Chapter Text
CHAPTER 1: A Second Chance
Taylor Hebert looked down at her own body, then back at the frozen figure of Contessa, the Boogeyman of Cauldron, a freeze-frame of smoke rising from the barrel of her little revolver. Then, she looked up and regretted it. The two figures above her were most definitely NOT frozen in time. One, a massive red crystal that kept folding in and out of itself in some strange fractal non-pattern. The other…the other Taylor wasn’t sure what it was. A giant, vaguely humanoid being clad in dark robes and a mask with no holes, only a symbol that might have been Greek. But behind the mask, under the robes, the glimpses she got were pure chaos.
Chaos. That is what the thing holding the crystal with one not-hand was. And the crystal, Taylor recognized. It was her Passenger, her Agent, her Shard. Queen Administrator. She was no longer connected to it. It was no longer overriding her mind, crushing her consciousness. Contessa's two little bullets must have hit her Corona Pollentia and Corona Gemma.
Chaos ‘looked’ down at her, and the frozen world warped and shifted, balancing out the scales so that Taylor, Chaos and QA were roughly the same size. The fractal shard seemed to reach for her, but Chaos effortlessly held it at bay. And then it spoke, and Taylor doubled over from the pain of its not-voice echoing inside her head.
“Taylor Hebert. Skitter. Weaver. Khepri. I offer you a chance to do things differently. I offer to send your subconscious back to The Locker. I offer to replace Queen Administrator with the Power of Chaos. You could be greater. You could be lesser. Your potential will be infinite, but there is no guarantee you will have the power to save the world. Are you willing?”
Taylor slowly straightened up, breathing heavily as she processed the not-words. Contessa had asked if she would do it all over again. And now, Chaos was offering to make her answer a reality…
“What do you mean by my subconscious? Will I have foreknowledge of what’s coming?” she asked the being, bracing herself for its answer.
“Only your subconscious mind will go back. It will merge with the Taylor In The Locker, and serve as a guiding influence, for good or for ill. She will not know what you know. She will not know what is to come. She will not know of this moment, of this choice. She will only know the Power of Chaos.”
“What is it? What is the Power of Chaos?”
“Potential. Infinite. Reward and punishment for all that She will do. Random, fair and unfair.”
Taylor looked back at her body, laying in the dirt. She had sacrificed so much. Suffered so much. And now, she had the chance to give her past self a fighting chance at doing better. Or worse. No guarantees. She looked at the frozen-in-time Contessa. “I’ll do it.”
There was a horrible wrenching sensation as Chaos ripped her and QA to somewhere, or nowhere, else. A void that was both empty and full. Chaos tightened it’s grip on QA, cracks spreading across the red shard before it suddenly imploded. Taylor wasn’t sure how to feel as she watched her Passenger die, as Chaos reshaped its remains into something else. One one hand, it has been the source of her parahuman powers for the past two years. On the other, it had almost destroyed her humanity and sanity. Though, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was more to blame for that than her Agent.
Without warning, Chaos shoved the reformed shard into Taylor’s head, and Power overwhelmed her, ripping her apart and putting her back together in an endless loop as everything went dark…
CHAOS SYSTEM INITILIZATING...
The words appeared superimposed over her vision.
CIRCUMSTANCE: HEROIC VILLAIN WHO SACRIFICED EVERYTHING TO SAVE EVERYONE: REWARDING 3 RANDOM BRONZE TICKETS, 2 RANDOM SILVER TICKETS, 1 RANDOM GOLD TICKET.
CIRCUMSTANCE: TO BE TAYLOR HEBERT IS TO SUFFER: FORCING 1 CURSE ROLL. REWARDING 1 THEMATIC TICKET.
Rude.
ROLLING BRONZE TICKETS…
[Sex Manipulation]
|Common Ability|Changer|Carnal|
Allows you to alter your genitals to your liking as long as the changes are not absurd. Make your penis large, smaller, curved, horse shaped or just add another penis on top because why not? Get rid of your wiener, give yourself one if you never had one. Go wild, the possibilities are there.
[Angel Style]
|Uncommon Ability|Enhancer|Physical, Carnal|
For every % of skin you have uncovered, your energy output and physical abilities are increased by the same percentage, reaching 2x when fully naked.
