Fanfic / All Alone

I'm sorry. I should have done something sooner. I'm sorry.

All Alone is a Worm fanfiction by ack1308, where Emma dies in the alleyway before Shadow Stalker can rescue her. This puts both Taylor and Sophia on different paths, but perhaps ones no less filled with sadness.

It is published on FanFiction.Net (here), SpaceBattles.com (here), Sufficient Velocity.com (here), and Questionable Questing (here).

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This fanfic contains examples of:

• Accidental Murder: The girl who killed Emma only wanted to scare and potentially maim her (in order to be made a full member of the ABB) but Emma moving suddenly when the girl had a knife to her throat caused her to accidentally cut Emma's throat.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Sophia is at least more respectful to Taylor since both of them are united around the idea of revenge.
• Adaptational Relationship Change: After witnessing Emma's death and feeling guilty for failing to save her, Sophia is predisposed to think well of her best friend, Taylor (instead of Sophia's canonical brutal contempt). Taylor, in turn, doesn't know that Sophia delayed saving Emma; she only knows that Sophia took vengeance on the gang members who did it. Taylor also takes easily to Sophia's brutal "hit them hard enough that there won't be a second time" approach to vigilantism. As a result, the two of them get along quite well.
• Adaptational Wimp: Coil isn't an established supervillain yet. As he's still in debt to Cauldron, he doesn't have the funds to have hired mercenaries, his underground base, or the Undersiders on his payroll.
• The Atoner: Sophia isn't accustomed to feeling guilty about anything, but she does feel responsible for Emma's death, and wants to track down Taylor to learn what she can, because she owes Emma that much.
• Back from the Dead: Taylor's power turns the recently departed into a form of undead. They have no pulse or body heat, they don't sleep or eat, but they can think and act.
• Bad Powers, Good People: Taylor's powers amount to Necromancy and Vampiric Draining but she still wants to be a hero.
• Came Back Strong: When Taylor is in her shadow state, feeding energy into the Animated, they're significantly stronger than regular humans. Sophia is particularly dangerous, since she still has her shadow powers; she can now phase through you and out the other side, then kick you from behind so hard you crash into a wall.
• Deader than Dead: For a short time after someone dies, Taylor can sense a spark inside them, suspected to be lingering cell activity, and can pull on that spark to raise them as one of her undead. If that spark fades before she pulls on it, though, or if she deliberately extinguishes it, they're beyond her reach.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • The starting point of the fic is that instead of Shadow Stalker successfully fighting off the ABB members and rescuing Emma and her father, she was spotted before she took action and Emma's throat is cut in the confusion. The gangsters still go down, but Emma quickly bleeds out.
  • Sophia and Danny later die in the hospital at the same time, after the Merchants retaliate against Sophia and Taylor for getting in their way — until Taylor triggers and sort of brings them back.
• Didn't See That Coming: Hookwolf's trap would have been enough for several medium level Brutes and a girl who neutralises powers on touch. It isn't enough, though, when the Animated are supercharged by Taylor draining Alabaster, making them strong enough that a teenage girl can snap kick Hookwolf across the room, while Danny and Officer Lagos beat up the normals with each other. Plus, the Empire didn't realise that one of the Animated is Shadow Stalker, who still has her own power and is skilled at using it tactically.
• Didn't Think This Through: Sophia later admits that taking Taylor out on a patrol without any armor, self-defense skills, or even training on how to act was a major mistake. And that was before it got herself and Danny killed.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Taylor acknowledges that the Merchants have cause for a grudge against her, but not to the extent they pursued it. The reader knows that she may be mistaken; she had already killed a Merchant with that bat, without realizing it.
  Sure, I'd maybe been a little out of line when I chased that one guy with a baseball bat, but burning my eye with a cigarette and going to Dad's house specifically to kill him basically beat up 'out of line' and stole its lunch money.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • When Taylor is struggling with her emotions at Emma's funeral and wake, but doesn't want to give up and just go home, her mantra is "Emma would do it for me." In canon, the attack in the alleyway was the start of Emma throwing away Taylor's friendship and grinding her into the dirt.
  • Shadow Stalker observes the Heberts and decides that "that family is definitely not made up of wimps."
