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Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
No Archive Warnings Apply
Category:
Gen
Fandoms:
Parahumans Series - WildbowWarhammer 40.000Warhammer Fantasy
Characters:
Taylor Hebert | Skitter | WeaverTaylor ThetaTaylor EtaTaylor NuTaylor Sigma
Additional Tags:
Alt-Power Taylor HebertFour Taylors
Language:
English
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Published:2025-07-07Updated:2025-11-05Words:126,579Chapters:16/?Comments:47Kudos:185Bookmarks:75Hits:11,655
Champions of the Warp
Squidink13
Chapter 2
Chapter Text
Rain fell upon the city in an endless downpour, flooding the streets of Brockton Bay with knee-deep water. Each droplet splashed into crimson puddles, dyeing the world in streaks of red that spiraled into the gutters—where blood mixed freely with rain. But to Taylor Theta's Warp-touched eyes, the raindrops sometimes paused mid-fall, suspended in time before splitting into fractal patterns that whispered futures and pasts simultaneously.
The sky hung low and heavy, choked with ashen clouds that blotted out the sun, occasionally parting to reveal glimpses of a firmament that should not exist—a swirling maelstrom of blues and purples where distant, watching eyes blinked in and out of existence. Lightning cracked in the distance, briefly illuminating ruined buildings and toppled streetlights, each flash revealing a different configuration of destruction, as if the city existed in multiple states at once. The roads, even the alleys, had become rivers—water and blood flowing together, carrying debris and memory alike out to the bay, sometimes flowing backward against gravity or splitting into tributaries that formed glowing sigils visible only from impossible angles.
In the bitter wind there traveled the endless screams of the dead and dying: a chorus of agony, more felt than heard, that echoed in the hollow chasms of empty homes and behind shattered panes of glass. Theta could taste the screams.
Yet everywhere Taylor Theta looked, the streets were empty. The world was devoid of life—so much so that even the vermin and pestilence that normally encroach upon every corner had disappeared, leaving behind only the echo of what had once been.
The emptiness of the city clashed violently with the torrential sound of suffering that suffused it. The keening wail of loss and ruin clawed at the edges of sense, woven into every gust of wind, every rumble of distant thunder. It was a paradox made real: a world that looked lifeless, yet moaned with unseen pain.
Taylor Theta wandered the drowned city, her steps sure even as half-submerged pavement threatened to pull the shoes from her feet. She moved with deliberate resolve, guided both by memory and something stranger, a compass of yearning and dread that pulled her deeper into the city's lifeless heart. Rain plastered her hair to her face, soaking through her clothes, but she walked on, undeterred. Occasionally, her form seemed to blur at the edges, as if she existed in multiple places simultaneously, afterimages trailing behind her in shades of blue and purple.
In her right hand she carried a book—its cover warped and weathered, its pages protected only by the shroud of her power. Within were scrawled secrets, forbidden glyphs, and the names of things best left unspoken. Sometimes the letters crawled across the pages like insects, rearranging themselves into new configurations, new spells, new truths. In her left she held a staff, the twisted wood crowned by a dark emerald crystal that flickered faintly with inner light, glimmering like a captured storm.
Theta marched through water and ruin until she reached the bones of an abandoned construction yard—a graveyard of twisted metal and half-finished dreams. Here, behind a barricade of rusted beams, she found the passageway she sought: a narrow stairwell, choked with debris, that spiraled down and away from the ruined world above.
As she approached the stairwell, time stuttered around her. For a moment, she saw not one path but nine—each leading to a different chamber, a different confrontation, a different fate. The possibilities branched endlessly, a labyrinth of potential that made her temples throb with eldritch knowledge.
"Choose wisely," came the whisper, and Theta felt the weight of her patron's attention—calculating, manipulating, eternally plotting. "The Architect of Fate has many designs, and you are but one piece on the board."
Descending into darkness, Theta's footsteps became muffled, the distant wails of the city fading into memory. At the bottom, she emerged into a chamber carved from stone—a vast, circular hall whose walls were etched with ancient sigils, each one thrumming with power she could feel in the root of her teeth. The air here was cold but charged, as if waiting. The sigils pulsed in sequence, forming patterns that hurt to look at directly—geometries that shouldn't exist in three-dimensional space, symbols that rewrote reality with their very presence.
Theta drew the shadows around herself and wreathed her form in a glamour of invisibility, the magic coming easier now than ever before, blue-tinged energy dancing between her fingers as reality bent to her will. She knelt, body motionless, pulse thrumming with anticipation. The seconds stretched, then gathered suddenly: a looming presence slithered into the chamber, sending coils of vibration through the cold stone underfoot.
A creature uncoiled from the darkness—a serpent of impossible size, scales as black as coal with oily iridescence in the faint light. Two heads crowned its monstrous body, each with slit pupils that glowed like embers, swiveling to survey the chamber from opposite directions.
She watched as the twin heads whispered to one another in a language older than humanity, their voices a hissing spiral of temptation and spite. As it slithered around the room, the snake's aura pressed against Theta's glamour, testing, searching for any sign of hidden power. Its ambition was palpable—its minds wove schemes of conquest and consumption, dreams of a city brought low, broken and remade in its image. It saw the world as a gameboard, and all within as pieces to be bent, broken, or devoured at its leisure. Every scrap of knowledge and power it gathered, it hoarded jealously, stealing from the unwary, plotting always.
