Fanfic / The Last Daughter

"I always knew there was something strange about me, I guess."

You will believe Taylor can fly.

— FF.net Summary

Taylor Hebert was born and raised in Brockton Bay, or so she thought. Growing up, she began to realize that she could see and hear things that no one else could, she never grew sick, and she never got so much as a scrape on the knee. Nonetheless, she simply concealed that part of her and enjoyed a relatively normal (if isolated) life...

...until she and Emma are attacked in an alleyway by ABB thugs. To her surprise, she manages to brutally fight off the attackers and save Emma. Terrified, she runs home and reveals what happened to her father, who in turn reveals a secret about her birth...

"The Last Daughter" is a Worm/Supergirl crossover by Thuktun Flishithy (author of Hail to the King) that makes Taylor the last living Kryptonian, named Zara Jor-El at birth, instead of a parahuman. Inspired by a message left by her birth father, she decides to become a hero, bringing her into conflict with the various villains of Brockton Bay.

This story can be found in FF.Net, SpaceBattles and SufficientVelocity.

The Last Daughter received a Mega Crossover sequel and a rewrite: CRISIS and The Girl of Tomorrow, respectively.

Compare and contrast with Echoes of Yesterday, the other main Worm/Superman crossover.

In spite of the similar name, it has nothing to do with the Last Daughter of Krypton story arc.

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The Last Daughter provides examples of:

• Adaptational Badass: Taylor was already badass in canon, but here she is capable of rolling over just about anyone she winds up fighting, and actually manages to kill Behemoth.
• Adaptational Heroism: Zod goes from a cruel general to helping Jor-El get Zara off of Krypton. He himself doesn't and gets killed when Krypton explodes.
• Adaptation Species Change: Taylor is Kryptonian.
• Afraid of Their Own Strength: Explicitly stated by Taylor. She's terrified of killing her Dad when she hugs him or ripping the arm off when she gives hi-fives.
• After-Action Healing Drama: Panacea and Legend work to heal Taylor after the Behemoth fight.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Subverted with both Dragon and the Kyrptonian AI that takes on Jor-El's appearance.
• Alien Blood: After the Behemoth fight, it is noted that Taylor's blood is actually a bright pink.
• Aliens Speaking English: Jor-El's hologram has no problem speaking English. Justified in that he had spent years studying Earth before sending Taylor there.
• Alternate Universe Fic: Canon is pretty much derailed, starting with Taylor's birth.
  • Taylor is with Emma when she is attacked by the ABB two years before the start of canon Worm. As such, she rescues Emma before Shadow Stalker can intervene and prevents the dissolution of their friendship.
  • On her first night out, Taylor fights Hookwolf instead of Lung and ends up meeting Miss Milita after the fight.
  • The rosters of various teams and gangs are different due to the earlier setting.
• An Arm and a Leg:
  • During the double Endbringer attack on São Paulo, Armsmaster (now known as Batman) manages to chop off one of Leviathan's arms with a time-locked grappling hook.
  • Taylor briefly lost an arm after completely destroying Scion's main body. Thankfully, she manages to get it reattached.
• Ancient Astronauts: It turns out that Krypton had sent a failed colony ship to Earth.
• Arson Murder And Jay Walking: In her first few nights out Taylor apprehended Hookwolf and several E88 thugs, foiled a bank robbery, stopped three muggings, and helped a young Alicia Bottnik rescue her kitten from a tree.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: Everyone thinks that the Simurgh will be the one that attacks Paris. The Simurgh tricks them and sends Behemoth instead, leaving the heroes badly unprepared.
• Bash Brothers: Taylor, Dragon and Armsmaster after the latter quits the Protectorate.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Just like Superman, Taylor can survive in the vacuum of space unaided.
• Battle in the Rain: The fight against Behemoth takes place during a heavy rainstorm.
  • As does the fight against Leviathan and the Simurgh in São Paulo. It appears that Thuktun Flishithy is fond of the trope.
• Berserk Button: Hurting Amy/Panacea turns into one as the story progresses. Behemoth finds out the hard way.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Much of the Interlude Arc's first chapter has dialogue in untranslated Afrikaans, which was then translated by the author after reader backlash.
  • The last two arcs of the story, Eschaton and Theomachy mean "end-times" and "battle of the gods" in Greek, respectively.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Kryptonians, as per the comics, but played up to eleven.
  • It turns out that her insides are weird. When Amy is attempting to heal Taylor after the Behemoth fight, she notes that her bones are actually crystalline.
  • Human Aliens are also subverted in the story. It turns out that Jor-El gave her gene therapies to make her look more human.
    Jor-El: We had to remove the ancillary thumbs and give her back her canines, to name a few changes.
• Blessed with Suck: It turns out that Taylor is terrified of accidentally losing control and hurting someone, something that Amy can relate to.
• Brainy Brunette: Taylor is brown-haired and real intelligent.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: At the end of the story, Taylor acknowledges the readers of the story and winks, serving as a nice homage to the Golden Age Superman stories where he did the same.
• Bring My Brown Pants: In the second chapter of the rewrite, an ABB goon is so terrified of Taylor that he pisses himself:
  The ABB goon simply stared at me, his mouth agape. His heart pounded against his ribs, and a pool of warm liquid had now formed around his shoes. I crinkled my nose as the acrid scent of urine wafted by my nostrils; the bastard had actually pissed himself.
• Brought Down to Normal: Taylor depowers the majority of Slaughterhouse 9 rather than killing them. She kills Mannequin after he kills Amy, then depowers Burnscar, Shatterbird, Sibirian and Jack. There is no way to depower Crawler so she just punches him into Earth orbit.
• Brought to You by the Letter "S": Taylor wears the same sigil as the Trope Namer.
• Bullet Catch: At one point, Taylor saves Panacea from a ABB gangster like this. Everyone who sees it is shocked.
