Note: This is the beginning of the rewrite. I left the original up as a lesson to myself (and as an example to others).

Swarm

To make it clear: All rights to characters, setting, story and central concepts in this story remain the property of Wildbow, Worm's author. This is just me playing in the sandbox. Worm can be found at parahumans dot wordpress dot com.

Awakenings

It felt like those few last feet before breaking the surface after diving as long as I could. The feeling was same but I was trapped in it, forever unable to break the surface. Yet it wasn't as bad or panic-inducing as it sounds. I heard sounds, voices, broken pieces of conversation.

"... understand, your daughter is a parahuman. Our regular staff is not…"

Electronic beeps and clangs of metal against metal, something wet against my skin and then gone again. I sunk deeper and heard no more.

Then another attempt at surfacing, more sounds, broken bits of conversation.

"... want them punished for …"

A touch, an unpleasant smell of disinfectant. Again that feeling of something wet against my skin, wiping me down. Still, not enough to allow me to break the surface and I sink again.

"-or, honey, are you waking up? Taylor?"

I jerked awake. No gentle eternity trying to break the surface and find relief, but being pushed into cold shower directly from bed. I gasped. The light hurt my eyes. That voice, it's — it's Dad. I realized he held my hand. I closed my eyes because they hurt, and I couldn't see much without my glasses anyways. Then I tried to speak but I couldn't make a sound, my mouth and throat were so dry.

"Here, drink this. Just a sip," someone said. Not my Dad. A woman.

A straw was pressed against my lower lip. I let it slip into my mouth and sucked some water into my mouth, gulping the first bit down. Then slower, letting the water rinse my mouth, slowly swirling it back and forth before swallowing. I tried to speak again.

"Dad. Where am I?" My voice was broken and raspy. I tried to open my eyes slowly, to get them to adjust to the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights. I was slowly calming down.
I was in a hospital room. The top half of the walls were white and the lower pale green. Curtains covered the window and there was no light coming through. I glanced at a wall clock and noticed that the time was almost two a.m. There were two chairs, a TV, and a small table next to my bed.

Dad looked a little apprehensive, then seemed to steel himself. I could sense that he was still unsure of himself seeing how some of his muscles were tensed.

"Taylor, we're in a hospital. Something happened at school. Do you remember?"

Of course I did. I would probably never forget. The locker broke me. Finally they had managed what they had tried since the beginning of school.

I remember thinking that it couldn't get any worse. That surely after my spirit broke and the bugs did their worst and I had bloodied myself thrashing and trying futilely to escape. Then I passed out for a while. After coming to it all came back and it was all so fresh again that I struggled with renewed vigor. I tried to brush off the bugs on my face and head only to see my raised hand disassemble. It turned into bugs. I screamed. I blacked out.

Dad filled in what had happened after that. Eventually a janitor noticed the smell and opened the locker. I fell out, he called an ambulance, he and plenty of others saw my missing hand, the ambulance crew tried to shoo bugs away but failed, the bugs buzzed where my hand should have been and reformed back into it.

The ambulance took me to Brockton Bay General and everyone and their grandparents filled out NDA's. PRT was alerted and arrived, a call went to Protectorate. Miss Militia arrived, got the story from the paramedics, sent people to the school. They identified me, informed my dad, and searched my room and the house. They found my bullying diary.

Since I was obviously a parahuman the PRT took over that aspect of the investigation and liaised with the police department. BBPD would take care of the more mundane aspects of the case.

Miss Militia asked Panacea if she could be used as a cover because of my hand. Panacea approved the little deception, and a rumor of her involvement was started. It would explain my hand growing back. I shuddered at the thought.

"Taylor, Miss Militia said that she'd like to talk with you. Is that OK?"

I was a bit overwhelmed and anxious, too. Miss Militia wanted to meet me!

"Sure, when?" I asked.

It took about an hour for Miss Militia to arrive. Apparently, she didn't sleep so coming over at two a.m. didn't really bother her. She was dressed in her iconic fatigues and flag scar and her weapon was currently a pistol in a holster on her side.

"Hello Danny, Taylor," she said as she entered. I was surprised at the informality.

"Hi," my dad answered.

Miss Militia sat and turned to face me.

"So Taylor, how are you feeling?"

I hesitated. "Well but weak. Tired which is funny since I've slept something like two days."

"It's to be expected. Coma isn't exactly sleeping."

"Guess so," I said. There was a short and uncomfortable silence.

"So Taylor, have you had time to think about what you're going to do? More specifically, what are you going to do about your powers?"

"No, not really. I'm not even sure what my powers are. Dad told me that the paramedics saw bugs coming together to form my hand back but all I remember is my hand becoming apart." I shivered at the memory and squeezed my dad's hand.

"Well, the offer has been made. As soon as you're on your feet you can come to visit the Wards whenever you want. We'll arrange a meet for you. Is there anything else you'd like to know?"

