7

Whatever you end up doing to the Merchants, you know your first order of business is finishing your own costume. A bullet-proof costume top is all well and good, but you want the whole thing finished ASAP. To that end, you spend the entire day after the press conference in your new workspace, after stopping off near the house. You're still not allowed in it, but they let you get Dad's truck from the driveway. He parks half a block away and Anne brings the remaining widows, snugging them under the junk in the pickup's bed.

Dad tries to say he should stay at the workshop with you, but you wave casually at all the deadly spiders. A quick demonstration of how ludicrous Marceau's TK is convinces him that you can keep an eye on yourself for a day, and he heads off to work.

Anne keeps offering little chittering exclamations of delight at the setup. She's gotten so good at talking through the insects, that she hardly thinks into your mind any more.

After the first few minutes, it gets kinda boring. There's just…nothing for you to do. Marceau patrols the area, amusing herself by occasionally miming a lasso and tripping random shady characters. Anne is busy pulling in all the flies in the area of feed the widows, and setting them up with small nests in the terrariums. She keeps muttering to herself about "selective breeding" and "tensile strength" and other random crap. You wouldn't notice except she's taken to having this not-quite-human-shaped pile of flies and mosquitoes follow her around and do the talking for her.

'Yes. You are more than right. It's not just creepy, it's fucking nightmare fuel," Marceau agrees.

You decide to spend the day focusing on your ability to sense their powers. Your control is still total crap, but by lying on the floor of the workshop, and closing your eyes, you're able to get a pretty okay feel for Marceau's constructs and Anne's swarm. You feel like you rapidly hit a wall, though, beyond which your perception just won't improve.

It's frustrating.

By the end of the day, Anne's well settled and she assured you that she can finish your costume in just a couple of days. With a better infrastructure for organizing them, she thinks that once you're settled you'll be able to crank out a bodysuit probably in under two weeks. Assuming you're able to deal with the Merchants and keep the workshop undisturbed, that is.

Dad's truck arrives and Anne forces the widows into torpor.

You're almost half-getting used to the cot in Kurt and Lacey's den. You still toss and turn much more than you'd prefer, but you're getting something like a full night's sleep. That morning when you awake, you find yourself drawn into Taylor Selection, as usual.

The energy has returned, but before you can think about where to direct it, your eye is caught by another Taylor being lit up with a spotlight. Walking over, you see that she's sharply dressed – pinstripe suit jacket and pencil skirt with a blouse and accessories that would let her blend in at some high-powered business meeting. If it weren't for the domino mask on her face, you'd never suspect she was a cape.

You've been crazy curious, and it's time to figure out what's going on with the sickly-looking Taylor and you figure you may as well figure out this new business suit Taylor too. You activate them each in order, their mannequins appearing in your two active circles.

You pull back from Taylor selection and are faced with two brand-new ghosts. They react predictably.

"Oh. Huh," sickly-Taylor says, looking down at herself. "Guess the brain tumor finally did me in."

"Brain tumor?! What? Where am I? Did Lung kill me?"

Oh my god. Another one?!

'Oh my god, another one?! What the hell is it with Taylors from different dimensions and fighting Lung, of all people?!' you address both of them.

The reference to other dimensions silences them both for a moment.

'Does that mean I'm not dead?' sickly-Taylor asks.

'Um… yeah actually I'm sorry I don't know. I think you probably are,' you reply.

'No! NO! How the hell did that happen! Lung was moving towards me and the Wards, but Dennis should've been able to freeze him, we had it all planned!!' business-Taylor looks like she's starting to panic.

You wish you'd kept Anne available. Being able to shunt emotions into the bugs would be pretty handy right about now.

'And where are my lines?! I've got no lines! Where's Dad!!' At her reference to lines, you realize that you've got these translucent ghostly lines all leading out from the center of your chest. There are two very solid, pure snow-white lines leading to the two ghosts. A strong green line points towards the couch in the next room where Dad is sleeping, and two fainter ones are pointing upstairs. Nearly a dozen or so faint greenish-blueish lines are pointing off into the distance, and one very angry-red line is pointing roughly north.

'Calm down. Dad, Danny Hebert, is totally okay. He's in the next room sleeping. What do you mean by lines? What are these things?' you ask, waving at your chest.

'So wait forget her "lines", are we dead or what? I mean I knew it was coming, but I was hoping I'd have a bit more time to help Dad with all the Union shit he was dealing with.'

The reference to Dad and his work with the Union calms down Prada-girl. A brief bit of normalcy in what must otherwise, to her, be deeply surreal.

'Okay guys, ultra-quick Cliff's Notes version: my name is Taylor Anne Hebert. After being bullied for a year and a half by Emma, Madison, and Sophia,' you can see both of them kind of nodding along, 'I suffered a trigger event and got powers when they shoved me a locker filled with rotting tampons for hours. My power seems to be…'

Business-suit looks like she wants to throw up. Sickly-Taylor is totally gobsmacked.

'Huh. Guess you guys didn't go through that one? Well, you can tell me about it in a sec. Lemme just finish giving you the quick run-down. So I don't actually know how my power works, just that I seem to be able to summon ghostly copies of other Taylors. Things are a little different, but so far each of them has described having their memories fade out to nothing, usually at a really tense moment.

'So, yeah. I hate to break it to you, but I think my power is summoning other parahuman Taylors from, like, other Earths, like Earth Aleph or whatever, right at the moment before they die. I don't know, I really don't know for certain, but that's my best guess. I've summoned two other Taylors before now, and have access to four total.'

They both take a good, long while to process that.

'Will I die now? Again, I mean?'

'Not that I know of. The other two ghosts I summoned earlier retained their full parahuman powers, but were actually like ghosts – objects just move through them, and they don't seem to need to eat or sleep. They're impervious to gunfire or any other damage we've tried to think of.'

