Fourth [Worm Altpower!Taylor]

The Fourth Ancient Shipping XMas Special
Part 1
This Is Actually, Really The First One​

“You gonna fight us?” I directly asked Armsmaster five seconds before he'd work up the nerve to ask me the same thing, grinning wide. “Because I don't think I can take the person whose logo is on my underwear seriously.”

Dead.

Fucking.

Silence.

Armsmaster’s jaw was totally dropped.

Assault looked like he was torn between cowering in terror and laughing his ass off. Even Miss Militia was having trouble keeping a straight face. Poor Dauntless looked like his brain had evacuated the premises. Velocity had his face in his hand.

And then the silence was interrupted by a sound I can only describe as the universe gaining a new hole. A wormhole the size of the Bay opened up in the sky above us, the fabric of spacetime almost boiling under the immense stress.

And then out of the opening something emerged, rapidly decelerating from the blur it was into a recognizable form.

A massive metal snowflake hung in the sky above me, and I immediately knew this wasn't a primary timeline anymore.

"Great. XMas Special time."

Ziz turned to me and her eyes widened in terror.

"Ben, you better go find a tree."

Ben merely nodded at me and sank back into the Earth. His body quickly began accelerating through the crust towards Canada.

Guess when you need a tree, go to the source?

---

I sat in the command throne of Atlanta, reviewing the sensor logs of the transit.

The Wormhole Drive was supposed to jump us into the sky above the Bay. That part worked.

But that sky was noticeably missing my fleet of Auroras.

And the other 'fleet' of observers from all over the world. They weren't there either.

"Atlanta, what the hell happened?"

The avatar of my cityship, a young woman who looked suspiciously like my sister, wavered into existence next to my command throne.

"I don't know, Chancellor," she informed me, seeming puzzled. "We made the transit as we were supposed to. We are where we were supposed to end up. Right above the Bay. It's the same city, but… our escorts are no longer here.

I made to reply but found that alerts were going off in my mind.

I tuned in to what they were trying to tell me. Atlanta was apparently under attack.

…

From… Taylor Hebert? A much younger Taylor than the one who had become Queen of the rogue constructors, too.

One who was hovering under her own power outside the shield, and knocking on it hard enough to trigger defense alerts.

"Hi!" she cheerfully said, somehow knowing that she had my attention. "Would you mind getting this eyesore into the actual bay so we can talk and get on with this special?"

I blinked, trying very hard to parse what she'd just said.

"Eyesore?!" Atlanta repeated, extremely offended.

I sighed and shook my head. "Open the shield to her, let's see what she has to say. And I need to know what the hell she means by Special."

Atlanta grumbled, but did as I asked. The immensely powerful force matrix of her shield wavered just a little on the spot in front of Taylor, and she gave us a little wave as she entered through the open matrix gate.

And headed straight for the throne room.

"At least I don't have to give her directions," I lamented.

---

At the same time and place as one Taylor entered a flying city, another was doing yoga.

On top of the Medhall building.

Odyssey didn't have permission for that, by Taylor didn't really care. Served Kaiser right, and she desperately needed to work out the kinks in her hull before-

"Taylor, we've got a… a wormhole on sensors," Vala informed her from her bridge.

Taylor paused in the middle of stretching out her beam and froze. "I'm sorry, did you just say wormhole?" she asked over her internal comms.

"Yeah. It's right over the Bay," Vala confirmed. "Check your own sensors."

"But I'm trying to relax!" she whined. "The snake infested space geckos were just a week ago! And my hull got some kinks in it because of that repair bath."

Vala scoffed and rolled her eyes. "That bath restored your hull to perfect condition. You're just being a baby."

"Exactly!" Odyssey fired back. "Do you know how much time it'll take me to get those dents and repair welds and esoteric particle scorched back?!"

Vala rolled her eyes again. "Just look at the stupid wormhole you overgrown cruiser!"

Taylor manifested a tongue sticking out of her mouth in front of Vala, but did so anyways.

The results were… interesting.

"Quantum signature on the inside is different," she idly mused.

Vala's eyebrows rose. "Really?" she commented, then she broke put into a grin. "I'll get my jumpsuit on!"

As she spun around to go do just that, Taylor scowled. "Vala," she flatly stated.

"Taylor, I know we're going," she fired back, ignoring the ship's tone. "You'll protest for a few minutes, then get curious, and I want to be in my jumpsuit for when we rapidly transit a cross reality wormhole this time."

Taylor blushed all the way to her engines and toes. She hadn't exactly had the time to be gentle when they had to enter Babylon and end the Empire of the Rising Snake. Her first and so far only proper cross universal transit, other than the one that brought Screen to Taylor's universe and merged them anyways, had tossed her crew around like gumballs.

Nevertheless, she shook her head. "Vala, I'm not going. I told you I have to do yog-"

The former thief cut her off and started stripping down to get ready to put on the jumpsuit Cam had designed for her. "You're going. I know it, you know it, now stop protesting against your own self and just start towards the wormhole before it destabilizes."

