Fanfic / Acceleration

Acceleration by chibipoe (SpaceBattles.com discussion threads here and Archive of Our Own link here) is a Worm Alternate Universe Fic where Taylor Triggers with the powers of Accelerator from A Certain Magical Index.

Since the fateful day when Taylor Hebert first triggered she has never had to worry anymore about her bullying problems. With the power to manipulate vectors, she was literally untouchable if she so wished to be. Unfortunately, she soon learns that being able to block out everything does not mean that trouble won't find you and that ignoring everything in the world does not mean that the world will ignore you back...

Now complete.

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This fanfic contains examples of the following:

• Alternate Universe Fic: As mentioned above, Taylor triggered with Accelerator's power. Things quickly go in a new direction.
  • Unlike in canon, this Taylor has no interest in becoming a cape and simply wants to live her life in peace.
  • She first meets Armsmaster when she inadvertently foils his and Velocity's attempts to chase down the Undersiders. Among other things she was also never introduced to the Undersiders and thus never joins them.
  • Taylor also stops Coil's first attempt at kidnapping Dinah (whose parents were killed during the attempt) and prevents him from getting his hands on her until just two days before the Leviathan attack. She also stops the Leviathan early enough that society largely remained intact.
    • Spared by the Adaptation: Due to Taylor defeating the Leviathan in the story before it caused too much damage, many capes who were killed in canon are still alive.
  • While Coil does eventually succeed in kidnapping Dinah, it only lasted about a day before Taylor rescues her and kills him in the process.
  • Related to the above, this was in turn due to Tattletale, who was being hunted down by Coil, leading Taylor directly to him and later leads to Lisa cutting ties with the Undersiders due to them essentially abandoning her to Coil.
• Answer Cut: When Taylor finds out what Bonesaw has done to her father, she asks her if she likes her present. Cue immediate incineration of Bonesaw.
• Big Sister Instinct: Taylor quickly develops this towards Dinah after seeing how traumatised she was from Coil's attempted kidnappings. The relationship goes both ways and they become close enough that at the end, Dinah is the only one who decides to go with Taylor when she leaves the city.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Slaughterhouse Nine have been put down for good (which means, among other things, the threat of Scion destroying the world has been mitigated for now) and humanity has managed to score an inarguable victory against one of the Endbringers. However Taylor, the one who did all of the above, has lost her home and her father, her existence and abilities has been outed and it's unlikely that she will ever live the peaceful life she wanted due to a combination of people fearing and/or coveting her for her power. Likewise Brockton Bay has been left half destroyed due to the attacks from the above. At the same time, Taylor has begun to take the first steps towards acceptance of her new future, she has new friends to help her, has the support of some of the members of the Wards and the Protectorate and, for now, has removed the PRT from having any influence over her, and finally donating most of the money from the bounties of the Slaughterhouse Nine towards repairing the city while she and Dinah head off towards an uncertain but ultimately optimistic future.
• Break the Cutie / Broken Bird:
  • A running theme in the story actually. Taylor may very well be almost unbeatable in a fight but that doesn't mean villains can't find ways to destroy her life. Likewise, her powers don't stop Taylor from accumulating psychological damage throughout the story, such that it's implied that Taylor is suffering from PTSD after killing Coil. It really starts becoming more apparent with the introduction of the Slaughterhouse Nine.
  • Dinah as well, since the first thing we know about her is that her parents were murdered in front of her by Coil's mercenaries. And well, because before that she triggered.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • Coil repeatedly attempts to kill Taylor so he can kidnap Dinah. To be fair he was under the impression that Taylor's powerset was Deflector Shields and Tactile Telekinesis. During one of Tattletale's interludes she notes that if he actually knew what Taylor was really capable of, he'd probably leave the city.
  • Several higher ups of the PRT believe that threatening to prosecute Taylor in an attempt to strong arm her into joining the Wards is a good idea. The more sensible ones manage to curb this idea.
  • This is discussed by Armsmaster and Miss Militia. When talking about the reasons someone would kidnap Danny Armsmaster notes the inherent danger of putting pressure on Taylor in such a fashion. Miss Militia points out that someone who would go out of their way to antagonise Taylor wouldn't be very safety conscious in the first place.
