One night, David (more commonly known as Eidolon) dreams of a girl. A girl who through no fault of her own is subjected to a bullying campaign of staggering viciousness, a girl who is on the brink of losing all hope. He wishes with all his heart that he could do something to help her, and unbeknownst to him, his powers respond...
On a bus just entering Brockton Bay, what appears to be a teenage boy comes into existence. He has no name or history, but he does know his purpose. He is here to help Taylor Hebert.
I'm HALPING! is a Worm fanfic by ack1308. It is published on FanFiction.Net(here
), SpaceBattles.com (here), Sufficient Velocity.com (here), and Questionable Questing (here), and was completed in April 2022.
This work contains examples of:
- Barehanded Bar Bending: Zach is easily fast enough and strong enough that when rifles are pointed at him, he can pluck them out of the troopers' hands and crumple them like paper.
- Brick Joke: Oni Lee got kicked into orbit by Zach in Chapter Six. Zach is quick to assure Miss Militia that he is not dead and is in the care of his sister (the Simurgh). When Zach summons her to prove his parentage to Eidolon she brings him back.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Zachary's highest good is the good of Taylor Hebert. All other laws, morals, and standards are subordinate to that.
- Brought Down to Normal: Zach can permanently remove someone's powers and creates the Idiot Ball out of Animos's scream, which lets Taylor temporarily remove their powers.
- Panacea is the first one to willingly lose her powers.
- Several inmates in the Birdcage accept losing their powers in exchange for the possibility of parole.
- Zach eventually removes everyone's powers so he can use them to fight Scion.
- Bullying a Dragon: Surprisingly, it's a Justified Trope. Part of Zach's powerset makes it impossible for people to see him as dangerous or really register just how powerful he is. It's mainly intended to keep him from freaking Taylor out, but it also causes people who really should know better to keep trying to bully him.
- Cannot Tell a Lie: Zachary never lies. However, because he also seems harmless, when he tells the truth about being an Endbringer, Taylor decides that he's joking.
- Car Fu:
- After Zach hears about the prospect of the Slaughterhouse Nine endangering Taylor, he starts asking questions about whether a nearby van is empty and how much it's worth, then when he's satisfied with the answers, he throws it out of sight with a sonic boom. Moments later, most of the Nine are dead.Zach: One thousand, five hundred forty-one miles, to be precise. And one thousand one hundred sixty-two feet, but I did not think that was a necessary detail.
- He later tears off a car door and throws it like a Frisbee into an ongoing gang fight. Several minutes later, Taylor and Miss Militia find Cricket folded up around the door, knocked out but still very much alive.
- After Zach hears about the prospect of the Slaughterhouse Nine endangering Taylor, he starts asking questions about whether a nearby van is empty and how much it's worth, then when he's satisfied with the answers, he throws it out of sight with a sonic boom. Moments later, most of the Nine are dead.
- Catharsis Factor: In-Universe. Piggot is allowed to retake Ellisburg, with help from Zachary's powers, as a gift for how much it will do to end her recurring nightmares.
- The Chessmaster: With help from his sister, the Simurgh, Zach can pull off some fairly impressive plans to manipulate people in such a way that the cease to be a potential threat to Taylor, such as making Glory Girl dislike him so she challenges him to an arm-wrestling competition so he can have a conversation with Amy and put her on the path to asking for her powers to be removed.
- Combo Platter Powers:
- Even before he starts taking powers from capes, Zach's list of powers is both long and varied with rather little correlation. After he starts taking them, his powers amount to "all of them".
- For a time, Taylor has more powers than anyone due to Zachary turning them into items and giving them to her. These include every power of the Butcher and the Teeth, Panacea's biokinesis, and every power taken Glaistig Uaine.
- Cool Coat: The leather jacket Zach makes out of Butcher's powers is noted to be a really nice coat by everyone who sees it, including Piggot, the Travelers, and Ash Beast.
- Death Glare: When Taylor and Zach are being flippant about the prospect of making Armsmaster cry, Taylor internally notes that she's glad he's only a Tinker, because if he had Eye Beams, she would be in serious danger.
- Description Cut: Armsmaster remarks that Zachary's "hostage" (Taylor) must be scared to death by now. Cut to Taylor's internal monologue about how it's the first time she's ever been comfortable in the school cafeteria.
- Destructive Saviour: Zachary is here to help Taylor Hebert! Someone is standing in the way of him getting to Taylor? She goes flying with a broken wrist. Taylor needs food and the cafeteria staff say they're closed? Let's rip the servery cover off! Taylor is simultaneously grateful for his help and horrified by it.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Zachary completely lacks a Godzilla Threshold. Whatever works to help Taylor, he's ready to do."Oh." He stood up from his chair. "I will return, Taylor."