She pauses again and then gives you a firm nod, 'Okay.'

'Just okay?' you can't help the half-smile that steals onto your face.

'Yeah, just okay. I mean, I was already dying of brain cancer, and I was one of those chumps who got a super-weak power after Scion disappeared. I remember Emma's betrayal, but she never did anything like… that… to me. Somewhere in there I triggered with super-weak telekinesis. It's been very slowly growing, but it's kinda sucky. I can only lift just over ten pounds.

And so apparently I died. Really, no big. I was expecting it. My last memory isn't anything to do with Lung. I was busy raiding an E88 safe house with Lisa and this skinhead asshole was charging at me. Lisa suggested that I try to punch him in the brain. I'm pretty sure he went down, but my memory gets pretty fuzzy at that point. And then I woke up here,' she gestures around the room. 'And based on the singing fish plaque on the wall over there, I'd guess we're in Kurt and Lacey's house.'

You smile at that. 'Yeah, casa de Hebert got its front wall blown off by the Merchants so they're putting us up for now.'

They both react at once, 'How the hell did the druggie Merchants…' 'Who are the Merchants?'

You quiet them both down. 'I can get you guys caught up in just a sec. For now, Taylor, do you feel like you understand what's going on? Can you tell me about your own situation?' you address Business Suit.

She still seems really uneasy and much much angrier than any of the other Taylors so far. As she starts her story, you understand why – her life was actually going pretty well. She triggered in response to bullying from Emma and Sophia, but there was no locker to contend with. She has a thinker power that lets her detect relationships between people, and had ended up joining the Wards. You and the other Taylor can't totally suppress the vague distaste you both feel at hearing that fact.

She talks about how she learned that her power could let her give another cape a little boost, or temporarily borrow a fraction of their power, and had started really fitting in with the Wards. They'd gone out on a mission to stop the Undersiders from getting away with a heist when Lung showed up. She'd had a plan all worked out and was totally sure it would work, but something must've gone wrong.

You take a moment to digest what they've both told you, when you suddenly burst out, 'Holy crap wait did you say after Scion disappeared?!'

'Yeah, why? Is he still around in this dimension?'

You assure sickly-Taylor that Scion is still very much around when she asks a question that chills you to the bone: 'Oh. Does that mean you still have the Endbringers, too?'

While Prada-Taylor comes from a dimension that's basically the same as yours, Anne's, and Marceau's, it seems that sickly-Taylor inhabited an Earth Bet that was different in lots of subtle ways. Hero was still alive and the leader of the Protectorate. They didn't have Endbringers, but they had much more frequent but smaller monster attacks from things called Calamities. And her Lisa was the same freckled, blonde girl, but she was a parahuman Thinker operating solo, rather than a normal girl working for the Undersiders.

=​

Since you can't get any work done with the widows, you spend the rest of the day catching up on homeschool work and playing around with the two new powersets. Prada-Taylor agrees to go by "Lea" as a sort of shortened name from "Liaison," her name when she was a Ward. She does demand a chance to go chat with Wards here as a "dying wish" as part of her agreement to help you.

It's weird having one of your ghosts get angry with the situation and act a little at odds with your own wishes (since you want basically nothing to do with any government stooges), but it just re-confirms for you that you're pulling actual, real people from other dimensions.

Sickly-Taylor asks to be called "Worm," which you find kind of morbid and gross. She explains, though, that the scan of her brain showed a worm-like growth in her head, and that both her powers and her death were defined by that little worm of cancer gnawing away at her brain. She's definitely way more of a downer than any of the others (which is totally understandable!), but also more accepting of the idea of being an actual ghost.

You learn in short order that Lea can't push or pull on Worm at all. It seems that her power-boosting probably only applies to other actual capes rather than your ghosts. Her pulling on your power does nothing for her, but when she pushes into you, you suddenly feel a much stronger connection to both of them. You can see clearly out of their eyes, and not feel the slightest bit of disorientation from now having three pairs of eyes all at once. You get much, much better awareness of what Worm's doing when she uses her TK, although your ability to use the power is still pretty crappy.

Boosting you completely tires Lea out quickly, so you take a break from power testing. She explains what the various colors mean (blue for neutral/work relations, green for friends and family, pink for romance, red/orange for hostility, and yellow for concern or embarrassment, with the lines representing the base state and pulsing orbs representing current feelings). She's never seen white before and is more than a little weirded out by the white line she has to you.

A moment's thought reveals the obvious connections you've got: green to Dad, Kurt, and Lacey; Blueish-green to New Wave and the Undersiders; and the angry red-orange has got to be Skidmark. Huh. That'll make tracking down any of your enemies much easier, you muse.

You pass out early that night. Catching up on a week of homework using Kurt and Lacey's ancient computer was trying, and working out two new powersets was more exhausting than you'd expected.

The next morning you re-activate Anne and Marceau to get back to costume work. They let you know that they had no idea an entire day had gone by. It was like going to sleep and waking up again, just more abrupt. You're glad to find out that time out of the active circles doesn't seem to have any bad effect.

You explain the other two Taylors to them. They're both kinda freaked out at the one Taylor who said that Scion and the Endbringers disappeared at the same time in her world. That's a connection that's both creepy and WAY over your heads for now. After a lengthy discussion, the three of you decide what to do about the Merchants, and you come to a decision about using that "level up energy" you've got available.

"But we're going to have to hit hard, that's all I said. Hit. Hard. Not kill them, stop putting words in my mouthy-bug-sound-hole, Marceau."

'It sure sounded to me like you meant "kill them",' Marceau replies.

'Ugh, fine, I'll think it then so you can't claim my bugs have no "tone of voice." All I'm saying is that Taylor made it clear that she's got a strong "aggression" line which means we should be able to find Skidmark easily. We don't need New Wave's fliers to patrol around looking for Merchants, we can go right to the top. New Wave is a bunch of powerhouses, yeah, but we don't need powerhouses for this. We need to get in quietly, tie up the Merchants all in one fell swoop, and get out. New Wave is too flashy for that kind of quick ambush-strike.'

