Fanfic / Wyvern

Wyvern is a Worm fanfic by ack1308.

This fic explores an alternate world where Taylor manifests the power to turn into a dragon (or rather, a wyvern) and ends up joining New Wave rather than the Wards or the Undersiders.

The story can also be read on SpaceBattles.com (here), Sufficient Velocity.com (here), and Questionable Questing.

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This fanfiction contains examples of:

• Adaptive Ability: One component of Taylor's power that isn't initially obvious is that it can adapt to threats beyond just increasing in size. For instance, when fighting Burnscar she gains a new ice-based Breath Weapon, and fighting Crawler gives her an attack that can basically annihilate matter on a molecular level. According to Tattletale, this even works on powers like Coil's.
• Alternate Universe:
  • In this world, the change is that Taylor and Kenta got the other's power- or rather, Skitter and Lung get each other's powers. Kenta gets the ability to control bugs and other vermin as Inago (as opposed to his "turn into a dragon" power in canon as Lung), while Taylor gets the power to turn into a dragon as Wyvern (as opposed to her canonical "Controls bugs" power as Skitter).
  • At the same time, Hero is still alive and Legend has broken away from the main Protectorate for unknown reasons, leaving behind a different Triumvirate.
• Atomic F-Bomb: In Chapter 13, an angry Taylor loudly tells Armsmaster to fuck off — the fact that her current form makes the sound loud enough to bust unprotected eardrums at close range gives the outburst quite a bit of punching power. The fact that no one previously knew her dragon form could talk, only increases the impact.
• Batman Gambit: Carol Dallon speculates that Armsmaster may be attempting one with Blackwell's demands that Taylor return to Winslow. She knows that Armsmaster desperately wants Taylor in the Wards and under his control. She also knows he knows that Taylor was bullied at Winslow to the point of triggering, that her transformation is stress-based and not fully under her control, and that immediately after her transformation she is running on instinct and will lash out violently if provoked before her conscious mind regains control. So Carol's theory is that he is deliberately putting her in a situation where her bullies will torment her until she loses control, transforms, and lashes out violently. The backlash from such a rampage would force New Wave to publicly disown her, at which point Armsmaster will be free to strongarm her into the Wards. As it turns out, she's only half-right, there was a plot in this vein, but Coil was the one behind it, hoping to force Taylor into his service.
• Battle Amongst the Flames: Wyvern and Miss Militia vs Shadow Stalker in Winslow, at the end of Chapter 17 and the beginning of chapter 18. It was actually Sophia who set off the fire.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: The Slaughterhouse Nine successfully coerce Wyvern into fighting them. She grows larger than they knew was possible and kills them all.
• Blessed with Suck: Taylor, even more than usual for a Worm Fan Fic. She has a very powerful Changer ability, but it's stress-based and not fully under her control. So not only does she end up transforming when she doesn't want to (several times), but she has to deliberately recall the pain and humiliation of her bullying in order to change on purpose. Oh, and better yet, she can't yet turn human again on command, requiring her to be completely calm and relaxed — something she's really not used to feeling.
  • Taylor notes that wyverns can't giggle, they can only snicker. And That's Terrible.
  • Since Taylor's transformation involves changing size and shape, she tends to shred everything she's wearing. She goes through three pairs of clothes the first day.
• Breath Weapon: Taylor has manifested several.
  • An explosive fireball she first used to blow the door off her locker.
  • A narrow and extremely hot cutting torch that she first uses to melt Armsmaster's halberd.
  • A broader cone of flames she uses to roast Inago's bug swarms.
  • An instant-freeze cold attack that she uses against Burnscar once she upgrades into her ice-dragon form.
  • A series of steerable ice shards, used by the same form.
  • A matter annihilation attack that she uses on Jack Slash and Bonesaw once she achieves her (currently) largest form.
• Bullying a Dragon: Literally, in this case.
  • Armsmaster keeps antagonizing Taylor, mainly by pressuring her to join the Wards, which combined with Taylor's transformations being triggered by intense stress tends to result in him facing a large, angry dragon rather more often than he'd like. He does mean well, he just badly fails at reading the situation (and then justifiably freaking out when faced with a dragon).
  • The Slaughterhouse 9 come to town and kidnap Danny, Alan and Emma to force Taylor to fight them. Be Careful What You Wish For...
