Chapter Text
The darkness surrounded Taylor. She didn’t knew how long she’d been in the locker, but all she could feel was pain, and an unrelating sense of terror. She was pretty sure she’d broken her hands slamming against the door, if nothing else she’d certainly torn the skin, she could feel the blood weeping from the tattered ruins of her knuckles. The bugs had already crawled in, and she could feel them revelling in her ruin. She could imagine them laying their eggs beneath their skin, eating away at her flesh, and erupting out from her corpse when it was dragged out of the locker. If it ever was. Her dad was the only one who cared about her and who’d listen to him? She’d die here and her corpse would become a breeding ground for rot, insects, and so much more.
She felt the urge to vomit again and coughed as bile spewed out of her mouth the acidic taste burnt on her tongue. Even as she gagged, she felt more insects skittering into her mouth as well as an old tampon falling. She gagged and began to claw at her throat hoping to get it out. Eventually she managed to wriggle her hands up to a position where they could pull the tampon out.
She’d scream if she could, instead she started punching the locker door again, hoping maybe that this time she’d be able to break through the old steel or maybe even that someone would let her out. She doubted it, the locker dated from before the coming of Scion when Brockton Bay had been a flourishing city it was made tough, and she doubted that she’d be able to break through, and for any outside help. She didn’t think there was a single student who stand up for her, and she doubted a teacher would be walking past. But it was the only thing she could do. So, she kept on slamming her fists into the door hoping against hope that something would happen.
As she made another punch, she felt her hand shatter. Her knuckles breaking under the force she’d focused upon them. The wave of pain was nearly enough to make her pass out; her mouth fell open in a soundless scream of pain allowing yet more bugs to crawl inside her mouth. She slammed her other hand against her throat in a desperate attempt to get the bugs out as they skittered around her windpipe. The pain was overwhelming Taylor found it harder and harder to breathe, her hands were shattered, her body was being eaten and she could feel her death drawing near. Her eyes rolled back as Taylor slipped from consciousness.
Yet instead of falling into darkness she felt something shift deep inside her.
She felt like she was drifting she didn’t know for how long, or how she even felt it, but she felt that she was being tossed and turned throughout something that felt like the deepest sea imaginable. She heard whispers that while she didn’t understand she knew deep down that they held power, she smelt the coppery scent of blood, and the sickly-sweet smell of decay, and all around her was singing more beautiful than anything she had ever heard in her life. She opened her eyes.
She was standing on a surface that stretched as far as the eye could see. It was divided into four great quadrants, the one to the north was the colour of freshly spilt blood, with molten metal, and magma pouring through great trenches. To the east lay a great rotting garden, the plants that grew within were unlike anything that Taylor had ever seen, as she watched she plants sprout, grow, die, and rot in but an instant. To the west lay a shimmering crystal maze, with eldritch runes dancing across the walls. Taylor turned to look south to see another garden but one that was completely different to the one before, statutes lay scattered through showing acts that made Taylor’s cheeks burn. She turned back to the north. Where four looming figures had appeared.
The first took the form of a winged warrior that was nearly six meters tall. Massive, tattered wings arose from behind him, he was clad in thick armour which mostly took on the colour of blood, with long strips of brass along the edges. Deep red eyes glared from a helmet that would make the Endbringers think twice. In one hand he held an axe in the other a whip of flame. As Taylor looked at him, she felt herself craving violence, slaughter, vengeance against her bullies. She turned away from him before she did something she’d regret.
To his left stood a nine-headed bird-man thing. It was tall albeit not as tall as it’s neighbour, but where the warrior had been bulky, a wall of steel, brass, and muscle, this was lanky, though muscles rippled across its torso and arms. Its heads resembled a crows if not for the blue feathers and the very threating fangs in their beaks, the wings contuined the avian theme, with glistening blue feathers standing furled behind it. In one hand it held a staff in the other a book gleaming with a strange blue light. As Taylor looked, she felt the craving for change. The craving for knowledge. The craving to tear down the world order and rebuild for no other reason than she could.
Beside it what looked like an old man at first stood with a jolly smile across his green face. As Taylor looked over him, she shuddered the green skin was the least disturbing thing about him. His pudgy gut was literally overflowing from his body. His intestines were hanging a few centimetres off the floor. Tattered antlers emerged from his head; the bells attached making a jangle every time he moved. As Taylor studied him, he waved at her and smiled with the jolliness of a grandfather which contrasted with the rotting smell that filled her nostrils as she looked at him.
The final figure was lithe their purple skin glinting in the soft light of wherever Taylor was. Their hooved legs rose from the ground to a loincloth that appeared to be made from silk, and with threaded gold throughout. Their chest was rippling with lithe muscles and covered with strange intricate tattoos in the most varied colours. But any higher than their abs were met with a constantly shifting appearance sometimes there was a man whose body was chiselled like the statutes of Ancient Greece, sometimes a woman, eventually they settled on an androgynous appearance of one breast and one pec. It was strange, even stranger was the feelings that were running rampart in Taylor as she looked at them.
“SO, THIS IS WHO YOU THINK WILL BRING ABOUT OUR VICTORY!?” The warrior rumbled his voice deeper than anything Taylor had heard. As it echoed around her the scent of blood filled the air, her heart began to beat faster, and all she wanted to do was kill her foes and rend their bodies.
“Yes, SHE is the CHOSEN/harbinger/best/herald, so that THIS world can be ours.” The Avian’s sounded like ten-thousand, and one voices speaking simultaneously.
“I can see why. She’s a sharp one no doubt about it.” The grandfather gurgled his voice filled with both love and the knowledge that death was soon.
