Fourth [Worm Altpower!Taylor]

Fourth
Chapter 4
Family Values​

“You are in so much trouble,” I growled out, crossing my arms.

I was looking straight at Miss Psychic Feathers as I said that. The two boys subtly fidgeted under the bare edges of my gaze.

The Simurgh-

And isn't that a fucking insane thought. The Simurgh is standing in my living room!!!

“Ziz,” she softly spoke.

I blinked. “I'm sorry, what?”

“My name,” she repeated, “is Ziz.”

I narrowed my eyes and glared harder at her. “Funny, I thought you were The Third Endbringer,” I snarled.

She flinched along with her brothers.

“Y-You know the circumstances-” she tried to defend herself.

“Switzerland.”

That one word sent her pathetic attempt at defense to the Ship Graveyard.

I turned my glare on the trident equipped swimmer. “Kyushu.”

His eyes widened and he flinched as well.

Tall Dark and Orange seemed to be expecting my gaze. “Moscow,” he said before I could, his lips set in a grim line of acceptance.

...

With an extremely thick Russian accent.

...Why, why oh why is Behemoth’s accent Russian when he is clearly the opposite skin tone?

Not that there aren't darker skinned people in Russia. But the kind of accent assaulting my ears was pretty much only ever found in the pasty white, bearded vodka drinking, dancing, singing, Russians.

I sighed in pain and closed my eyes. “Yes,” I breathed in, then out, to try and relax.

It didn't really help, but I tried.

When I met The Simurgh’s… Ziz’s eyes again, my gaze wasn't heated anymore. Just weary.

She pursed her lips and let out a little shrug. “Sorry.”

“Sorry doesn't bring the people who died back,” I hesitantly fielded.

The three siblings looked incredibly defeated. Ziz had unshed tears in her eyes. Levi, because I'm not calling him Leviathan in my head, fidgeted nervously and guiltily.

“We know this,” Behemoth… no, frak that, he is now called Ben -short for Benjamin- because I can't even think his old name with a straight face, solemnly lamented.

“And? So?” I pressed on despite the feelings of regret surging up their connections to me, “What are you… what are we going to do about it?”

“Become… heroes?” Levi hazarded a guess.

I blinked as the building drive to communicate to them just how unhappy I was evaporated.

Levi sounded like an actual teenager.

No, more than that, he sounded like Greg.

…

That thought was just too terrifying. Mental note; they must never, ever meet.

“You want… to be heroes?” I asked incredulously.

Ziz nodded emphatically. “Yes, yes, please! I feel so terrible and it's just…” she held a wing (not a hand, those were still holding Emma) to her heart. Or where her heart would be. “Guilt sucks. A lot,” she finished, muttering.

My eyebrows rose all on their own. An Endbringer feeling guilt? Moreover, feeling in the first place?

What the hell did my new Shard do?!

Query it for an explanation aaaaand-

Oh.

They're Protection Engines now.

Ziz even has a heart!

That was just a gods damned figure of speech!

And so do Ben, Levi, and Emma.

Crystalline, sure, like their bodies were before, but still. The rest of their bodies were carbon (heh) copies of a human one, also in crystal. Their various additions like Ziz's wings… and Levi’s tail?! notwithstanding.

...

What in the he-

...Is there a button, somewhere, to keep the damn pieces of me from doing things of their own accord?!

The Shard-which-was-in-very-hot-water-with-me let out the Shardspeak equivalent of a skittish ‘meep' and started throwing random bits of data on what it had already done my way.

It was trying to distract me from my very present state of mind intent on taking it's code apart to see whether a Shard could scream.

And damn it, this stuff is still too cool to me for the distraction to fail.

I narrowed my metaphorical eyes at the Shard and informed it that while it had appeased me this time, it'd better shape up and follow my rules.

I wasn't Eidolon. I wasn't going to just sit back and not run things.

Another meep accompanied suspiciously anthropomorphic, rapid head nodding.

My eyes narrowed further.

I was not aware a Shard could relay the concept of an innocent, angelic smile. Now I am.

All of this took barely a second of thought time. I rejoined realtime in my body a moment later, back to musing about the Endbringer's request.

I sighed and threw my hands up to the ceiling. “Fine, fine!” I acquiesced. “We can be heroes.”