• Caught on Tape: Not the first time this trope was used in an Ack fic. When summoned back to Winslow in chapter 15, Taylor brings an audio recorder (as well as a decoy) with her to collect evidence Sophia and Emma are bullying her. The recorder is stolen in chapter 16, leading to Taylor finding out Sophia Hess is Shadow Stalker- through both incriminating evidence and Miss Militia and the PRT getting involved.
• The Cavalry: Downplayed in Chapter 17- Miss Militia thinks Wyvern is this, when she was there the whole time in her civilian identity.
• Chekhov's Gun: Downplayed- as a vigilante, Shadow Stalker had road flares in her tool kit. She also noticed Winslow is made of wood instead of concrete. This is how she set the building on fire in Chapter 17.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: The Slaughterhouse 9 do manage to rough up Taylor at the start of her battle against them, particularly Crawler, but once she escalates enough, they all die quickly.
• Effective Knockoff: Essentially, what Taylor and Kenta are to the other's canon self.
  • Taylor's version of Escalation instantly transforms her into a wyvern when she's stressed. Unlike Lung it comes equipped with flight and fire breath from the start. She's retained Lung's durability, regeneration, and ever growing power and size. The only thing she doesn't seem to possess is Lung's more overt pyrokinesis, instead having traded it for extremely devastating breath attacks, but even that could just be inexperience.
  • Kenta, meanwhile, is much more dangerous in direct combat than canon Taylor. He not only has her bug control, but can also make his own swarms by vomiting them up and has a very powerful insect based changer form that's strong enough to match Wyvern until she out scales him. While he might not be as powerful as Lung he's a much bigger direct threat than Skitter ever was.
• Entertainingly Wrong: As the Siberian simply vanishes at some point during Taylor's battle against the Slaughterhouse 9, many assume she simply fled after seeing Taylor kill three of their number in only a few minutes. In reality, Taylor's battle against Crawler accidentally killed William Manton, the Parahuman powering the projection known as Siberian.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Both Hookwolf and Cricket oppose the idea of trying to kill Wyvern in her sleep or when she's otherwise unaware, insisting they always kill their enemies face to face.
• Extradimensional Power Source: The source of Taylor's Breath Weapon varieties is eventually shown to be portals to different dimensions. Which attack she's using changes whether she's bringing energy from a different dimension (fire), sending it to the another dimension (cold), or taking energy from it and sending matter back (annihilation).
• Eyebrows Burned Off: Sophia in Chapter 18. The rest of her hair is burned off as well.
• Face–Heel Turn: In Chapter 17, Sophia is acknowledged as "Code Purple"- ie. this trope. Played with in that she was already acting villainous.
• Failed a Spot Check: Armsmaster tends to focus overly on only a few things and thus miss other details until they're metaphorically slammed in his face. During Sophia's Face–Heel Turn, he pays no mind to where Sophia is when it's reported and largely dismisses the situation, functionally ignores the student he spots moving across the sports field (Sophia escaping), and doesn't even notice that Miss Militia has an arrow in her stomach when he believes Wyvern has attacked her. When he does notice each of these things, even he can understand that Wyvern's response is the dragon equivalent of "No shit, Sherlock".
• Fantasy-Forbidding Father: During Taylor and Vicky's first patrol, they come across a visiting supervillain and decide to intervene; the fight goes well enough and they successfully capture him, despite Taylor being temporarily knocked out by a point-blank missile shot. All standard stuff for superhero stories but, once they return home, their respective parents are furious at them for having taken such unnecessary risks during a new team member's first outing, and the fallout nearly sees Taylor forced to leave New Wave.
• For Want Of A Nail: Because Kenta got the QA Shard instead of the Escalation shard, Lung never existed, and his claim to fame (fighting solo against Leviathan in Kyushu) never happened.
• Giant Flyer: Taylor's largest form as of chapter 23 is over three times as long as a 747 with roughly five times the wingspan. Or put another way, Lady Photon could stand on her lower eyelid.
• Glory Hound: While, as noted below, Armsmaster is a jerkass with a point, this does not change the fact that his ultimate goal of trying to get Taylor into the wards is so that he can mentor her and partner up with the goal of defeating an Endbringer. He literally thinks that he'd "be fine" with half the fame, but also because he has always wanted to partner with a dragon.