"Is there anything I need to know? There's a lot of rumors on PHO forums and I don't really know if any of them are real."

Miss Militia was quiet for a moment. "Well, PHO isn't the most reliable of sources, but they do get some things right occasionally. Some things, especially about Wards, PRT and Protectorate you'll find out if you sign up but I don't see any harm in telling things that are public knowledge in the cape community.

Perhaps the most important are the so-called unwritten rules. Respect the secret identities and don't go after a cape's family. Avoid killing. Honor truces agreed by multiple parties, especially Endbringer truces. Sexual assaults of any kind are utterly forbidden. No widespread attacks on civilians. No mind control. Avoid using guns unless your power functions exclusively on them. Use bows, swords or other historic weapons. These rules are even stricter for Endbringer fights. If someone breaks the rules, usually everyone works together to take punitive action, whether hero or villain. The most flagrant disregard for the rules lands one in Birdcage or with a kill order.

Not that any of this matters to you if you don't intend to go out as a cape. I have to warn you that it's exceedingly difficult to refrain from using powers. I don't know anyone who's succeeded."

I listened with fascination. So unwritten rules were real.

We exchanged some pleasantries for a while after that. There was something strange about how Miss Militia and dad acted towards each other.

There was a spider on my wall. I sat on my bed, as far from it as possible, hugging my knees. The terror was overwhelming. The spider was the first bug I had seen since the locker. I couldn't move from the bed, the terror was too much for me. I couldn't even scream for dad.

I twitched. No. A part of me twitched. I watched my hand ripple, bugs crawling on and in it. My first reaction was revulsion. The second intrigue. Then came fascination. For a moment I forgot the spider. Then I glanced it. For a moment I hesitated. Then I watched my hand and… willed… some cockroaches to emerge. Unlike the spider, I felt no fear of these. I knew logically that cockroaches were some of the bugs that had shared my time in the locker. These bugs felt different. They were a part of me, like an arm or a leg. I could even sense through them, even if those senses were strange. I walked them to the spider. It tried to escape but one of the roaches touched the spider and an awareness of it bloomed in my mind. I twisted my cockroaches and they split into spiders, most larger than the original. I ran after the original, attacked it. Then, I ate it.

I came back to myself and realized what I had done. I ran into the bathroom and puked my guts out. I still felt myself back in my room. My spider senses detected other bugs, and when I converted some of them back into cockroaches I sensed even more. While I had been off puking the spiders had done what spiders did — almost nothing for most of the time. It seemed they were almost autonomous in the same way my other body parts were when I wasn't directly in control.

I steeled myself. Eating other bugs was what bugs did. I sent my… No, I went after the other bugs. My coordination overcame each one easily. Each bug I ate allowed me to convert the extra mass into more bugs and I hastened the cleansing by converting more of me into bugs hunting not-me-bugs.

It took hours but eventually I was sure there were no more not-me-bugs in the house. I pulled back enough bugs to replace whatever mass I had converted earlier. Then I began to scour the yard. January wasn't really the prime time for bugs and I lost all the smallest bugs I sent. I used the largest cockroaches I could form to drag them back inside and eat them and then tried to search the yard again. It was fruitless. I found some overwintering bugs but nothing significant. I'd need to wait for warmer weather to make any progress in spreading out.

Hannah was pensive. Her earlier row with Danny Hebert and then meeting Taylor herself had made her wonder about Winslow. Especially since Shadow Stalker went to the same school and was of the age with Taylor.

Danny hadn't appreciated PRT's intrusion to his home at all. He had been furious, loud and even scary. For a tall, skinny man with a weak chin, Danny had one hell of a temper. It was no wonder Dockworker's Union had him as the spokesperson. She had to admit to a certain level of admiration towards the man. Being the head of hiring of the Association was bound to be frustrating since the creation of boat graveyard.

Even worse had been what they had found when they had searched Taylor's room. The diary Taylor had kept was horrendous to read and they had managed to substantiate enough of it that they were sure that it was an accurate if biased, description of events. Taylor's email accounts alone… Well, Sophia wasn't going to talk herself out of this.
They had had another loud argument when Hannah revealed to Danny what they had found out. Not Shadow Stalker's identity, of course, but the situation at Taylor's school. This time Hannah had had the foresight to discuss the matter in relative privacy. No doubt the first row was the stuff of exaggerated rumors in the hospital already.

Still, they had found common ground in the end. Once his temper had run its course Danny was a surprisingly rational man. Hannah hoped that everything would turn out fine for Taylor. Waking up to having powers, especially one that was an uncommonly clear reminder of what her trigger event had been, was bound to be hard. Not for the first, or the last, time she hoped that they had more psychiatrists willing to work with parahumans.

Hannah hoped that she would see more of Taylor, perhaps even as a Ward. Seeing Danny wouldn't be a too bad either.