  • Averted with Kaiser who explicitly states that he knows better than to try and start something with Taylor. This is what ultimately allows him to survive to the end of the story.
  • Much like Coil, the Slaughterhouse Nine don't quite seem to comprehend how powerful Taylor is and try to Mind Rape her into joining them. This ultimately gets most of their members killed by Taylor almost singlehandedly.
• But Now I Must Go: After the battle against the Slaughterhouse Nine, Taylor, after losing her home and her father, has essentially lost most of her ties to Brockton and decides to leave to find her own life.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Just about everyone who goes up against Taylor is on the receiving end of one, the only exceptions are the Leviathan, Crawler, Lung (none of whom could actually hurt her but who's durability makes them difficult for Taylor to put them down instantly without collateral damage) and Siberian.
• Demoted to Extra: The Undersiders; we aren't even introduced to Bitch, Regent or Imp and Grue only gets three minor appearances.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: When the Leviathan attacks, Taylor repels its tidal waves and vaults it over the horizon, injuring it pretty badly. What terrifies a lot of people was just how relatively easy it was for her to do so.
• Dissonant Serenity: Bonesaw exhibits this, all the way up to the last moment before Taylor destroys her.
• Expecting Someone Taller: Kayden notes that Taylor doesn't look very impressive despite her tremendous power.
• Flaw Exploitation: Crawler lures Taylor into following him by repeatedly speaking of things done to Danny. It Goes Horribly Right when she gets pushed too far and finally hits him with something too powerful for him to regenerate from.
• Hero-Worshipper: Theo is shown to have some of this towards Taylor. It's also noted that, post-Leviathan, most of the citizens of Brockton Bay is generally split between this or just being plain terrified of Taylor.
• Heroic BSoD: Taylor has progressively worse ones as the story continues. First when she finds out her father is missing, she spends several hours combing the docks in a detached state while knowing she wouldn't find him. Then she sees what Bonesaw did to her dad and incinerates Bonesaw along with her father's remains in a fit of rage and despair and finally in the final chapter when she buries her father's remains next to her mother's grave.
• Heroic Safe Mode: Taylor enters this, ironically during Jack Slash's attempts to break her, allowing her to fight free of the locker prison with the Tinker knife Armsmaster gave her and kill of the rest of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Afterwards though...
• Heroic Neutral: Taylor at the start of the story, and at the end as well. She was perfectly content to just live an ordinary life and stay out of the affairs of heroes and villains but by that same token, will generally go out of her way to help people she see's in trouble. Even at the end of the story, she does not join any factions and opts to just leave Brockton Bay behind and rebuild her life.
• Intimidation Demonstration
  • When Taylor first faces off against Coil's mercenaries, she stops their bullets in mid-air, partly to avoid killing them by simply bouncing them back.
  • After defeating the rest of the Travellers, Taylor manipulates the targets of Trickster's attempts to teleport and then just shuts it down entirely after losing her patience with him.
• Mundane Utility: Taylor uses her power so that she doesn't have to hear her bullies' thoughts and uses the advanced calculation abilities to ace her tests without having to study or pay attention in class. She has also used it to dice tomatoes and jog better.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Dinah's first meeting with Taylor was down a one way road. In the light novel, an alternative reading of Accelerator's kanji is One-Way Road.
  • Taylor and Dinah's relationship as a whole, noted to have parallels between Accelerator and Last Order in the light novels, as noted by many readers, with her intervention to save Dinah against Coil's mercenaries being what initially breaks her out of her apathy much like how Accelerator's attempt to save Last Order marks the start of his redemption.
  • Crowley, or a vision thereof - it's not too clear - briefly appears in 5.5.
• Oh, Crap!: Just about every time someone comes up against Taylor, this is their reaction when they realise just how powerful Taylor really is.
• One-Word Title: As that's Taylor's power, accelerating things.
• Original Character: Freighttrain and Spyglass, two New York Wards.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Taylor has a somewhat subdued one against Coil first starting when he blew up her house with her in it before kidnapping Dinah. Has an even bigger one against the Slaughterhouse Nine after finding out what they did to her dad.
• Security Cling: Dinah tends to do this to Taylor a lot, partly because her power tells her that she'll be safer the closer she is to Taylor.