[Strength]
|Rare Ability|Enhancer|Physical|
Grants you super strength, you can lift cars overhead, punch through reinforced concrete walls, and bend metal like rubber. Scales with base strength and consumes energy to remain active, plus you can further augment your strength with more energy.
What the actual fuck?
ROLLING SILVER TICKETS…
[Adept Kama Sutra]
|Rare Skill|Carnal|
You are very talented in the carnal art, being able to spot signs of arousal and attraction, in addition, you instinctively know how to pleasure your partner in bed and be a very pleasant recipient, enhancing pleasure for both of you.
[Frisk]
|Common Ability|Thinker|Optical|
Allows you to know the full inventory of a target you are looking at, what they are wearing, and what's on their body as well as a quick summary of their inventory.
No, seriously, what the fuck?
ROLLING GOLD TICKET…
[Tantric Healing]
|Rare Ability|Recovery|Carnal|
Allows you to heal ailments and various negative status effects through sexual intimacy, even scars, old wounds, and diseases can be healed and curses mitigated. The higher the level of intimacy and release the more effective the healing.
ROLLING CURSE…
[Lust]
|Major Curse|
You need sex; you cannot live without it, quite literally. For every 24 hours you go without sex, all of your stats decrease by 10%, and on the tenth day, you will die due to your stats hitting 0%. You also have an incredible libido, almost incomparable to the average person, making it harder to make decisions about resisting the temptation of flesh.
|Resolve: Gain at least 6x Gold or higher rarity Tickets from having sex|
MAJOR CURSE DETECTED: REWARDING 1 GOLD CHOICE TICKET: CHOOSE ABILITY, ITEM, TRAIT, SKILL, FAMILIAR…
“Hey, Chaos, what the fuck is this shit?!?” Taylor demanded angrily.
“Curious. I am detecting an incompatibility between you and your Powers….”
“No shit! I am not some slut! How the hell are a bunch of, of…SEX POWERS supposed to help past me?!?”
“Incompatibility identified. You are suffering from a human psychological condition known as Sexual Repression. I shall remove the condition.”
“I am NOT sexually repressed, dammit!” Taylor would have continued to berate the strange being, except then something clicked in her mind and suddenly a whole lot of things made sense. She tried to deny it, she really did, but unfortunately she knew deep down in her very soul that what she was feeling now was the absolute truth: Taylor Hebert was gay as hell.
Emma being her only real friend for so long, and the pain she felt when Emma betrayed her. How much she wanted Lisa’s friendship and approval. And Rachel. ‘Oh god, Rachel,’ Taylor thought to herself as the truth hammered her over the head. She fell to her knees and clasped a hand over her chest, as if hoping to soothe the pain in her heart.
“I…I refused to ever acknowledge any of this. I convinced myself I was straight. Because…because of the damn Nazi bastards that had almost free reign in Brockton Bay.” Taylor looked up at Chaos. “The other me, is she gonna be as repressed as I was?”
“No. Your subconscious knowledge will make her aware of the truth about herself.”
“Good, good,” Taylor let out a sigh and refocused on the floating words in her vision. “Fuck. These powers are still useless. She’ll never survive. Super strength alone isn’t enough. I choose Ability.”
ROLLING GOLD ABILITY TICKET…
[Great Lightning Spear]
|Rare Ability|Emitter|Electrical|
Allows the user to conjure a spear of lightning that they can throw as a projectile. (Does not travel at lightning speed) This spear possesses penetrative power and deals increased damage against draconic entities that rends their powerful scales and hides, nullifying their defence.
This was damn near perfect, at least assuming Lung qualified as a draconic entity.
FIVE ABILITIES EARNED: SECOND ABILITY SLOT UNLOCKED
THEME DETECTED: SEXUAL: REWARDING 1 SEXUAL THEMED TICKET
God fucking dammit…
ROLLING SEXUAL THEMED TICKET…
[Sexual Calibration]
|Uncommon Trait|Carnal|
All of the minor inconveniences sex once had are now gone, forget about STDs, hygiene precautions, or unwanted pregnancies because you can adjust how all of those interact with you. In addition, you are very talented in the tantric arts.