Theta's mind expanded. This was a test, she realized. Not just of her strength or courage, but of her understanding, her willingness to overcome. In that moment, Taylor Theta felt the full weight of her task settle on her shoulders. To defeat this coiling serpent would not merely be a matter of strength or cunning, but of will—a contest in which the soul could be lost as easily as the body. Killing it would be a challenge.
But to tame it? To bend its will to her own in the name of her master? That would be the truest test of worth. If she could do that, she would not only earn her place among the Cult of the Changer, but claim the right to wield the gifts her master promised.
As she prepared to reveal herself, Theta felt the Warp stirring around her, reality thinning as the barrier between worlds weakened. In that moment, she glimpsed her sisters—Eta burning with rage, Sigma drowning in pleasures, Nu nurturing a garden of death and rebirth—each following their own path, each serving their own god. And she understood with sudden clarity that their separation was no accident, but part of a grand design, a scheme so vast and complex that even she, touched by the God of Schemes himself, could only glimpse its edges.
"All is change," she whispered to herself, the words carrying the weight of prophecy. "And all change serves the Changer of Ways."
With that truth burning in her mind, Taylor Theta rose to face her trial, the blue fire of her power's blessing dancing along her fingertips as she prepared to reshape fate itself.
Theta
"Hey! You doing alright?"
Blinking the sleep from her eyes, Taylor Theta struggled to pull herself back into reality. Vestiges of the dream clung to her mind like cobwebs—fragments of rain-swollen streets, horror-tinged silence, and something watching her with emerald eyes that shifted between reptilian slits and kaleidoscopic patterns. The details were already fading, slipping through her mental grasp like water, leaving only a residual unease that prickled along her spine.
She squinted up at her doppelganger, Taylor Sigma, who stood on the opposite side of the table, arms folded and posture tense, her shoulder propped against the bookshelf. Sigma's gaze was cool and unreadable, that practiced blank expression only fraying at the very edges. For a disorienting moment, Theta thought she saw something else in Sigma's eyes—a flicker of unnatural pink, a hunger that didn't belong there—but it vanished when she blinked.
Taylor Theta straightened, feeling a slow flush crawl up her neck as she glanced for any witnesses to her embarrassment. The library was hushed, each table a little island of solitude amid the towering shelves, the only other students distant enough not to hear the exchange. A headache pulsed behind her temples, the lingering echo of dream-symbols she couldn't quite recall.
"I'm fine," she said, even though the dream's shadow still lingered. "I just fell asleep studying."
"I can see that." Sigma's eyes flicked over the open notebooks and scattered printouts, her lips quirking just slightly. "And what exactly are you studying?"
Theta closed her notebook in a practiced, casual motion—trying, perhaps failing, to make the gesture look offhand. Her palm lingered over it protectively. She didn't want Sigma to glimpse the sketches, the transcribed power experiments, or the pages feverishly filled with symbols she'd drawn upon waking from previous dreams—strange runes and eight-pointed stars that seemed to shift and change when she wasn't looking directly at them. Instead, she nudged her open math textbook forward, feigning studious boredom.
"Just calculus. Mrs. Pearson's going to spring a pop quiz after lunch," she lied, matching Sigma's look with one of her own.
For a moment, the air between them seemed to thicken, as if reality itself was stretching thin. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered once—so briefly anyone else might have missed it—and Theta felt a strange pressure behind her eyes, like something was trying to push its way into her consciousness. A half-remembered whisper from her dream: All paths lead to change...
Sigma snorted softly and rolled her eyes. "Sorry for checking up on my 'awesome' twin sister," she muttered as she turned away. The scent of something sweet and cloying seemed to follow her—perfume, perhaps, though Theta couldn't remember Sigma wearing any before.
"We're not twins."
That word—delivered with clinical coolness—stopped Sigma in her tracks. She turned, eyes flaring with sudden heat, and for a heartbeat, Theta could have sworn she saw something else looking out through Sigma's eyes—something ancient and hungry.
"That's rude, and uncalled for," she spat, her voice low but biting. She stalked back to the table, planting her hands beside Theta's notebook and leaning forward, their faces only inches apart. The tension between them sharpened, almost physical. The air seemed to vibrate with an unnatural energy.
"If we had all been born the same day, we'd be quadruplets, not twins," Theta replied, matching the cold but feeling a tremor of unease. "Only one of us is the original," she continued, "and the rest are duplicates."
For a moment, Sigma's jaw worked with fury, and her voice came out as a fierce whisper. "Fuck you. Just fuck you! We were all once the same fucking person! So fuck you for your high-minded bullshit! At least Emma had the balls to be upfront about her shit!"
Taylor flinched at the name—Emma—felt guilt and anger twist inside her, but the words she needed to defend herself didn't come in time. Sigma spun on her heel and stormed out, her steps echoing across the library floor, disappearing between the stacks.
Taylor Theta exhaled, shaky. The small, muffled noises of the library rushed back in, the scraping of a chair, the soft drumming of rain on the windows. Alone again. She checked the time, noticing with frustration that lunch was nearly over. If she didn't hurry, she'd have to rush through the halls with all the others—a prospect she dreaded.
Gathering her books, she caught a few students sneaking glances her way. They looked away the instant their eyes met hers. The pit in her stomach settled deeper. Would it have been so hard to have just one friend? Was it her fault for being so guarded—or was it the strangeness of her life, the powers and secrets that walled her off from everyone?
She slipped her notebook into her bag. Compared to Sigma, with her baked boyfriend and easy jokes, Taylor Theta sometimes felt like little more than a shadow—unwanted and unnoticed unless she somehow made things awkward and uncanny. Another pang of envy twisted through her. She hated this feeling: hating her double, hating herself even more for being jealous.
