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Brockton Bay's Marvelous Mage - Chapter 106 - Taylor Hebert Interlude
🕑 Added 2025-06-10 15:51:09 +0000 UTCThe only room in Winslow High without a single bug was the last-period math class with Mrs. Miriam, one of many new teachers at the school. It barely took a thought, a few thousand lines out of millions, for Taylor Hebert to push them all out.
Every cockroach, fly, and spider was guided to the outskirts of the room. Normally, Taylor would never do something like this, as it meant that her insects were just a bit further away from helping her, should she need it. At this point, it was even kind of disorienting, like covering her fourth eye with her third hand, but she had no choice. She may have extraordinary powers, and she may have no issue using them to keep track of the entire school at once, but Taylor Hebert refused to cheat.
As long as she had a math test, no insects would enter the room.
She quickly scratched down another answer, happy that she actually knew the answer without struggling. It was incredible how a few cram sessions, plus the removal of the negative elements of the school, made learning so much easier. She was still partially behind on a few things, especially chemistry, but she was catching up, determined to push her academics back to their proper level of excellence.
Despite her focus on her test, she still controlled her bugs, easily influencing them and shifting through their inputs. With one thought out of thousands, her mind scanned the multitude of live feeds, confirming that the school was still changing, as if she expected it all to shift back to what it had always been.
But the changes were still there.
The halls were cleaned, the linoleum freshly polished, and the lockers had been stripped down and almost completely repainted. Security guards walked the halls, actually doing something, handing out detentions and suspensions like they were on sale. Already, the janitor was preparing the equipment for the afternoon punishments, mixing cleaners into large buckets so that the offenders could scrub the school's brickwork clean of graffiti.
The school had changed drastically, day after day bringing new changes, taking the school further and further away from the hell it had been. It was shocking, and if she couldn't see it with every bug she controlled, if she wasn't watching the new teachers actually teach and the new janitors actually work, she might have thought it was all a dream.
Several more questions had been answered by then, her brain easily focusing on both the equations and problems on the test, as well as the hundreds of thousands of bugs in and around the school, watching the entire place for any problems. While there were plenty of small things still filling the school, from the leaky faucet in the girl's second-floor bathroom, to the peeling, possibly lead paint along the back parking lot, there were no significant issues, something that was becoming more and more common.
The school was still clearly underfunded, but without Blackwell siphoning every spare dollar into her own pocket, things were actually getting done. As Taylor flipped to the back of the first page of her test, carefully reading the first question, she once again mentally praised Arcanum for stepping in when he didn't have to. The hero had done what no one else had, and while Taylor now understood that… her own mentality had been part of the problem, she still attributed all of the things that had changed to Arcanum. Without him, she would be stuck here, being bullied, slowly dying inside, and desperately trying not to eradicate the entire school with a biblical plague of bugs.
When the dust settled from the storm Arcanum had wrought, most of the original school staff had been fired, replaced by fair but no-nonsense teachers who knew their careers depended on keeping the school and their classrooms under their control. Eight students had been expelled, with another dozen suspended. Sophia was obviously gone, and Emma had been sent to a high-security psychiatric facility on the other side of the state, while Madison was stuck doing a significantly large amount of community service. All of that, plus the substantial payout from both the state and the PRT, meant life had become considerably less stressful. Her college fund was already fit to burst, and, at her insistence, one of her father's friends was already working on several projects around the house.
Being able to use every step of the front stairs as she returned home every day was surprisingly pleasant.
Over the next twenty minutes, she completed her math test, admittedly cutting it a little close. Luckily, she felt confident that she at least passed, maybe even scored higher than a C, which was a definite improvement from her usual struggle. When the bell finally rang, she quietly packed up her things. Her backpack was heavy, containing all of the books and binders she had needed for the day, but she carried it without complaint, putting on her jacket before lugging it over her shoulders.
The bus ride home, followed by the short walk from the bus stop to her house, passes without consequence. Bugs and insects by the thousands are on red alert, peaking around corners and constantly on the lookout for anything that might be a threat, though they found none other than a particularly inebriated homeless man lying back on a bench.
When Taylor arrived home, she checked the fridge and grabbed a snack, before laying out her homework on the small kitchen table. She wanted to get as much of it done as possible now, so that her weekend was open and clear. She had been working hard to prepare, and she didn't want any distractions.
