Descent - 1.1
Descent - 1.1
Nightmare Moon was profoundly knowledgeable about the varied, complex, and ever-changing mosaic that most mortals knew as emotions. She had to be; after all, more often than not they were essential in her quest of seducing and controlling her hosts.
The unrelenting push of enthusiasm and hope, the silent thrill of joy and relief, the earth-shattering strength of jealousy and desire, the deceptively frail but indomitable force of love and friendship, all those and many more she knew in intrinsic detail. How they ebbed and flowed, how they peaked and crashed. And above all, she knew how to conduct and guide them as if a skilled maestro before her orchestra.
And yet, for all her theoretical knowledge and know-how, she personally had little firsthand experience dealing with emotions themselves. Oh, sure, she could usually feel what her hosts felt if she concentrated hard enough, but it was blurred and muted, a mere pale shadow of whatever emotion assailed them at that given moment.
As the centuries passed and her power grew with each new host, that slowly changed. The feelings got sharper and sharper with every bit of strength she slowly accumulated, their intoxicating power grew bit by bit in their entire glorious splendor. But even so, even after all those centuries, she still had very little personal experience dealing with the myriad of emotions a living body felt in various situations.
This was why it took her a long moment to realize what exactly she was feeling as she watched in astonishment as the shattered remnants of the Elements of Harmony came back to life, surrounding the six pathetic little ponies who dared to defy her in a white glow. A long moment to realize why her legs had locked in place and her mouth had suddenly gone dry. A long moment to realize why she suddenly felt as if a leaden weight had been dropped into her stomach.
A long moment to realize that what she now felt… was fear.
“No…” She murmured the denial, eyes locked upon the sight of her incoming doom as the pathetic mortals rose from the ground surrounded by a corona of light, due to the Elements’ power.
“No, no, no, no!” she frantically repeated, not even listening to the lavender unicorn’s words as she swiftly gathered her own power to teleport to safety. She attempted to flee with all her being despite knowing that the moment of inaction caused by her rising fear would mean that the spell would not be ready in time.
“No! I refuse to be undone!” she shouted in desperate defiance, bypassing the spell matrix entirely as she disregarded all the safety measures and control facets of the spell for sheer speed and power, forcing the spell to activate as fast as possible, no matter the risks. For she knew that should the glowing light now bearing down upon her find its target, everything would be over.
She was still weakened from escaping the seal the cursed Elements had entrapped her within a thousand years ago, and she knew that should she be hit right now in her weakened state, she wouldn’t have to worry about being sealed again, for she knew that she would be lucky to even remain existing afterwards.
Seeing the rainbow beam inching its way towards her as if in slow motion, Nightmare Moon abandoned her host’s body entirely, focusing the stripped bare teleportation spell only upon her own ethereal form as she sacrificed her current source of power in trade for the unstable spell activating a couple of moments sooner. All her plans and safeguards, schemes and strategies, everything was tossed aside. In that single moment, she willingly forsook it all, just for the tiniest chance that she could escape in time.
All, for nothing.
It was still not enough, the rainbow’s light hitting her host the very moment the spell took effect, washing over her ethereal form for but a brief instant before she teleported away. But that single instant was more than enough to allow the searing rainbow light to course through her whole being, wrenching and burning as it enveloped her entirely, even the minute amount that had touched her before her escape more than enough to overwhelm what pitiful defenses she fruitlessly attempted to erect and making her completely lose control over the already unstable spell.
Agony searing through her mind, she finally lost consciousness, her spirit floating through the endless void as the powers of harmony purged her very being.
Walking through the run-down corridors of Winslow High, I couldn’t help but feel my apprehension growing with each step that I took, eyes darting from one side to another as if in hope of catching sight of anything that could explain the strange feeling of dread that had been plaguing me ever since setting foot upon this hellhole of a school this morning.
The Trio had apparently finally gotten bored with using me as a target for their never-ending bullying campaign, not having targeted me for even the mildest of pranks or insults for over two weeks before winter break, and nothing I had seen today had done anything to show that had changed.
And yet, the part of me that had long since grown jaded to their constant abuse and the utter neglect of the school staff at doing nothing about it couldn’t help but scream at me for my naivety at thinking they would just stop with the bullying without a reason. That it was all but a matter of time before the other shoe dropped.