The bell rang. Chairs scraped, and the exodus began: students swept into the corridor like leaves in the wind, the rising hum of voices obliterating the peace she'd found, even briefly, in the library. Theta made her way to her next class, her shoes squeaking faintly against the tile, keeping her gaze low and her thoughts locked tight inside.
She saw Sigma near the math room, her doppelganger striding by with her boyfriend in tow, headphones slung around his neck, arms full of both their books. They brushed past each other without a word, a carefully constructed absence of acknowledgment, as if two strangers with nothing in common. As they passed, Theta felt a strange sensation—like reality itself was bending slightly, the air between them charged with potential.
Once inside, Theta slipped quickly to a seat at the back. She ignored the rising chatter and clatter around her, pulling her notebook onto her lap beneath the desk. She let out a slow breath, then began to scribble, desperate not to lose the details of the dream before they faded completely.
It was always the same, and yet always different—a city in ruins, a sky endlessly weeping, and the two-headed serpent lying at the center of it all. Details change, sometimes she watches the city drown with a glimpse of something moving just out of sight; other times she wanders the silent ruins, guided by purpose and fear in equal measure. But always, there was that sense of being observed. Judged. Chosen.
As she sketched, her hand seemed to move of its own accord, drawing symbols she didn't consciously recognize—intricate patterns that hurt her eyes if she looked at them too long, runes that seemed to whisper meanings just beyond her comprehension. In the margins of her notes, she found herself writing words in a script she didn't remember learning: The Great Game begins. The Architect watches. All is change.
What did it mean? Was it just trauma, a subconscious echo of her impossible life? Or was it something more—a vision, a prophecy, a test she needed to face? Somewhere deep inside, Taylor felt the itch of destiny, unwelcomed and undeniable. She was being called. And whether she wanted to or not, she knew she would answer.
As she worked, the classroom around her seemed to fade, the voices of her classmates becoming distant and muffled. For a brief, disorienting moment, she thought she saw the walls ripple like water, revealing glimpses of impossible geometries beyond—a labyrinth of potential futures, each branching and twisting in patterns too complex for human minds to comprehend.
At the center of it all, something vast and ancient watched her with calculating interest.
Theta closed her notebook with trembling hands and pressed her palm to its cover, feeling the familiar whisper of power rise inside her like a storm on the horizon. Blue sparks danced briefly between her fingers before fading—so quickly she might have imagined it.
The class bell rang, but Taylor did not hear it. She was lost in thought, caught between waking and dreaming, and the stirrings of fate that waited just beyond both. Something was changing inside her—something that both terrified and exhilarated her. And deep in her mind, a voice that wasn't quite her own whispered: All according to plan.
Eta
"COME ON AND FIGHT ME, ASSHOLE!"
The shout erupted from Taylor Eta's throat, raw and primal, echoing across the Protectorate gymnasium with a resonance that made the fluorescent lights flicker. For a split second, she didn't recognize her own voice—it had deepened, taking on a quality that wasn't entirely human.
She launched herself forward with reckless abandon, her movements unfettered by caution or self-preservation. Rage and something deeper—a boiling compulsion that sang in her blood—drove her forward as she brought her weighted baton crashing down toward Armsmaster. The weapon felt like an extension of her arm, her fury made manifest. With each swing, she could almost see phantom trails of crimson energy following the arc of her strikes.
Armsmaster backed away, armor creaking as he matched every ounce of her fury with disciplined control, parrying her attacks with clinical precision. Gone was his signature power armor and iconic halberd; today, he wore only reinforced leather and wielded a quarterstaff. He had still retained his helmet, which Taylor Eta strongly suspected had little to do with maintaining his secret identity. She could smell his sweat, his exertion, and something else—a hint of fear that made her nostrils flare with satisfaction.
She was armored as well, heavy leather snug across her newly-muscled frame. In the time since her powers had manifested, her body had transformed. Where once she'd been lanky and awkward, now corded muscle wrapped her limbs, her shoulders broader, her stance naturally balanced for combat. Adrenaline pumped under her sweat-slick skin, her body trembling not with exhaustion—she'd been at this nearly an hour—but with the unmistakable sensation of her power simmering beneath the surface.
With every moment, every surge of force, she could feel muscle and sinew subtly reinforcing, becoming denser, stronger. Her skin looked flushed, nearly feverish, veins standing out with an unnatural redness that pulsed in time with her heartbeat. Her mind clung hard to the rhythm of the duel, but underneath that focus lurked something else—a presence that whispered of skulls and blood and endless war.
Armsmaster parried again, his staff snapping up to deflect her baton with a crack that sent vibrations up her arm. The impact should have hurt, but pain had become something different for Eta—less a warning and more a goad, urging her toward greater violence. He retreated two steps, always just outside the true range of her strikes—testing, adjusting, never letting her dictate the fight.
"COWARD!" she snarled, the word tearing from her throat. "STAND AND FIGHT!"
Of all her sparring partners, Armsmaster was the only one who genuinely demanded she adapt. Even Battery and Dauntless played by patterns she could brute-force her way through after a while—but Armsmaster gave her nothing. He was efficient, relentless, disciplined—everything she was told to be, except she never felt more alive than in these moments of pure, sanctioned violence. Each clash of weapons sent a thrill through her that was almost sexual in its intensity, a pleasure that bordered on religious ecstasy.