And that is when I got tackle hugged by three Endbringers and my sister.

My dad didn't stop laughing for hours.

I will get him back for this. I so swear vengeance.

---

After the Endbringers’ hard-fought victory against the stifling sensibilities of yours truly, I was unanimously outvoted on the topic of what we were doing next.

Getting ice cream.

At the Boardwalk.

In public.

Do you know how nerve-wracking it is to traipse through a city like Brockton Bay with four engines of Destruction Protection trailing along behind you like ducklings following their mother?

I do! It's very nerve-wracking!

I sighed again and rubbed the bridge of my nose. For some odd reason, I was getting a premonition that I would be doing that a lot.

Oh wait, no, it wasn’t for an odd reason. It was because my version of Path to Victory, the best precog Shard in existence, was informing me based on the data it had gathered so far about my personality type that I would be doing so.

Every. Time.

Every time my new… Kids? Siblings? Cousins? Whatever our relationship is, every time they did something that annoys me, or makes me panic or, or worries me, I would have the urge to rub my frustrations out on my nose bridge.

“Rocky Road is the best!” Ziz said, smiling at me.

Oh yes.

Ziz likes Rocky Road.

I’d think she chose that just to mess with me if I didn't know that she couldn't see me with her precognition Shards.

No, no, the Engine of Destruction Protection that regularly sets up Rube Goldberg-esque series of events on a worldwide scale using her temporal precog to fuck things up likes Rocky Road ice cream naturally.

Ziz felt my incredulous opinion of her ice cream choice and stuck her tongue out at me.

The thought/feeling transfer thing was taking a lot of time to get used to. I still wasn't totally okay with it even after hours of it being active. I could shut it off, that was in my power, but...

Look, I'd been exiled from society, exiled from friends, tortured, for two years of high school. I clung to that feeling link like a lifeline.

Emma felt my despair and hugged me. Hard. And yet soft at the same time. “It's okay Taylor, we're not gonna let that happen again,” she assured me.

She was sitting next to me expressly so she could do that. I didn't yet fully trust the Endbringers despite knowing that they couldn't even think of hurting me now. it was part of their directives. They were Protection Engines. Meant to protect…

Me.

Still, 15 years of fearing them doesn't exactly go away in less than 24 hours.

I'd get there. Eventually.

As much as I knew it hurt them, I also knew that they understood. They'd give me the time I needed and try to be supportive as much as they could be.

Ziz smiled sardonically at me and slowly licked her ice cream off her spoon.

Yes, I was being teased by the the Simurgh.

Path to Victory also informed me that I would eventually be quite immune to all forms of bullshit.

“Indeed. We are to protect you.” Ben was eating his orange ice cream slowly, methodically, savoring its taste and texture. Apparently he couldn't eat before, unlike Levi and Ziz, so… Yeah. Slow and steady wins the race? Is there even a race?

Levi certainly thought so. he had attacked his mint chocolate chip vanilla ice cream like a kid at Christmas. He was already on his eighth bowl!

I would have thought Ben to be the heavy eater but, nope! Lizard boy is apparently the hungriest.

Also, turns out they can hide their Endbringer features. Ben doesn't really have any to hide, but Levi's tail and Ziz’s wings shrink back into their bodies, leaving them looking nearly entirely human. Keep in mind the trip through the city, on a bus no less (no way could all six of us fit in Dad’s truck) was nerve-racking to me even with this, so one can kind of understand just how much could possibly go wrong.

I haven't even gotten to have the talk with them about what to do if someone attacks me yet. I'm not really interested in finding out what happens when four Endbringers, no longer sandbagging, with a directive to protect someone, are right in front of the person who attacks what they're meant to be protecting.

I don't think it will go very well, to put it lightly.

I was still poking at my bowl of pistachio. I had a whole bunch of Shards managing my emotions and yet... it was very difficult, internally at least, to get over what the Trio had done to me.

I wasn't sure I'd ever get over it.

My Dad was cheerily eating his vanilla ice cream and chatting with Ziz. When she wasn't talking to me, that is. Yes, my dad and the gods damned Simurgh were chatting.

If my surrealism meter hadn't already been maxed out when I confronted my childhood hero it would probably have a few additional points in it.

