stayed strange and didn't decide to try to get me killed again.

//\\o//\\

"And this is the cafeteria. They serve breakfast up till the first bell in the morning then they serve lunch during fourth period," my guide said, gesturing toward a series of four pairs of double doors that were currently all open. A few early arrivals were seated at the tables, splitting their attention between eating and chatting with friends or various other activities.

"Is the food any good?" I asked, trying to keep my tone level. How, exactly, I had ended up with a Ward to show me around on my first day was anyone's guess, but I had a strong suspicion it was yet another stroke of 'luck' . Red hair. Named Dennis. Thought he was funnier than he really was.

"Stay away from the chili, but the rest is generally pretty edible. If you're going to study hall after, it's better than starving, anyway. If you've got early dismissal, it's kind of down to personal preference as to whether you wait and get something after you leave. The taco place half a block over is always packed, though."

I nodded at that. "Early dismissal is work study, right?"

Dennis nodded. "That or university credits or volunteer work or a few other things. Like, half the school has something to do in the afternoon, though you might get stuck with study hall for a bit while you figure something out. Most people try to do the work study programs because they don't pay a lot, but they do pay."

It was a little weird talking to someone that I only knew through other-memories. Dennis was… more charming than I expected. He was still a teenage boy, of course, with all of the rough edges that implied, but he wasn't mean or spiteful. The other-memories had expected more of that, but those other-memories mostly depicted Dennis in tense situations. Maybe he just wasn't good with pressure?

"How did you get stuck giving newbies the tour?" I asked as we walked back toward the office. The invitation letter had asked me to show up early and I was being integrated with the school very quickly. I already had my schedule and knew where my classes were, more or less. If my 'luck' was going to grease the wheels of bureaucracy in my favor, it might not be all bad?

"You're just a sophomore, so you don't have to worry about it yet, but you need twenty community service hours before you graduate. There's a whole big list of stuff you can do both inside the school and outside, but giving tours is on there and I'm usually here really early, so I signed up for it. I've only been doing it since school started in the fall, and I'm already halfway through my required hours." He seemed proud of that, and I had to admit that it sounded interesting.

I laughed. Not a snicker or something dainty, either. I snorted. And giggled. I squeezed my lips shut in embarrassment. So much for new-Taylor being smooth. "Sorry, I was just trying to imagine Winslow forcing its students to do community service that a judge didn't order. They'd get shot."

Dennis winced. "Wow, ouch. Winslow, huh? We hear horror stories. Arcadia is crowded - in an hour or so, there are going to be people everywhere - but we definitely don't have those kinds of problems."

He looked around. "Look, don't tell anyone I asked, but is there going to be a new Ward showing up soon? The rumor is that they all go here, so everyone's always trying to figure out who might be one and I have to be the first one to ask."

Caught off guard, I laughed again. This time, it was more ladylike. The absurdity of a Ward pretending to try to figure out if I was also a Ward was not lost on me. "No, I'm not going to be a Ward."

Dennis deflated a little at that, and I had to admit, he was a good actor. "Well, I had to ask. I didn't think so, but if you were, that would be pretty cool."

"Oh? Why didn't you think I'd be a Ward?" I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me. I mean, he wouldn't have said that if he didn't have an answer better than 'I would have gotten the memo about a new teammate', right?

"Well, when we get new students and then a Ward is announced, it's usually not so last-minute. I got a call at home on Saturday asking if I could give a tour today, and that's not normal. We also tend to get a group of new students with a similar body-type to the new Ward all at the same time." He looked around like he was checking for listeners, but we were still mostly alone in the hallway. "If it were me, I'd still do all of that and then I'd then have all the Wards go somewhere else, like Immaculata. Think about it. Everyone knows they go to Arcadia, so who would even suspect?"

"That's a good point," I agreed and nodded like I was actually thinking it through. He was definitely more cunning than I expected for someone that chose Clockblocker as a cape name.

"Anyway, here you are back at the start of the tour. My deed is done. Best of luck on your first day. Remember to just close your eyes, lie back, and think of the Queen," he declared, opening the door for me with an overdone flourish.

"I'm always thinking of the queen," I said as I walked past him. It wasn't my most witty of comebacks, but at least it was something. It did earn me a small chuckle, most likely out of pity at how lame I was.

If only the 'coincidences' had ended there.