Today, though, he played defensively and it grated on her nerves—a deliberate, infuriating refusal to meet her head-on. She expected this sort of retreat from Dauntless, who was always hesitant about fighting a teenage girl, or from Battery, whose power demanded such tactical withdrawal. But from Armsmaster? Rage sizzled inside her, sharper than pain, and with it came that voice again—not quite her own, yet emerging from somewhere deep within:
Skulls for the Skull Throne! Make him bleed!
She feinted left, saw his staff swing to block—and lunged not at him, but at the weapon itself. Her hand darted forward and closed around the shaft of the quarterstaff just as it slammed into her palm. Agony blossomed, something in her hand giving with a sickening crack, but Eta didn't care. In fact, the pain only sharpened her focus, made the world crystallize into perfect clarity. She clamped down, refusing to let go, gritting her teeth as she wrenched with every ounce of raw power her muscles could muster.
Blood—her blood—smeared the staff where her broken skin made contact, and for an instant, she could have sworn the crimson liquid sizzled and steamed against the wood, leaving tiny, smoking runes that vanished as quickly as they appeared.
Instead of fighting the grip, Armsmaster let go, stepping in close. Too late, Eta tried to wrench away, but his arms locked around her forearms, twisting—momentum and skill working together. With a sudden, controlled shove, he knocked the wind from her gut and sent her toppling backwards. She hit the mat hard, the weapons clattering away.
"Stop!" Armsmaster's voice cut across the gym, crisp and commanding. But all Eta heard, all she could feel, was the red mist of fury. Her vision literally tinged crimson at the edges, the world pulsing in time with her heartbeat. Her hunger for violence gnawed at her mind, goading her to attack, to spill blood, to claim a skull for the throne. She surged upright, ready to grapple with the Protectorate hero himself, rules and consequences be damned.
Battery flashed in, a blur of blue and white. Suddenly Eta was flying backwards, a kick slamming into her middle and launching her right into the waiting arms of Assault. He caught her, but his power twisted her momentum, locking her in place. She bellowed and twisted, unable to find purchase—caged fury with no outlet.
"Alright, hothead, let's just cool your jets for a bit," Assault drawled, though she could hear tension beneath his casual tone. His grip tightened as she thrashed, and she felt a primal satisfaction at the effort it took him to hold her.
"Taylor, stand down," Armsmaster ordered, retrieving a taser from the sidelines as a silent warning. For a few moments, Taylor Eta lost herself in the struggle—body twitching, snarling almost feral, fighting against hands and unseen forces. Her muscles bulged, veins standing out like cords against her skin, and she could feel something changing within her—bones thickening, sinews tightening, her very blood seeming to boil with unnatural heat.
But slowly—agonizingly, she forced herself to breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Holding onto the pain in her palm and the memory of the staff spinning away. Eventually, her mind cleared enough to let the red subside, her body trembling but still. The presence in her mind receded, though it didn't vanish entirely—it never did anymore, just waited, patient and hungry, for the next opportunity.
"I'm fine," she spat, voice rough with hate and self-loathing. She tasted copper in her mouth and realized she'd bitten her tongue during the struggle. The taste of her own blood was disturbingly satisfying.
Assault glanced at Armsmaster, who nodded. Gradually, they released her. Eta stormed away, heading for the battered punching bag at the edge of the mat. Any lingering control broke as she hammered her baton—once, twice, three times, until the weapon snapped in her hands with a crack like breaking bone. She kept going, stabbing with the splintered end, then abandoned the stick and pounded her fists into the bag until her knuckles ached and split, blood smearing the canvas with each impact.
The anger finally bled into exhaustion, but not before she'd torn a gash in the bag, sand spilling out like entrails. She stared at it, transfixed by the slow pour, by the blood—her blood—mixing with the pale grains.
She wanted to scream. She wanted—needed—blood. It was getting harder every session to keep her rage leashed, to keep from crossing the line into real violence. The god whose power she bore—whose shadow she felt at the edge of every sense—demanded more. If this continued, Eta feared she wouldn't just lose control, but lose herself entirely.
Her breath ragged, Eta looked up—finding Armsmaster still standing by the mat, arms folded, watching her with something like scientific interest. Battery and Assault had left. Only her assigned escort hovered awkwardly by the doors, hand resting not-so-subtly on his holstered containment foam dispenser.
"I'm impressed with your combat skills, even when enraged," Armsmaster said, as if they were discussing a chess match. "A thinker aspect to your powers?"
Eta shrugged, wincing as she flexed her throbbing hand and grabbed a water bottle to gulp down the burning, metallic taste in her mouth. The water tasted wrong somehow—too pure, too clean. Part of her wanted something thicker, warmer.
"If there is one, it's pretty minor," Armsmaster said, studying her, "I've been running an algorithm during our sparring. You fight aggressively, but behind the raw rage, there's calculation—constant repositioning, exploiting small openings, adaptive footwork. Brutality masking efficiency. That's rarely instinct."
He paused, then added more quietly, "It's almost as if you're receiving combat instruction from somewhere... or someone."
Eta looked away, jaw tight. She could feel her heartbeat slowing, but it remained unnaturally strong, each pulse sending a wave of heat through her body. The broken bones in her hand were already knitting together—she could feel the fragments shifting, realigning, fusing with unnatural speed. By tomorrow, there would be no trace of the injury, just as there was no trace of the three broken ribs she'd suffered last week.
"I've become a weapon," she said finally, voice rough. "That's what being a parahuman is. That's all."
Armsmaster hesitated, then said quietly, "You don't have to be 'just' a weapon, Ms. Hebert. You could do a lot of good as a hero."