Turning the corner leading towards my locker, that part of me sighed in exasperation at being proven right as the smell hit me, a rancid smell that by all means should only be found in a landfill, not a school corridor, a putrid smell that was coming straight from my locker.
Shoulders slumping in defeat, I soldiered on towards the locker to assess the damage to the few possessions I still dared leave at school, while doing my level best to ignore the already snickering throng of girls that were oh so coincidentally standing close to it.
Taking a deep breath, I attempted to brace myself and opened the metal door, only to fail the moment it swung open. The putrid wave of stench that washed over me had me retching in moments, the fact a deluge of rotten and decomposing matter crumbled out of the confined metal space all the way to my shoes was not helping me keep my composure in the slightest.
Even amidst my sickness and retching, I still retained enough awareness to try and react as someone forcefully tried to shove me into the stinking mess, both my arms painfully hitting the sides of the locker as I tried to resist being pushed in due to the ever-increasing pressure being applied at my back.
All for nothing, a strong hit to the back of my head, alongside my already spinning mind due to the smell and the retching, proved too much, strength leaving my arms as I was forcefully stuffed into the small metal box and the pile of rotting garbage.
“That’s where a pathetic weakling like you belongs, Hebert!” Sophia’s voice crowed in triumph as the locker door was violently slammed shut, trapping me in the darkness.
The Nightmare had no idea how long had passed since that fateful moment, how long it had been since she had started to drift through the void. All that she knew was that the pain was finally over and that her mind felt clearer and more focused than she had ever felt before.
And yet, her new clarity of thought meant nothing in the face of the fact that she simply didn’t have enough energy to escape from her current situation. That she didn’t have enough power left to pierce the veil between dimensions to find a new host. And without a new host to act as fuel for her being, what little remained of her strength would only dwindle more and more, until finally nothing remained and she ceased to exist.
That particular inescapable fact had led her to grow personally acquainted with several different new emotions, the fact that she was feeling them directly without the need of a host was something that would have filled her with wonder if not for her current situation and which emotions exactly she had grown familiar with.
She now knew what fear tasted like, she now knew the chilling grasp of despair, and above all else, she now knew the all-encompassing colors of rage and fury as if an old friend.
But despite the unrelenting assault of her newly found emotions, her steel-like will refused to surrender, her sharp mind patiently waiting for a chance, any chance, of escape, hoping against all hope that such a chance would appear before what little was left of her power disappeared. She would bide her time, patiently waiting for the smallest of opportunities, and when the time finally presented itself for her escape, she would show those pathetic little mortals the true fury of the Queen of the Night!
It could have been a matter of moments just as easily as it could have happened eons later, there was nothing to even hint at how much time had passed within the featureless void when it finally happened.
A dimensional gateway opened in the distance, cutting straight through the void in which she was imprisoned, creating a direct pathway that something was using as a tunnel to traverse the dimensional barrier.
The Nightmare had no idea where the gateway led, nor what the semi-sentient fragment that was traveling through it could possibly be. But what she did know was that her chance had finally appeared, that any way out of the void was preferable to wasting away amidst its all-encompassing nothingness.
Just like she knew that whatever that shard was, it seemed to contain more than enough power to sustain her for a good long while.
And so, elation and desire flaring within her, she gathered all that remained of her power before launching herself towards the strange unknown fragment, overtaking its path and enveloping it mere moments before it entered the gateway.
Unrestrained glee momentarily mixed with her burning fury as the Nightmare felt the incredible amount of power contained within the shard as it slowly started to flow into her, filling her weakened being bit by bit as she methodically imposed her will over the semi-sentient fragment.
Oh, she couldn’t wait to show those miserable little heroes exactly how bad an idea it was to make an enemy out of a Nightmare!
“Let me out!” I desperately pleaded as I feebly hammered at the metal door of my locker with my sore and battered arms, the confined space in which I was trapped preventing me from putting any significant force into the blows.