“And such delicious trauma, oh… we will feast greatly on this one.” A voice that sounded like the prostitutes that scattered Brockton slipped from the oh-so kissable lips of the final figure.
“Who… are you?” Taylor stammered.
“Why, Child/Spawn/puppet/ally/comrade we are the God, and we are here to help/strengthen/empower/unleash you onto this world.”
“What?”
“WE WILL MAKE YOU STRONG. YOUR RAGE WILL SHATTER THIS WORLD AND YOU SHALL LEAD THE RELENTLESS HUNT! WITH THE ENDLESS FURY OF KHORNE!”
The air was filled with the scent of blood and the air in front of Taylor began to shimmer before it cleared.
Taylor stood in the heart of a shattered Winslow, around her lay the broken corpses of the E88, ABB, and Merchants their shattered corpses showing the fury that had been unleashed onto them. Madison’s body lay broken at Taylor’s feet her face contorted with the fear that came from death. Taylor held the struggling forms of Emma, and Sophia by their necks as she looked out over the field of carnage that had been unleashed. The fear in their eyes was clear as all their actions came back to haunt them. Taylor lifted them up further before clenching her fists around their necks. The light faded from their eyes and Taylor threw their corpses to the ground before looking to the sky and letting out a brutal roar.
“BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!”
Taylor stumbled backwards and collapsed to the floor. Could she do that? Could she kill those who had made her life hell? Most of her screamed that it was wrong, that it was lowering herself to their level, but a small part whispered that she could, and she knew then and there that the voice was telling the truth. If she had the power, she would end up killing someone, and the chances were it would be her tormentors.
“We will let you feast on the delights of this world, every excess imaginable will be given to you pleasure and pain will be your slaves. The world will submit to Slaanesh!”
The scent this time was of perfumes sweeter than anything Taylor had smelt before.
Taylor lay at the heart of Brockton surrounded by men and women of unparalleled beauty, but none compared to Taylor herself, her long legs were on full display while her hair hung down to her waist. Her chest had grown, and she was nothing more than the image of desire. At her feet Emma, Sophia, and Madison lay in chains, any remnants of power stripped from them. They were contorting in unspeakable torment while around them people were committing acts that looked extremely pleasurable.
“Partake of perfection.” The other Taylor whispered.
That had been different to the one before, where that had given her the feeling of power, that one gave her the feeling of being able to give into her deepest, most forbidden desires. She could be beautiful, she could treat her bullies the same way that they had treated her, and she could transform Brockton into a pillar of pleasure, and perfection for all the world to admire.
“We will give you the gifts of life, the glory of decay, and rebirth. Share the gifts that power brings, and bring this crumbling order to the ground where it belongs. Spread decay for Nurgle!”
The smell of rot filled the air this time, despite the disgust it represented there was a flicker of hope within it.
Taylor stood in the City Hall of Brockton, the leaders of the City and the Gangs lay before her coughing and wheezing with pain. The gangs were collapsing all around them and hope was at long last returning to Brockton Bay. All around life bloomed, trees grew, moss covered the roads, and flowers burst from the earth, great herds of fish swam throughout the bay, while the rusting hulks the starved Brockton of trade rusted to nothing. All around her the old order decayed and a new one grew in its place. She saw cancer patients raising from their beds and dancing in the streets, hospitals closing from lack of need and joy filling the city.
“Share the gifts of life and decay.”
That was different to the ones before it was kinder, softer, it had more hope, it spoke to Taylor’s desire to make the world a better place. It showed her city blooming, corrupt rot that overran today collapsing under its own weight and a new freer order arising from the ashes. It would make her the gardener of Brockton and it would make her garden the greatest in all the world.
“We will give you gifts of knowledge unfathomable by any others. We will bring a wave of change unto this world. Change fate for Tzeentch!”
The scent reminded her of the oldest part of the library, the musk of books, and the smell of the knowledge held within.
Taylor stood on the foreshore of Brockton Bay her hair snapping in the wind. In one hand she bore a staff that was taller than her, in the other burned an orb of blue flame. She flicked her wrists and the rusted hulks that dominated the view burst into shimmering flame. As she turned around and looked over the city itself Kaiser was thrown to her feet, his armour shattered, beside him lay Lung, and Skidmark battered and bruised. She could see the city changing behind them with gleaming towers of crystal rising to the sky and great burning fires roaring at the top. Taylor’s eyes flared a bright blue and the villains at her feet began to writhe with the sheer power of change.
“Change was inevitable.” She roared as the bodies at her feet shifted.
Taylor looked down at her hands. Those same hands had wielded fire. Those same hands had brought such massive change to the city that architecture itself had changed to something so alien and yet so beautiful. She itched to find the knowledge that was needed to build things so beautiful.
“What do you want from me?” Taylor asked into the sky.
“We want your world.” The four voices hissed as one.
Taylor looked down at her hands. If she accepted this deal, she could damn humanity or she could save it. She looked up again and remembered the pain of the locker.
“I accept.” She whispered.
The four figures stalked towards and formed a circle around her Khorne to the north, Tzeentch to the west, Slaanesh to the south, and Nurgle to the east.
“DO YOU TAYLOR HEBERT ACCEPT THE MARKS OF CHAOS?”
“I do.”
“DO YOU SWEAR TO SPREAD THE WORD OF THE GODS ACROSS YOUR WORLD?”
“I do.”
“THEN RISE AS THE EVERCHOSEN OF CHAOS AND BRING OUR WILL UNTO THE WORLD!”
Taylor’s eyes snapped open and she sat bolt upright in the hospital bed, and smiled.