She nearly snarled again—old pain and hope and fury colliding in her chest. She could still see, clear as a memory, herself as a kid pretending to be Alexandria. Fighting evil, and standing for justice. Those dreams seemed to belong to another person now, a Taylor who had never heard the whispers of the Blood God, never felt the exhilaration of combat singing in her veins.
But those dreams were ashes now. She forced herself to count, steadying her breathing, before answering.
"I always wanted to be the hero," she said bitterly, voice rough, "but my sisters and I—" Her fist clenched; she shook with the effort of getting the words out. "That's not our path, not anymore. It's been taken from us. Stolen."
As she spoke, she felt the presence in her mind stir again, approving of her anger, her sense of violation. It was always there now, watching, waiting, guiding her toward its own inscrutable purpose.
Her voice sharpened, nearly a growl. "Our souls have been rebranded. Now we're heralds of the coming of Chaos."
For a heartbeat, Armsmaster almost looked troubled—then he tucked it away behind the impassive lines of his helmet.
"We'll continue this discussion later," he said finally. "Get that hand looked at."
Eta broke eye contact, slung her bag over her shoulder, and stalked past her escort, already feeling the god's disapproval roiling behind her ribs, already dreading how much harder it would be next time to hold back the storm inside. As she passed a mirror near the exit, she caught a glimpse of her reflection—and for just a moment, she could have sworn her eyes glowed red, like embers in a dying fire.
Blood for the Blood God, whispered the voice in her mind. Skulls for the Skull Throne.
And the worst part was, with each passing day, it was getting harder to remember why she should resist.
Nu
"These ones marked in black tape are not to be opened."
Taylor Nu's words hung in the sterile, humming air of the containment lab, the warning sharp with a tension she tried to hide. A fluorescent haze reflected off every chrome surface, making the whole room feel faintly unreal. The PRT agent, faceless in his regulation hazmat suit, paused mid-scroll on his clipboard.
"What's in them?" he asked, not looking up at first—almost too nonchalant.
Taylor's heart gave a brief double-thump. She hated questions. She hated lying even more. But the truth was something neither of them was prepared to face—strains that grew and whispered and would, given a chance, change everything. So she shrugged, making a little performance of uncertainty, even as her palms prickled with sweat.
"I'm not sure yet," she lied. "I haven't tested these particular strains yet and I—Well, they may not be entirely safe."
The agent's gloved hand hesitated—just for a heartbeat—over the black-taped containers before making a little tick-mark on his form. "I'll save those for last, then," he muttered.
To his credit, the agent didn't seem fazed—another bureaucrat enlisted in a war against things too strange for the world outside. Still, his whole world was layers of biohazard plastic and the rigid protocol that made up 'safety' in the PRT's eyes. Taylor wondered, not for the first time, what it was like to do this work by choice.
She turned away to escape the thought. Across the lab, thick glass split the room in two—one side for her, isolated and mired in the scent of antiseptic and the rubber tang of gloves, the other a sliver of the ordinary world. Through the window, her father waited, his tall shape folded onto a visitor's chair in the observation booth. He looked older than she remembered—hair thinner, worry permanently etched at the edge of his brow. He leaned in, talking softly with another PRT agent while absentmindedly thumbing a battered lunch thermos. The ordinary mixed with the surreal, and Taylor was the dividing line.
She made her way to the waiting phone headset. The scene always reminded her of movie prison visits—a sheet of glass enforcing safety, a wire through which careful words passed. In her mind the image turned half-sour: her, the patient-zero pariah, fluorescent-lit and patronized, seeing her family through inch-thick acrylic.
Her father noticed her just as she picked up the phone. His tired eyes softened, and he lifted the receiver.
"Hey, Kiddo." Even distorted by static, the affection in his voice carried across. He tried for reassurance, but Taylor could hear the fatigue underneath.
"Hey to you too." She watched him, searching the lines in his face for news or encouragement—anything but the resignation she was beginning to learn by heart.
She wondered, not for the first time, how visitation worked for Eta—how her father split himself between faraway daughters, between hope and disappointment and all the endless paperwork that came from having children touched by powers. "Looks like they're getting ready to move you upstate."
"Yeah." Her answer was almost a whisper, the word falling flat between them. She didn't mention the dreams she'd been having—visions of a vast, fetid garden where rotting corpses sprouted new life, where disease and decay were not endings but glorious beginnings. In these dreams, a grandfatherly presence watched over her with pride, encouraging her experiments, whispering secrets of plague and pestilence that made perfect sense until she woke.
They let the silence stretch out—for a moment, it was almost comfortable. Taylor tried to imagine the house, the sound of a dishwasher in the other room, or her sisters bickering over whose turn it was to take out the recycling. It felt remote and unreal.
"How's the rest of the family? Are my sisters doing okay?" Taylor broke the stillness, the question suddenly urgent.
He smiled, wry and small.
"It's still taking some getting used to for everyone. Tay—" He interrupted himself, grimacing at the old habit. "Uh…Theta and Sigma are still doing alright at their new school. Eta is still working through some issues. What about you? Are you going to be okay?"
"I should be fine." Taylor forced the words out, knowing they were paper-thin. They were what everyone needed to hear.
She watched him—saw the lie pass between them and settle. There would always be a day, soon or far off, when this containment ward would no longer be viable. There were others, she knew, places for people like her: asylums designed for 'special' cases, institutions that blurred the line between hospital and prison. That was her future unless something changed.
She tried for levity. "I still have my books and my projects."
"Oh?" He tilted his head, letting her talk, grateful for a subject neither of them had to tiptoe around, "Working on anything interesting?"