Even as things stood, with me surrounded by the putrid mess that I had been trapped with, barely able to even breathe amidst the rancid smell, part of me couldn’t believe Emma could sink this low, that she and her accomplices could even imagine doing such a thing. And yet, here I was, trapped inside my own locker that had been stuffed full of what could only be called a rotting biological hazard.
Just as I had felt like things were starting to get better, that the trio had finally grown bored with going after me, just as I let myself be pulled into a false sense of security, let myself hope, my former best friend and her two accomplices had shoved and trapped me into this stinking hell.
“Please let me out!” I begged, tears in my eyes, the overpowering stench all around me making me want to gag and the unnerving feeling of countless bugs skittering across my skin encompassing nearly my entire world and making me dry heave.
“Shut up, Hebert!” I heard Sophia hiss with dark amusement towards the metal door, a hard hit against it punctuating her statement. “A worm like you belongs in the trash anyway; you should be thanking us for returning you to where you belong!”
Hearing the cruel laughter coming from over a dozen different mouths, I felt a hint of rage fighting against my hopelessness and despair, the mere thought that they could find any of this funny filling me with righteous fury, but even amidst my growing anger and despair, it was one specific voice that I focused upon.
The voice of a person that had once been my sister in all but blood, the voice of a person I had once trusted implicitly with my whole being, the voice of a person who had once been my closest and truest friend until she had betrayed it all.
“You really should have known better, Taylor,” Emma’s voice gleefully taunted from right outside the metal coffin I was trapped in. “You really should have learned by now that trash like you is not welcome here.”
I couldn’t stop the tears from my eyes as my once best friend outright laughed at my situation, at the situation she and her friends had created and forced onto me, each of her taunting words like a dagger to my heart.
But even so, beneath all the pain and sorrow, I could also feel my fury growing with each spiteful word that was spoken.
“Emma, please… You don’t have to do this...” I desperately pleaded, hoping against all hope that she would listen, that anything of my old friend, of my sister, still remained.
“But I do, Taylor. You see, it’s about time I cut a weakling like you out of my life for good,” she said in a mocking tone of voice, her words filled with contempt. “So why don’t you be your useless little self, and cry some more. Cry for a week straight for all I care, just like when your mother died.”
Her words hit me like a punch to the gut, leaving me completely speechless. The fact she would throw something I had confided to her in a moment of weakness right after my mother’s death back in my face in such a situation literally left me without reaction, not knowing what to do or say.
As I heard her laughing alongside the others while they started to walk away from my prison, that inaction was swiftly replaced by pure unrelenting fury, as the red hot ember of anger that had been slowly growing all this time exploded to life like a raging inferno.
As everything, the pain of my scraped arms and my aching head, the overwhelming stench and the disgusting feeling of garbage on my legs, the unnerving feeling of bugs crawling on my skin, and the intense hurt of her newest betrayal, everything was consumed by fury and rage as a single thought occupied the entirety of my mind.
How dare she!
The world seemed to be pressing all around me for a moment as I nearly choked on my anger until, with a blink of my eyes, I was no longer inside the filth-ridden locker hearing Emma’s mocking laughter. Instead, I was upon a vast void filled to the brim with stars swirling around each other in an endless dance.
And right in the middle of the sea of stars, as if the center of a gigantic galaxy, stood two colossal beings, spinning and twirling around each other in an eternal waltz. Stars trailed away from their bodies like rays of ephemeral light, locked in step with their graceful movements in an otherworldly choreography that defied explanation.
[Trajectory]
The shimmering stars dancing through the void seemed to call to me. Each of them was a beautiful fragment of creation, a spark of infinity, moving in a perfect pattern of incredible intricacy and beauty.
[Agreement]
And as I watched the mesmerizing dance of the two impossible titans and the countless stars that were birthed from their bodies, my eyes fell upon a single star. A single star, shining with such a fierce light that it could not help but hold my gaze, it’s brilliant light second only to the titans themselves.
[Destination]
A single, shining star whose brilliant form was swiftly cutting through the void and heading straight towards me, approaching my unmoving form with ever-growing speed as the titans’ words resonated through my hazy mind.
[Agreem-]
‘SILENCE YOU FOALS!’
Only for the whole impossible display to be abruptly brought to a screeching halt by a resounding shout, as a midnight-black ebon-colored star overtook and engulfed the brilliant shard coming towards me moments before it reached my body.
