Prologue 1.1

June 17, 2008

Taylor Hebert was still having a rough time accepting the fact that her mother Annette Hebert was dead. Dead for a week now. June 10, 2008, a date she will never forget. A fact of life now that she will never her mother's voice again, never feel the warmth of her embrace, and it was all her fault! She was impatient! She had agreed with her mother that they will start planning her birthday party when she returned home. The 19th was only days away and she was just too excited! Her best friend Emma Barnes was gonna be there, Emma's parents Alan and Zoe Barnes and even Emma's sister Anne. Her mother Annette and her father Danny were gonna be there and it would be a blast.

But she had to be impatient, didn't she? She was supposed to go over the details of the party when her mother came back, but she was impatient and called her mother while she was driving. Not two minutes into the phone call she heard her mother scream in terror, then in pain. She could still remember the sound of her bones crunching, her flesh tearing as what she was struck at an intersection by what appeared to be the unholy combination of a monster truck and bus by Squealer; a tinker part of the Merchant's gang of Brockton Bay. A gang her mother warned her about since they didn't really care about age or gender but would ambush strangers and forcibly inject them with whatever drugs they had to create their own demand and expand their gang with those willing to join for the next dose. She even saw with her very eyes when she was six the consequences of these drugs; when some heroin addict had an episode on the bus when she with her mother. She knew then and there that drugs were simply wrong.

The fact that Squealer was drugged off her mind, it was no surprise that she crashed her abomination right after she killed Annette and ended up getting arrested by Armsmaster who was pursuing her. This may have given her some satisfaction knowing that her mother's killer was behind bars, but the fact that Squealer was broken out of jail only 3 days later by her boyfriend Skidmark; leader of the Merchants, along side some other non-powered members, with no one able to stop them shook her to her core. She remembered watching the news at Emma's house. The fury, the hatred, the crushing disappointment that the heroes she idolized for many years of her life could not even properly stop a doped up nobody from freeing his partner from jail after she committed crimes that would rightly land her there. It was as if the heroes were not even trying to keep the SCUM from escaping. Her fists clenched and her eyes watered and Emma was always there to comfort her, but this time it was no use, she remembered the sound of her mother's body getting crushed and mutilated by the accident, her screams as she died, and how the heroes couldn't do their jobs properly, and how at the end of the day; IT WAS ALL HER FAULT! Her mother would have surely heard the Merchant's vehicle if she wasn't so preoccupied with her phone. No, if she wasn't so preoccupied with Taylor and her impatience.

Then she saw it

Destination

Huge creatures made of many shards of glittering gold. Existing everywhere yet seemingly nowhere. So large that one of their shards was as large, if not larger than the Earth itself.

Agreement

One of the shards angled towards her as she tried to understand what she was seeing, understand what was happening. But at the same time, she couldn't keep the wayward thought that plagued her mind before the start of this weird vision. The sound of her mother screaming, her bones breaking, her flesh tearing.

Trajectory

The shard moved towards her. Closer and closer as the sounds of her mother's last moments amplified in her mind. The rage at the villain that took her mother from her. The hatred she felt for herself for how idiotic she was, and the crushing disappointment of the incompetence of the heroes

Agreement

The brilliant shard of gold slammed into her head and Taylor flinched on the sofa next to Emma, a half-forgotten dream of gold and impossibly large things at the edge of her mind. Tears flowing down her face. Emma gave her a one-armed hug and pulled her on her shoulder trying to comfort her friend in her time of need; but what she did not know was the thoughts that intruded Taylor's mind. Designs of weapons made of flesh and bone with a potential to evolve with instinctive knowledge of how to use them. The first of them to pop into mind was a black Lance with a sword handle and various triggers and twisting mechanical sections to allow expansion and form changes to the weapon from a lance to a shield in addition to various applications of the attack and defensive modes of the weapon.

A devil's sweet whispers of how her mother can be with her again. That if she ends up strong enough; skilled enough, she cannot only avenge her mother, but her mother could avenge herself in some twisted way form. Emma did not notice the faint upturn of Taylor's lips. But what Taylor herself did not know or notice was the sudden mutation that took place in her blood. A spreading mutation where her red-blood cells starting changing shape; turning into what would look like a curled up fetus. A change that will take time to show any signs of its presence, but major change nonetheless

And so Taylor decided that to get her mother back, it would be necessary for her father to help. And for him to help he would need to know the details. She researched how parahuman gained their powers and stumbled on an article regarding trigger events, the uncontested worst day of a person's life. She also immediately knew that she was a bio-tinker as she need human or animal remains to forge her weapons, a power that reminded her of Bonesaw, one of the Slaughterhouse Nine that everyone and their mother knew to have as little relation to in anyway possible. It was to the extent that some names became almost taboo within the US society; most prominently the name Jack turned from a common name to a highly avoided one. So, Taylor understood the potential problems that might happen if people find out about her.

And so, as Taylor finally walked up to her house making sure to skip the rotted step that her dad planned to fix for years, she rang the doorbell and a few seconds later her father opened the door to let her in. He nodded to Uncle Alan as he drove off shit the door behind him. Taylor and Danny just stood there staring at each other feeling every awkward second pass by until Danny took a deep breath, held it for a couple of seconds then let it out. He forced a smile that looked forced in every sense of the word and said, "Sorry it took me this long Taylor. It just took me a while to wrap my head around everything that happened."

The silence returned for a few more seconds until Taylor forced a smile herself that looked as painful as Danny's "I know dad. We both needed some time to wrap our heads around the situation. I know Uncle Alan helped with your case like Emma helped with mine." Her smile wavered for a second her lips twitching with emotion and she her dad. Taylor wept, the false image of acceptance crumbling as she couldn't bring herself to lie to her dad. Danny returned the embrace tightening his arms around her, his own façade breaking in the face of the raw emotion.

They both moved to the coach and stayed there for an hour with Taylor laying her head on Danny's shoulder as he gave her a one-armed hug, filling her heart with warmth and sense of safety and security, knowing that she would not be alone in this; but she had to tell him now that she triggered or she knew for a fact that she will chicken out of telling him and she would regret that. So she softly called out, "Dad" and Danny replied with a "Hmmm". Taylor took a deep breath and asked, "Do you know how humans become parahumans? How they gain powers?" Danny started slightly feeling the safe net he built in the previous hour collapse, his mind racing remembering al that Annette told him about capes and what she learned from her days with Lustrum. "Yes?" Danny turned his head looking at his daughter who was making sure not to meet his eyes. "Why do you ask?" he questioned knowing a possible answer that will surely complicate their life. He watched then as she took a deep breath, then another, then another, and turned meeting his gaze wearily. "I have powers dad. I became a parahuman".