Taylor fidgeted with a pen. "Lots, really. I had this idea for a symbiote to promote healing—like, to supercharge the immune response and cell repair. But to be honest, it's messy. And there's this wild theory I've been chasing about engineered reality as a contamination vector—not air, not water, not touch, but rather through thought or even meaning itself. Spiritual pathogens? Soul viruses. I'm nowhere close but—who knows, maybe it could help with stuff like depression. Or…or worse."
As she spoke, she felt a subtle shift in her awareness—a presence at the edge of her consciousness, watching with approval. Her skin prickled with goosebumps, and for a moment, she could have sworn she smelled something rotten yet strangely sweet, like compost in high summer.
She paused, as an idea came to her, and her hand picked up the notebook next to her as she quickly jotted notes down on a free page. The ink seemed to glisten wetly on the paper, the symbols forming patterns that reminded her of bacterial colonies, beautiful in their chaotic symmetry.
"Sorry," Taylor muttered, once she put down her notes, and turned back to her father waiting patiently.
Her father shook his head, smile half-broken but proud. "No worries, kiddo."
The pauses grew longer now, but the comfort of having her father present—even separated by glass, uniforms, and bureaucracy—was enough to keep her grounded for another day. She traced the spiral binding of her notebook, aware of the faint, antiseptic rattle of the air filtration system and the click-scratch of the agent labeling petri dishes only feet away.
A quick glance behind her offered Taylor Nu a chance to see how the PRT agent was doing. He had finished a majority of the dishes and had started looking over one of the containers sealed in black tape. He'll be okay, Taylor assured herself, he's wearing a hazmat suit and I've double checked each of the petri dishes to make sure everything was firmly shut and sealed.
As she studied going through her projects, Taylor Nu felt a peculiar warmth in her chest—not the feverish heat of sickness, but something almost... maternal. The sensation had been growing stronger lately, this strange affection for the microorganisms that flourished within and around her. They were her children, in a way—extensions of herself, beautiful in their endless cycles of life, death, and rebirth. Sometimes, when she was alone at night, she would whisper to them, naming her favorites, watching them multiply and evolve under her guidance.
Yet even as she thought this, she felt a strange tingling in her fingertips, as if the microorganisms under her skin were responding to her attention, stirring with anticipation. She flexed her hands, watching the way the fluorescent lights caught on her skin—was it her imagination, or did her veins look slightly green today?
The door behind her father opened and Taylor Nu was surprised to see Panacea step in. The famous New Wave healer looked around the room once and acknowledged Taylor and her father with a small nod before pulling out her cell phone. Even through the glass, Taylor could see the dark circles under Panacea's eyes, the pallor of her skin, the slight tremor in her hands—signs of exhaustion that Taylor recognized all too well.
"Um, dad, would you mind asking if I could talk to Panacea? I've been meaning to ask her to look at something for me?"
"Sure kiddo."
Her dad put his end of the phone down. Panacea looked up as he approached and gestured back towards Taylor Nu. Taylor couldn't make out what was being said between the two, but when Panacea glanced over at her, she offered a small wave.
Pocketing her cell, Panacea approached and picked up the phone. This close Taylor Nu could see the exhaustion and weariness that hung over the young healer.
"Hi," Panacea said, her tone flat, burdened with the echoes of too many pleas for help, "I'm just here in case something goes wrong."
Taylor managed a nervous smile. "Hey. I was hoping to ask a favor, if you're willing?"
"I don't do personal requests," Panacea replied mechanically.
"It's not about my body," Taylor said, hands raised, trying to keep the conversation level. "Really. It's about some of my projects. Healing stuff. Or at least, that's the goal. Some things are going…strange."
She watched Panacea, searching for a spark of curiosity beneath the layer of exhaustion. Panacea glanced at the samples through the glass that the PRT agent was shuffling through.
"You want me to look at your little tinker creations?" she asked, dubiously.
"Yeah?" Taylor half-shrugged, more cautious now. "Mostly symbiotic cultures, things to help with immunity, healing factors, brain chemistry. I'm aiming for regenerative breakthroughs, maybe something to help with mood disorders or aging, but—there's a lot I'm missing. I keep running into dead ends."
What she didn't say was how her creations had begun to develop in ways she hadn't intended— how they evolved along paths she hadn't designed, guided by some unseen hand. How sometimes, when she looked at her cultures under the microscope, she could swear she saw tiny, smiling faces looking back at her.
Panacea sighed. "My sister used to say powers have a bias toward conflict. They're not meant for peace, or healing. I know that sounds cynical—"
Taylor blinked, caught off guard. "I…haven't heard that before."
Panacea shook her head. "It's a debate in parahuman theory circles. My sister would know more. But—some of the staff say you're making dangerous things in here. Unpredictable. Why should I trust you?"
Taylor hesitated. Because I have to help or I'll go mad. Because the alternative is sitting alone with myself, in this box.
She swallowed. "I'm not making anything dangerous on purpose. Most of it is meant to help. The stuff that could hurt people, I keep sealed, or destroy. I just want to help. I want to try."
Taylor's voice cracked a little. "I can't be a hero in the usual way. My power makes me a contagion. The best I can do in a fight is if someone lets me cough on them—which is a bit lame. So I'm trying another way. To heal. To be something good, for once."
The silence between them grew heavier. Panacea's eyes shuttered, her shoulders tense. Taylor let herself go quiet, not trusting herself to speak more, not wanting to sound as desperate as she felt.
Finally, Panacea looked up.
"You don't want to be a healer," she said quietly, each word leaden with private anguish.
