Ant Homework (Worm)

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    doorbell

    Taylor has an idea or two about developing her canon!power. She also has a chance to change things, but she's not the only one. And she finds herself in the position to babysit a lot of babies. Including herself.

    INDEX
    RESET 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.i

    OMAKES
    first words (Ehn) (SB)
    first teeth (Ehn) (SB)
    "What." (Eotyrannus, DOOMPOTATO, ToNotBe) (SB)

    MORE
    -The title comes from me realizing that Taylor's power had some largely neglected potential in the Thinker department. In this fic, having her passenger reset leads Taylor to come up with ways to make it evolve in original ways, basically becoming the teacher of an alien.

    -I also had an idea about Taylor Peggy-Sued into Annette's womb, power and all. I seemed to think it funny, but you should be scared.

    -That had a big chance of having Taylor eat the Wormverse alive while waiting years so that something interesting will happen, so I had to add a huge conspiracy of which her predicament is just the bit that floats. Also I got Taylor some friends, old and new. I hope she won't kill them.
    Bug knowledge: it supplies her with exclusively practical information on already existing bugs, so that she doesn't have to figure out what every muscle does. It lets her control their instincts directly, giving them, for example, the equivalent of chemical orders to walk somewhere, and they will naturally fill the rest. It's like a user manual for newbies.

    Multitasking: every order she gives is echoed by the passenger. At first this is at the level of 'these bugs must contract this muscle now', but it gets better:

    Learning:     the power catches it when Taylor repeatedly includes one order into another and associates them. This can lead to the endless layering that little Taylor is going to exploit so much, allowing for orders that are more complex and less literal. This accounts for the appearance of initiative when she was unconscious or her access to her power was otherwise cut: metaorders can extend in time, have phases and work unsupervised.
    Art repository

    Note: this fic contains images and text that can't be seen over a white background. Like here:
    ​

    SV​
     
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    • 1.1
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    • doorbell

    doorbell

    ​
    I remember dreaming I was a villain who controlled bugs, and people too because they were bugs to me.

    I was a monster that didn't need language because there wasn't a point in listening to bugs if I could just control them.

    I would wake up from time to time, a little bit, to realize how sad and terrible the dream was and try to convince myself that I wasn't that, that I was a Hero or a real person or maybe that I was dead, all the while trying to suppress the invasive stimuli coming from my bugs along with the headaches they caused.

    If I was awake enough I would think names that were important and repeat them and turn them in my mind, and those names would be my mantra and my lullaby, proving my humanity and reminding me of beautiful things.

    I'd have a notion of being unable to move or see anything, and all I felt was a regular thump, but I would postpone planning a daring escape because I was too drowsy and plain tired of everything and because maybe I deserved this anyway, whatever this was.

    It would take me a while to be alert enough to fight sleep and try to assess my situation. I couldn't open my eyes, but based on the lethargy and the wet warmth I suspected I was either inside Echidna, or in a Tinkertech tank. In any case, I was heavily drugged. My bugs, though...

    That would be the first time I actively reached for my bugs despite the nightmares and how not-mine they felt, and I could only barely feel them, probably because of my previous efforts to make them shut up.

    ​
    I tried to reconnect to them, and the headaches were right back, which made me wonder if there was something wrong with the Thinker aspect of my power, or if it was all me. But I was more awake than I had been in a while, and I was taking it slow.

    It would take me many lucid moments when I remembered the plan, but eventually I had my bugs back and I was making progress toward sensing through their senses again. Then I had even more bugs.

    The new bugs were ridiculously small and simple arachnids that barely even sensed at all and were literally everywhere- mites. I soon realized how useful they could be: they inhabited the faces of probably everybody around, like my tracker bugs except they were invisible and already there.

    I took good care of not changing bug behavior in ways my captors might notice, and used bugs only to drown my feelings and try mapping the environment by their position.

    The buildings were strangely familiar, like I was home, my entire neighborhood was supposed to be rubble so maybe it was my memory malfunctioning again- it was getting worryingly common in my namethinking sessions when I got to the people I didn't know so well.

