worm

Earth Bet was an interesting place. Plenty of people, really big, endless amounts of conflict. But most importantly, just the right amount of capes for a certain draconequus to take notice.

Discord had been having some tea at Fluttershy's house and on a whim, decided he was bored because of the whole reformation shtick. To balance out the fact he was, officially, on the side of Celestia, it only made sense for him to cause a touch of chaos. Just enough to make things right again of course.

But he couldn't do it in Equestria, that would get noticed. So he poked his head out of that world a moment and start looking around. Eventually, he stumbled upon a curious little universe, one with its own multiverse inside of it. And what he found inside one of the most prominent of those mini-universes was too good to pass up.

Humans. Billions of them, all too accepting of a very odd group of people. But only when they were odd in a very specific way. Upon further inspection, Discord found this world to be much darker than Equestria. It amused him and a plan began to form in his mind.

Reaching out Discord found a golden figure that seemed to be at least partially responsible for this and plucked a shard out of him. Observing it, Discord found he couldn't really understand it. It wasn't magic, but it wasn't quite science either. Shrugging it off, he reached back over to Equestria and started plucking some hairs.

A heaping side of chaos magic later and Discord had something that was neither magical nor science, nor… anything else that could be explained he guessed. It was perfect.

Now all he needed was someone to shove this into. Someone with an already low self-esteem so they would simultaneously get destroyed and hopeful with his gift. Someone with issues with self-image so they would be equal parts horrified and grateful of his change. Someone with a mind capable of handling it all.

He found his target, sitting at an out-of-date laptop in her room looking at some sort of online message board. Even better, she already had a shard within her, inactive. He plucked it out of her mind and fed it to his abomination of a shard before shoving it back in her mind and body. Now, to find the perfect way to kick start his new shard.

Discord grinned as he found what he was looking for and willed some pop corn into existence and then a theatre chair.

"Oh boy, this is going to be good!" He said, throwing some pop corn down his throat.

***

It had been another long and irritating day at school. I sighed, tossing my back onto my bed. They had destroyed my mother's flute today. Stolen it right out of my locker and did who knows what to it. I was going to have to stop using it, maybe find another place to store my stuff. I certainly couldn't change them finding the notebook I recently began cataloguing their exploits against me. It was pretty light now, but I was certain it would build up over time. Then, I could use it. I wasn't sure how yet, but someday, somehow.

I opened the laptop my mother had made sure to get me and let its old systems boot up while I went and made myself some tea. When I had come back, it was ready for use.

Sitting down, the first thing I did was open up the PHO and look for any new activity in the city. Nothing just yet. But there was another story of Panacea healing yet another child with some sort of genetic defect. I skimmed over it, there were far too many articles like that to dwell on. But as I passed over, I noted that it had a picture attached of Panacea standing next to the family she helped. She didn't look well.

I had read that she couldn't use her power on herself so I guessed she could have been coming done with the flu or something, but the way her eyes were sunken in was somewhat concerning.

Moving on, I search local news for anything of note. But just like my search before, nothing turned up. No major cape battles, no large gang movement. Just an average day in Brockton Bay. Disappointing.

I reached for my tea, deciding it had enough time to cool as I had scrolled through the web pages. As I raised it to my lips, a headline caught my eye. Because of that, I was momentarily distracted and didn't think about testing to see if my tea was actually cool enough and ended up taking a large sip.

I spluttered incoherently as I spat out the scalding tea as it burned the inside of my mouth and I resisted the urge to swear, afraid the words would make my tongue hurt more. And then it hit me like some really weird emotional tidal wave. At that instance, burning my tongue was the worst thing in the world and no matter how I tried I couldn't think of anything much worse than it.

It was horrible, absolutely inexcusable! My mouth, my tongue, burned at the hands of some bitter leaf juice! It didn't even taste that good!

I clamped my mouth shut and moaned loudly in pain as I curled up into a ball on the floor. I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my fists, shaking as pain and rage ran through me. It took me some time to to get over the pain enough to stop groaning aggressively, but even then it took me at least twenty minutes to open my eyes. But even then it wasn't because I had become acclimated to the pain, it was because I realized I couldn't feel my toes. Or my hands. Or the draft that normally flowed through my room. Or the hard wood floor beneath me, instead I was feeling some sort of carpet when I know I didn't have one.

I forced my eyes open as soon as I realized all of this and the pain faded from my mouth as if that was all I needed to do in the first place. I blinked and tried to raised a hand to my face. I didn't have a hand.

I bit back a terrified scream as I looked at the… hoof that now stood at the end of my arm. Or leg now, I guess. Looking down I saw I had two more hind legs, each coated in a rich white fur.

A little unsteadily, I rose to my feet, or hoofs now. It was surprisingly easy to move them, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Basic knowledge on how to move the muscles was more intuitive. If it wasn't someone would have to explain basic arm movements to kids just for them to learn how to lift a block.

But being able to move my legs was different from being able to know how they should move. I collapsed on my face in the first few steps before pushing myself back up and deciding to master that art of standing before moving on to basic steps.

I looked around the room and got a sense of scale. The bed was taller than me, as was the dresser. It was hard to tell like this, but if I had to guess I was about one to two feet tall at best.

Great, I was not only a horse, but a midget one too.

After I decided I had gained enough balance I decided I would attempt a foot forward. But as I lifted a hoof off the ground, I felt yet two more appendages.