• Sequel Hook:
  • The Empire 88 are now effectively in control of Brockton Bay.
  • The true villain of Worm is also still out there.
• Shout-Out: “Me and Colin? That’s as likely as me becoming a telekinetic mime and seducing Amy Dallon.”
  • Two of Taylor's teachers at Arcadia are mentioned. Their names? Zeddmore and Venkman.
• Showy Invincible Hero: The question isn't whether Taylor can beat the current threat if it tries to attack her directly, but when, how, and what the consequences will be for everyone involved.
• Squishy Wizard: Unlike in canon, Taylor has little physical stamina due to her power allowing her to overcome any opponent effortlessly and accounting for anything detrimental to her body. This is exploited to devastating effect by Jack Slash who manages to shut down her ability by tricking her into Hatchet Face's field and leaving her helpless.
• The Stoic: Taylor, as a side effect of her power rendering her literally untouchable, displays a very apathetic face and attitude to the world.
  • Not So Stoic: Despite Taylor's attempts to not care, her mask cracks here and there.
• Stupid Good: Dean/Gallant's insistence that Taylor should behave more heroically only succeeds in annoying her and later makes her hesitate in striking the killing blow against Lung, allowing him to grow stronger and cause significant collateral damage before she managed to stop him.
• Super Power Lottery: Here, Taylor has been recognised as one of the most powerful Parahumans ever.
  • Attack Reflector: Taylor has a field around her that automatically deflects anything hostile that gets into her area. The number of foes that can even touch her can be counted on one hand.
  • Elemental Punch / Megaton Punch: Done by compressing fire and air into her fist until it forms Plasma. She manages to kill Crawler with it.
  • Good with Numbers: The Required Secondary Powers needed to use her abilities effectively. Taylor can instinctively calculate the various forces behind any phenomena she sees.
  • It Only Works Once: Due to the fact that her field auto-calculates everything that comes into contact with it, the rare attack that can affect Taylor will usually only work a few times at most before she becomes immune to it. The only exceptions have been Flechette and Siberian.
  • Mind over Matter: Can freely modify the vector value of almost anything. In layman's terms that means she can control almost everything.
  • No-Sell: Due to her Attack Reflector, a standard tactic for Taylor is to allow her enemies to attack her and allow their attacks to rebound off her field. She can also actively shut down other powers by altering their vector values.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Taylor has reversed tsunamis and created massive tornadoes. The terrifying part is that neither was particularly difficult or tiring for her.
  • Power Copying: As noted in Mind over Matter, as long as it has recognisable vectors, Taylor can freely control it. Once she's experienced an attack she can use her own versions of it and in some cases use them even better than the original. By the end of the story she's copied the powers of Stormtiger, Legend, Eidolon, Lung, Leviathan and Shatterbird.
  • Shockwave Stomp: Her most common opening attacks.
  • Sphere of Destruction: Taylor's Signature Move. A powerful distorted sphere of force created by merging Legend and Eidolon's attacks together. She defeated the Leviathan in one shot with it, killed Echidna with it and Lung admitted that it would also kill him if he was hit directly by it.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Armsmaster comes to consider the Heberts friends, and comforts both Danny and Taylor at different times.
• Tranquil Fury: Taylor goes into this when the psychologist the PRT hired to evaluate her subtly implies that the PRT plans to leverage her friends against her. Taylor makes it clear in no uncertain terms that if that ever happens, no force on the Earth will stop her from annihilating them.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Taylor vomits after killing Shatterbird.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Lisa tells Taylor this in 4.10, and Theo does the same in 5.1. Armsmaster joins in in 5.7, giving one to Taylor while trying to bring her out of her Heroic BSoD, telling her that her father would have wanted her to live on and that she shouldn't hold herself responsible for injuries her friends have sustained since it is their choice to involve themselves with her life, because they are her friends..
• You Shall Not Pass!: Armsmaster has one against Siberian after it almost killed Taylor. He ends up losing an arm but manages to hold her off long enough for Taylor to be healed.
• Walking the Earth: Implied to be what Taylor and Dinah intend to do for a while at the end. Money is generally a non-issue since Taylor has claimed the bounties for killing most of the Slaughterhouse Nine.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Purity just seems to disappear shortly after the start of 5.x.

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