'Far be it from me to doubt the precision you have with your creepy-ass power, but after going overboard last time and seeing what that did to Taylor, do you really want to risk any more deaths?'

'It's a hard world, Marceau, and we need to be hard in it.'

'I'd say you scare me, but you'd just…'

Marceau stopped as Anne did an exaggerated mime of laughter, holding her belly and shaking her shoulders up and down.

'Bitch.'

You overhear their entire conversation, of course. They'd thought you were asleep and thus were making no efforts to keep their conversation private. What you get that Marceau doesn't is the texture behind Anne's words. She's worried about you, and a feeling of fierce protectiveness radiates from your connection to her. You're not sure, though, how to react to the idea that such protectiveness lets Anne feel sort of okay with the idea of killing more Merchants.

You're a hero, and you're going to act like one, even if Anne seems to be growing more callous and "practical" by the day.

Their bickering fades from your awareness as you focus your mind back into Taylor Selection. You quickly push the energy into yourself. A wave of tingly warmth spreads over you body, and you stagger slightly. There's a feeling of pulling, coming from the rows of Taylors in front of you. It's not physical, but your… mind… feels stretched. And stretched. You double over, feeling like you're going to throw up. And…

SNAP

SNAP

SNAPSNAPSNAPSNAP

SNAP

Like leaning back and feeling your spine pop again and again, you feel a pulse and relief to the pulling sensation a half-dozen times. Straightening back up, you see that the array of Taylors in front of you has grown considerably brighter. You still only have full spotlights on Anne, Lea, Worm, and Marceau, but now another group have the dim footlight-style illumination that lets you make out their features reasonably well.

You do a quick walk around the array of Taylor-mannequins. In a semi-circle just behind your four ghosts are six more dimly lit. One is the first monstrous Taylor you've seen available – she looks like some sort of ape-bug cross. There's another that's two almost-overlapping ghostly Taylors and the one next to her looks like four overlapping Taylors. You don't feel any resonance as you walk by any of these other selves, so there must be something more you need to do before you can call them from their dimensions.

Further back is another loose semi-circle of seven people. Just walking back here staggers you slightly. Something about these other selves is… intimidating. There are two more who look like they have some sort of replication power, as there are multiple entities around them. As you pass one that has a shadow that looks like Lung next to her, your attention is caught by a Taylor that has…

oh my god…

Mom?

Is that Mom?

She's kind of ghostly and black and white or something, but she looks so…

Tears form in the corner of your eyes. A soft, kind look on Mom's face. It's so distinctive even on that faded black and white image. Mom's got her hand protectively placed on that Taylor's shoulder.

Is it just a projection?

You find that you don't care. That Taylor has Mom back. You resolve to figure out whatever you need to do in order to be able to summon that ghost, and you'll do it.

=​

You pull back from Taylor Selection.

Once again you're staggered. You'd been lounging in a chair in the corner of the workshop, so there was nowhere to fall to, but you can't help but flail slightly. You lean forward, holding your head in your hands. Deep breaths, Taylor, deep breaths, you tell yourself.

Your stomach flops and your head pounds.

Anne zips to your side. 'What is it?'

'Ohhh… god… is this what you sense all the time?'

'What do you mean? I thought you'd gotten a handle on sensing the swarm?'

You slowly, slowly come back to yourself. 'It's so much data. So much. I thought I knew what you sensed before, but this is amazing. They're not just little bundles of nervous systems, each one is made up of a whole galaxy of information. I think I can see now how you can move an individual bug with such precision, control and direct the weaving of each spider.'

You reach out to the nearest terrarium and move your senses into the handful of spiders stored in little sectioned-off parts of the glass enclosure. You can watch them work with uncanny speed and accuracy as Anne directs them. At the same time, you rise from your chair and start walking forward, letting your senses take in all of the widows.

It's overwhelming at first but you realize it's not hard. It's… effortless. Your mind just expands and expands to take in all that information.

Is this what it's always like for Anne? Being able to simultaneously sense and control every individual insect while also giving large-scale general instructions. You reach forward again and hold the widow still.

'Hey! What the fuck was that!' Anne mentally barks at you.

'What?' you ask. You feel no strain in controlling this single widow. Before, even moving around a single cockroach felt like trying to tie your shoes with numb hands but now you're quickly able to seize control of all the widows in the tank and make them dance their legs around. It's as easy as controlling your own body – maybe even easier.

'Okay first stop doing that, you're fucking up my work in that tank.'

Anne sounds pretty testy. You release your control and can see as she sets them back into their rhythm of simultaneously sucking juice out of flies and pooping out silk. It's gotta be totally unnatural for them, you think, watching as Anne continues marching an assembly-line of flies right to each widow's mouth, having it drink deep and then use its front two legs to toss the fly out of the enclosure and grab at the next one, spinning silk all the while. Cockroaches scuttle across the floor, clearing the fly-corpses out and eating the remains.

You idly wonder what's happening to all the cockroach poop.

'So when you stopped those widows, I was completely unable to take control back,' she begins.

'Is it that unsurprising? Since I'm the link to this dimension I'd guess that all of your powers are routing through me, so the fact that my commands trump yours is…'

'It's not that,' she interrupts.

'It was like when you made the widows do that, it felt like I was the one telling them to do that. Like I could tell that that wasn't what I'd intended to do, but it still felt totally natural that I was telling them to just stand there and dance around. It wasn't uncomfortable, it wasn't alien, and it didn't feel like you were Mastering me or anything. But I could feel that my control over the flies right next to them was different and it was just… strange.