• Civvie Spandex: Her first costume solely consists of a blue sports shirt with the House of El's sigil sewn on, a pair of jeans, and her cape.
• Clark Kenting: Subverted and Discussed.
  • Subverted because Taylor does try to conceal her identity by vibrating her face fast enough that it looks like a blur as well as lowering her voice. Despite this, it only takes the Protectorate and PRT a week to identify her.
  • Discussed when Amy notices that most Alexandria Packages carry themselves confidently as if daring anyone to try and hurt them. The reason no one thinks Taylor is Supergirl is because Taylor doesn't act like that. She acts very relaxed, a la Grant Morrison's interpretation of Superman, because there is practically nothing that can actually hurt her.
• Clothing Damage:
  • Taylor has a passive aura that strengthens her clothing so they don't get damaged from moderate damage. Her clothes still get destroyed during her fight with Behemoth.
  • Her cape, the only piece of clothing she got from Krypton, is actually tougher than she is. It takes no damage from Behemoth exploding, where as Taylor does.
• Creepy Monotone: Taylor dips into this while fighting the Slaughterhouse Nine.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Most fights Taylor gets in have this. She beats the entire E88 without much effort even though they ambush her and Saint and his dragonslayers do nothing to her. The only two to people who don't suffer this are Lung, who survives several very powerful punches and needs to be frozen solid to be beaten, and Behemoth who nearly kills her.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: Taylor shocks the whole planet when she succeeds in slaying Behemoth.
• Depower: Taylor figures out how to do this to capes, by targeting the Corona Polentia with her heat vision. She uses this to take care of the Slaughterhouse 9 once and for all.
• Dual Boss: After what Taylor did to Behemoth, the Simurgh and Leviathan decide to ramp things up by attacking together.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
  • Taylor, did you just kill Behemoth?
  • Armsmaster, did you just cut off both of Leviathan's arms?
• Eating Optional: Taylor doesn't need to eat as long as she has access to yellow sunlight.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: Justified. Taylor just discovered that she has powers and constantly learns she has new ones.
  • It isn't until her fight with Glory Girl that she learns how to fly.
  • She learns about her freeze breath while trying to cool a cup of tea, and later uses it to immobilize Lung.
  • Her heat vision comes in while fighting Behemoth.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Armsmaster considers his new cape name Batman to be this. Taylor and Dragon tease him endlessly about it.
• Entertainingly Wrong: When Cauldron discusses if or how to deal with Taylor, Legend points out that they wouldn't do that with Scion. Considering Cauldron's entire purpose is to figure out how to kill Scion, he's very wrong. Though to be fair, Legend is unaware of Cauldron's true purpose.
• Fantastic Naming Convention: Taylor's Kryptonian name follows standard conventions for females; she has a first name (Zara), followed by the name of her father (Jor-El).
• Fantastic Racism: Saint expand his to include Taylor, because of the simple fact that Taylor allies herself with Dragon... and tells Taylor this, while threatening Dragon's functionality. Most unfortunately for him, he is too badly equipped to deal with the Curb-Stomp Battle that ensues.
• Fling a Light into the Future: One of Jor-El's reasons for sending Taylor to Earth is to ensure that part of Krypton (and its technology) survives.
• Flying Brick: Taylor, obviously.
• Flying Firepower: Shortly after finding out that she can fly, Taylor discovers she can shoot heat beams while fighting Behemot.
• Genius Bruiser: Taylor takes advantage of her superhuman memory and learning abilities to easily ace classes, and is also pretty good at coming up with plans on the fly.
• Glass Cannon: The Simurgh turns out to be this. In relative terms of course, she's still an Endbringer, but without her psychic scream, she's not nearly as much of a threat to Taylor as Behemoth was
• Heel–Face Turn: Bonesaw saves Amy after she is stabbed during the S9 attack. She is the only member of the S9 not to be arrested
• Hero Does Public Service: Something that helps set her apart from the other capes, who are pushed to conflict by their shards. It is mentioned that she spends as much time helping kittens down from trees and retrieving lost balloons as she does taking down gangs.
• Heavy Worlder: Part of the reason why she is so strong. Deconstructed, as Krypton's high gravity helped contribute to virtually no one surviving Rao's supernova due to the difficulty of spaceflight such high gravity would entail.
• Hero Killer: Behemoth, as in canon, rips through heroes. Dozens of casualties are listed before Taylor manages to get him out of Paris.
• Hope Bringer: Taylor says her "S" symbol means hope. People think it's something of a joke. Then she kills Behemoth and everybody takes it seriously.
• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: This trope is why Taylor depowers and arrests the Slaughterhouse 9.
• In a Single Bound: Until she fought Glory Girl, Taylor was only capable of leaping great distances. It serves as a nice homage to the Trope Namer's early adventures.
• Interspecies Adoption: In this setting, Taylor is a Kryptonian baby who was adopted by two human parents.
• Interspecies Friendship: Taylor and Emma were sisters in everything but blood even before Taylor found out about her alien heritage and powers, and they never stopped being good friends.
• Interspecies Romance: Taylor ends up dating Panacea.
• Last of His Kind: Word of God says there are no other surviving Kryptonians. A flashback shows that both Zod and his wife died when Krypton exploded.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Taylor has a very obvious fangirl moment when she meets Legend and another when they go on patrol together.
• Made of Indestructium: Kryptonian technology in general. Taylor's cape is unscathed by Behemoth's destruction, for example.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!":
  • Cauldron has one when Taylor reveals that she is an all powerful alien. The Doctor Mother even faints.
  • Everyone has one when both Leviathan and the Simurgh show up to the same fight.
• Megaton Punch: A literal example. Towards the latter half of the story, Taylor is able to hit hard enough to cause nuclear fusion. She uses it to great effect against Behemoth and the Simurgh.
• Meteor Move: Taylor takes Behemoth into outer space, leading into a suplex into an uninhabited Canadian island.
• Mook Horror Show: Several chapters show villains fighting Taylor from the villains perspective. They always have an Oh, Crap! moment.
• Mugging the Monster: In both the original fic and the rewrite, Taylor and Emma are attacked by several ABB thugs... who quickly find out that attacking Taylor is suicidally stupid.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Bonesaw injects herself with a retrovirus that modifies her vision to be more like Taylor's... and gets hit with this trope, leading to her Heel–Face Turn.
• My Suit Is Also Super: Taylor's second costume is a Kryptonian biosuit that is almost indestructible, a la the New 52.
• Mythology Gag: Tons are made in regards to Superman's vast history.
  • Danny nicknames her room "the Fortress of Solitude".
  • As she prepares for her first night out:
  Taylor: "This looks like a job for," I began, then realized that I still hadn't picked out a name yet. "Eh, fuck it."
  • At one point Armsmaster calls Taylor a regular Girl Scout.
  • Taylor paraphrases the Superman vs. the Elite speech to Jack Slash. It has the exact same effect on Jack that it had on Manchester Black.
  • Taylor makes the World Of Cardboard speech, with slight changes.
• Neck Lift:
  • Taylor does this to Moord Nag.
  • And again with Jack
• No-Sell: Supergirl and Glory Girl fight when they meet for first time. Vicky -who is super-strong and supposedly invulnerable- punched Taylor on her face... and broke her hand.
• Not So Invincible After All: Two examples during the Behemoth fight.
  • Taylor actually bleeds from her lip after getting punched into Portugal by Behemoth.
  • The tables are later turned when Taylor actually manages to kill Behemoth, the most unstoppable out of the Endbringers.
  • And tossed back at Taylor when Behemoth's self-destruct leaves her so badly injured that Panacea and Legend only barely stop her from bleeding to death.
• Oh, Crap!: Legend has this reaction when Behemoth appears instead of the Simurgh.
• Omni Glot: Taylor speaks Afrikaans when she beats and captures Moord Nag.
• One-Winged Angel: When gang boss Lung fought Taylor, he transformed into a dragon. As the battle went on, he kept evolving, becoming bigger, stronger, more powerful, growing more sets of wings... but since he was fighting a Kryptonian, his strategy didn't work.
• Only Sane Man: Legend is this during the Cauldron interlude. Everyone else is trying to figure out how to fight or control Taylor, Legends simply argues to let Taylor continue to defeat villains and other threats. Doctor Mother eventually agrees with him.
• Outside-Context Problem: Downplayed. Earth Bet is an universe of superhumans, but nobody had ever encountered a Kryptonian before: Taylor is an alien with numerous and vast powers, and they don't come from a shard. Cauldron doesn't know how dealing with her, and several characters note that there's nothing they can do if she went on a rampage.
• Pass the Popcorn: Invoked by an online poster after Supergirl destroys the two most powerful criminal gangs in one night.
  OneEyedPeopleEater (New Member)
  Posted on October 1st, 2009:
  Chews last dregs of popcorn with slow satisfaction, then swallows.
  Someone better get me a telephone, because I fucking called it.
• Power of the Sun: As a Kryptonian, Taylor gets her power from the sun. Amy also uses it to heal Taylor after her fight with Behemoth, since nothing else was working.