• Godzilla Threshold: Piggot request Taylor act as such in regards to places like Eagleton and Ellisburg, aka places where completely annihilating the entire city is arguably the only way to actually resolve the situation.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • If Carol Dallon was correct that Armsmaster arranged for Taylor to be dragooned into attendance at Winslow in the hope of creating an incident and getting Taylor and New Wave in trouble, then the way it has instead backfired and revealed the PRT involvement in Taylor's bullying constitutes this trope. It was Coil instead, but it still causes a set of circumstances that results in him being unable to do anything against Taylor due to Cauldron viewing her as more useful than him.
  • When Miss Militia and four PRT agents try to contain Sophia in Containment Foam, it results in Miss Militia, the Heberts, Blackwell, Alan and Emma Barnes, and themselves getting Foamed, allowing Sophia to murder the four troopers and set the building on fire to escape.
• Honor Before Reason: After the battle against the Slaughterhouse 9, it's generally agreed the only possible way to kill Wyvern, or even defeat her, would be attacking her in her sleep or when she's otherwise unaware. Despite this, Hookwolf and Cricket vehemently refuse to even consider the idea, stating that such "cowardly" tactics are beneath them.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: When Taylor, Danny, and the police are collecting evidence of the Trio bullying Taylor- which now includes stealing a (decoy) audio recorder that the police officers on site are retrieving from Sophia's locker- Miss Militia and several PRT agents show up to take over the investigation. The PRT don't get involved unless a Cape was involved in a crime. This is one of several tips of incriminating evidence revealing to Taylor that one of her bullies is Shadow Stalker.
• Implausible Deniability: Taylor collecting evidence of being bullied reveals evidence beyond reasonable doubt Sophia is Shadow Stalker-
  • Miss Militia and the PRT intrude on the police investigation when there's previously been no evidence of Cape involvement in the bullying campaign.
  • The stolen recorder- which has a tracking device- is found to not be in the locker but behind it.
  • The police officers have to dig to get behind Sophia's locker, but Sophia can easily phase in and out of that space.
  • Also discovered were Shadow Stalker's vigilante-era costume and several crossbow bolts that aren't Wards-grade non-lethal ammunition.
• Incredibly Obvious Bug: In order to spring the trap set for Taylor at Winslow, Carol Dallon gives Taylor the Decoy, a bulky neon-yellow tape recorder with "YOU ARE BEING RECORDED" printed on the side in big obvious letters. As the name suggests, the Decoy is not actually an audio recorder. It's actually a very durable remote microphone for the real audio recorder (which is hidden safely in Taylor's pocket), and also contains a tracking beacon and is coated in a UV-reactive dye. Taylor takes the Decoy to Winslow, shows it to the Trio, and informs them that they are being recorded (which she legally has to do to be able to introduce those recordings as evidence in a court case). As expected, the Trio promptly steal the Decoy, only for Taylor to call the police, leaving the Trio caught with their hands covered in the UV-reactive dye from the Decoy, a complete recording of their stealing it from Taylor available for the prosecution, and with the tracking beacon tracing the Decoy to Sophia's locker.
• Insane Troll Logic: Sophia mentally insists that her actions in Winslow are none of the PRT's business because she did them as Sophia Hess, rather than as Shadow Stalker — even though she used her cape powers to pull some of them off. However, she also insists the PRT should bail her out and ensure she suffers no consequences for her actions as Sophia Hess.
• Insistent Terminology: As everyone keeps pointing out, Taylor's alternate form is a wyvern, not a dragon.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Armsmaster initially plays hardball with Taylor when he finds out that she was the one who blew up her locker. While yes, it wasn't the best thing to do, and while he could have been more diplomatic instead of jumping to conclusions, his internal logic was sound: present the facts of the case, tell her exactly how much damage she could have done, how many could have been hurt or killed, and how dangerous what she did was. This would have led up to a recruitment pitch for the Wards, where they could train her to use her power safely. Unfortunately, his explanation just made her transform, and he was unaware that said explosion was her Trigger Event. Were the previous two points not the case, it might have been an effective speech.
  • Likewise, threatening her with his halberd was probably not the smartest move, but in his defense, he was moving on instinct when suddenly confronted with a fire breathing dragon.