'I know I'm not really in a position to give you orders or anything, and I agree with Worm that probably you've saved us all from a fate worse than oblivion, so I'm just going to ask, please, as a favor to me – don't do that again unless it's absolutely necessary.'

You're stunned for a moment. Ever since Anne joined you, she's always radiated fierce determination, practicality, and laser-like focus on your shared goals. The only crack in her façade is when she sees little moments with you and Dad, but even there she seems to have settled into a comfortable equilibrium with him and your relationships with each other.

For the first time, you're seeing real vulnerability.

A moment's reflection and you realize it's not that surprising – her bugs are sort of all she has now. Her only way to interact with the world. In some sense, she is her swarm now. And you just tromped all over her control of that, and you did it in a way that made her feel like she wanted to do what you were doing with the bugs.

You give her a slow nod. 'I'm sorry, Anne, I had no idea. When I was in Taylor Selection, I felt the same sort of energy that let me have Marceau out at the same time, but this time I pushed the energy into myself. When I pulled out of it, my sense over the swarm was overwhelming and the control of the bugs right here near me…' you trail off.

'Yes, of course. Anne, the swarm is yours and unless it's a life-or-death situation I won't take control of them again.'

You call Marceau back in and explain to her what just happened. As ever, she's remarkably sanguine about things: 'Well now we've gotta try it with my power, too.'

She mimes the whole "stuck in a box" thing and you can actually see translucent, shimmery fields surrounding her. They're not any color at all and when you focus more closely it looks like you're not actually seeing them with your eyes. More like your mind can actually perceive them now and it tells you that you're "seeing" them.

'That's pretty impressive, even I don't see them, not in any real sense. I just kind of know exactly where they are and how they work, like when you close your eyes and can still move your limbs around.'

You quickly start miming a box around yourself as well. You don't see anything, but you immediately feel what Marceau is talking about. A box forms around yourself and you know exactly where it is.

'Whoa…" she begins. 'That's cool as hell. I guess that's what it looks like when you see mine?'

She continues miming her own box, and you feel like the forcefields around her are maybe a little… dimmer now?

'Does it feel weird at all when I make my own TK stuff?' you ask.

'Nope, totally cool.'

You breathe a sigh of relief. It must be something about how Anne controls her swarm that made you using her power so uncomfortable.

=​

The day wraps up with Anne having finished the bottom half of your costume. She's sewn in several layers of carapaces over your chest and abdomen, and given you knee and shoulder guards of the same chitinous armor. She sewed the whole thing into a single piece with a zipper up the side.

'I never understood why someone would put the zipper in the back of a costume. How are you going to zip yourself up?' she comments.

You pull the whole thing on for the first time. The headpiece is a full ski-mask like covering that only has an opening for your mouth. The yellow goggles give a yellow tinge to the world.

You do a few quick squats and flexes to get the silk settled over your limbs. When you turn around, you're startled by Anne and Marceau. They're looking at each other, just as surprised as you are.

Anne's ghostly form is now covered in a costume almost exactly like yours. Hers is much darker, leaves her hair flowing out the back of the mask, and has these really intimidating mandible-looking things down the sides of her face. Marceau is now in a full mime outfit, but looks much bulkier – like she's armored – and has a full face-mask on. She also looks kinda like a skinny boy.

'Huh, this is what I looked like the last day I remember…' they say in exact unison.

'Jinx!' you reply.

You briefly wonder if now all of your ghosts will come out in their full costumes, now that you've got yours.

The idle thought is brushed aside as you get to the real issue: 'Okay so guys, I'm sticking with my call from this morning. We're going home as soon as Dad gets here,' you hear the telltale rattle of his pickup at that exact moment, 'and we're calling New Wave to start operation: cash out the Merchants.'

Marceau groans and Anne stares at you blankly. 'Oh wait, was that a pun or something?'

Bitch.

'Marceau, I'm sorry but I'm going to have to bring Lea out for this one, since we'll need her Thinker power to track down Skidmark. It'll have to be team Master-Thinker operation.'

She gives an exaggerated bow, twirling one hand around and sweeping it low. 'As my Lady wills.'

'Dork.'

=​

That night, you get Lady Photon on the phone and explain the plan…

=====​Choices!

You've decided that there's safety in numbers, and that you need to cement your relationship with New Wave through a successful operation. The question now is how you deal with them as the operation proceeds. Certainly Lady Photon and Brandish are going to try and tell you what to do. So do you:Spoiler

Your name is Anne, now. You've come to terms with that, and your entire situation, really. You think back, chewing over your decisions again and again, and yet you can't feel like you did anything wrong. You had to step in and interrupt whatever Lung was planning. You sold your life to save however many children Lung was referring to. It might not have been a long career, but you died a hero. And now you've even been given a chance to help another Taylor do better.

This thing with the Merchants, though. Taylor is being naïve. You'd never wanted to kill anyone, but you feel totally at peace with the fact that seven of those fuckers attacked you and Dad at home and got themselves dead for it. When the shit hits the fan over the next day or two, you're going to:Spoiler

That night, you get Lady Photon on the phone and explain the plan.

"Taylor, have you talked to your father about this?"

"Wait, really? Why?"

Disapproving silence comes across the line.

"No, I mean he doesn't ask me how to run the union, why would I ask him about the specifics of a superhero plan to capture supervillains? I thought that's what you…"

"Okay, okay, enough, Taylor. Sometimes I forget that not every young hero has had the advantage of growing up with parahuman parents like Eric and Crystal have.

"So let's run through it one more time, but explain to me exactly why you want to do it that way."

Anne is jabbering at you a mile a minute and you can feel the jittering excitement she's pushing into all the bugs in the area. Marceau is just smiling lazily, miming that spinning-plates routine with your dishware, except without the actual spinning poles. So yeah, a kitchen full of agitated bees and floating, spinning flatware.

