This story can and will go to weird places. It will be considerably more detailed than Levels. I will be honest and say that, while I loved Levels, it was to shake the dust off, metaphorically speaking. I think this one will be far better, though I can't say where it will end.

That said, I do not own Worm or Re: MONSTER

Chapter One: Glutton For Punishment

On Earth Bet there were people with superpowers. Everyone knew it. It hadn't been new for years, decades even. Villains, heroes, everything in between. The public had seen it all.

What they didn't know about was the source of that power. It wasn't a secret, really, but those who had the ability to Trigger and become a Cape had nodes in their brains called a Corona Pollentia. When they triggered it became a Gemma. It seemed to read what they were going through when they were stressed to the point of activating and expressed itself in a singularly unique way that would allow them to bring resolution to the matter, in the short term at least.

These nodes were noted by even fewer to almost have identities of their own, agendas, wills. They were nicknamed Passengers. Some went so far as to imagine them as little, multidimensional insects that lived in the brain of the Cape they were born to, whimsically granting power however they felt like it.

What no one knew, was that there were those walking about with powers that had nothing to do with Passengers. A few gifted individual who had simply evolved. Maybe a thousand, the world over.

And they were strong! Their abilities, born only from a high percentage use of their brains, were on par with the other Capes in the world up to the rankings of ten, in the most extreme cases. There was, however, not a single one of them that would be rated less than five in one field or another.

They just didn't use their abilities in the public.

This was because one of them, an old man with an especially strong precognitive ability, the likes of which the Simurgh would be jealous of, had a premonition. He told the world's most powerful telepath(again, not Ziz) that if those with abilities born of this natural evolution were to involve themselves in the battles between Heroes and Villains, something would take notice, and kill them all.

He then made a second prediction.

"There will be an Esper, born into love, tempered in hate, forged in solitude, sharpened by adversity, that will be our sword against this beast that would see us all destroyed. He will be the most powerful of us all. He will be our hope. He will shine like a beacon in the mists of turmoil and spread knowledge as though an arbiter of that ancient library. Never let him fall to ruin, should you meet him," that message was sent to every Esper on the planet, along with the one that proclaimed their doom. Every time a new one was born, at age ten they were given that message. Told to hide and yet seek that beacon of light.

So, they did, keeping their talents hidden, never interfering in cape business, keeping their existence a closely guarded secret, policing their own as needed.

-9002-

Taylor Hebert was crying, alone in the darkness. It was cramped and uncomfortable and smelled of things better left unsaid in polite company. Realistically, she should never have been able to fit inside this small, reeking place. It was only due to her abnormally skinny body.

She had been here for over an hour.

It had been quite the shock, opening her locker to find it stuff with biological waste. Were she capable of it, she would have thrown up all over her own shoes. As it was, it still hunched her over, heaving and gagging.

It was then that someone struck her from behind, shoving her into the locker and slamming it closed. She managed to twist herself around to see three bitches laughing at her suffering.

Something inside of Taylor died, a small piece of herself that she had been trying to protect ever since her mother's death, when she saw Emma Barnes, her former best friend, laughing uproariously at what they had just done to her. The pretty redheaded model was smiling and laughing with her conspirators, Madison Clements and Sophia Hess, making jokes about what they had just done. Making jokes!

Tears started flowing from Taylor's eyes. She had been about to beg to be let out, but he knew now that such a thing would only get more laughter from those three. And there would be no one willing to cross them for her. She'd have to wait, in this filth, until either they decided to let her out, or the janitor finally came along to find out what the smell was.

So, she stayed put, and cried. She cried and cried and cried, because what else was she supposed to do? Fighting back had not worked out. She had trying going about it systemically, that just ended up getting them to target her harder. She even tried getting physical once. Sophia shut her down in the blink of an eye. The bitch had some kind of close quarters combat training, that was for sure.

Finally, after an hour. Taylor tried to force her way out. The stench was really getting to her. Her tears had all dried up, and her patience had all but disappeared. She wouldn't know it for some time, but something in her finally snapped into place, a perfect alignment of active apathy and subconscious hate, that finally allowed her to put her ability to use.

You see, Taylor, like so few across the globe, was an Esper. Her ability was simple, and deceptively powerful. One that, until this point in time, she had declined making a use of.

She could eat anything. More than that, she could gain power from anything she ate.