  • He is not great at explaining things to people, but his intentions of getting Taylor in for testing at least make sense; Taylor has New Powers as the Plot Demands, some of which have been shown to be incredibly destructive. Her first day, with no training, had her blow up her locker from the inside and melt his halberd to slag, and that's before they learn that she gets bigger as a result of fights, can talk while huge, and much more. Taylor doesn't even know what the full extent of her powers are, which could be potentially dangerous for any civilians if she tries out a new type of fireball and roasts a crowd. While he is glad that she's on a team that can help guide her into being a hero, the testing facilities of New Wave consist of "whatever Vicky can throw together in her backyard", while the Protectorate has far vaster resources that could help her out.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Kaiser decides to leave Wyvern alone so long as she doesn't openly oppose the Empire 88. On her own, she's too powerful to defeat with anything but a sneak attack, and she's also a member of New Wave who are fairly powerful as well. Finally, she's guaranteed to have attracted the interest of the Triumvirate (and indeed, Hero contacts her soon after), which is yet another enemy they can't afford.
• Magic Pants: Clothing is not normally designed to survive shapeshifting to a totally different body type. New Wave introduces Taylor to Parian in the hopes that she can design an outfit that will, so Taylor doesn't end up naked when changing from human to wyvern and back to human. Otherwise, this trope is totally averted — she loses three sets of clothes on her first day alone. After she beats the crap out of Inago, she ends up so large that she outgrows the costume.
• Meaningful Name: The third member of the ABB is named "Geonchugga", a Korean word meaning "architect", fitting for a Tinker. For the same reason, also doubles as His Name Really Is "Barkeep". Considering the strangeness of a Korean word to a teenage American, it's also an Unfortunate Name, indeed Taylor wonders if the Tinker robot is steam-powered.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Taylor, Danny, and the Police tracking down a stolen decoy recorder results in the PRT and Miss Militia intervening, which in turn contributes to the reveal about Winslow covering for Shadow Stalker.
• Mythology Gag:
  • As the story goes on, it's shown that Taylor is the one who got Lung's canon "Turn into a dragon," power, while Lung was the one who got Taylor's canon bug control power.
  • Lung (in this universe called Inago) nearly kills Vicky the same way that canon Taylor killed Alexandria.
• Naked First Impression: Amy barges into Vicky's room, since they're sisters and they do that to each other all the time. Vicky is in said room with Taylor, experimenting with her transformation. Taylor is naked, since a) said transformation inevitably destroys clothing and b) the stress of being naked with someone she just met might help with the transformation. Thus, Amy's first meeting with Taylor involves Taylor's naked butt in the middle of her sister's room. Hilarity Ensues.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Since Taylor's power is that of canon Lung, she is capable of "ramping up", becoming more powerful the longer a fight goes on. This is initially only shown in the aftermath of the Boat Graveyard battle, when she's noticeably larger than when she started the fight. Like Lung, this also comes with gaining new powers the longer she's fighting.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The Slaughterhouse Nine's attempts to recruit Taylor instead result in her gaining two new forms of Breath Weapon and the ability to grow until she's roughly 700 feet long.
• No Conservation of Energy: Subverted. Armsmaster and Dragon both wonder where all the energy is going when Taylor's ice Breath Weapon lowers the ambient temperature by ten degrees, but it's later shown that she's funneling all the energy to another dimension, one where the Big Bang never occurred and the ambient temperature is just above absolute zero.
• Noodle Incident: Taylor walks in at the end of an anecdote and hears only "... and I'm pretty sure he still can't stand the sight of fish." Everyone else is laughing, though.
• No OSHA Compliance: As per typical portrayals in Worm fics, Winslow is this. This time it's support structure of wood and empty fire extinguishers.
• Not Me This Time:
  • Chapter 17, despite her powers Taylor isn't responsible for Winslow catching fire. It was actually Sophia with a road flare who did the deed.
  • Though the entrapment at Winslow does sound like Armsmaster's doing, something Carol Dallon previous theorized, it was actually Coil taking advantage of the situation in the hopes of driving Taylor into his service.
• Not What It Looks Like: Armsmaster arrives at Winslow to see flames everywhere, and Wyvern looming over Miss Militia's injured form. Naturally, he jumps to completely the wrong conclusions about what has happened and who is responsible.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: The main reason that Piggot didn't do more against Sophia when Taylor made her accusations is that the Youth Guard started badgering her when she tried to start filling out the paperwork to pull her from the main roster.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Taylor when her bait outs Sophia as Shadow Stalker.
  • Taylor and Danny when they're trapped in Containment Foam and the building is on fire.
  • Miss Militia when Sophia goes Code Purple and attacks her and kills the PRT agents before setting the school on fire.
• One-Word Title: Codename of Protagonist Title.