"Okay so if it's just me and Glory Girl at first, we can keep quiet and not be noticed. If you're all bounding around and flying overhead, you'll be noticed and give them a chance to get away, or even worse get one of Squealer's trucks running and that would be bad. So to keep it subtle, me and Vicky track them down.

"I need Vicky with me as a bodyguard since I won't have Marceau to shield me with her TK and Anne's bugs don't react fast enough if even something as simple as an angry guy with a gun comes charging at us."

You feel a huff of irritation from Anne. You spare her a glance, 'It's true.'

'Yeah like I wouldn't find and choke out an idiot with a gun when he was still a quarter-mile away.'

'Oh my god stop joking about killing people Anne! Are you sure you were a hero before you died? Jeez!'

"Okay that sounds reasonable," Photon Mom admits. "And from there…?"

"We get to wherever my orange relationship line is leading. I text you all the address while Anne is scouting the place out with her bugs. Once you arrive, I give you a quick briefing on where everyone is placed in the building."

"That also sounds reasonable. But…"

"But this next part is reasonable too!" you exclaim. "You all stay outside the building to form a perimeter and Anne will have her bugs tie up everyone with spider silk and jam up their guns and stuff. Before they even know we're there, they'll be incapacitated and we can just waltz in and clean them up."

Photon Mom pauses for a moment. "And where will you be in all of this?"

"Um on top of the building with Vicky?"

"I thought Anne could get hundreds of yards away from you."

"Yeah but…"

"No 'buts' Taylor. I'm not letting you get up close to danger in your first real operation. You have amazing range with Anne and we're going to use it."

"My costume is…"

She cuts you off. "Enough. Taylor, your powers are fantastic and nearly perfect for this strike, but we're not going to needlessly expose you to danger. I can agree to let you and Vicky scout forward to find the place and map it out with the swarm, but you're staying at least three or four buildings away with Vicky once we move in on them. That's my decision."

Anne's bugs give an irritated buzz that sounds almost like a sigh.

"Yes ma'am," you can't keep the resignation out of your voice.

"Excellent, Taylor. For someone so new, this is a really simple but effective approach. You should be proud."

You can't help but feel a little surge of pride that overtakes your irritation.

==​

Shit!

Shit shit shit!

And it was all going so well!

You and Vicky are about halfway down the block from the warehouse on the corner where the Merchants are holed up. Your sense of Anne's swarm is good enough to pick out about half of the building or so. It's too dark to see her, but you can feel that Anne is standing on the roof of the warehouse itself, frantically trying to direct her bugs.

Jamming bugs into the firing mechanisms of guns, laying lines of spidersilk to bind the feet of sleeping Merchants – it was all going perfectly. The orange-red line indicating relationship-aggression lead you straight here, and still pointed right at Skidmark on the top floor of the building.

But then someone must've noticed a group of cockroaches carrying a heavy line of widow silk, or something. They all started screaming and now you're feeling bugs die by the thousands at the edges of your perception. Skidmark may be a druggie asshole, but he had the common sense to stock up on crates and crates full of bug spray over the last day.

You pull out your phone. Glory Girl has been restless since the operation started, and is floating just over your head to the side, craning her neck to try and get a better view of what's going on. You hit speed dial and start talking immediately "Skidmark is killing the swarm with bug spray. Move in now. All guns are jammed and he's on the third floor, south side last Anne could feel him."

'That... that everloving asshole. Fuck, fuck fuck, fuck!'

Anne's not pleased.

'Yeah, choke on that you jerk. That weakass spray may have saved you from the wasps but cockroaches are worse than you, you goddamn…'

'Anne!' you shout at her.

Lea seems just as agitated as Glory Girl, pacing back and forth across the roof. She's only ever been in one fight, and she apparently died to Lung before that fight even got started. And the sum total of her participation is feeling the waves of agitation radiating off you and glancing again and again at the relationship lines pointing away from you. That and the crisp white line that connects her to you.

'Tayl…' she starts to shout just as you feel a sudden push of air against a bug behind you - one of the extremely few Anne didn't take with her. You instinctively drop and feel a sudden weight smack against your back.

Someone had managed to sneak up behind you and Glory Girl and had tried to tackle you. Dropping suddenly turned it into an awkward collision that sent both you and the attacker sprawling.

You feel an enormous pulse of Glory Girl's aura. While it hits you with awe, you're certain the attacker is feeling pants-shitting terror right now.

Whipping your head around, you see what looks like just a normal guy – dark cargo pants and a dark long-sleeved shirt – turn towards Glory Girl. She rockets at him, fist extended. His reaction speeds are fast. Not superhumanly so, but he's clearly been in plenty of fights. As she passes just over his head, he jabs a stiff hand upwards.

Screaming.

Blood.

Glory Girl slams into the roof of the building and flops, skids, and rolls to a stop. You see a spreading red patch forming on her abdomen and scrapes and gravel running along the side of her face.

What the hell, what the hell. How strong of a brute is this guy? And why is her face hurt?

You see her try to float shakily to her feet and another wave of her aura pulses out.

At a cry from Lea, you turn your attention back to your attacker.

He rolls quickly to his feet. His face is twisted in fear and from the smell of things, he's pissed himself. Before you can even formulate a response, you see his body hunch forward. His arms dangle more loosely and where before he'd been holding his hands in a sort of classic karate-chop position, his fingers and wrists curl into something more claw-like. More feral. The look on his face turns animalistic, fear is entirely replaced by brute anger and hunger.

The entire transformation took bare seconds. You shake your head slightly, startled by what you just saw. He didn't actually change, like a Changer or whatever. He was still human. But a thousand subtle shifts and you very much got the sense that you were now looking at a completely inhuman beast. An animal that would kill friend and foe alike in mindless rage.

He cries out and dives at you, hands forward. Once again, you try to twist and fall away.

Not fast enough.

Nowhere near fast enough.