It was incredibly surreal to discover entire limbs of my body I hadn't even noticed before. And as I looked back I could only grimace as I confirmed what I had felt. Wings.

To correct my earlier statement, a midget Pegasus. Fantastic. Fan-flipping-tastic.

Shaking my head, I walked forward. This time, I closed my eyes and tried not to think about how to walk. I let my legs do what felt natural just like I did when I was human. It worked much better than my first attempt, until I opened my eyes and was promptly acquainted with the floor.

The third time, I was able to make it to the door of my bed room without another issue. I silently thanked whatever deity let me forget to close my door all the way when I last entered and pushed my way down the hall towards our bathroom. I wasn't so lucky with that door.

I only had to raise my head a little to get it up to the knob and bit it with my teeth. It hurt a little to turn my head that way, but I managed. As soon as I got the door open I cursed myself and tried spitting the flavour out of my mouth.

I made my way over to the sink and realized that I was too short to see over the top of it without jumping a little, and seeing how I didn't yet trust my legs enough to do that, I walked over to the toilet and climb on top of the lid. After some struggle, I managed to get up and then onto the counter of the sink. Then I carefully stepped in front of the mirror and almost screamed.

A midget winged unicorn.

It was horrifying. I had a horn, but it was just a little stub in the centre of my forehead, not even two inches long. My wings were about as impressive. The body I had didn't have the same lengthy slenderness my old one had, one of it few good traits. Instead, this one was short and pudgy, baby like in a way. I could have cried.

My coat of fur was all white, but for some reason didn't match my mane or tail. Those two were an extremely silvery blue and grey. Not to mention my mane seemed to defy gravity somehow and was rippling in a wind that definitely wasn't there.

But the worst part was that I was incredibly cartoonish. My entire body looked like it was drawn by some Korean sweatshop animator! My eyes were two-thirds of my face!

Without thinking, I jumped off the counter and onto the floor before sulking back to my room. My mane seemed to comply with my mood and drooped a little. As I nudged open the door all I could think was 'what the heck am I supposed to do?'

My first thought was to go to the Protectorate. They had plenty of ways to test this body and whatever powers came with it. Not to mention they could support me through this. With this kind of body, there was no way I'd ever be able to live a normal life, protect my identity, or anything of that sort. The PRT could accommodate that, let me live more or less normally. But that would only be inside their headquarters. I'd never be able to go out on my own, never be able to go to a store and purchase book or anything else again. I'd be a prisoner without a cell.

But I couldn't simply do nothing, my body just got turned into a cartoon horse of Celestia's sake. I had to-

Wait, who? Celestia? Why did I know that name? Why did it sound so familiar? Come to think of it, I haven't sworn once all through this! I opened my mouth and tried to say something.

"Mother Flipper." I choked back a scream. "Buster! Crud! Tartarus! Argh!!!" I shouted in frustration, stamping my feet. It was bad enough that I was forced to become some sort of cartoon horse thing, but it also took away my swearing? Why!?

I took a few deep breaths and calmed myself down. This wasn't helping. First and foremost I needed to make sure there was nothing wrong with this body. I didn't need any more nasty surprises.

I leapt up onto my bed, surprising myself with the skill to do it without messing up. In fact, I was so impressed with myself I wasn't paying attention when I reached over and started pressing keys on my laptop and they worked perfectly.

Wait, what?

I looked at my hoof, then at the computer, then at my hoof. I reached forward again and tried typing 'Bingo'. It worked fine.

"What is the point of having a hoof if it just works like it has fingers?!" I shouted at no one in particular. Seriously, what was the point of this power?

I typed in what I needed and did a quick search on the PHO. It took me a minute to sift through the spam to find the information I needed. The New Wave help hotline.

Quickly memorizing the number, I headed down stairs to get the phone. I had never thought about it, but I suppose recent triggers could go to New Wave for help if they wanted to be a hero but didn't trust the government or something. I really just want to know I was going to be okay.

I made it down stairs and was met with trying to get the wall phone from where it hung. After a few minutes of rearranging chairs, I made myself a makeshift staircase up to the phone. I took it off the hook, somehow holding it in my hoof, and punched in the numbers. Again, no idea why or how that worked.

The phone was picked up on the other end by the third ring.

"You've reached the New Wave helpline what is the nature of your emergency?" I felt a brief panic in my chest, I hadn't expected this to be like a nine-one-one call. I took a breath, surely there were other reasons people called the line. Like if they were witnessing a cape battle starting but weren't in any immediate danger. That would be the main reason this line was set up.

A little more relaxed, I cleared my throat and spoke up.

"Um, hi, I… just triggered and got powers and I…" I bit my lip. I shouldn't be this worked up about this, but I was a cartoon horse! I'll be a laughing stock of a hero.

"Ma'am?" The lady on the other end asked. "Are you alright? Did your trigger involve anything incredibly harmful?"

"No!" I corrected a little more forcefully than I should have. I suddenly remembered that my trigger event was burning my tongue on my tea. Dear lord, even my trigger event was laughable! "It's just that I think I might be a case 53 and I really need Panacea to look me over."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "I see, can you describe your change to me?"

"I… am some sort of winged unicorn. I'm only about two feet tall."

"Alright, if you're not immediately injured I'll let New Wave know. Panacea will likely be several hours, if that is alright?"