Taylor tried to speak up, even though she knew deep down that Vala was right. "But-

Vala began to take off her shirt and glared at the ceiling. "Slowly. And no peeking."

Taylor frowned, but closed off the comes from Vala's room anyways.

Vala was the only one on board. The rest of SG1 were on a trip to Colorado Springs to talk to the Air Force about something she wasn't cleared to know about.

That something was her classification and whether they could draft her. Like she would let a little thing like clearance keep her from knowing how her crew were doing.

Needless to say, SG1 had things to say about those topics. Namely, Deep Space Carrier, and fuck no she is a person. Respectively. Though she doubted they would deliver either pieces of information with anything remotely approaching respect.

Even with that plan, it was important that Vala not come with them. The rest of SG1 were going to choose to not be respectful.

Vala's only mode was disrespect.

So Taylor sighed. They didn't need her for the short amount of time it would take for her to scout the other side of the wormhole and drop a stabilization gate. And Vala was right… Curiosity burned within her.

She had her beam fabrication systems materialize two stabilization gates in her hangars and reached in to pull them out, allowing the circular wristguard like devices to fasten themselves to her wrists.

Then she took off towards the wormhole.

Vala left her room in her form fitting jumpsuit and marched straight back to the bridge. When she got there, she grinned wide and with victory.

"Knew you couldn't hold yourself back."

Taylor's sublight engines flared as she picked up speed. "Shut up."

Vala did keep her mouth shut, but the grin spoke more than enough.

Taylor approached the wormhole, a boiling tear in reality, and held up an arm. She sent the command to one of the stabilization gate for it to deploy.

The silver wristguard enlarged just enough to fly off her hand, then exited her sphere of influence.

And with a mind melting bend of reality, it was suddenly a ring with the inner radius of five city busses stacked end to end.

It settled in around the reality breach and began to rotate, several glyphs lighting up in blue along its surface.

Then the boiling ceased, and the wormhole was safe for transit.

"Brace for wormhole transit," Taylor called out as a matter of habit.

"Slowly!" Vala yelled at her.

"Yes. Slow wormhole transit."

Taylor fired her engines at five thousandth of a percent and punted herself through the wormhole.

Vala took a short trip to the back of the bridge by way of flipping over herself, her small translucent wings trying and failing to steady her.

She'd be fine.

---

The guy was insane.

Sorry, let me back up. After the sentient flying city opened up the shield capable of treating one of my knocks as a light bump so I could go through, I followed my Host tracking sensors towards this room.

Within which sat a guy in a pretty alien looking throne, calling to a hologram, and that hologram was the city ship's… self.

Not only was he not remotely human, the guy had an active and bidirectional connection with his Shard.

Which had expanded to coat its entire solar system, and even grown a Dyson Sphere!

"What the hell are you?" I blurted out, crossing my arms.

I was still flying. No way would I set foot on the city ship unless I got more information.

Another thing that was worrying me was that none of my sensors beyond the ones linked to myself and Shards could see inside the shield, but one big problem at a time.

---

I blinked in surprise, watching a younger and curvier Taylor Hebert in jeans hover above the floor as if much as offended her.

Or like she was Victoria. Either one.

I decided to start over.

“Hello… Taylor, I assume?” I began, getting up from my throne.

Her eyebrows furrowed and her suspicion rose. It was like a candle to my senses, but it was also very far away, for some reason. “You clearly know who I am,” she discerned. “Now who are you?”

It was very demanding. Much like Victoria. What was it with flying bricks and being belligerent?

“I’m Weldon, though I’m known as Shipyard,” I informed her. “And before you ask, yes, I know who you are. That’s because I know another version of you.” I looked her up and down, then decided to tease her a little. “A skinnier version.”

“Sucks for her,” she fired back. “So you’re from another reality?”

I nodded and gestured to Atlanta’s scowling avatar. “Atlanta’s wormhole drive seems to have had a small malfunction.”

Taylor raised her eyebrows. “A ‘small’ malfunction.”

I nodded. “Yep.”

“Hopping universes is what you consider small,” she reiterated.

“Indeed.”

Taylor closed her eyes and shuddered. “And dare I ask what you consider a large one?”

Before I could respond, reality ripped open next to the command throne. A smaller wormhole, not unlike Atlanta’s wormhole drive, made reality into its plaything and boiled the fabric of spacetime.

A feminine yell heralded the arrival of a young woman with brown hair, who planted herself into the deck plating.

And then with a horrifying screech of metal, kept going straight through it, with an effect not that dissimilar to Atlanta’s massive shield wrapped around her body to protect it.

None of us said a word even as the view of the bay’s small swells became clear past the falling girl.

I finally turned around to look at the open maw of the breach in reality and sighed, putting a hand on my forehead. “That is what I consider a large one.”

“My hull!” Atlanta complained.

Taylor rolled her eyes and sighed. “Fucking Tinkers.”

---

Merry XMas, everyone! In lieu of my further chapters which are still in the works, enjoy part one of a two or three parter XMas Interlude that crosses over three of my most popular stories. I was only able to write this much today as it was XMas, but I hope you enjoy!