Months ago, her plan had had a significantly shorter deployment time. Several times, she had been tempted to head out before she was really ready. Her costume had been completed nearly a month ago at this point, but she had held back. Not because she was scared or anything, but because she wanted the extra time to practice and prepare. She had rapidly realized, not long after coming to the realization that she had been self-sabotaging herself, that her power scaled massively with her own creativity. Sure, she could summon huge swarms of insects and slam them into her problems, but not only would people probably see that as horrifying, it was not the prettiest hero ability.
On the other hand, if she used her power intelligently, with precision and creativity, she could use significantly fewer bugs and still be just as effective, if not more so. She could always call down a swarm if necessary, but now she was determined to be more discerning. However, that took practice, so she delayed her debut.
Of course, she had done more than just constantly practice. She also spent that time adding some finishing touches to her costume, which in and of itself had been worth the time. After taking the spider silk and armor plates out of the basement, where she had done most of her work, and laying the costume parts over her bed, she made a somewhat disturbing discovery under the much clearer lighting.
Her costume looked like it belonged to a villain.
She had spent a lot of money dying the spider silk and armored plating black and grey, so that she could better blend into the shadows, but when she saw it in the light, it looked like she had designed something for a villain. Unfortunately, as much as she didn't want to appear as a villain, she also didn't want to give up her ability to hide in the dark.
It took some searching, but eventually, she found a solution in the automotive industry, of all places. There was a specific technique when painting cars, called color shifting, which involved painting several layers together over each other. The final result was armor panels that looked black and matte in the shadow, but in the light, you could see a deeper green underneath. It wasn't bright or bold, but a dark, almost pearlescent green, but it looked significantly less villainous than just solid black and grey.
For the last week, Taylor had been pulling out her mask more and more, just holding it as she sat on her bed. She could feel the need to go out, feel the need to make a difference, and help her city slowly rise, pushing against her common sense. She wanted to help like Arcanum was, to prove to the world that she could make a difference, that Taylor Hebert was worth a damn. Originally, before everything had changed, the pressure had been nearly impossible to ignore, like a constant push that craved more. Thankfully, between her prayers finally being answered and Arcanum actually making progress cleaning up Brockton Bay, that pressure had gotten easier to push to the side.
So she used that time as best she could. Every spare moment was spent practicing and planning, all in preparation for her debut. She needed to seem competent and in control, enough to meet her real goal, which was to eventually approach Arcanum and ask to join his team. The strange, almost magic-themed hero was the real deal, and she was determined to prove she was as well.
And she was going to do it tonight.
Or rather, she was going to start tonight. She wasn't crazy enough to just assume Arcanum would accept her without proof, so she planned to spend some time working solo. Once she had some experience under her belt, she would approach the hero team.
Taylor continued to work on her homework, struggling through the majority of it before repacking her bag and stuffing it into the corner of her room. By the time she was done, her father wasn't too far from home, arriving back with a pizza from her favorite spot. He had been trying his best, taking as much time as he could from work, even going to therapy once a week, determined not to ever lose himself like he had before.
Part of Taylor desperately wanted to believe him, but losing him the first time made it hard to trust him. She could at least appreciate that he was doing his best, and that it had been almost a month with nothing but consistent improvements. Just about the most annoying part was that he was still trying to convince her to talk to someone as well, something she was absolutely not prepared to do.
As much as she felt she was recovering, she was a far stretch away from trusting some random adult.
Once dinner was over, her dad settled in to watch the TV while she read, passing a few hours before she declared she was going to bed early. The young teen headed to her room, set a silent timer to five hours and stuck it under her pillow. She spread her mind among the swarm, and after watching the neighborhood slowly spiral down for the night, she slipped away into sleep.
When the vibration of her alarm woke her up later in the night, she nearly flew out of her bed. Carefully extracting her costume from her drawer of unmentionables, she checked each piece, each strap and harness, before putting the entire get-up on with practiced motions. When she was done, she turned slowly in front of a full-range mirror, admiring her work.
Her costume, her uniform, made her feel confident and invincible, fanning the flames she had felt creeping up on her as she prepared. It was bad enough that, after putting it on for the first time, she had never put the whole thing on at once again.
Until now, that is.
After double-checking that the built-in pack along her back, as well as the utility belt along her hip, had everything she wanted to bring with her, Taylor slowly made her way through the house, a robe draped over her uniform, just in case. When she got to the front door, which she had carefully oiled to remove all signs of squeaking, she unlocked and opened it, stepping through the doorway silently.