"Yeah, it's fine," I mumbled. I gave her my house address before hanging up. I wasn't sure if all that was supposed to make me feel better, but right now I just felt lousy. I put the phone back on the hook and sighed, turning to walk down the makeshift stair I had put together when the front door opened.

"Hey, Taylor I'm-" My dad froze and went wide eyed when he saw me.

"Hey Dad," I said sheepishly. This was going to be a long discussion.

***

A/N: So, to clarify somethings. Because of thre weird shard thing of weirdness, the trigger event was scaled to what is considered to be highly traumatic for MLP, hence the tounge burning. Also, if it wasn't obvious at first, Taylor is an alicorn filly about the age of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Going with the notion that age is children, and the mane six are proabably older tennagers, and Flim Flam, Mr.Cake, and the princesses are all adults, it is clear that when horses get older in MLP their legs, horns, necks, and snouts all get longer and thinner. So yeah, Taylor starts off young like that and grows into full alicorn princess size. Fun.

"So you burned your tongue…"

"Yes."

"And it turned you into a…"

"A midget cartoon unicorn with wings, yes."

"And in a little bit Panacea of New Wave is going to come to our house just to check out your body and make sure you, a midget cartoon horse, are physically fine?"

"Eyup."

"Christ alive!" Dad said, leaning back in his seat while throwing a hand over his face. I gave a nervous shrug. It was a much shorter explanation than I first thought, but that was because there was no logical way to explain it. The hard part would be facing what was next.

"Taylor…" Dad said, shifting forward in his seat. I was sitting across from him, placing my rear end in a seat while using the front legs to prop me up. I wasn't sure if it was really sitting if one-half of me was technically standing, but I had many more questions about my body than that. "How about mentally?" He finished asking. "Are you doing okay."

I opened my mouth to reassure him that I was, but then I stopped myself and considered. Was I? I didn't just gain powers, which would have been game-changing in the first place, I changed whole bodies.

But then again, my old body hadn't been that great either. I had just started running after nearly falling into a trap set by the bullies, but it had been too soon to see any improvement. Before this, I had still a pudge belly that didn't look flattering. I recall my face had been the topic of choice for the three b-b-b- meanies. At least now no one could argue I looked adorable.

But that didn't change the fact I could never go back out in public again. And while that bothered me it was overshadowed by the fact I wouldn't have to go back to school. Something lost something gained I supposed.

Now that I think about it the whole things with the fingers while not actually having fingers was probably the only thing holding me together here. I didn't understand it, it let me pick up small objects, it let me press buttons, but wouldn't let me untangle knots or scratch an itch. It was like they were there just to taunt me.

I took a breath and answered my father. "I guess I'm doing alright, for now." All things considered, I was just glad for a change in the status quo. It wasn't the greatest improvement on my life, but it could still turn out to be an improvement. I had a chance to get away from school, and a chance to do some good, maybe even turn this horse body into a good thing. Yes, I'm certain that I can put a positive spin on at least some of this.

"Then I guess there is nothing to do but wait." My father said with a sigh.

"And make dinner." I reminded him absently.

"Oh," he said a little crestfallen. "Do you think you can eat pizza?"

I paused and thought about it. Bread, tomatoes, and cheese. That's all things a horse can eat right?

"I don't know," I answered. "But do you think you could get some apples with it?"

***

I was munching on an apple core when there was a knock on the door. I turned my head and looked at the clock. It was about eight, late enough for the sun to have set. I don't remember when I had placed my call to New Wave, but it had been a while ago. Since then I practiced walking around and flapping my wings. While I pretty much mastered walking and took a few tentative attempts at trotting, flying was a no go. While it had taken me off the ground a little bit it also launched me across the room and face first into a wall where I had to spend a couple seconds sitting still to stop my eyes from rolling around in my head. Literally. It appeared the cartoonish aspects were not just limited to how I looked.

My father answered the door for me, which I was glad because knobs appeared to be really hard to use without real fingers. These fake things don't appear to get the concept of a knob most of the time. If I push my hoof against it and gave them a twist there was a fifty-fifty chance the hoof was going to turn the knob against all known science.

Magic horse powers, truly a wonder.

When Panacea came into our house she was flanked on her left side by Glory Girl, who hovered slightly off the ground and looked around our house curiously. Now that Glory Girl was here in her bright white costume I was feeling a little self-conscious of the way our house looked. It wasn't messy per se, but it was old. And when a house was old you tended to just accept things as fact about it that you forget. The same way that you might never realize how suggestive a song is or how many swear words are in it until you're showing it to your parents.

I took a deep breath and rounded the corner so they could see me clearly. Their reactions were immediate.

Panacea's eyes widened like she couldn't quite believe it though no doubt she was told what I had said over the phone. Glory Girl, on the other hand, she grinned widely and suddenly started flying across the room.

Before I could protest I was in the air, being held outstretched by Glory Girl from underneath the pits of my two front legs. I did my best to look put off, but I wasn't sure it worked with the way the cartoon physics were going.

"Oh my god Amy! I told you she was for real! Look at her! She is absolutely adorable." I was ninety percent sure that she was about to crush me in a hug when Panacea walked up and said,

"Victoria! You can't just randomly pick people off the floor! Even if they happen to be… cute little unicorn pegasus ponies." Glory Girl made a pouty face at her but thankfully put me down. I really hoped that wasn't going to be a common thing.

"Could you please… just make sure I'm going to be okay?" I asked shyly.