But she had felt it pointless, until now, to do so. Sure, it would have been nice, if she could have gone out and somehow used her power to fly around and save the day, like the heroes that were always seen on TV, but the mandate from the Prophet kept that from happening. She had never even been able to tell her parents about what she could do, so strong was the telepath that sent her the message on her tenth birthday. So, really, there was no point.

It hadn't even been considered when she was thinking of ways to defend herself against her bullies. What was she supposed to do? Eat their homework? Even if she did eat something that could give them an edge over the bitches, the only thing that would do would be to out her as an Esper.

She'd be damned if she was the one that caused her entire race to die, simply because she couldn't handle some bullies.

But until now, they hadn't done anything that required her to use her ability to defend against.

Right then, in that locker filled with filth and insects, Taylor had a real threat of dying to infection and other biohazards. Who knew what kind of diseases she could already have, just be being in there so long? Who know what longer exposure would do to her?

So, she decided, finally, to do something about it. It was a struggle to even move, in such confinement, but she managed it, through sheer determination. The first handful of sanitary pads and blood was enough to set her gagging again. Somehow, even with it already surrounding her, holding it up to her face with the intent to eat it was making the scent stronger.

She stuck her nose to the grating on her locker, took a deep breath of relatively fresh air, then shoved that first handful of biological waste into her mouth and began to chew quickly, trying not to taste. She had to fight with everything she had not to spit it back out and keep chewing. She actually had to focus in order to swallow. The taste was indescribably bad.

Worse were the mental notifications she received, just from that first mouthful.

Ability ([Infection]) gained.

Ability ([Fester]) gained.

Ability ([Bacterial Resistance]) gained.

The first two didn't mean a damned thing to her at the moment. It might come in handy if she planned on making someone miserable, but at this point in time, it really didn't matter. She needed to upgrade that third one, though. She needed to make sure that this wasn't what killed her.

She grabbed another handful, and another, and another! She kept putting that filth into her mouth, only pausing when she received an odd message, in between the prompts for ([Improved Bacterial Resistance]) and ([Greater Bacterial Resistance]).

Ability ([Shadow Manipulation]) gained.

'That might be my way out,' she thought, 'But first, I need to make sure it's worth it to get out of here.'

So she kept going, putting more of it in her mouth, chewing on it while holding her breath. Finally, after her fifteenth handful, she received that much sought after message, along with two more odd ones.

Ability ([Bacterial Immunity]) gained.

Ability ([Shadow Form]) gained.

Ability ([Electricity Vulnerability]) gained.

She would have cocked her head in wonder at the last two, were this any other time, but she had more important things in mind at the moment. First, she switched on the immunity she had just gained. Even if she had already been infected, this would nullify that.

She next decided to simultaneously test out her odd gains. She mentally flipped the switch, turning on her ([Shadow Manipulation]) and ([Shadow Form]) abilities.

It had to be one of the strangest things she'd ever felt, turning into shadow. More so when she drifted out of her locker as a black mist. She resolidified as soon as she was out, dropping a couple of inches to the ground.

Unfortunately, the blood and filth that had been on her had traveled with her, leaving her in desperate need of a shower. A week long shower. She staggered down the stairs, out of the school building, and started going home, ignoring everyone, as she focused on that new development, the powers she had received from eating waste.

Taylor was not dumb. She never had been and, if she had her way, she never would be. She knew that you did not simply get powers from eating a biohazard. Not shadow powers, at least, not for her. She only ever gained abilities directly related to what she was eating, some property it had that she would then be able to make use of.

That was, in fact, why she was good at math. She had eaten several calculators, when no one was looking, and gotten the ability ([Mathematics]), from Beginner to Advanced.

That aside, there was something in that locker that had not been like the rest of the filth surrounding it, and it had given her powers. Very specific powers. And a weakness, though she chose not to turn it on.

She was pulled out of her thoughts when she was stopped by a police officer.

"Miss," he said nervously, his hand on his gun, even though he didn't pull it out of the holster at his hip, "Why are you covered in blood?"

Taylor looked down at herself, remembering what she had been standing in, less than a half hour ago, then started to tear up again, "They pushed me in," she said, her voice hitching, looking at the officer with large brown eyes, "They pushed me into the locker."

It didn't take very long at all before Taylor was taken to a hospital, given a bath robe, cleaning supplies and a shower. A nurse stood in the bathroom with her, female thankfully, just to make sure she didn't do anything to hurt herself, but otherwise just stood there with her back turned, at Taylor's behest.

By the time she got out, her father was already there. He had clothes in his hands as he spoke to the doctor. She had only been in there for a max of twenty minutes. He must have broken several traffic laws to make it here in the time that he did, especially if he went home first, to pick up some spare clothes for her.