• Dynamic Entry: Lampshaded when Sophia comes in through a window without splintering boards or shattering glass, because she's in her Breaker state. She does start shooting, though.
• Exact Words: Taylor offers to help Officer Lagos as the man is dying, which he accepts. She revives him and he admits that he thought she meant healing him, like Panacea.
• Excessive Mourning: Taylor falls apart after Emma's death, staying in bed for days at a time, not eating, barely talking, just crying and trying not to remember, for two weeks. Her dad eventually forces her to get up and moving again, but admits to having responded similarly when Annette died.
  But now he wasn't taking that for an answer. He had forced her to respond to him, with almost insulting ease. Perhaps some part of her -
  No!
  - wanted to end this self-imposed exile -
  I don't!
  - and rejoin her family -
  Don't make me!
  - and the human race again.
  Please. Don't make me.
  Don't make me remember.
• Glowing Eyes: After she triggers, Taylor's eyes are never normal again. She can shift them between glowing a brilliant white, or pits of blackness — and she can see through them either way — but they're never just eyes.
• Groin Attack: Taylor breaks a gangster's wrist, which makes him let out a high pitched scream, but it "reached entirely new octaves when I followed up with a kick to the groin."
• Healing Hands: It's draining, but Taylor can heal injuries to her undead with a touch, leaving her tired afterward.
• Idiot Ball: In-Universe, Rodney is firmly convinced that everyone else at the hospital was firmly gripping the ball and it's up to him to take action. He's quite wrong about that.
• If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: Hookwolf is angry about Animator disrupting the Empire's initiations, because having new members break ribs or crack skulls is a reliable way of filtering out undercover police.
• Insurance Fraud: Discussed by Danny and Officer Lagos. They aren't really sure whether Lagos can validly cash in his life insurance now that he's one of the walking dead. He could pass almost any medical tests to certify death — limited or missing reflexes, no body heat, no circulation, no breathing if he doesn't want to — but he's still walking and talking, which "tends to be a counter-indication to that sort of thing."
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: When Sophia wants to track down the mugger who just abducted Taylor, she conveniently has two Merchants to question, so she's able to alternate asking questions and beating one with a baseball bat when she doesn't like the answers, until he's unconscious, then turn to the (very pale) other one.
• Killing in Self-Defense: Stopping Hookwolf's rampage requires beating him and tasing him until he finally falls unconscious and retracts his metal. Shortly afterward, his life signs give out. But he's not beyond Taylor's reach...
• Leeroy Jenkins: As soon as Sophia confirms that they're going to stop a group of five muggers, Taylor runs forward with a baseball bat before Sophia can keep talking and devise a plan. Which leads to her being overpowered and abducted, and gets Sophia killed rescuing her.
• Lured into a Trap: Hookwolf sets up an Empire initiation specifically to lure Animator to the scene so he can take her out. Turns out he's not very good at fighting the undead, who don't bleed and are strong enough to actually hurt him, especially with the level of power Taylor has drained from Alabaster.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": The Merchants who shoot Danny, with Shadow Stalker's crossbow, freak out when he completely ignores it to keep coming after them.
• Mistaken Death Confirmation: Inverted; the first time that Taylor beats down a would-be mugger with a baseball bat, Sophia checks the body and reassures Taylor that he still has a pulse, but the truth is that she couldn't find one. Sophia isn't bothered by that, but she recognises that Taylor might be.
  If she realises that she's killed someone on her first go-around, she might panic. Give her time to get a little more used to the idea first.
• Morton's Fork: Coil finds himself in a situation where his previously safe timeline is now decidedly more dangerous than his throwaway where he's already taken unnecessary risks. He was kidnapped by the Empire 88 in his "safe" timeline to be used for an initiation, whereas the throwaway had him meeting a very careless man he convinced to steal medical records for him, getting the police on his case.
• The Needless: Taylor's undead don't need to eat or breathe, although they still can, and they don't sleep at all. Which appears to be helpful on balance. Plus, they have sensation, but not pain.
  Danny Hebert: I've always thought there weren't enough hours in the day, and now there are.
• Of Corsets Sexy: Sophia thinks that Taylor could really rock a corset. Taylor isn't having any of it. They eventually compromise; it gets bought, but Taylor hasn't agreed to wear it.