"Of course," Panacea said without a shred of emotion. She knelt down and got closer, allowing me to see the upper half of her face more clearly as it wasn't concealed with her scarf. She looked just as bad as she did in the photos I saw of her earlier today. Stress, determined, constantly irritated, but more than anything, really tired. For some odd reason, I found it familiar.

"Do I have permission to touch you?" Panacea asked cryptically. I nodded to her and she reached forward, slightly brushing behind my ears as she laid a hand on my neck.

I watched her expression change as she did whatever it was she was doing to my body. Her eyes widened at first and then they narrowed as if searching for something. Seconds stretched into minutes of silence as Panacea worked. Oddly enough, it was Glory Girl who broke the silence.

"Um, sis? What's taking so long?"

My father's head immediately snapped to look at her in alarm.

"You mean this isn't normal?" He questioned, looking a little apprehensive.

"For case 53s?" Panacea suddenly countered with before taking her hand away from me. "Yes, sometimes their biology can be a little mixed up. But her's…" she trailed off for a moment.

"Ames?" Glory Girl said, reaching out and poking her on the tip of her nose. "You wanna finish that thought?"

"For the most part, she has a normal horse biology," Panacea answered, shooting a glare at her sister as she rubbed her nose. "But there is some kind of bio-circuitry, reaching out from her stomach and heart and running all along her body. The circuits collect in her wings, horn, and leg muscles. I just can't tell what they do."

"My wings can lift me off the ground," I said without really thinking about it. I stretched my wings open wide to draw attention to them. "Maybe the circuits are part of my power? Some sort of Breaker effect?" Panacea and Glory Girl looked at each other and they before shrugged before turning back to me.

"It could be anything," Panacea answered. "But if your wings give you flight, then you should be able to do something with your horn if that is the case."

I frowned. "Like what?"

"Knowing powers?" Glory Girl said. "Probably blowing stuff up or something like that."

It was a thought. From what I knew most, if not all, powers had some sort of offensive use. Something that gave them the ability to keep going. The only question was how to use it.

Well, I learned to use my legs by just letting instinct take over, and when it came to flying I pretty much did what felt natural. So if I just let my horn do what it wants…

I focused on a chair across the room and tried shooting it. Going with the theory that powers were almost uniformly offensive I could imagine some sort of laser beam shooting out of it and obliterating the chair. After a few moments of thought, I may have felt something give around my horn. I focused harder and pushed, but it didn't feel like my horn was willing.

"Taylor," my dad suddenly said. "You're glowing."

I glanced upwards on instinct. While I couldn't see my horn I could see a glow of some sort. It was light silvery purple like my mane had been.

"You're doing something," Glory Girl observed.

"Isn't this a little dangerous?" Panacea asked, taking a few steps back. My dad nodded in agreement silently.

"Oh, it'll be fine." Glory Girl waved them off. "Besides, she's an adorable little horse. What could she possibly do?"

A little more than reassured to continue I tried something else. Instead of trying to push whatever energy this was out of my horn I let it flow out without any input from me. Now that it was going, I could sort of feel the energy moving through my horn.

As the energy seeped out of me I realized it was sinking into the surrounding room. I could feel it everywhere now, giving me an odd intuitive sense of the room around me in a three-dimensional sense. It was rather disorienting.

Attempting to ignore it, I focused back on the chair, directing all the energy in the room at it. I lost my sense of the room, but the chair glowed. For a minute nothing happened. Then a realize the chair didn't have the weird energy in it, the energy was holding it.

With hardly any effort at all, I raised up the chair into the air with the same silvery purple glow that was coming off my forehead. All the eyes in the room swivelled towards it to watch it curiously.

Moving the chair up and down wasn't all that hard, once I had this energy around it I could feel it like it was a part of myself. Then it was as easy as moving a leg back and forth. I decided to experiment and tried to squeeze it a little. See if I could make the wood groan like it always did when I sat down in it.

The chair was crushed instantly.

"Have I mentioned that I'm really sorry for picking you up earlier," Glory Girl apologized as I had stopped levitating a chair and started levitating thousands of splinters. I barely heard her as I felt the innumerable amount of little spines of wood float around in my telekinesis. I started to arrange them, one splinter after another until they all stood in a few thousand rows. Each one pointing back at me and the others.

"You can stop now Taylor," my father said softly. Realizing what I was doing, I willed the splinters down the kitchen and shoved them into the garbage can.

"Alright," Glory Girl said with renewed energy. "That was marginally terrifying. But pretty sweet, overall."

"I guess," I said with a shake of my head. I barely felt that chair resist at all. I could only imagine what else I could do. Particularly if I had a person in my grasp... "Was there anything else about my body you noticed?" I asked, trying to change the subject of my thoughts. I wasn't expecting much. Just the discovery of these circuits had been a pretty big all things considered.

"Actually, yes." Panacea answered. She walked forward and knelt down next to me again, reaching out to put a hand on my neck again. "You have strange cell structures, the kind I sometimes see in shapeshifters. And considering the kind of change your power gave you, you might be able to go back to human form."

"No case 53 has been able to get back to human form," I pointed out. Panacea shrugged.

"But all other case 53s lost their memories, so you're already a little different." I frowned. I had already tried to turn back into a human. Several times over the last hour, but nothing had happened.

"There might be something blocking it," Panacea suggested as if reading my thoughts. "If you try to go back into a human form, I might be able to see it and change it."