The scrunched and twisted look on the man's face told her of how angry he was. She could tell that he was holding back against the doctor, only because that was the man that was in no way responsible for Taylor's current condition.

"Dad!" she called out, so desperately wanting to run out and hug him, but she wasn't sure that she was fully cleansed yet. She might have immunity to whatever had been lurking in that locker, but that didn't mean that it had left her entirely. There still might be lingering traces on her.

The tall, skinny man turned to see her and his expression softened to one she had not seen in a long time. She was almost crying again as she looked at the man.

After a thorough examination, Taylor was cleared by the doctor to at least see her father. They wanted to keep her overnight, just in case something happened. She highly doubted it would.

"It's really a miracle," the doctor said, "She's got multiple bites and minor lacerations, and she was covered, head to toe in that garbage, but she doesn't have a single infection, anywhere." Indeed, Taylor hadn't even realized how many bugs there had been in the locker with her. She would be really unsurprised to find out that she ate some of them, though not enough to make any gains, obviously.

"Who did this?" Danny turned to his daughter.

"It doesn't matter, dad," Taylor said, her eyes turning hard, "They won't be doing this again."

"Yeah," the doctor said, looking between the father and daughter, the two of them somehow sharing a moment that seemed to turn the air purple with the murder in both their eyes, "That's not at all ominous. I think I'm going to leave before I hear details of something I shouldn't."

The man made good on his promise, quickly vacating the room and Taylor couldn't help but giggle as he did so.

Sure, what she had said sounded bad, but she actually hadn't planned to do anything harmful to anyone, unless reputation counted. Because, as she was now, having eaten shit to live, she came to the conclusion that it was not going to happen again. Even if she had to bring her own weakness to the eyes of the entire world. With that in mind, she was going to neak out of the hospital, go home, get a camera, sneak into the school, take pictures of the locker she had been shoved into, and the horrifying mess it contained, and send said pictures to the local and national media.

She knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was nothing she could do to the three bitches that had done it to her. It would just be her word against theirs, yet again. Instead, she could prove that she was bullied and the faculty was doing nothing about it. Maybe, just maybe, by bringing some attention to the situation, she could make Winslow High into a real beacon of education again.

And how was she going to do all of this?

Shadow powers, to start. It would help her sneak out, undoubtedly, and then she could get into the school, get the photos and get back. Second, she was going to get a meeting with Blackwell if she had to kick down the door to her office. Third, she would record that meeting as the bitch queen of that pit did nothing. Again!

Then she would send that, and the pictures, to news networks. The sensationalist ones first. They would take any story they could and run with it, and after the Comlubine shooting, any major incidence of bullying in schools was the stuff of national level coverage.

"So," Danny said, bringing her back to the present, "where do we go from here?"

"I dunno," the girl shrugged, leaning back in the bed, "Forward? I guess I really don't care. I'm going to get the bullying to stop, in a completely legal, devastatingly public way, and maybe get a mass cleansing of Winslow to happen on top of it. I don't care if this makes me look weak anymore, it's gotta be done. You heard the doctor, dad. If I wasn't really, really lucky, I'd be dead right now. That makes this latest 'prank' attempted murder. It's time to break the mould, don't you think?"

The man nodded, "Whatever you need, kiddo, I'm here for you."

"I need a hug," she said, without an ounce of hesitation. He pulled her into an embrace and just sat there with her for who knew how long, the two of them enjoying each other's presence for the first time in more than two years.

"I also need a spycam I can put in my glasses," she said after nearly twenty minutes, "And I need it by tomorrow."

"Why?" Danny asked.

"I need to record my meeting with Blackwell. She'd going to try to sweep this under the rug. I won't let her."

"Consider it done."

-9002-

That night, just as she had planned, she used her knew Shadow abilities to get out of the hospital. She made it to the school, after stopping at her house for the camera, in record time. Moving around as a shadow was very quick, all told. And it seemed that it being night greased the wheels, so to speak, as if having real darkness manifested around her made it easier for her to move through space.

The locker was cordoned off, but they hadn't actually gotten around to cleaning it yet. Taylor shined her flashlight inside it and took more than a couple snapshots with a digital camera.

"That ought to be enough for now," she made a quick stop in the computer lab to print off ten copies of each picture, then went back to the hospital.