Taylor stared, startled by her certainty. "Why would you say that?"
A bitter, wry expression crossed Panacea's face. "Because it's never enough. Everybody wants you to fix everything, and if you don't, or can't…if you stop for even a moment, someone suffers or dies. The pressure never goes away. You're never off the hook. I wish—I wish I didn't have powers most days."
Taylor shifted, suddenly unsure. Once, she'd dreamed of powers—She had dreams of flying, the ultimate form of escape, by simply floating away. Other times she wanted power, the strength to stand up to her old bullies. Now, all her strength was poison and all her hope was locked in a glass cell.
Yet lately, she'd begun to see her situation differently. Was contagion really so terrible? Wasn't disease just another form of life, seeking to spread and grow? Wasn't decay necessary for rebirth? These thoughts came to her unbidden, yet they felt right somehow, as if she were finally understanding a truth that had always been there.
Tentatively, she pressed her palm to the window, reaching for any connection. Panacea hesitated, then mirrored her gesture. Their hands lined up, separated by inches of cold glass, bonded by shared power and isolation. For a brief second, something—faint yet undeniable—shuddered between them. The hair along her neck stood on end, as a putrid odor wafted across the room—the smell of rotting vegetation and sweet decay, strangely comforting in its familiarity. Something akin to approval stirred within Taylor Nu's heart.
"Shit!"
The sharp curse snapped Taylor Nu out of her swirl of concern and half-formed theories. She turned toward the far end of her containment unit, heart banging in her chest, and saw the PRT agent clutching awkwardly at the cuff of his hazmat suit. His clipboard, so carefully wielded moments ago, teetered on the edge of the workstation.
"Something wrong?" Panacea's voice crackled over the phone receiver.
"Don't know," Taylor answered. She set the phone down with a trembling hand and called to the agent, "You okay?"
The agent glanced over his shoulder, his visor fogged with shallow breaths. "Just noticed a tear in the glove," he said, examining the suit with practiced but suddenly jittery hands. His tone was meant to be casual, but fear trembled beneath it. "I'm going to step out. Get cleaned up and check for infection."
He made it barely two paces toward the decontamination door before his knees buckled as though his tendons had been cut. He went down hard, body slamming awkwardly onto polished linoleum. The crash echoed in the room's sterile air.
Taylor's mind blanked for a beat, registering disbelief, then cold terror. Her breath quickened as she pushed up from her seat and dashed toward him. The agent's body convulsed in violent, animal spasms, his limbs flailing. One errant arm caught Taylor sharply across the face, sending her glasses spinning across the floor. The world blurred.
"Help!" she screamed, blindly searching with her hands for the agent's shoulders, desperate to pin his arms lest he injure himself. "Just hold still, please hold still—!"
The containment door hissed open with a rushed mechanical groan, and a blur of red and white burst into the room—Panacea, minus hazmat, her face pale but determined. For a split second, Taylor's fear for the agent warred with panic for the healer. But then she remembered: Panacea was supposed to be immune.
"Help me rip the hazmat off!" Panacea knelt and seized the agent's hood, fingers scrabbling for purchase. Taylor mirrored her, wrestling with the tough, unyielding material. The convulsions thrashed under them, thunderclap spasms that nearly threw them off. Through the glass, Taylor glimpsed her father's horrified face and a nurse scrambling into a hazmat suit just beyond the double doors.
With a harsh, splitting sound, the senior hero finally tore the hood free, folding it back with practiced urgency. Panacea's hand latched onto the agent's damp, twisted face. For one shattering second, every muscle in the agent's body arched taut—mouth gaping in a silent scream—then he sagged to the floor, motionless but breathing.
"Holy shit," Panacea hissed as she held her hand against the agent's face."What the fuck did you give him? It's fucking everywhere!"
"I don't know!" Taylor blurted, her own voice jagged and raw. "All the dishes were shut, I checked and double-checked them—!"
"It's in the air!" Panacea's voice pitched low and desperate, sweat streaking her brow. "Shit! I'm struggling to keep him stable!"
"What do you mean, 'in the air'?" Taylor staggered backwards, horror blooming in her stomach like a black flower. All her work—all of it—designed to spiral out only by touch, cuddled in droplets, never to ride the air.
"That's impossible. None of my pathogens are airborne! I don't have anything that does this—not yet, I swear—"
She pressed a trembling palm to her brow, searching for the moment when she might have missed something, or.... Could it have come from her?
Panacea's jaw clenched, her hands braced over the agent. "I can feel it against my skin. My power's holding it off but it's taking everything not to let something slip through. I've never had to—never—fuck, fuck, fuck—"
Taylor's fear tipped over into dread, leaden and cold. What if—what if this was her fault? What if something dormant in her had finally mutated, leaping from the bench, from breath or skin contact, unseen and unstoppably new? What if she had finally become everything they'd feared: a vector, a Typhoid Mary with genius and ambition?
Yet beneath the horror, a tiny voice whispered in the back of her mind: Isn't it beautiful? Look how it adapts, how it evolves, how it seeks to spread life in its own way.
She shook her head violently, trying to silence the thought. Where had that come from?
"You're immune," Taylor said, voice shuddering. "You shouldn't even feel it!"
"I KNOW!" Panacea snapped, wild-eyed. "My power, it's always been passive with infections but I never noticed until now. This is different. This is—" her hands were trembling. "I've never had to pay attention to it before. Now I feel it and it wants in!"
As Panacea spoke, Taylor noticed something alarming—the healer's veins were becoming visible beneath her skin, tracing delicate patterns that pulsed with a faint greenish tinge. Tiny beads of sweat formed on her brow, each one glistening with an unnatural iridescence.