"It's worth a try I suppose," I said, clearly not too hopeful of it. I closed my eyes anyway and thought hard about being human. I focused on the details, what walking felt like, what standing upright was like, how certain things felt against my skin. When I opened my eyes, nothing had changed.

I looked at Panacea pointedly and she furrowed her eyebrows.

"Something was happening." Panacea stated seriously. "It was slow, but a change was happening."

"So, what?" My father asked, inserting himself back into the conversation. "Can she turn back into her normal self? Are you saying it's possible?" It wasn't hard to pick out the hopefulness in his voice, being so sickly sweet I cringed inwardly.

"It might be," Panacea said with a heavy sigh as she rose off the ground. "When I say slow, I mean it. Whatever change there is going to be, it could take hours."

I suppose for someone else their heart would have dropped at that, but I was a little more glad that there was a change to be had at all. I suppose if I found a way to focus on things for hours on end like I had before I might actually stand a chance to become human again. But if that is the case, what is it going to be like trying to be a hero? If it takes hours to move between them I might as well just stay in one form and never change. Although, if this is possible, I'll have the most tightly sealed secret identity of any parahuman. Barring all of New Wave now. Which just might mean my entire secret identity is already blown. Dang it.

"Well, that's all I can do for now." Panacea said, lifting her arms slightly in a helpless gesture. "From what I see she is physically fine. You shouldn't see any problems."

"Well, thanks anyway," Dad said with a sigh. "I know you probably don't normally do house calls so thanks for that too."

"No problem." Glory Girl answered before turning to Panacea. "Come on sis, we've got ice cream at home."

Panacea shook her head at her as Dad showed them to the door. "Take me back to the hospital, I have a few patients to wrap up."

"But Amyyy-" She was cut off when my father shut the door behind them. Dad turned and pressed his back against the door and let out a sigh while shaking his head. It was then I realized why Panacea's sunken expression had looked so familiar, it was something my dad wore a lot of the time.

"Look, Taylor," he started shakily. "It's been a long day, and this is a lot to process. You think we can discuss this in the morning?"

I felt a pang of sympathy for him. That, combined with the full expectation of a serious conversation about this to be incredibly awkward, I took him up on his offer.

"Yeah, I'm ready to head to bed. That thing with the chair really took a lot out of me." As soon as I said I realized it was kind of true. It wasn't a physical exhaustion, but it was tiring all the same. And it was a little startling I hadn't notice it first.

"Yeah, that's good," he answered with a half-hearted nod. "Now, are you going to need clothing?"

Wait, what?

***

A/N: So, a few questions and clarfications. Taylor CAN change back into a human, but as hinted at it takes about an hour to actually do and there are some pretty obvious physical changes to her human form I'll get into the next chapter. And it only take about ten minutes to go from human to horse, and will start happening if she ins't paying attention like Imp's power. Now, some questions for you;

1) Would you like to see this story get taken out of Brockton Bay? It was suggested by my idea trampoline, Brandon, that I take this to a whole new city, new capes, new everything, and start fresh. And if you would like to see this happen, comment the kinds of settings, structures, capes, gangs, or anything you would like to see. (Even if the answer is overwelhmingly yes I will still spend several chapters in Brockton Bay where she meets the local heros and what not)

2) Her cape name. If you have an idea, let me know. And if there is some reason or meaning behind it be sure to include that. I was thinking something really simple, but inspiring. Like The Alicorn, because everyone is going to know who that is. It would be like naming yourself Hero. *silently looks at cannon Worm*

I might post more questions later if they occur to me.Last 

I woke up the next morning and immediately froze in place. Without looking I began to move parts of my body just to make sure they were really there. Fingers, toes, arms, fingers, legs, fingers, neck, fingers, feet, fingers, wrists, fingers!

I leapt out of bed as soon as it hit me and was struck with the room being normal sized again. A smile spread across my face as I threw open my bedroom door and raced to the bathroom, not even pausing to consider my father's stunned look as I shoved him out of the way to get inside.

Last night, after momentarily freaking out over the fact that I had been completely naked for a short time, I managed to climb into bed. With Panacea's words in my mind, I stared at the clock and thought about being human. I wanted it, I wanted it more than anything. If I could just get a human form my life might not be completely ruined. There might be some hope for it. I fell asleep think about it as I stared at the clock for an immeasurable amount of time. And now, it all paid off.

When I finally got a look in the mirror I couldn't tell if l should be happy or not. I wasn't Taylor, or at least, not the same Taylor I was.

The first thing that caught my eye was my hair. It was the same silvery colour with hints of blue and purple in the under tones. It was also completely immune to bed head, apparently. I silently thanked my powers that it was still the curly mess that had been my only attractive feature. But I could see that wasn't the case now.

My face had smoothed out, not a single blemish or mark to be found. My thin, expressive lips had filled out, becoming a little larger. They weren't quite the 'kissable' ones that Emma had, but they were definitely cuter in a way that reminded me of Madison. My eyes had changed too, growing a little smaller and turning a pretty shade of lavender. My ears were smaller, cuter and my face no longer showed any of the features I inherited from Dad.

A thought entered my mind and I bit my lower lip, an action, I noted, that looked rather adorable on my new face. Hoping against hope, I looked down at my chest.

Nope, still as flat as ever. Dang it.

And with that thought, I realized I still couldn't swear and had to clench my fists. It was fine, so I couldn't swear like normal. I was just going to have to get creative. Like… son of a Bolshevik? Mmm... it was a start.