His hand punches into your left wrist and your world becomes searing pain. Tearing flesh. You can't make sense of what you're feeling. Did you pass out?

It must've only been a second, but when you regain your vision, you see that your left hand is gone and your arm is spurting blood.

Where is he? Where is he?

Lea.

She is facing him, adopting the same hunched posture. For the first time, she has a line other than her pure white connection to you. Pulsing. Orange. Angry. Giant orbs of flaming red aggression are bouncing back and forth between Lea and the attacker. She holds her hands forward in the same bestial claw-like posture. The attacker is bleeding. Arm. Leg. Side.

A quick glance back at Glory Girl. Oh no. There's an enormous pool of blood under her.

The attacker snarls and leaps at Lea, swiping right through her form. She jabs back, clipping him in the side of the head. A tearing sound and a strip of flesh peels right off his head, taking his left ear with it. He looks like a confused animal at his inability to hurt Lea.

He shakes his head, turns to you, and charges once again.

In a flash, you're tugging hard on your connection to Glory Girl. You roll to the side and float up off the roof out of reach. Can he fly? You haven't seen him fly. You haven't seen anything than an impossibly-strong melee attack.

You see him and Lea circle each other. He's losing so much blood. Is a regenerator?

You wobble slightly in the air. The green-blue line to Vicky starts fading. You fall towards the roof. Seeing his chance, he darts forward, jumping at your uncontrolled descent. You quickly switch to pulling on him.

Your fingertips tingle with a new sensation. Instinctively you know your hands now have some sort of cutting-edge forcefield projecting just a tiny bit beyond your hands. You know with bone-deep certainty that your blades can cut through anything. Anything.

That and there's some sort of subtle siren call deep in your brain. You reach for it and tug, hard. In mere moments, all of your emotions fade away, except for one.

Fury.

You forget Glory Girl. You forget Skidmark and the operation. You forget even Anne and Lea and feel only pure, unadulterated rage. The world turns crystal-sharp. Or rather, it turns completely grey and fuzzy, but your world is now redefined along a single axis: enemies and background static.

All of this in a fraction of a second as you fall towards the enemy's hands. He now stands out as if he were lit with a thousand spotlights. The world around him may be grey and indistinct but it doesn't matter because now there is only The Enemy.

You twist and his hand scrapes along your left leg, taking a chunk of flesh and ankle bone with it.

There is no pain.

You crash to the roof of the building but are able to stay upright. Whatever damage was done to your ankle sends screaming waves of pain signals up your leg, but they are just part of the static. They don't exist. There is only The Enemy.

You growl.

Slashes, jabs. Dodges, feints.

You and The Enemy take bigger and bigger chunks out of each other. Your vision starts to grey out as even your now-indomitable will flags from blood loss. He is faring worse. You may only have a portion of his power, but Lea has already done significant damage to him. He also seems off balance – having a portion of his power drained is putting him off-kilter.

In a desperate flurry of swipes and blows, he pays you back in kind for taking his ear. You fall backwards, knowing that you're about to pass out. You hold your remaining hand forward in a defensive posture that is sure to fail.

Satisfaction gleams in his eyes.

For a moment.

Then he's driven forward by Glory Girl slamming into his back. Your hand cuts through his neck like the proverbial hot knife. Fountains of blood splash across your face. In your mouth.

The orange-red line blinks out.

Then so do you.

=​

But.

What? You can still feel. Sort of? You know for a fact you're unconscious but you can still feel the pulses of Lea's and Anne's power. Lea must've told Anne about the attack, because mere moments after you flop down, two lines of blueish green come rocketing in, fast. You hope to god one of them is Amy.

You can't exactly perceive what's going on, but you do feel the pulse of Lea trying desperately to push on one of the connections to boost someone's power. The edges of Anne's swarm that you can still feel are going berserk.

The last bit of conscious awareness you have is the feeling of crystalline anger coming from Anne.

====​

In what is rapidly turning into a bad joke, you once again awaken to the beeping of a heart monitor.

You're thirsty.

And… you feel... great. Fantastic. Loose and rested and hungry as hell.

You crack your eyes open and, no surprise, there's Anne and Lea. And Dad, sleeping in a chair.

Taylor Selection pulls at you, but you resist the call. You'd normally swap Lea out for Marceau to get back to the default Team Bug Mime, but Lea deserves to participate. To be a part of what comes next. She saved your life. Anne's life. Her own.

The counter in the corner of your vision has ticked upward and is sitting at a tantalizing 695/700. Tease.

'We've got a lot to talk about.'

'Yeah that's putting it mildly.'

'Should we wake Dad? Call in New Wave?'

'In a minute. Let's get you caught up first.'

'Okay just give me the short version first.'

Anne and Lea exchange a look. Nodding, Lea starts talking: 'Best guess is the guy who attacked us was going after the six-figure bounty Skidmark put on your head and using the attack on the Merchants as an opportunity to have almost all of New Wave distracted at once. The PRT is still tracking down information, but he seems to be a recent trigger out of Boston who's wanted on suspicion of several homicides. They were calling him "Cutthroat." Doesn't matter much either way anymore, since he's dead now.'

The memory of buckets of hot, sticky blood splashing into your mouth and eyes assaults you. You double over, feeling your gorge rise.

'Hey, hey, hey now.'

You dry heave several times, staining the sheets with small drops of whatever phlegmy goop was in your stomach. A feel of calm steals over you. You're really glad Anne is able to shunt her emotions and some of yours into the bugs. Regaining your composure, you nod to Lea to continue.

'Glory Girl died.'

Your eyes snap open, saucer-wide.

Anne gets a furious look on her face and turns to Lea. 'Now's not the time for that, Lea.'

'But she did. She died.'

'Fine, if you're going to be like that about it, I'll explain things to her.'