She looked up and down the road, confirming that no one was watching, before drawing on her multitude, pulling on hundreds of thousands of insects. Slowly, randomly, one by one, all of the working street lamps in a three-block radius were covered in bugs, thick swarms of flies, gnats, mosquitoes, and cockroaches pooled around the glowing lights, blocking them out completely, the streets going dark. Once everything was black, she slowly stepped out of her robe, dropping it by the door before walking down her steps. Still deep in the darkness, she grabbed her bike and rode away into the night, using her swarm to direct her.
As she moved forward, she would dismiss the swarms around the lights behind her and summon more to block those in front, covering her movement even as she entered the city.
Once she was far enough away from her house, she dropped control of the light-blocking swarms. She then parked her bike along an alley, wanting to patrol the night on foot. She moved along the streets, staying mostly out of sight, focusing on her swarm as she walked, patrolling a massive section of the city all by herself.
After an hour of patrolling, during which she did very little in the way of actual hero work, Taylor made her way up across the city, eventually approaching the territory of the E88.
According to the news, it seemed that Arcanum and his team were focusing heavily on the Empire, determined to wipe them out. Arcanum's living trees, the Tree of David and the Advocate Tree had both been all over the news for various reasons, the analysts confident that he was attempting to draw the gang out. While Taylor had been tempted to try her luck at taking down Empire assets as well, she knew she needed a bit more experience before attempting that. At least unless she saw something specifically illegal happening, forcing her to intervene.
As Taylor patrolled around the edge of the territory line, the edge of her swarm picked up a lot of flashing lights and loud noises. She quickly moved closer, letting her swarm spread as subtly as she could, trying to see what she had stumbled into. After a flash of light nearly evaporated a small group of cockroaches, she realized that it was a cape fight.
A big one.
Fenja and Menja were already at their full sizes, swinging their weapons aggressively while Purity, whom Taylor could have sworn had left or retired, was flying around above the buildings, firing beams of bright light, casting shadows along the buildings as her blasts tore chunks from old brickwork.
The Empire was out in full force, and they were fighting Arcanum, his team, and parts of New Wave.
For a long moment, Taylor watched, wondering how she could help, until finally, she spotted Victor in his red costume, just on the edge of her range. He was lying down with an absolutely massive rifle, sighting in down the street, clearly waiting for a specific target. As quickly as she could, Taylor gathered a swarm and dove towards the Nazi cape, though he was not her target. Instead, she jammed his large rifle with hundreds of bugs, plugging up the internals, barrel, and magazine. Suddenly, only seconds after she started, the skill-stealing cape pulled the large rifle's trigger, and rather than it going off, it released a sickening squish, as the thousands of bugs gumming up its trigger mechanisms were squashed, but ultimately prevented the weapon from firing.
Taylor watched as Victor cursed, pulling back from the weapon's scope to check it over, only to discover it was covered in insects. Taylor couldn't help but smirk as he tossed the weapon down and quickly stood up, even as she prepared a swarm of wasps just out of sight.
She may not have intended to debut in such a brilliant fashion, but she was not about to walk away from Arcanum, not when he needed help and she could have it. With a growing grin, she gathered her swarms and dove in, ready to do what she could.
Comments
Kyle Pemberton
I think he did it in between this chapter and the last maybe?
Sammy the Shark
This is gonna sound silly but tbh it’s been so long since I even thought of Taylor’s name in the fic I lowkey forgot she was in it 🙈 can someone plz remind me when Arcanum addressed the Winslow issue so I can go back and relive it?
Hiram
What thinking with a clear head and relatively stress free can do. Tftc!
Noob
Tyftc
Miguel Garcia
I mean, I know it’s doubling up on scouts, but scouts are SO useful, and being able to split them up is great for the team. Not to mention, I think Taylor is built more for hitting/disrupting multiple weaker targets and coordinating multiple groups with her multi tasking, while Alya and her lightning is more of a single target DPS? Also! Also, Taylor being an open PRT affiliate (assuming they do that) with wide ranging scouting ability lets them use Alya’s scouting without revealing it is not Taylor.
Miguel Garcia
Oh! I just realized! It’s kinda obvious, but giving Taylor a stranger power via magic would be a fantastic way to up her ability with minimal equipment. She’d definitely be a discount/near parity Alya then.