Taylor's hands went slick with fear. Somewhere behind the glass wall, alarms began to wail—first a pulsing yellow, then a stuttering red. Doors hissed, bolts locked, distant voices barked through radio static. Within seconds, the already claustrophobic room began to feel like the epicenter of something disastrous.
Through the glass, Taylor caught a glimpse of her father's face—pale with terror, his mouth forming her name. She wanted to reassure him, to tell him everything would be fine, but the lie wouldn't come. Instead, she felt a strange detachment, as if she were observing the scene from a distance. Part of her—a growing part—was fascinated by what was happening, by the way her creation was defying all expectations.
"You need to leave," Taylor stammered, panic beating beneath her tongue. "You need to get out, now."
"I can't!" Panacea shot back, trying to focus on the agent, desperate to keep his breathing steady. "If I let go, he dies. Whatever this is—it's rewriting his cells faster than I can counter it."
The air in the room seemed to thicken, growing heavy with moisture. Taylor could swear she smelled something underneath the antiseptic—a rich, earthy scent like fertile soil after rain, like compost teeming with life. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered, casting momentary shadows that seemed to move with purpose.
Taylor lunged, grabbing Panacea's arm, trying to pull her toward the exit. "You're just making yourself sick! Please!"
As her fingers made contact with Panacea's skin, Taylor felt a jolt—not of electricity, but of connection. For a split second, she could sense every microorganism in Panacea's body, could feel them responding to her touch, multiplying, changing. The sensation was intoxicating, almost euphoric.
"Don't fucking touch me!" The healer twisted fiercely away, her control threatening to slip. Where Taylor had touched her, a small patch of skin had darkened, tiny pustules forming and then subsiding as Panacea's power fought back.
"Then GET THE FUCK OUT!" Taylor screamed, sweat stinging her eyes, mind howling with guilt and terror. "You can't fix this if you're sick too—!"
As she shouted, Taylor felt something shift inside her—a barrier breaking, a dam bursting. The voice in her head grew stronger, more insistent: All is decay. All is rebirth. The cycle cannot be stopped, only embraced.
"Back off or I'll MAKE YOU!" Panacea growled, her voice thick and edged with desperation. For a moment, her eyes seemed to change—the whites taking on a yellowish tinge, the pupils dilating unnaturally.
Stunned back, Taylor raised her hands in surrender, retreating as Panacea returned to the agent's side, refusing to abandon him. The door crashed open again—nurses in full hazmat rushed in, their boots thundering on the tile. In practiced efficiency, they gathered the unconscious agent onto a stretcher, Panacea keeping her hand against the exposed skin as best she could.
"Containment breach! Level Four protocols!" one of the nurses shouted, voice muffled through their mask. "We need to seal this entire wing!"
Through the observation window, Taylor saw more PRT agents arriving, some carrying what looked like flamethrowers. Her father was being forcibly removed from the room, fighting against the agents as he screamed her name.
Taylor pressed herself against the far wall, unable to breathe, her body shaking. Cold seeped through her isolation gown and chills danced along her spine. She watched the grim procession roll out of the unit, the lock hissing closed behind.
Silence crashed down, thick as suffocation. The echo of voices and alarms faded. Taylor Nu slowly let her knees give out, sliding down to the floor. She pressed her arms to her temples and let her head sink between them, the sterile light above her warping the world into blurry, dizzying fragments.
Her thoughts raced: what had she done? Was this her nightmare—or the beginning of everyone else's?
She stayed curled in the corner, fighting to hold onto herself while dread, like a sickness, pulsed in her veins, heavy and inescapable.
"What do we know?"
"Thirteen missing person cases all occurred during the late hours of the same night roughly a week ago."
"All on the same night?"
"Yes, ma'am. There's also been a spike in missing pets—cats and dogs, mostly—going back at least six weeks. And we still haven't found our agent, McDaniel."
"Any progress on mapping the tunnels?"
"We're working with city engineering, but it's a mess. Judging by debris and soil samples, we think Winslow High is the original major entrance."
"Why is this just now crossing my desk?"
"BBPD kept the missing persons cases local—they didn't suspect parahuman involvement at first. We only coordinated after McDaniel's disappearance raised flags."
"Thirteen disappearances, a missing agent, and the possibility of parahuman activity—how did this go unnoticed for so long, Lieutenant?"
"No excuses, ma'am. Oversight on every level."
"I'm not interested in apologies. I need solutions."
"Yes, Director. We're pulling in all camera footage, interviewing anyone present the night of the disappearances, and coordinating with the BBPD."
"Obvious. You're also missing the question: How does several city blocks of tunneling escape surveillance? Winslow High is supposed to be under our jurisdiction."
"We failed, Director. I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize—fix it. What's your plan?"
"Immediate action team into the tunnels to sweep and clear, map as we go, locate any survivors. We'll establish secure perimeters at every known entrance, and if we identify hostile parahuman activity, respond accordingly."
"And if you find those responsible?"
"They'll be apprehended, if possible. Neutralized if necessary."
"Finally, some initiative. Velocity and Miss Militia will assist you and your team. You're to secure every access point, even if you have to evacuate whole blocks. Understood?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"I don't care how much overtime, how many resources. I want containment and accountability."
"Understood. And the missing people?"
"If they're down there, bring them back. But manage your expectations. I've seen these situations before, Lieutenant, and not everyone makes it out. I want answers and I want them fast."
"Understood, Director."
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