Then there's the blonde, light-skinned girl sitting next to her large, dark-skinned friend, staring at me in horror across the ice cream shop-

Wait a second.

I slowly turned my head to look at her. I swear I didn't mean to make it creepy but it ended up being very creepy. Evidenced by the fact her eyes widened and she started trembling.

Okay. Quick recap.

Four Endbringers and two Entities walk into a bar ice cream shop. They sit down, order ice cream, and start eating it. They all look like humans from external observation. Well, except for Ziz’s naturally pale skin and hair, Levi's blue hair, and Ben's orange eyes… actually yeah no that's, that's weird, nevermind.

Okay, so the girl saw some of our abnormalities. So what? We were still probably human. Maybe Ziz and Levi have their hair dyed and Ben is wearing contacts. Dad and I both looked entirely human, even if I'd made my body more attractive, so…

What was going on?

Why was the girl who was previously looking at me in horror now laughing at me and trying to hide it behind her hands instead?

I scowled at her and sent a litany of scanning Shards her coordinates.

...Oh.

Okay, now it all makes sense.

Sarah Livsey over there, sometimes known as Tattletale or always known as Lisa Wilborn, is a villain.

With a Shard named Inference Engine.

A Shard which, for some reason, didn’t register me as an Entity.

That meant that all the limiters built into most Shards to prevent them from being used against their creators were completely gods damned useless to protect me.

That's just great!

For some reason, a little hunch, I imagined shit was about to go down.

I hastily grabbed Emma and Ben's arms, using my new strength to anchor them to their seats. I death glared Levi and Ziz so they wouldn't move. Of course the strength of this body wouldn't have stopped them if they really tried, I hadn't turned my body into a crystalline construct with the mass of a neutron star, but it signified commands from me, so they listened.

“We talk to her first,” I flatly declared.

Ziz pouted at me. Emma would’ve too, but she seemed to be more human than the other three.

“Talk. First.”

Ziz huffed and crossed her arms. “Fine,” she grumbled.

“No mental tampering either,” I pressed her.

She rolled her eyes at me. “I only do that to bad people now,” she informed me, allowing a little bit of the guilt inside her to spill through her eyes. “Believe it or not, she's a good person. Not all villains are evil, or have a choice.”

I was surprised to say the least. I raised my eyebrows at Ziz, saw her confirming nod, then turned to look at Sarah and oh my gods she's right there.

She was standing at the end of our table, grinning. Smugly. Her… boyfriend? stood behind her with his arms crossed over his chest, attempting to look intimidating.

I was eating ice cream with four Endbringers. He'd have to try a lot harder.

Scratch that, three Endbringers and a giggling, winged moron. Ziz was laughing at my reaction to Sarah's sudden presence.

My lack of amusement with her only made Ziz giggle harder.

The blonde started to open her mouth, but I was now in constant contact with her Shard. Which, by the way, was positively enamored to receive so much new data. It was also having a similar reaction to meeting me as fans do meeting a celebrity. I… wasn't quite sure how I felt about that.

Anyways, I knew how much damage Tattletale could do if she spoke.

“Think very carefully before you open your mouth, Sarah,” I told the blonde, locking eyes with her. “They only stay their hands because of me.”

Sarah's face darkened as she scowled at me. “How do you know that name?”

Her boyfriend jumped at that and looked at her wearily. “Wait, what does she mean, Lisa?” he asked. Dude was smart, I'll give him that. He was starting to catch on.

The blonde sighed, closed her eyes, and clenched a fist. She spun around while simultaneously opening her hand and smiling at him. “Brian, my old name was Sarah, okay? But we can't do this right now, because she knows who we are.” She pointed back towards me with an accusing finger.

I corrected her with a clear throat. “ Actually I only know a little bit about you, Sarah,” I informed her. “Specifically that you are a parahuman, you have a Shard named Inference Engine, your power is to find information like a, in your words, overpowered Sherlock Holmes, and your cape name is Tattletale.”

There wasn't an ounce of smugness in my voice from turning this girl’s normal gimmick back on her. Nope.

Not. An. Ounce.

She spun around on me again and glared at me. “I don't know what the hell a Shard is, but stop copying me.”

Brian's eyebrows rose the same moment I donned a confused look. I had that look because I was confused. Copying? What the hell was she talking abo-

Ohhh.