With a deep breath, I stepped back from the mirror and looked myself over as a whole. The clothing I was wearing before I changed had come with me, thankfully. It was just a t-shirt and some jeans, enough to see I still was still thin as a board and really tall. But with a little squeak of excitement, I noticed that I no longer had my father's gawky frame and the small amount of pudge I had before was gone.

Now my muscles were toned and my body was more womanly in all the subtitler ways. My chest was still flat and my hips weren't any wider, but without thinking about it I was holding myself differently. My skin was smoother and my stomach was flat. I also noted that I was full of energy despite having only just woken up

This was me now. Taylor Hebert, the cute girl with purple, silvery hair and legs for days. I honestly didn't know how to feel about this. The thought of showing up back at school looking like this terrified me. I could only begin to think of ways the trio could taunt me with this change. If I wanted to find my figure I could alway wear baggy clothing like usual, but there was no hiding this hair, these eyes.

"Taylor," My dad said next to me, breaking me out of my daze. He had a bundle of clothing tucked under an arm and was looking at me expectantly. Oh yeah, I sort of ran past as he was on his way to take a shower. "It's good to see you back to normal," he said, his eyes flicking downward and then back up. "More or less," he amended.

I took a deep breath and sighed. "Yeah, it does feel a little better now." He smiled at me and set his clothes down on the counter.

"Glad to hear it." He wrapped me up in a hug for a moment. I was grateful for the contact. After spending most of yesterday in horse form, the only human contact I received had been when Glory Girl yanked me off the floor, the hug was oddly reassuring.

"Now," he said, breaking away from me. "Why don't you go get breakfast and think about what we're going to do about this situation while I take my shower."

I nodded to him and squeezed past on my way out. He shut and locked the door behind him.

I made my way down the hall and into the kitchen. The remains of the destroyed chair from last night was piled in the can. I ignored it and went to make myself a bowl of cereal.

Relishing in my height and fingers, I cheerfully made myself a bowl as I casually ignored the thoughts about what Dad said. I sat down at the table at a chair I had not obliterated and started eating.

So, what to do with this power?

The most obvious choice was the Protectorate. They had everything I needed, teammates, resources, controlled environments to test my power. And most importantly, they brought everyone together harmoniously. Letting their powers work off each other in the best way possible. And for the first time in my life, I was a little excited about meeting people. I was certain that I could befriend some of the Wards, not to mention to Protectorate.

But there was something about them, something that was just off. I couldn't put my hoof on it, but something about them was a little strange. Like, while they looked cool and seem like just what I need, it felt like they weren't doing their jobs. Like no matter what they do, there was always conflict in the city. Always some chaos.

The next option was independent hero. There were several issues with that, most of all would be having to respect the rules the Protectorate set. I felt a twinge of annoyance at the thought. I heard chatter all over the internet forums about certain rules that weren't written anywhere. I didn't know them all, but I knew the Protectorate enforced most of them, even set some. It seemed rather counter intuitive to me, the faster the villains went down the sooner things became peaceful again. And after all, that is what everyone wants right?

If I became an independent hero I might try getting some teammates to back me up. If that chair was anything to go by, I could probably pack a punch with a little more training. But I was little a midget horse at the end of the day. While I will more than likely get underestimated because of that, I could reasonably assume I'm not going to be fighting Lung or Kaiser anytime soon.

But then I realized that I don't need to. Normal humans are the lifeblood of gangs, without them gangs fall apart. While capes like Kaiser and Hookwolf were the backbone, that was only against other capes. Gangs were around before capes were, and the police had a hard enough time dealing with them then. I didn't need to pick fights with capes, I just needed to take out the foundation of normal people they are built on.

I realized I had closed my eyes in thought at some point during this without noticing. I opened them and realized I was two feet tall again.

"Celestia curse it all to Tartarus!" I shouted, kicking a chair with a hoof and sending it skidding across the floor. "Seriously?" I asked no one in particular. "It takes hours to become a human but ten flipping minutes to become a horse? Why?!"

"Taylor are you okay I heard-" Dad cut himself off when he saw me sitting on the floor looking flustered, now back in horse form. "Ah," he said. "So I take it the human form doesn't stick as well as we hoped?"

I blew a raspberry and said, "It looks like I actually need to have being human on the mind, like when I fell asleep and when I was going about this morning. I was so caught up in thinking about what my next step should be I didn't even notice I was changing."

My father's eyebrows scrunched up together. "That feels like something a person would notice."

I glared at him. A small smile spread across his face.

"Alright, I'll take your word on it. So, have you decided what you want to do?" I could hear the apprehension creeping into his voice. I already had an idea of what his reaction was going to be, so I braced myself.

"I want to become an independent hero." As I stated I lifted a hoof and stomped it in front of me definitively. I say Dad take a deep breath and let out a sigh.

"Are you sure?" He asked seriously. I nodded.

"Definitely."

"Why not the Wards?" He asked. "I was looking them up last night. They would give you time to learn your powers, only send you on small scale mission, and even pay you decently."

I shook my head. "Because I can do more. While the Wards are safer, I can accomplish more on my own."

His eyebrows furrowed in concern. "I would feel better if you joined the Wards. You could get seriously hurt, and if you're alone no one will be able to help you."

"I'll have to help myself," I answered him. "I'm not going to be stupid about it. The first sign of Lung or anyone, I'm gone. I won't even fight any capes if I can help it." It didn't look like he was reassured.