'So the feral bounty hunter damaged you and Glory Girl badly, but Lea told me the instant he showed up. I let New Wave know and they sent Laserdream your way. The entire fight with him lasted only seconds and in that time, Crystal got to you, saw him die, and went back for Amy. When Amy got there, Glory Girl's heart had stopped. So yeah I suppose she was clinically dead for a moment.

'Lea boosted Amy's power, which turned out to be both incredibly stupid and life-saving. Whatever it did, exactly, was strong enough that Amy actually passed out for like ten seconds. When she came to, though, she demanded that Lea boost her again. It was apparently enough additional juice that Amy was able to re-start Glory Girl's heart and patch her up enough to save her life. She did the same for you and even re-grew your hand.'

'That was amazing and really gross. It was like watching a time-lapse video that had been sped up even further and played on fast-forward.'

'Yeah, whatever happens when Lea boosts Amy, it's apparently enough to drive her healing power into some sort of crazy like Crawler-level regeneration speed. You both lost so much blood, though, that you were out for the past two days. Whatever the boost is, it's still not enough for Amy to fix brains, so we've had to just wait for the old-fashioned kind of healing. Glory Girl's still out in the next room over, but they expect her to make a full recovery soon.'

You sit there for a moment, digesting the news.

'The Merchants?'

'They're done.'

'Done,' Lea nods. 'Squealer's still in a coma in some sort of prison hospital. Mush is in custody out in the Rig. Whirlygig is already in some parahuman prison off who-knows-where.'

'And…?'

'Skidmark's dead.'

'I'm sorry, Taylor.

'I'm so sorry but there was no other way.

'I had to do it. Mush caught everyone by surprise and then Skidmark was about to shoot Brandish in the head. I had to gag him and then I couldn't get the bugs out of his throat in time.'

You can't seem to muster up the energy to care. You're bone tired. Spiritually empty. But physically you feel amazing. The disjunction is jarring.

'Okay.'

=​

Vicky wakes up later that day. Amy gives you both a clean bill of health, and the hospital discharges you both. You're kind of surprised that they let you both go so quickly after such grievous wounds, but hey, when part of your after-care plan includes "check ups with Panacea" you guess they're pretty comfortable letting you out the front door.

=​

Dad's furious, of course.

=​

The very next day, you find yourself standing there in front of the press corps once again. You're in a generic blue bodysuit, standing along with the rest of New Wave, Armsmaster, Miss Militia, and that fat lady from the PRT. She's droning on about how the PRT, Protectorate, and BBPD have managed to round up all of the major figures in the Merchants, and congratulating New Wave on their successful strike against the Merchant parahumans.

You'd kept Lea out for the day. She deserves to hear the accolades. Plus, now that you've gotten used to seeing all these social lines everywhere, you're uncomfortable with the idea of immediately giving up all this additional information. Lea is endlessly amused by the orange tint to the blue "work relationship" line you have to the fat PRT director-lady and the pulses of red and yellow that she's constantly sending your way.

Yeah, fuck you PRT lady. Pulse your shitty aggression at me all you want.

Glory Girl and the rest of New Wave are all in absolutely spotless versions of their costumes. They must keep extras, because the last thing you remember, Glory Girl was soaked head to toe in the blood of three different people.

You haven't had time to even begin thinking about cleaning the tatters of your costume, much less fixing it. Hence the generic blue bodysuit you're sporting today. It must qualify as a full costume to your subconscious, though, because donning it flipped Anne and Lea into their ghostly-costume forms. Lea's suit was suddenly covered in various tinkertech-looking armor pieces once you donned your own costume. It was this weird cross between "business woman" and "Viking." It looks ludicrous to you, but you wisely keep that to yourself.

The polite clapping comes at the expected intervals, and PRT bitch yields the floor to Photon Mom. She says a lot of the same PR-friendly nothing and then introduces you. "Just a short while back, we introduced the newest member of New Wave to the world. She was instrumental in coordinating our strike on the Merchants. Without her, this entire operation would not have been possible."

'Or necessary,' you think to Anne and Lea.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to invite her up here to say a few words. Taylor Hebert, but you may also call her…"

Photon Mom introduces you using your new cape name. You can't help but think that having a cape name is kind of ludicrous, but you still agreed with her logic. The idea that even though everyone would know your name, like they do for Vicky and Amy, but would have to call you a different name based on your outfit is just…

Well, you can't help but think "childish." But between the attack on your home and what happened with Fleur, you've agreed to go along with the farce of a "cape identity" and a "civilian identity." You step forward and recite the meaningless speech they gave you, one vetted by the PRT to ensure that it was totally vacuous.

=​

After the conference, you let Sarah know that you need time to decompress. Back at Kurt and Lacey's place, you and Dad just kind of hang out. Food, casual conversation. You try to focus on Pride and Prejudice while he flips through Kurt's magazines.

Anne plants dead cockroaches in Kurt's shoes.

=​

The next morning, you allow yourself to be pulled into Taylor Selection. You take two steps towards your array of four Taylors before suddenly pausing mid-stride. You stumble slightly and your breath catches in your throat.

It's not four Taylors anymore.

It's five.

Standing just to Marceau's left is the Taylor with the ghostly image of Mom behind her. She's now lit up with the same spotlight-level bright white light as the others you can call on.

And now you can get a clear look at the Mom image behind her.

Your brain is reeling.

She wasn't a black and white image… she was a black and white person. Striped. Striped black and white.

Holy fuck that's the Siberian.

What…

What…?

What!?!

What the fuck, what the fuck. Your heart is pounding. You hunch over, resting your hands on your thighs and take deep, calming breaths.

Some time later you're able to calm yourself down. You straighten back up and look carefully.

It's Mom. It's obviously Mom. You studiously keep your eyes on her face, since she's also naked. You have no idea what to make of this. Is this Taylor from a universe where she has a connection to the Siberian? One where she IS the Siberian? Is she a member of the Slaughterhouse 9? Does her universe even have the Slaughterhouse 9? You pace back and forth, your thoughts a furious jumble of emotions, what-ifs, and maybes.