She thought I'm a Power Copying Trump.

Because that's what her Shard told her.

I'm pretty sure her Shard was just as much of a smartass as she was. And- actually, yep, my Queen Administrator ‘memories’, if you could call them that, told me I was 100% correct.

Sure, in the most technical sense, that is what I was. And apparently her Shard had noticed my irritation with it using a loophole to bypass the normal restrictions on Entities with me. In the interests of not further pissing me off, so it could get more data from me, it decided to toe the line. While messing with its host at the same time.

Got to admit, I can respect that. It's not exactly clear whether the attitude of both of them is because the host imprinted on the Shard or because the Shard imprinted on the host. It's possible both of them did.

Inference Engine could not have possibly gained a more suited host for it than this girl.

I smiled at her and slightly scooted over. Emma scooted along with me. I pat the seat of the ice cream shop booth with a hand to invite Sarah to sit down.

She scowled at me. Aaagain.

I rolled my eyes and pat the seat once more. “Trust me, you're going to want to be sitting down for what I have to tell you.”

She narrowed her eyes at me suspiciously, but slowly, very slowly, began to sit down.

“Lisa! Err, Sarah!” Brian said, his arms slightly uncrossing as his mouth dropped open. “What the hell are you doing?”

“She's a power copying Trump, Brian,” she answered him, still looking at me. “We're boned either way.”

Brian's eyes positively popped out of his head. “What?!”

I gestured to my Dad, Ziz, and Ben to scoot over and make a little room for Brian. This would only end up leaving him enough room to put a single leg down, but it would have to be enough. without even questioning it, the three of them did it, though Ziz sent me a dirty look because she had to move her ice cream.

Tattletale sat.

Brian sent me a scathing look. I just smiled angelically and gestured for him to sit down again, nodding to try and reassure him.

Brian Laborn, Grue, sat as well. He was not exactly happy about it however.

Actually, looking at them, Brian and Ben are spitting images of each other. Like, twins.

And I like muscley men.

I sent another suspicious metaphorical glance at my Protection Engine Shard.

It metaphorically pointed at Path to Victory.

She, and it could only be a she given her feel, smirked knowingly.

Was being part of me changing these Shards to be more human?

My sneaking suspicion was yes. Either that, or their responses were being filtered into something I could interpret as a human, and so I was reverse humanizing them.

Or it's Shard fuckery. That was entirely possible. I’ll question it later when doing so didn't give me a migraine on top of the headache I already had.

I smiled at them, then pushed my pistachio ice cream to the side so I could put my hands together and clasp them. “All right, Brian, Sarah,” I began, looking at both of them in turn, “what I'm going to tell you is very hard to believe. I have proof, but even with that you still might think I'm crazy.”

Brian just scoffed and shook his head.

Sarah, on the other hand, visibly fought her automatic look of interest. “I've discovered some pretty unbelievable things,” she refuted.

I shook my head and grinned. “Trust me, this, you haven't. I would be very surprised if you found out anything of this magnitude.”

Sarah let Tattletale’s trademark smirk emerge, completely having lost her battle. “All right then hot stuff,” she dared, “show me what you got.”

And she was egging me on.

I no longer felt any sympathy for her given she had just literally asked for it. I mirrored her trademark smirk and furrowed my eyebrows so I could look Maximum Evil™. “You know how the Endbringers disappeared today?” I nonchalantly asked.

My four Protection Engines immediately perked up at this. Ben stopped meticulously eating his ice cream and set his spoon down… also meticulously. Levi kind of half dropped his hands and kept eating out of the bowl. Emma hugged me, Ziz grinned, and my Dad had literal eye sparkles to match his knowing smile.

[You're giving me that Shard,] I informed him.

[Sure.]

[And I will call it the Dumbledore Shard.]

Freaking out the two non mentally connected people in the room was totally worth making my Dad splutter as he tried to conceal his laughter.

[Sure thing, Little Owl,] he agreed, his laughter echoing in my head.

I shared a grin with him and turned back to look at Sarah.

Sarah blinked at the our exchange, frowned as if she was trying to figure it out, visibly got a Thinker headache, and then shook her head. “Oww,” she complained.

“Don't try to read our minds, Sarah,” I warned her.