SYNERGY DETECTED: ADEPT KAMA SUTRA AND SEXUAL CALIBRATION: UPGRADING ADEPT KAMA SUTRA TO EXPERT KAMA SUTRA
[Expert Kama Sutra]
|Elite Skill|Carnal|
You are an expert in the carnal, being intimately familiar with picking up signs of arousal and pleasuring your partners in bed. Unless your partner is completely frigid, no one will leave your bed unsatisfied, your skill in bed is unmatched by most. If you were given magic you could probably create Eromancy.
“Well, maybe the other me will find some real happiness, assuming she doesn’t get killed,” Taylor mumbled to herself.
“Before you are cast back to your past, I offer one final choice. You may choose to take additional Curses for additional Tickets. One Curse for one Ticket, two Curses for three Tickets, or three Curses for five Tickets.”
Taylor forced herself to think this through. She only had two powers that were actually useful, and both were offensive. She had a utility power in the form of Frisk, and everything else…Taylor preferred to not think about them. The Lust Curse could be potentially fatal to her past self, did she really want to make things even harder on herself just for the chance of getting a defensive power?
Taylor took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I hope I don’t regret this. I will take one more Curse.”
ROLLING 1 CURSE…
[Disease]
|Severe Curse|
You have the fabled anime death disease that keeps killing all of those overpowered characters, causing you to be weaker and reducing your energy levels. Over time, this disease will keep getting worse and worse until you can find some way to treat it. You probably don't even have a full year
|Resolve: Get treated with a Legendary or higher healing/curing ability or roll a trait that cures your disease|
SEVERE CURSE DETECTED: ROLLING PLATINUM TICKET…
[Smoke Conduit Physiology]
|Epic Ability|Enhancer, Emitter, Manipulation, Recovery, Changer|Physical, Smoke|
Allows you to wield the powers of a Smoke Conduit, alongside giving a mild increase to your physical attributes. Being a conduit allows you to absorb, generate, manipulate, emit, and briefly transform into Smoke. Whenever you are absorbing smoke, you can use it to augment your own regeneration. Conduit abilities do not use the user's energy but instead require them to absorb outside sources of the element to fuel their reserves. You only start with the very basic uses of the ability and have to train to achieve more complex techniques.
“Oh thank god,” Taylor breathed a sigh of relief. While it was conditional, it was still a potentially powerful defensive option. “Okay. Is that everything?”
“Yes, Taylor Hebert. As your past self accomplishes Feats and completes Quests, she will earn more Tickets with which to expand the Power of Chaos. Prepare yourself. For you shall end, and she shall begin.”
Taylor closed her eyes as Chaos slowly reached for her. ‘Good luck, me. You are gonna need it. But even though I won’t be able to help you directly, I promise I’ll do my best to watch over you. And I know that you can do better than I did. We always wanted to be a hero. I fell short. But you can do it, Taylor Hebert.”
“Let me out! Let me out, please! Someone, anyone! Let me OUT!” Taylor Hebert’s voice was raw from both vomiting and screaming. Her head hurt from where it had collided with the back wall of the locker, and her arms hurt from awkwardly beating against the locked door. She was covered in filth and could feel bugs crawling over her.
The pain in her head grew as she futilely called for help. It grew and grew until it suddenly exploded and for the briefest of moments, she was not in the locker. She was in a vast black void, but she wasn’t alone. Something was there. Something vast and powerful. It reached for her…and then she was back in the locker, and knowledge was floating in her thoughts. Knowledge, and power.
In her desperation, she immediately slammed one of the dormant Abilities she could feel into one of the two empty ‘slots’ waiting at the forefront of her thoughts. She poured ‘energy’ into [Strength] and shoved against the locker door with a scream. It launched off its hinges and crashed against the opposite lockers with a loud sound of metal on metal.
Taylor and the filth that had been festering inside her locker spilled out on the floor. She dry-heaved as she frantically tried to scrabble away from the disgusting mess. Footsteps and shouts sounded all around her as teachers and students rushed into the hallways to see what had caused the noise.
Anger and disgust filled her. ‘Of course they ignore my screams but not the sound of something being destroyed,’ she thought bitterly. And then, her energy reserves she was still accidentally feeding into her newfound power ran out, and she slipped into unconsciousness.