The next day, around noon, she finally made it back to school. She had one copy each of the locker, and all of her injuries from being pushed inside of it. Even a couple copies of herself, covered in half coagulated blood and what have you that the officer that found her insisted be taken. Those, she really liked.

Taylor walked up the steps, heading right for the office.

"Yes?" the secretary asked in monotone.

"I need to meet with Principal Blackwell," she said, with a smile.

"I'm afraid she's busy at the moment," the other woman said.

"Is she with another student?"

"No."

"Then she isn't busy enough," Taylor walked around the desk and right into the office of the woman she was about to break, ignoring the protests of the secretary, even going so far as to slam the door in her face.

"Ah, Blackwell!" The skinny girl said with a cheerful, predatory smile directed at the woman, "Just the Authority Figure I wanted to talk to!" She adjusted her glasses, subtly flipping a switch that activated the hidden camera.

"What is the meaning of this?!" the woman demanded, slamming her hands on her desk, "Do you have any idea how busy I am, after the mess in your locker was discovered?"

"I really don't care," Taylor said, sitting down, reaching into her backpack, "You see, I did not put any of it in my locker. Instead, I came back from the break to find it filled with that vile amalgamation of human waste and used sanitary pads, and was then violently pushed into it."

"If you are here to claim that it was Miss Barnes, Miss Hess, and Miss Clemens, I will have you know that the three of them have rock solid alibis, corroborated by teachers. I will not hear another word about them doing something to you," Blackwell said, preemptively covering her, and their, asses.

"I know I have issues with those three," Taylor said with another, wider grin, "But to accuse them of shoving a person into this," she brought out three pictures of the locker, and one of herself covered in the goop, "That would require extraordinary evidence. Evidence I don't have. So, I won't bother you with my theories. Just the facts."

"And what facts are those?" the woman asked, as if pandering to a small child.

"Well, for instance," she pointed to the picture of herself, among the ones that Blackwell was refusing to even look at, "A student of your school, regardless of the identity of the perpetrators, was forcibly shoved into a locker full of biohazardous waste. What I want to know is, what are you going to do about it?"

"We will do all we can to find the culprits and bring them to the proper authorities," she steepled her fingers in front of her mouth, "However, our funds are already limited, severely. While we would like to hire a private investigator for every minor infraction of our rules, we simply can not do so."

"Right, so, a person being shoved into a locker full of biohazards is a minor infraction," Taylor said, "Being forced to breathe in that kind of infectious pit isn't even worthy of investigating. I understand. Attempted murder just isn't what it used to be, nowadays."

Blackwell nearly choked on the air she had been drawing in to reply, "W-what?!"

"Well, yeah, attempted murder. What else could be the reason to shove me in that locker? Clearly, I have made enemies, from one source or another, and they want me dead. Since I didn't die, I can see why you wouldn't want to allocate any funds to this. After all, my body isn't among the other garbage you have to sweep under the rug."

"Are you implying that I, or the staff of Winslow High School, would participate in illegal activities, such as hiding criminal activity?" the woman almost growled at her student.

"No."

"Good."

"I am outright stating that you, and your band of idiots, are complicit in my attempted murder, if only in the fact that, until now, I have come to you multiple times with complaints of bullying, and you have done nothing about it," Taylor's cheerful smile was gone, "It is your job, above all else that you might believe, to provide a safe learning environment for every student. Even the gang members that walk our halls. Whom I will note you do more for than a student with above average grades(me), in that you at least break up their fights. Not once, in the last year and a half, has anything come from your hollow promises to my safety and security. This is just the latest incident that you failed to look after my interests in any way. So," she pointed to the pictures one more time, "I am here to warn you. You have two weeks. Two week in which to make any, legitimate headway into ending this nonsense. Then, if nothing has been done, I send these pictures to news agencies with my story."

"Don't you dare threaten me, child!" Blackwell hissed.

"I'm not threatening you," Taylor replied, cold as ice, "I'm giving you an ultimatum. Do your god damn job, or I will find someone to do it for you." She stood up and left the office then, not even waiting for the woman to say anything more.

She flicked her hair behind her ear, turning off the camera, and headed home for the day, knowing that there was nothing more to be gained today, even if she could record any of the three bitches doing anything more to her.

For now, she had another part of her plan to enact.

It was time to get her mother's flute back.

-9002-

Well, another cross over is officially on the books. I don't know, fully, where I am going with this. Not even half as well as I knew where I was going with Levels. As such, I will be exploring a completely altered timeline, with Taylor not even meeting the Undersiders.

Now, Power Levels!

Just kidding.

Please enjoy.