"Wait, wait, where are you going?" I jumped up as well.
"I am going to solve your problem."
I caught up with him as he strode toward the doors. "How are you going to do that?"
"I am going to kill them." - Distracted by the Sexy: When Sophia hears about what Zachary did to three muggers, she decides that she needs to spar with him sometime — and then decides that she shouldn't dwell on the image of him shirtless and sweaty on a sparring mat.
- Entertainingly Wrong: When Sophia's mom asks Zachary about his family, the only thing he says is "Behemoth". She naturally concludes that he's suffering Trauma-Induced Amnesia from an Endbringer attack. In reality, Zachary meant that as fellow creations of Eidolon's, Behemoth and he are actually family.
- Exact Words: Piggot is not amused that Taylor healed her without permission, to which Taylor replies that the woman "accepted when Taylor offered to help her". Piggot assumed Taylor meant supporting her in walking, not healing all her old injuries so she could walk on her own.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: Several of the onlookers to the locker are hit and thoroughly bruised by a flying Madison, whom Zachary threw out of the way.Point of note: petite girls are still heavy.
- Head Desk: After seeing the beginning of Armsmaster's helmet-cam recording, Director Piggot is tempted to tear her own hair out, then eyes her mousepad, contemplating the idea of moving the mouse so she can bang her head on the desk without leaving a bruise.
- Heartbreak and Ice Cream: After the locker incident and the aftermath, Taylor just wants to go home and curl up on the couch with a tub of ice-cream. Zach advises her that a balanced diet is healthier, but she doesn't care.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Zach grapples Scion's true form and flies with it into the Sun, to end the biggest existing threat to Taylor.
- Idiot Ball: Invoked by Zach to deal with the Teeth; he creates a literal rubber ball that induces stupidity in anyone (except Taylor, of course) who catches it.
- If I Wanted You Dead...: Tagg decides that Zach tried to kill him with a thrown van that flew past his helicopter. Zach counters that the van missed by a good fifty yards; if he'd been aiming at Tagg, he'd have hit him.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Amy Dallon is much happier once she's no longer Panacea and pressured with healing everyone all the time (or dealing with the constant urge to "fix" their brains).
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Zach decides that the Slaughterhouse Nine are an unacceptable danger to Taylor. So he kills them, with a van and a street signpost, from fifteen hundred miles away.
- In a Single Bound: Zach has shown himself capable of leaping several miles, without harming his passenger.
- I Warned You: Zach did try to warn Eidolon that he was in the path of a torrent of filthy water, but Eidolon, who refused to accept being called "Father," was steadfastly ignoring him.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Discussed. Amy talks about how she could easily fix someone's brain in a purely beneficial way, such as curing her adoptive father's depression. But maybe someone tries to mug her later and she uses her power to make them a productive member of society. It wouldn't be long before she's changing everyone in whatever manner she deems best, and anyone who tries to stop her would have their minds changed the moment she touches them.
- Kid with the Leash: Zachary will do anything Taylor asks of him, provided it doesn't go against his primary directive of keeping her safe. Notably, he doesn't kill specifically because she tells him not to.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Coil discovers that Zach is an Endbringer, and promptly makes plans to leave the state. (It doesn't work.)
- Literal-Minded: Zach can often figure out expressions from context, but he doesn't tell jokes, or even know how.Taylor: Hah, you nearly had me. Not human, my skinny white butt.
Zach: I believe that if I were to make any sort of comment regarding your butt, it would probably be taken as rude, and rightly so. So I will not. - Luxury Prison Suite: The entirety of the Birdcage, thanks to Zach, is turned into a place that feels more like a luxurious (albeit underground) hotel. Even Hookwolf admits that he "could imagine worse ways to spend the next few years" when he arrives. However, every luxury, from drinks to cigarettes, can be lost if the prisoner misbehaves.
- Megaton Punch: Zach has kicked Oni Lee into orbit (!) and backhanded Hookwolf four blocks (into the back of a dog-catcher van).
- Metronomic Man Mashing: Lung gets one missed swipe at Zach before being seized by the tail and repeatedly slammed into the road. Miss Militia takes photos.
- Mundane Luxury: For the man who used to be Ash Beast, just the taste of fresh fruits nearly makes him cry in joy as he had been unable to eat or drink anything for years.
- The Needless: Zachary does not need to eat or sleep, and judging by his immunity to tear gas and knockout gas, probably doesn't need to breathe either. He can eat, though, and enjoys Danny's cooking.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: What happens to Hookwolf and Lung when they go up against Zach.