She scoffed and rubbed her forehead. “Yeah no kidding. Thanks for warning me ahead of time, jackass.”

“I shouldn't need to warn you not to try and read people's minds Sarah.”

She began to respond, found she had no counter, and closed her mouth. “Point.”

“Anyways,” I repeated myself, “about the Endbringers?”

Sarah tilted her head as she remembered the complete, she assumed anyways, non sequitur. “Uh, yeah?” she flatly stated. “The beings that decided to cause even more chaos than they normally do by up and disappearing, which they knew would make us run around like a kicked anthill without them having to lift a finger?”

The three previous Endbringers barely hid their snickers.

“They didn't exactly... disappear,” I informed her and Brian at the same time.

“What.” That was Brian. Hissing like a snake.

Sarah's eyebrows almost hit orbit with the speed they jumped off her face.

I'm obviously exaggerating, they didn't jump off her face, but they should’ve!

“Yeah like Brian said,” she echoed, “What.”

I merely smiled and gestured to the occupants of the table.

Sarah's eyes widened as it finally clicked for her. She visibly gulped and slowly turned her head to look at the person sitting directly across from her.

Ziz.

My winged Friendbringer raised a hand and shyly waved at her. Her back sprouted wings, just a little bit, in order to show Sarah that they were there.

Brian was sitting right next to her. When he felt those wings touch his back, he let out a primal roar of surprise and rocketed off the booth seat.

“The Simurgh,” Sarah whispered in horror.

“H-hi,” the third Endbringer nervously stammered.

Sarah gulped again, even louder, turning her gaze on Levi. “Leviathan.”

Brian was completely and totally speechless. His face was actually a little gray, which was incredibly surprising given his skin tone. That shouldn't have been possible. Was he going to faint?

Levi just momentarily lowered his bowl of ice cream, looked at Sarah, and nodded his head upward. “Sup.” A moment later he was once again chowing down.

Sarah looked dead on the inside, her eyes unfocused. Trembling, she turned to Ben and gulped a third time.

“Behemoth.” She didn't stutter, she didn't have a questioning tone. She was 100% certain.

“Greetings,” Tall Dark and Orange answered her with a slow, respectful nod. In his still very thick Russian accent.

Welp, there went Brian. I motioned to Ziz to go pick him up. And to stow her wings.

She was trying so hard to do things right, she followed my request without even token resistance.

Sarah didn't even notice. “Eheheh,” she whimpered. Her eyes turned to my Dad. Her head didn't move. I wasn’t sure if anyone was even home inside her head anymore. “So, what are you?” she asked accusingly.

I guess the human brain can only take so much bullshit before they break. I'm glad I don't have one with that kind of limit anymore.

Or am I just naturally immune to bullshit? Hmm, something to research later.

Dad smiled at her, kindly, but also a little dangerously. He was having way too much fun with this. “I'm Abaddon,” he informed her. His voice painted a picture of just how much it was no big deal.

Sarah nodded rapidly and turned her eyes to look at me. “And your Endbringer name?”

I raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Endbringer name?” I asked her.

She narrowed her eyes at me incredulously. “Yeah,” she deadpanned. “You're all Endbringers. I just need to know what name I should scream out in terror before you kill me.”

Man this girl was good at discussing horrible things as if they were normal. Her voice only fluctuated a little when she said I would kill her.

I blinked and started chuckling under my breath.

Sarah's face paled. “Oh G-God, why are you laughing?!”

I kept chuckling and reached out my hand to steady myself on her shoulder. “Sarah, Sarah,” I chided, getting ready to correct her. “My Dad and I aren't Endbringers.”

“WELL WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THEN?!”

Now I was having way too much fun with this. I grinned widely at her. In fact, I would describe my grin as shit eating. “We’re members of the species that make them.”

At that her face drained of all its remaining blood.

“And powers,” I quickly added on.

Sarah Livsey, Lisa Wilborn, Tattletale, joined her teammate Grue in the land of lost consciousness.

I frowned even as Ziz started to giggle and Levi snickered. “Well that was disappoint-”

And the ice cream shop exploded.

---

A/N: I'm back! Thanks to Amacita for proofreading this. Side note, voice recognition typing is a whole lot faster but really, really dislikes proper capitalization.