Blinking my eyes awake and shaking my head, I tried to make sense of what I had just seen, to understand why exactly I had suddenly started daydreaming about glowing titans and dancing stars, as for but a moment my mind completely forgot about my current situation due to the sheer strangeness of it all.
Only for the rancid smell and suffocating close walls of the locker to immediately bring me back to the harsh reality of my situation.
“Sophia! Are you alright?” Emma’s distressed voice came from the small openings near the top of the locker, the mere sound of the traitor’s voice filling me with fury once again.
“What the fuck? What the hell just hap… no…” Sophia’s voice came next, the confusion and incredulity clear in her tone doing nothing to calm the rising anger I could feel coursing through my veins.
‘What’s the meaning of this?! Who dares trap the Queen of the Night in such filth!?’
A feeling that was not helped in the slightest by an annoying buzzing sound that was now resonating in my ears. And that, alongside everything else, seemed to somehow only stoke the flames of my wrath even higher with each second that passed.
“No, there’s no way that loser…” Sophia’s voice continued, her confusion and incredulity slowly giving way to anger, but I was no longer listening, my own anger and fury demanding the whole of my attention as my quickened pulse hammered against my ears.
‘We shall not be contained!’
I wanted out of this hellhole! I wanted out of this filthy prison! And nothing and no one would stand in my way!
Placing my hands against the metallic surface of the locker’s door, I curled my fingers closed. The cold unforgiving metal that had once mercilessly trapped me deformed with the movement of my fingers as if wet clay, not even a hint of resistance now present in the door that hadn’t even buckled under my desperate struggles but moments earlier.
Baring my teeth in a parody of a smile I simply pushed forward, the deceitfully small movement nonetheless all but launching the metal door out of its hinges with a resounding ripping noise and propelling it straight into the row of lockers on the other side of the corridor with enough force to embed the deformed door into them with a resounding banging noise.
And just like that, I was free.
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What are "Shards"?
10989629
The source of super powers in the Worm-verse.
10989629
They are these sort of aliens computers that attach to a member of a species, normally during an extremly traumatic event and use them to gather data on the use of a granted ability. The thing is that the shards think that the best way to get data is through combat so they push their hosts into fighting. This combined with the trauma as you might suspect leads to a very unstable individual.
Due to this and the culture when superpowers (the granted abilities) appeared has lead to a culture of heroes and villians dressing up in spandix
unfortunaltey due to the method of gaining powers, the world this takes place in is one step away from falling apart as the majority of people that get powers become or are treated as villians either due to personaility, the trauma or the effects of the powers being granted with multiple examples of where people have gained powers but have then killed everyone around them as they dont know how to control them instantly.
What series is Worm exactly? A book, comic book, video game series etc?
Hey, so you did write this. Most excellent.
Frankly, if you're determined to get ahead in this line of work, but you haven't mastered the art of reflexive teleportation, you're just not doing it right. A lot of McGuffins are single-use, if you can DODGE! then you're set.
You know that's something I never understood. Everyone knows that triggers are caused by nearly-lethally traumatic events, so why would you do something like this to someone you hate and run the risk of having someone with a bitter vendetta against you acquire superpowers? It's literally Russian roulette.
Oh good, now she's capable of a personal grudge. Before she was just doing her Nightmare thing, now she's willing to go out of her way to settle the score. It's amazing what unadulterated spite can carry you through, very tenacious emotion that.
Ya done goofed.
This all sounds amazing. Nightmare's gonna burn the school down, and Taylor's gonna help. You gotta love it when ostensible villains just up and fling a gigantic ethical mess into center stage where no one can ignore it.
10989648
Its a Web-novel.
Basically a desconstruction of Marvel and other super hero settings. In which super powers come from alien biological-supercomputers, though most people on the setting don't know that. And most powers are awakened through trauma, and so the number of vilains is far greater than heroes.
Its quite good, if a bit grim-dark at times. I myself tend to like the fanfics about it, since there are some really good ones and most aren't as grim-dark as the original.
10989653
Yeah, incredibly few people ever seen to heed Abridged Piccolo's wise words. DODGE!