"What is your plan?"

"I'm going after the normal people in the gangs," I answered quickly. "If I take out their man power and some of their illegal supply chains, I can cripple them enough that other heroes like the Protectorate or New Wave can take them out for good."

"You're not bulletproof," Dad told me. But to be fair, we hadn't tested that. I did run face first into a wall at neck breaking speeds and didn't hurt myself or the wall. "You're in just as much danger fight normal people as capes."

"Dad, there is going to be a danger no matter what I do. That is what happens when you become a cape."

"Well, what if you don't?" My dad asked, a little hint of desperation creeping into his voice. "Why don't you focus on your human form? You can go back to school, live a little more of a normal life. Not get into all this cape stuff."

"You know I can't do that," I said flatly, the kinder tone dropping out of my voice. He opened his mouth to protest but then he saw my expression and I could guess what was going through his mind.

In a normal person's life, there was a point where parents had to accept they just couldn't do anything about it. For most kids, that was when they had their own job and were paying for their own car and gas. At that point, a parent might not like it, but the kid has every right to go out and do as he pleases and the parent is limited to what they can do to stop them. I imagine that is exactly what was going through my father's mind right now.

I had superpowers, and I was going to use them. And in this moment, Dad knew he couldn't change that. He could only mitigate the damage.

"I'd still feel better if you joined the Wards," he finally said, if a bit weakly. I shook my head.

"Maybe if I can't actually accomplish what I think I can." I saw his expression rise a little at that, so I decided to give it to him and move on. "Tonight I'm going out to the Trainyard to test some things, see what I can do."

"You're not going out fighting people, right?" Dad asked slowly.

"No," I answered. Like I had said, I'm not stupid. "I just need to figure some stuff out, see what I'm capable of."

"Then Taylor, can you promise something?"

"What is it," I asked suspiciously.

"When you go out for real, I want you to call New Wave. I don't know if this is something they normally do, but see if you can get Glory Girl to go with as an extra layer of protection. Just to be as safe as possible." I studied him. He looked a little pained at asking, but I could at least do him give him this one.

"Alright Dad, all give her a call when I'm ready to start going out."

"Thank you, Taylor." Dad suddenly knelt down and hugged me tightly. I was shocked for a few moments before he let go and looked up at the clock. He paused and glanced down at me.

"I have to go to work," he said apologetically. "I'll be back later." He paused then said, "And don't get into any trouble please." I rolled my eyes.

"Yes Dad," I said sarcastically. He smiled a little and turned towards the door, picking up his keys off the key rack. As soon as he was out the door I looked up at the table was my bowl of cereal was left abandoned. I wonder if my not-fingers could hold a spoon?

***

I found myself in the Trainyard later that night, all alone. I had been picking up discarded bottles and throwing them as hard as I could at the sides of old shipping containers crumbling boxcars. Neither stood much of a chance. I moved onto small stones and found that I could move them reasonably fast, punching through the thin metal of the containers as if they were paper. The telekinesis was only getting easier the more I practiced it, now I was at the point that I could pick up several dozen pebbles and have them all doing different things simultaneously. My record was thirty-three at this point.

I moved on to other tactics.

I recalled from last night that when I sort of flexed my horn muscles it had spread out over the room and sank into the objects around me. I tried that now, throwing as much energy as I could through my horn and letting it flow.

The energy spread out about fifty feet before coming to a stop. At first, it was like a really fuzzy picture, but as I kept going it grew sharper and I began to pick up details. I start getting a feel for small rocks, bugs, the shape of storage containers, all sorts of things. Then I began noticing plants.

They caught my attention for some odd reason so I walked over to the nearest one. It was a weed, a dandelion. My energy was interacting with it some way, something was different. I tilted my head and tried to get a better perspective on it. I stopped letting my magic flow wildly and directed it at the flower.

I felt a pull inside of me. It was an emotion of some sort I could tell, some way connected with this flower. Continuing to direct my energy at it, I started searching through all my emotions to find what it was the flower was pulling at. Suddenly I found it.

Determination.

It instantly made sense to me, that a weed would be linked to that emotion specifically. It was a tough, vigorous kind of plant. It needed it. I remembered my only feeling earlier today when I was talking to Dad, how I felt determined to become a hero. I directed that at the dandelion.

The glowing light around my horn suddenly shifted colour to a bright orange and the flower was surrounded in it as well. I let it go for a few seconds before cutting it off. But even when I was no long flexing my energy at it, the plant continued to glow.

I don't know what I've done, but it was clear I did something to it. Changed it somehow. Without thinking, I reached forward and ate it.

The moment the plant hit my tongue I was assaulted with two feelings. One, this planted tasted really good holy crap! I needed more of these!

Secondly, I felt a sharp twinge of energy move through me. As the plant slid down my throat, I felt the feeling increase. My blood began pumping in my veins and I felt my adrenaline trigger. I blinked and took a few steps back.

I had a guess on what just happened, but I needed to know more. I looked around, letting my energy spread again. This time I found some wild daisies growing out of the ground where a storage container meet it.

I threw energy at, a little more violently than I had with the dandelion. Once again I felt a tug at a particularly feeling inside of me as the energy enveloped the flowers. This time, I thought about what daisies represented. If the weeds were determination, then daisies would be more light hearted. Something…. Heartwarming? No, hopeful? No, Cheerful? Yes! That's the one.