• Our Wyverns Are Different: Taylor's alternate form has red and golden scales, clawed hind legs, sharp teeth, and winged forearms, and people are quite insistent at pointing out that she's a wyvern and not a dragon. Unlike most wyverns, she also breathes fire.
• Outrun the Fireball: Attempted by Sophia during chapter 15. It doesn't work, she gets covered in third-degree burns, and all her hair is singed off.
• Person as Verb: Early on, Glory Girl starts using 'Wyvern' as a verb.
  Glory Girl: 'Wyvern': verb. To inflict upon one's foes the absolute terror that rightfully comes from understanding that you've just pissed off a fire-breathing dragon. Also, to breathe fire on objects in such a manner that absolutely destroys them and leaves no doubt that a wyvern was involved. Halberds belonging to overly pretentious superheroes, for instance. Occasionally used as a noun. As in, Dammit, the wyvern just melted my halberd.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Taylor's power testing, with Hero, makes it clear that if she chose, she could raze a city to bedrock in seconds. From airliner height.
• Pest Controller: Much like Taylor gains Lung's shard and powers, he gained the ones she got in canon. He calls himself Inago, and controls vast swarms of insects and other vermin.
• Refuse to Rescue the Disliked: Amy pretends she can't heal Sophia due to the latter having a concussion after Sophia murders four PRT troopers and tries to kill several more people, including Taylor and Miss Militia. Danny briefly argues that she should be able to heal all the non-concussion injuries before quickly declaring that clearly Amy would know her power better than he would.
• Required Secondary Powers: Taylor has a few of these in order to make her draconic form work properly:
  • As she doesn't get flight powers like most of New Wave does (which fall into the Superman-style of flight, AKA just willing yourself through the air, supported by no visible means), she's more aware of how the air flows over her wings, and is thus more maneuverable in the air.
  • When in dragon mode, she's much more resistant to fire, helping prevent her from getting hurt from her own flames, but other heat sources don't bother her as much when in Wyvern mode. Case in point, she finally relaxes enough to change back to Taylor under a hot shower... then shrieks in pain as she gets burned by how hot the water was.
• Revealing Cover Up: Taylor had no reason to even suspect Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker (aside from Armsmaster's reaction to the name) until Emma called in the PRT during the search of Sophia's locker.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: When Vicky is badly injured and nearly killed by Inago during the gang fight, Taylor goes ballistic and beelines for the villain, ignoring the rest of the feuding gangsters in her single-minded determination to find Inago and make him pay. Given that she's a giant, armored, fire-breathing reptile at the time, she handily manages to thrash Inago to within an inch of his life.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Attempted by Sophia during the Winslow fire. Wyvern makes sure it doesn't succeed.
• Shout-Out: In chapter 19, part of the recording has Sophia planning to enlist members of the track team to chase down Taylor and tie her up with a roll of duct tape - the plot of the first chapter of ''Price of Blood'', complete with "Joe" being one of the chosen perpetrators.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Sophia genuinely believes that "The PRT need her more than she needs them", even though she's not a particularly effective hero and is a huge PR liability while they're the only thing keeping her out of prison.
• Square-Cube Law: Played with. More than one character notes that Taylor's weight grows faster than her size but Amy notes that each time Taylor grows larger, her body completely reconfigures itself to be optimized for her current size.
• Take a Third Option: When presented with the idea of attacking Wyvern head on, and almost certainly losing, or killing with a sneak attack, and risking mutiny from Hookwolf and Cricket, Kaiser suggests they simply leave her alone. She's not currently opposed to them and there's a chance she never will. Besides, the Triumvirate will definitely be interested in her, which is an enemy the Empire 88 can't afford.
• The Unintelligible: Taylor can't speak English when in wyvern form unless she's really large, which has its own problems, limiting her vocabulary to simple noises, nods, head shakes and shrugs.
• Unwanted Assistance: Taylor finally asks Vicky to not use the "Fear" aura on her, since that triggers the transformation (and thus destroys whatever Taylor is wearing at the time). Vicky finds this hilarious.
• Weredragon: The plot is that Taylor and Lung got each other's powers, meaning the story follows a Taylor who turns into a dragon. Vicky thinks it's the coolest thing ever. Taylor obtains a variant of Lung's canonical power where, instead of gradually becoming a more and more Draconic Humanoid as combat goes on, she instantly turns into a fire-breathing wyvern when scared, stressed or alarmed.

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