Eventually you straighten and focus your attention on Taylor instead of the Siberian. As with Anne, she looks just like you. She's wearing the same drab grey hoodie and saggy pants you used to wear to school every day for over a year.

Her face is placid, as are all the mannequins. You get no sense that this Taylor is a monster. The connection you feel to her is the same low resonance as any other Taylor.

You steal a quick glance at Mom's face, scrunch your eyes shut, and pull on the connection to this Taylor. Before you can second guess yourself, you pull back from Taylor Selection. You open your eyes and bolt upright from the thin mattress covering of your cot.

'Taylor, who is…?' Anne thinks at you at the new Taylor.

She panics, just like the other ghosts first do. She sees you, then Anne. She takes a step backwards and Mom pops into existence right next to her.

'Stay back!' she barks.

'Oh my god Mom? Mom! Mom!?!' Anne cries out in pain, her arm weakly reaching forward.

'I said stay back!!'

The Siberian projection suddenly darts forward and makes to grab Anne's wrist.

It passes straight through. It pauses for the barest fraction of a second and turns to you, grabbing at your shoulder.

The moment it makes contact with you, it suddenly pops like a soap bubble. The new ghost staggers for a moment and holds a hand to her head.

'What the fuck did you just do? What did you do to me?! Where am I?!?'

You look to Anne and a moment later you feel every insect in a two block radius jittering and vibrating with displaced worry. You can only assume that the rest of the swarm that's outside your perception is also doing a macabre dance, filled with the panic of a dead teenage girl.

She looks to both of you, the Siberian re-appearing at her side. It moves to touch her shoulder and passes through just as it did with Anne. She turns to the projection and grabs at it again and again, seeking the basic comfort of human contact.

The insects dance and dance their panic, offloading the ghost's emotions. You feel some gnats near the house die, their ability to take on such strong emotions completely overloading their simple nervous systems.

'Taylor, please. Please. We're trying to help keep you calm, but you need to listen. Okay? Can you listen? Please?' you begin.

She turns back to you, face stricken with shock and grief and confusion. The Siberian stands just next to her, eyes darting everywhere, making small sniffing noises.

'My name is Taylor Anne Hebert…' you begin, giving her the same basic speech you did after summoning Lea and Worm. As you explain who Anne is, and how your power works, she slowly calms down. You can feel the insects still vibrating with worry, but they're not blowing out their nervous systems anymore.

'But how did I die? What happened? The last thing I remember is falling asleep in my doll's arms,' she says, sounding somewhat bashful near the end there.

=​

Oh.

You deflate at hearing the word "doll."

=​

Anne slumps to the floor.

She's taking it even worse than you are.

You can only imagine that with the extra round of bullying she had to endure after The Locker, to have a sudden hope of talking to Mom again and then have it yanked away was so much more bitterly painful than it is for you.

=​

'So Taylor is that what that is? Just a mindless "doll" that happens to look like Mom?'

'Yeah. She's super-strong and indestructible and does sort of weird things with physics.'

You and Anne glance at each other.

'Taylor, does the name The Siberian mean anything to you?'

She gives you a puzzled look. 'No.'

Oh thank god.

'How about the Slaughterhouse 9?'

She gives you an even more puzzled look. 'Yeah the psychos that roam around small towns murdering people. You have them in this Earth, yeah?'

'Yes. I've got some… bad news.'

You explain the Siberian to her. She's disbelieving at first, but you use the fancy smartphone New Wave gave you to go online and pull up pictures.

She has another low-grade freakout that kills a few gnats, but you manage to calm her down again. By now, her panic capacity seems to be overloaded because when you explain Anne's power to her she just gives a bitter laugh.

'Well I think that explains it. On my Earth there was a super-villain named Swarm who had your exact bug powers and who murdered Alexandria, instead of this "Siberian" killing Hero.'

More strange divergences. At least this Taylor comes from a universe with Scion and Endbringers.

Wait, no, that sounds weird. It's not like you're happy that yet another parallel dimension is suffering under the Endbringers, but it does provide an important touchstone that connects this Taylor to your world.

She says she was planning on calling herself Cheshire but hadn't even managed to go out on her first night heroing yet. She was still recovering from The Locker and using the doll for emotional comfort more than anything else. You all decide to use "Rose" for the projection and suggest that you use "Cheshire" for the new ghost herself.

'I'd much rather have my own actual name. Like you got Anne and that other girl you mentioned got Lea.'

'What do you suggest?'

'Well how about you call me Rose and the doll Cheshire? That also seems more fitting.'

For some reason the idea of calling a copy of you by your Mom's middle name makes you tremendously uncomfortable, but you figure you owe it to… Rose… to help make her feel as at-home as you can.

=​

You wake Dad up and explain the situation with Rose.

You show him Cheshire.

=​

He doesn't take it well.

=====​

Choices!

Near as you can figure, Cheshire basically is the Siberian. Which means you've now got one of the most powerful parahumans you've ever heard of in your repertoire. But it's also going to garner you lots and lots of attention. Attention you're not sure you want. How do you handle having one of the Slaughterhouse 9 on Team Taylor?Spoiler

What is Taylor's cape name?Spoiler

The PRT has seen you publicly twice now with two ghosts, when before they only knew of one. They will contact you to get more information. You:Spoiler

You've crushed an entire parahuman gang. Something the PRT ENE hasn't accomplished in… ever… and that New Wave hasn't done since they drove out Marquis over a decade ago. You'd say it feels good, but it was so much more dangerous than you were expecting. Maybe you should just rest on your laurels for awhile? Surely this disruption will make waves among the criminals in the city, but that doesn't have to be your problem. Where do you go from here?