Happy to hear you liked the intro.
10989654
Thank you very much for answering my question, I really appreciate it. :) I'll have to take a look into the web novel itself.
10989669
No problem.
Its good, if quite long and a bit dark at times.
But the setting is really interesting.
I remember you talking about this! I've never read Worm, but I've read plenty of crossovers, so I know the general gist of it. I'm currently reading a similar fic where it's the God Emperor of Mankind who's riding shotgun in her mind and giving her powers, so I'll be sure to check this out.
You might want to think about also posting this to Spacebattles or Sufficient Velocity, AFAIK those are the fanfic hubs of the Worm fandom. I followed A Friend in Need from there to Fimfiction in the first place.
… Well this is interesting, not many people know worm here, do they?
… wow, the two of them are in Sync… I wonder how long it will take for them to notice each other… let’s see here…
Will Taylor
a. Unleash a storm of lightning
b. Flee
c. Break down and cry
d. Summon minnions
e. Unleash a psyonic shockwave
f. Pull off an impression of sombra
10989680
Thanks! And I plan to try and make it friendly to those who aren't deep into Worm, so no worries.
10989681
I'll consider it. I'm also posting this at FF.net, but I never posted anything in either SV or SB.
10989684
No worries, whatever you decide! I just wanted to let you know about them if you didn't already.
10989683
Not many Worm x MLP crossovers to get the knowledge around.
And the good ones that do exist, like
are dormant, so yeah.
And you will have the answer to some of those questions very soon.
Oh no, something tells me this version of Taylor isn't going to have the restraint to not get instant revenge, and is going to be seen as a villain by the PRT right off the bat. I can't wait to see where this goes.
10989698
I seem to recall there's some laity for things that happen as a direct consequence of a trigger, given how much trauma is inevitably wound up in the event. More interesting though, if Nightmare forces Sophia to blow her identity in the midst of a cellphone-infested high school that would be gas.
Oh, a 40K crossover? Mind sharing a link?
10989683
I think she's gonna kick that locker door right across the hallway, march through the crowd until she finds Sophia, and have a right proper punchup. Amusingly, she's so purely mad right now that the locker trauma is probably going to be forgotten instead of sinking in like it did before.
10989730
She already launched the locker door
And about that link,
… I think This: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/12485917/1/Empress-Ascendant is it
10989730
Yeah, but this time the collateral damage could include several students and a member of the Wards. And keep in mind, this is Nightmare Moon influencing her, I doubt she's going to be Lawful Good.
And 10989740 is correct, Empress Ascendant is indeed the fic I was referring to.
10989698
Indeed.
10989730
She already did ltoss the door away. But yeah, Taylor os nit seeing straight right now. And tge consequences will be something to see.
10989851
The fact that after calming down and realizing her new 'companion' Taylor will think that she 'cracked' and Nightmare Moon is a figment of her imagination will also not help.
10989683
Ladybird
Here's a funny Worm/MLP fix. It hasn't updated in a while but it's still a great read.
Rubbing my hands with glee, waiting to see what comes next.
10989690
This is true here's hoping your muse is in for the long haul. Really promising start, hope someone gets a nice backhand through the wall.
There's only on other Worm/MLP fic besides A Friend in Need that was any good and went for a while. I dont remeber the title but it was over on Ff.net. Taylor turned into a Alicorn and had the power of friendship. Good stuff
This person better beat the crap out of them girls. No one deserves to be bullied in that way
There really are too few Worm/MLP crossovers in this place. I'm quite happy to see another, finally!
Incredible. A Worm-fic shows up on Fimfiction and it's about what I'd expect from 90% of SB to produce. It even starts with a locker scene AND the crossover angle suborning a Shard. Really ticking off the boxes with this one.
Since Nightmare subsumed Administrator, shouldn't that beget Taylor getting Khepri-tier control powers, due to no Entity-set limitations, and magic?
So where's the comedy?
11044224
Will come later as the story progresses. This was basically the intro.
10991659
Why are you booing him? He's right!
10989629
Shards are, major spoilers for the original story, part of the source of powers for Capes in Parahuman Worm, the primary setting for this fic. Basically low level AI constructs that moderate powers on each Host.