    I made short work of using my farthest bugs to triangulate the center of my range, which I already knew had moved from time to time... and it matched with a person with mites on her, laying on a sofa, reading a book. I guessed that it must be me, and the hair seemed to match. Which meant someone was mastering my body.

    I told my bugs to subtly arrange themselves to potentially see 'me', though they had forgotten all about subtlety so I had to walk them through everything as if it was the first time.

    Then I noticed that the mites in 'my' bellybutton were a little too far from the back of the sofa, and it took only a fly to check: the woman was pregnant.

    It took me embarrassingly long to piece it all together, but eventually I got over the puzzled horror and right into the conclusion that I had traveled back in time, along with my powers, to Mom's womb.

    ​
    I was trying not to think of whether this was a stranger effect or another dream or a tailored reality or the real past of my world or, why not, Hell. It wasn't too hard: it wasn't the first time I'd had to discard my confusion in order to just keep going. Whatever the case, if this was what Contessa had meant about doing it all over again she had truly gone all out with her bullshit power this time.

    The headaches weren't letting me be too grateful, though.

    I had assumed that the reason why my power was malfunctioning was that I was drugged or brain-damaged or something, but now it was obvious that my passenger had simply reset: it wasn't just that my bugs wouldn't follow complex commands or show any kind of initiative, my range was also at an all-time low.

    I was pretty shocked at how steep the contrast was: I had always thought that it was me learning to use my powers what had made them evolve, and I had never realized just how much they had evolved.

    That was, anyway, the reason for the headaches: I was training intensively, trying to catch up with a certain standard of competence, starting with bug-sight and bug-hearing, and... well, I could have taken it slow; I was a fetus, but hearing and understanding words would go a long way into calming my 'I'm a monster' dreams (I hoped), and... and I had nearly forgotten Mom's face which simply wouldn't do.


    ________________________________________​
    A/N: I seriously hope you've liked this chapter, because if you haven't you probably won't come back for more, and next chapter has some serious fetus action. I'm aware it makes a textwall-like first chapter -which is the worst kind of first chapter- but I just had to get it out of the way. On a happier note, you who've managed to get to this A/N can consider yourselves an elite among Readership that deserves the updates that are to come, which will hopefully include A/Ns with some kind of actual information in them. Oh well, PICTURES!

    ​
    And happy merry Christmas.
     
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    • hfy

    I think the so called "wall o' text" is fine, hardly a wall compared to some of the ridiculously long chapters other sb's post
     
    Cj1of4

    Cj1of4

    Interesting, I'm curious about how little Taylor is going to react to people. I'm guessing her meeting Emma again will have interesting results. One one hand this is the girl who betrayed her, but on the other she hasn't done it yet...
     
    doorbell

    doorbell

    Cj1of4 said:
    I'm guessing her meeting Emma again will have interesting results. One one hand this is the girl who betrayed her, but on the other she hasn't done it yet...
    Click to expand...
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    That's going to be 2 of 3: twisted, interesting, sweet. Edit: wait, maybe the three of them.

    UnwelcomeStorm said:
    Also, I giggled at Taylor's first reaction being "Goddamnit, Contessa!"
    Click to expand...
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    She might be wrong, though ^^

    hfy said:
    I think the so called "wall o' text" is fine, hardly a wall compared to some of the ridiculously long chapters other sb's post
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I was worried because most of this chapter was constructed from a bunch of different drafts and some necessary bits I inserted later, and I wasn't sure it would flow right.

    Interregnum said:
    "These capes just keep getting younger and younger."
    Click to expand...
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    You have no idea :drevil:
     
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    Dromeosaur

    Dromeosaur

    Feathery Raptor of snowy planes and frozen sea
    Now I can't help but imagine Taylor contacting outside world and her mother, convincing everybody that she is a time-traveler - and horribly awkward process of birth.
    Even being a toddler is not as bad as birth.
     
    Carlos

    Carlos

    Verified Verifier
    Finally potting this bad boy, huh?
    I've been looking forward to this. Unfortunately I'm down to my last two percent in battery and without a power source until Xmas is over :/
     
    googolplexbyte

    googolplexbyte

    I love the pictures, it all very stylishly laid out.

    Not much of a wall of text though, though based on the lack of conversation partners or activities for the unborn, I'm sure there's plenty more.
     
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