• Power Perversion Potential: In the rewrite, Taylor admits she's seen naked people by accident a few times.
• Punched Across the Room: The fight between Taylor and Behemoth is essentially them trading these to little effect.
  • While fighting Behemoth in Paris, Behemoth punches Taylor hard enough that she lands in Portugal.
  • After suplexing him into Canada, Taylor begins hitting Behemoth's core so hard that nuclear reactions happen.
  • A less... explosive example occurs earlier in the story, when Taylor punches Lung across the city and into the bay. It just pisses him off.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning:
  • Taylor's eyes glow a dull crimson while fighting Moord Nag.
  • It becomes even scarier when she goes on her Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Slaughterhouse Nine, where her burning red eyes are the only thing they see while getting picked off one-by-one, until Jack comes face-to-face with her.
• Science-Fiction Fanfic
• Showy Invincible Hero: Taylor usually curbstomps her enemies... and she always looks awesome when she fights.
• Secret-Keeper: Quite a few people know of Taylor identity and origin. Becomes irrelevant when Taylor reveals herself.
  • Danny and Annette obviously knew since they are the ones who found Taylor's rocket.
  • Emma was there when Taylor discovered her powers. However, she doesn't know that Taylor is an alien
  • Amy Dallon discovers when she notices that Taylor's biology is not human.
  • Armsmaster learns when he touches the S symbol on Taylor's cape, triggering the neural message that Jor-El left there.
  • Dragon learns after pressuring Armsmaster into telling her.
• Spit Take: When Marquis hears about the true goal of Cauldron, he spits his drink.
• The Stations of the Canon: Averted with extreme prejudice. Taylor saves Emma from the ABB, she and Emma never meet Sophia, Taylor is never bullied, her first villain defeated was Hookwolf...
• Superheroes Wear Capes: Taylor's Supergirl outfit includes a red cape.
• Superpower Lottery: As a Kryptonian, Taylor won it big time.
  • Eye Beams: Discovers them during her fight with Behemoth.
  • Flight: Standard for a Flying Brick, but she didn't know she had it until she fought Glory Girl.
  • Nigh-Invulnerability: The only thing shown to hurt her is the explosion from killing Behemoth. Even suplexing Behemoth from outer space doesn't hurt her in any significant way.
  • Super-Breath: Her freeze breath.
  • Super-Senses: Enhanced vision, hearing, and smell are all part of the Kryptonian package.
  • Super-Speed: This is how she disguises herself by vibrating her face to create a blur. She also uses it to fly form Brockton Bay to Paris in just a few minutes.
  • Super-Strength: Except possibly Scion, nobody is anywhere near Taylor's level.
• Teeth Flying: An exaggerated example occurs during Taylor's fight with Lung, where she punches him in the face and a tooth longer than her arm is knocked out as a result.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Saint deciding to attack and insult Taylor. Unlike everyone else who didn't know Taylor's full capabilities, Saint attacked after Taylor had killed Behemoth.
  • Subverted with Jack Slash. While he does plan to go after Taylor, he knows that he can't do it now because she would destroy the Nine. Yet Slaughterhouse 9 goes after her anyway. By trying to kill Amy. They just ASSUME they'd be able to handle her. It doesn't do them any good.
• Took a Level in Badass: Armsmaster after quitting the Protectorate to become a solo hero with Dragon and Taylor gets access to Kryptonian technology. This lets him fight evenly with Leviathan.
  • And, of course, there's his cape name: Batman!
• Tranquil Fury: When Taylor beats the Slaughterhouse 9, she is obviously very pissed off, yet speaks in a Creepy Monotone.
  • It is a nice callback to Superman vs. the Elite, where Superman speaks in a similar manner while delivering an epic beatdown.
• Wham Line: The very last line of the story: Soon, all will be Darkseid.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Taylor is less than pleased when she learns that Armsmaster told Dragon that she was an alien.
• What If?: This story features an alternate universe where -among other changes- Taylor is a Kryptonian, replacing Superman.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Taylor suplexes Behemoth into a Canadian Island. From outer space.
• Underestimating Badassery: At first nobody takes the girl in jeans and sweater with the funny symbol seriously. People quickly learn that she is far more powerful than anybody else.
• Unstoppable Rage: Taylor gets into this mode after Behemoth almost kills Amy. The result? A large Canadian island is reduced to a crater, Behemoth is atomized, and Taylor is left half-dead in the water.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Taylor takes a cue from All-Star Superman and tells Amy this during the Behemoth fight.

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