This time I didn't attempt if finding a memory to attach to it, I just threw cheerfulness at it as best I could. My horn shifted colour as it and the plant was consumed in bright yellow light. I relaxed my energy. The glow remained, if a little dimmed. I reached forward with my mouth and bit off the head of the flower. And I was only marginally more excited for the taste of it than I was seeing what the effect was.

I wasn't sure how to describe the taste of daisy. If was about exactly like how you might expect a flower to taste, only enjoyable to a fine degree. I could really enjoy making some sort sandwich out of this. Maybe a milkshake? Can I drink milk? I growled silently, apparently, powers weren't the only thing I needed to test.

It took me a moment to realize what exactly the effect was. It was subtle enough for me to skip over it at first glance but when I looked around I noticed more. Or rather, I was seeing things in a much higher detail than I had before. I could see the grooves in the rocks on the ground, the subtle was the ground had been torn up and moved by years of long since gone large equipment moving back and forth across it years ago. I could see through the darkness like the moon was constantly shining on me, no longer needing to use the distant lights of barely working street lamps to see my way.

Now more than a little curious about my power's interaction with plants I let my power spread out again, seeping into every available surface it came across. I was aware of that strange tiredness from before creeping back in. I decided that I would pace myself a little more if it grew much, but push myself over my limit by the end just to see what would happen.

As far as wild flowers went in the middle of a bustling city like Brockton Bay, even in an practically abandoned train yard, I didn't have a lot of options. Weeds were the most common, patches of grass after that. There were a few daisies spread out here and there. After a minute I found a new one, unable to tell exactly what just from my energy sense. I started to walk towards it.

I suddenly came to a stop. At the fringes of my power, I felt people standing around, barely moving at all. With a little trepidation, I stalked forward one hoof at a time in an attempt to not draw any attention to myself. I cut off my energy. I didn't think a natural flow of energy caused my horn to glow, but no point in taking chances if I wasn't sure.

Making use of my small body, I wiggled underneath a box car and crawled forward. My stomach brushed the ground lightly as I went, coming uncomfortably tight when I had to crawl over the railroad track and my back brushed up against the surface of the car.

When I came out on the other side I realized that there was still another set of tracks and cars between me and these people. Once again, I got low and started moving.

When they came into sight I recognized them instantly as one of the gangs. With the daisy already wearing off, it was impossible to tell which as I couldn't see their colours. I could see their skin though, which was uniformly white. But that could either be the E88 or the ABB, as both sets of people had pretty white skin, particularly in the dark like this.

There was about twenty feet of open pavement between us, putting me just out of earshot. I could see about twenty or thirty of them gathered up on that side, meaning they were here to do something. No reason to congregate in these numbers otherwise. So I had to find a way to get closer and hear what they were saying. And soon because they were all suddenly turning their attention to someone who appeared to be giving instructions.

I started looking for alternatives. Anything that could be useful in any way. Something that could cover my approach maybe. Then I saw exactly what I needed and I cursed myself for fitting the cartoonish appearance so well.

A minute later I was tiptoeing across the ground with a cardboard box draped over my body. Luckily everyone seemed more concerned with the guy that was talking to them and I was relatively unnoticed. When someone did look my way I simply stopped and crouched so the box would cover me completely and wait for the person to look away. I could make out the murmur of words, I just needed to get a little closer to hear.

"... Always make sure to do that, damn niggers ain't worth two bullets." Well, that answered which gang. "Now," the stranger continued. "You'll each have a pistol for the job, fifteen bullets in a magazine. Each one of you will have ten magazines to reload. I don't know if you can do basic math but that means you're carting a hundred and fifty bullets each, times thats by the lot of you. And remember; one nigger, one bullet. We don't have to kill them all, but just enough that the rest will get the message."

I felt my blood run cold as I realized the gravity of the situation. This was the E88, and they were about to stage a racial cleansing.

"Now Rune and I will back your back up." The man stated. "We don't expect capes but just in case we'll be here, disguised among you lot to get the drop on them."

I shifted my position a little to find a gap between the people to get a better look at the guy giving the orders. If at this distance and only glimpsing him through the people it was immediately obvious who it was.

Hookwolf, standing side by side with Rune.

I took a deep breath. I couldn't get to a phone to call for help, not soon enough for it to matter anyway. I could call the Protectorate or New Wave and the best case scenario is that Hookwolf and Rune distract them while the rest attending keep going. There was really only one option, I had to find a way to cripple them.

There were three options the way I saw it. I could pick up a lot of small rocks, but the more I picked up the less force I could put behind each of them. Given my limit was about at thirty rocks I could have almost one rock for each person. But I didn't need them all out, just most of them. If I dropped that number to fifteen I could probably shoot the rocks through their legs and half their force. I could make a run for it then, call who I need. Provided I could escape the two capes.

Alternatively, I could pick up a single rock and put everything I had into a single shot right through Hookwolf skull. I read his PHO page, nothing but a lethal shot would put him down. And right now, while in his most human form, this was the best chance I was likely to get.

Rune might propose a problem as well. I wasn't sure I wanted to pit my telekinesis against her's just yet. She was far more experienced than me and if I had to deal with Hookwolf and gang members at the same time I likely would lose.

Meaning no matter what my choice I was still faced with one or two more threats.

Carefully, I selected two rocks as I came to my decision. Then I telepathically shoved them into Hookwolf's eyes.