  She just waved it at me occasionally in a playfully threatening way. I was considering getting a spray bottle as a way of retaliation.
• Oh, Crap!: Thomas Calvert's response to realizing he's been grabbed by the Empire 88 in his safe timeline.
• Our Zombies Are Different: And Taylor doesn't want to use the Z-word. Her power can return recently killed bodies to a facsimile of life, restoring thought, movement, memory, and even powers. The "Animated" are dependent on her for energy, although that also means that she can give them temporary Super-Strength. They usually have no vital signs, but if Taylor is charged up enough, they can temporarily regain a pulse, though it's just cosmetic. They also don't have to obey her, but they are prevented from attacking her.
• Padded Sumo Gameplay: Alabaster, who resets all damage every four seconds but is otherwise a regular human, versus an undead who doesn't feel pain and can ignore injury, makes for a drawn out fight.
• Reforged into a Minion: After Hookwolf dies of his injuries, Taylor animates him, heals him, and with an evil grin, announces that he belongs to her. After all, he now can't choose to hurt her, and she can kill him permanently with a thought if he doesn't behave.
• Revenge by Proxy: The Merchants really hate Shadow Stalker. Upon capturing Taylor and recognising that she's Shadow Stalker's partner, they track down her home and beat Danny to death.
• The Scream: Taylor falls apart when her father and Sophia both die of wounds that she blames herself for. When she regains consciousness, she has Triggered.
  Taylor's world crashed and burned. Every last fragment of it exploded into ruin. Her heart swelled in her chest, then disintegrated in a maelstrom of fury and loss. The machine beeped louder and louder until it was one long unending tone. Every part of her body locked up as she screamed.
• Self-Mutilation Demonstration: Sophia's family is sceptical about her account of what's happened to her, so she opens a pair of scissors and rams the blade through her own hand, demonstrating her lack of both pain response and blood.
• Speak in Unison: When Sophia tries to claim that she doesn't run out of control or push boundaries, there's a simultaneous chorus of "Yes, you do," from her mother, brother, Taylor, and Danny.
• Stunned Silence: Sophia can't get her mother to calm down or sit down, until she states, "Mom, I'm dead." At which point there is silence, apart from the sound of her mother finally sitting.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy: Coil likely could have gotten himself out of either of his dangerous situations in his two timelines (used for an Empire 88 initiation or possibly dealing with the cops due to a rather dumb minion), if he had been willing to abandon one and focus entirely on the other. Instead, he keeps both open in the hopes the second timeline wouldn't have been a waste of time. As a result he's fatally injured in one timeline and arrested in the other.
• Super-Strength: Taylor and her undead both get a significant strength boost as long as she's in her power's active state, but she eventually has to drop back to normal(ish) to recharge.
  It felt lightweight and flimsy, the type of handle the lowest bidder might put on a hospital examination room. Still, before today, she could not have done what she now did. Taking a firm grip—with her right hand, even—she twisted hard. The snap echoed oddly in her ears, and she tossed the bent metal handle on to the floor.
• Tragic Keepsake: Taylor finds Emma's bedroom mostly untouched after the funeral, but a few things have been taken, including her prized Alexandria action figure, which Taylor figures has been placed in the coffin. It turns out instead that Emma's older sister saved it for Taylor, knowing that they both loved it and Emma would want her to have it.
  It was a part of everything that Emma had meant to me, the basis of a thousand happy memories. It was worth more than gold to me.
  I even knew where I was going to put it when I got home.
  Right next to Mom's flute.
• Vampiric Draining: It turns out that Taylor's ability to feed energy into her undead has a flipside, being able to drain energy from the living. And Alabaster, due to his reset power, is an absolute goldmine.
• Wound That Will Not Heal: Alabaster gets his arm broken while his reset ability is being drained and is nearly empty. When the draining stops and he starts resetting again, the broken arm is part of the body template he's resetting to.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Rodney's reaction to Taylor's raising of the dead is to assume that she's the start of a zombie apocalypse. And he tells the internet, attracting Coil's attention.
  He'd seen enough horror movies to know how not to react when zombies or Monsters from the Deep showed up. Smart people didn't stand around saying 'how interesting' and poking at the Eldritch Horror from Beyond the Stars.

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