My first class was fine, but my math class after that had me seated at the same bench as a boy named Chris who had a math-related learning disability. Then for my fourth period class, a charming older boy named Carlos insisted on walking me to lunch.

Having to pretend to know nothing about people - even if I only knew a tiny bit - was starting to get exhausting. At least I was almost out of Wards to run into by 'accident'. I just had Dean - Gallant - left to go and he'd probably be with Glory Girl.

"How's your first day treating you?" Carlos asked as we moved through the crowded hallway. Arcadia really was packed. My classes were even bigger than they had been at Winslow, and it seemed like there were always a bunch of people in the halls, even when they should have been in class. There was apparently something about the place that blocked cell phone reception, too, though I didn't have one to worry about.

"Not bad," I said and searched for something else to say. Carlos was kind of hot and I kind of wanted to flirt but was finding that I barely knew how. "How has it been for you? I mean, your day in general, not your first day since it wouldn't be your first day."

That got me a chuckle and I blushed. New-Taylor was the very definition of smooth. As long as you looked at the part of the definition that listed opposites, anyway.

"Not bad," he said, repeating what I'd said and smiling handsomely. It was a little annoying how effortless he made being charming seem. If I had any hope of flirting successfully, I was going to have to find someone even more hopeless than me to try it on. Or I could try an outfit that was a little more daring. That sounded like it might work.

Lunch was taken in one of four slots during the fourth period in order to keep the number of students being served down a little. After that, I had study hall for the rest of the afternoon along with the other kids at sophomore year or higher that didn't have a reason to get out of school early. Assuming I didn't get outed my first week, I thought I would probably find one of my own. Maybe I could be an intern somewhere like Medhall? That thought seemed vaguely amusing to me, though I couldn't quite figure out why.

Oh, wait, wasn't that the Nazi front com-

"You." A voice nearly growled from right beside me. I turned my head to see exactly the person I had least wanted to run into on my first day. It was Amy Dallon and she looked annoyed. She wasn't trying to murder me with a fire extinguisher, at least.

"Yes. Me." I agreed amicably.

"Come with me. We need to talk."

 

[Okita-chan]

This fic is great so far!

Have you used Ouroumov's worm CYOA ??
Guessing on the potential build of the build used:
-Spider-Totem (obviously)
-Power-.Tweak to change Taylors canon power
-Acclimation drawback ("...For another, my powers seemed oddly weak for Spiderman. The versions other-me could remember all seemed to get their full powers right off, or near to it. Maybe I just needed to practice more?...")
-An immortality power (Eternal Flame?, Lazarus Syndrom?)
-Something that causes these weird dreams??

 

[Swordchucks]

Have you used Ouroumov's worm CYOA ??

Click to shrink...

I've admitted as much in various comments over the course of writing it so far

Obvious parts of the build:

General: Character-Insert + Taylor Anne Hebert + Cosmetic Shapeshift + Beautiful

Drawbacks: Half of Who I Am, Sick, Trouble Magnet, Acclimation, Arbitrary Limitations (One Power) [Note, this is what was used to tune her base power to Spiders], Worst Day Ever (Worst Day level)

Powers: Shardless, Spider-Totem, ???

There's obviously more and some of it even gets spelled out very shortly... but that's the start.

I like the CYOA a lot, but there are some annoying bits - like how hard it is to tune an SI since presumable you need to buy all the advantages and drawbacks separately but some of them (like job) don't open up for SIs. Like, you can build Taylor Hebert as an OC and come out ahead on points if you assume everything in the insert section is rolled into the cost.

But I digress...

 

[passislisk]

I am delighted to see you back and writing swordchucks! This has been very enjoyable so far - read it as you revised in your snippets thread but going to start reading mostly the edited versions here. Thanks for the fic

 

[SoaringJe]

She wasn't trying to murder me with a fire extinguisher, at least.

Click to shrink...

and so Spidey-SI!Taylor clears the low bar of canon!Taylor

also Madison showing back up would be par for the course of her terrible luck. I enjoyed the Madison scene though; the Ward boys are meh. Curious how Taylor will show up to Gallant's emotion sense.

And of course whatever shenanigans are gonna go down with Amy.

Thanks for writing!

 

[Catgc]

What version of the Worm CYOA are you using?

I'm thinking its Lt Ouroumov's Worm CYOA V6.