- No-Sell: Zach can manipulate the powers of any cape facing him. He can also use these powers if he feels like it. Plus, being an Endbringer makes him resilient enough to completely ignore most attempts to hurt him, like Brute-scale tasers.Zach: As my brother might say, that was cute.
- Noodle Implements: Deputy Director Renick has no idea why Kid Win wants to order seventeen pounds of popcorn and a rubber duck, but he decides to approve the request anyway.note I'm sure Armsmaster's ordered in stranger things before.
- Not Hyperbole: Zachary literally punches Assault into the next state (Assault is fine, thanks to his kinetic energy manipulation). To add insult to injury, Zach first caroms him off the Protectorate base force field (shorting it out in the process) and tells the heroes which river he's going to land in.Taylor: Could've been worse. If we'd been facing west, Zach could've punched him into the next time zone.
- Not So Above It All:
- After Mama Mathers is killed, Contessa throws a huge party and gets completely wasted. Alexandria finds her leading a conga line and chugging a 156 year old bottle of scotch "like it was colored water".
- Once they learn about humor, the Endbringers start playing pranks on humanity, such as Leviathan shaping a storm front into a winking smiley face, or the Simurgh rick-rolling China.
- Odd Friendship: By the time Coil is released from service, he's almost friends with the corpse of the last man he murdered and makes a point of having a drink in his honor after being told that the mercenary wouldn't be brought back to life.
- Pass the Popcorn: One part of Taylor's mind wants to persuade itself that Zach did not just announce his desire to kill Sophia Hess in front of Armsmaster and Miss Militia. The other part of her is snickering and asking for popcorn.
- Perception Filter: Zachary's most regularly used power makes everything he does an Unusually Uninteresting Sight, causing people to severely underestimate him even though they know he can do things like throw a van over 1,500 miles to snipe the Slaughterhouse Nine and literally punched Assault into another state. He is capable of setting it anywhere from "Nothing remotely unusual" to "Absolutely terrifying", or even both at once. Zachary describes one usage against PRT troopers as making himself seem "Too dangerous to arrest but also to nonthreatening to bother with."
- Plague of Good Fortune: Taylor's situation. A random boy just pops up of nowhere and sets about the task of single-mindedly helping her out. The problem is, he seems to have no conception of right or wrong (beyond "good for Taylor" or "bad for Taylor"), and he has at the very least the strength and durability of a extremely high-level Brute. In other words, he is both entirely willing and entirely able to kill Taylor's bullies to stop them from hurting her (luckily, Taylor manages to talk him down before he actually does it).
- Power of Trust: Zach literally has this. People trust him; or rather, they consider that he's not a danger to them.
- Relationship-Salvaging Disaster: Amy losing her powers should be a massive disaster for New Wave, but the guarantee that she'll never become a villain like her father allows Carol to truly bond with her adoptive daughter for the first time and saves their relationship.
- Running Gag: After Zach turns the Butcher's powers into a jacket and gives it to Taylor, everyone who sees her remarks about how nice said jacket is, including Piggot, Trickster, and Ash Beast.
- Special Person, Normal Name: Zachary, the fourth Endbringer. Even later when people have an idea of how dangerous he is, they still can only call him "Zach".
- Super-Speed: Carrying Taylor, Zach runs several blocks in the time it takes her to say the word "fast".
- Super-Strength: Zachary is strong enough to tear free from containment foam without any real problem, and casually rips through steel doors to get things Taylor needs or get her out of lockers.
- A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Zachary's initial plan to fix Taylor's bullying problem by murdering all the bullies is inspired by Sophia's own philosophy.Zach: Sophia will understand. She knows that it is sometimes necessary to kill to solve a problem. I will let her explain to the other two, and give them time to make their peace with whatever deity they consider significant.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: One of Zach's powers keeps people from noticing when he displays feats of superhuman power. People are still aware that he has, for example, just chucked a van fifteen hundred miles, but they are unable to register this as something abnormal and worth taking note of, or they quickly forget about it the next time they're assessing how dangerous he is.
- Wham Line (when addressing Eidolon and Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown):“Hello, Alexandria! Hello, Father! It is so good to meet you both at last!”
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Tagg is ripped a new one by Chief Director Costa-Brown for needlessly escalating a conflict against an extremely powerful but neutral cape, especially when the conflict had been largely resolved by that point.
- After Assault returns from being punched into another state, Piggot chews him out for not only escalating, but doing so in a potentially fatal way against Zachary.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Armsmaster claims that Zach must be joking, asking Armsmaster to hand over his halberd. Zach replies that he doesn't even know how to make jokes.
