Fanfic / Wonderful (Mazinja)

“I think I just successfully demonstrated my point, didn’t I? People, NORMAL people, working together, with a little help from a cape, managed to hold off a monster that has sunk –cities-. And you know what? I even told them they could run, and –none- of them did. Not... a… one. Alone, people may give in to fear and panic. Prone to make mistakes, to fail. But together? People are capable of amazing things. They can rely on one another to cover for their own weakness. They can join their force to get to greatest heights. And if they see themselves as weak, then all they need it a little help from somebody else.”

Wonderful is a Worm/The Wonderful 101 Crossover For Want Of A Nail fanfic by Mazinja that started on December 4th, 2015.

The group of mass murderers called Slaughterhouse Nine attacks Brockton Bay when Taylor is thirteen. During their rampage, Taylor loses one of her parents and triggers with Tinker powers. Inspired by her parent's heroism, she becomes the hero Wonder Red.

It can be read in SpaceBattles and SufficientVelocity forums.

As of February 6, 2020, the author has declared the fic dead.

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Tropes:

• Action Fashionista: Wonder Star is a clotheshorse who likes trying different costumes.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Due to Taylor's influence, Sophia becomes somewhat more heroic and less unpleasant than her canon self.
  • Emma doesn't become a psychotic bully after being attacked by the ABB, and later she becomes a hero.
  • Taylor herself, as in canon she started heroic and quickly became a villain, but here she starts—and remains—a hero.
• All Your Powers Combined: This is one of the facets of Taylor’s power: when she meets parahumans, she figures out a way to use their powers.
• Appropriated Appellation:
  • Taylor's fans came up with the "Wonder Red" name. She didn't like it, but she accepted it anyway (partially because she hadn't come up with one on her own yet).
  • Averted with "Crimson Fist". Taylor found out about that name after she was stuck with "Wonder Red".
• Ass-Kicking Pose: Taylor is prone to doing them.
• Author Appeal: Mazinja really likes Toku and Mecha Shows such as Mazinger Z.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Lisa has the ability to find out information about people or things. She only needed to observe Squealer's house-sized tank to discover its strong and weak points.
• Badass Boast: Even though Kaiser is a Nazi, his rallying speech is admittedly awesome:
  Kaiser: The vermin have overstepped their bounds! They believe that their pet Tinker’s toys are enough to spread their filth in our city! They are wrong! We are the bastion that keeps their kind in their place! We will not be intimidated! We are the EMPIRE! Today, the sub-humans of the Merchants will PERISH!
• Badass Normal: Emma hasn't got powers, but the Sentinel Suit lets her keep up with the capes.
  • Danny Hebert had no powers, no special abilities, yet he was the one to take down Jack Slash once and for all.
• Battle Couple: Gallant and Glory Girl are dating and are two heroes.
• Beast of Battle: Rachel's empowered dogs work as fighters, mounts, or both. When Rachel joined the battle against the Merchants' tanks she was riding Angelica.
• Berserk Button: If you steal L33t's tinker technology and, to add insult to injury, make it work, he gets very, very mad.
  • A minor one, but the ones who used Taylor's tech in the Leviathan Fight are really sick of being asked if they were Mastered by it, as they had to spend several days after the fight in Master-Stranger containment.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Taylor performed one to save Emma from several ABB thugs.
  • Later on, Rachel and her dogs saved the group from a giant tank.
• BFS: Wonder Red uses a giant sword against Leviathan.
• BFG: When Miss Militia performed "Unite Gun", all "Wonderful Ones" formed a huuuuge gun. It was bigger than a person and it shot human bullets.
• Broomstick Quarterstaff: The Wonder-Mop, a mop Taylor modified that is quite capable of mopping the floor with tanks!
• Calling Your Attacks: Done by many characters:
  Taylor: UNITE... HAND! WONDER PUNCH! WONDER BUNKER! WONDER GHOST!
  Sophia: UNITE... CROSSBOW!
  Emma: UNITE... HAMMER!
  Rachel: UNITE... DOG!
  Miss Militia: UNITE... GUN!
• Canine Companion: Rachel really loves her dogs. When she and a lot of her dogs were trapped in a building, badly hurt, and the main characters found them, she did not resist arrest in exchange for treatment for her dogs (and herself, but she insisted that they heal her dogs first).
• Carry a Big Stick: One of the weapons of Wonder Red is a giant hammer.
• Chainsaw Good: Invoked by a PHO poster when they said that Squealer's tanks “need more chainsaw”.
• Chekhov's Gun: In chapter 2, Taylor briefly mentions that she invented a gadget called the "Wonder-Mop". Eleven chapters later, Emma smashes a tank using the Wonder-Mop.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Even non-powered individuals like Emma can keep up with capes with the help of Taylor's Sentinel Suits.
• Combat Commentator: Uber and Leet do this when the Protectorate, the Merchants, the Nazis and the ABB duke it out.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Inverted, each individual Wondrous One gets more powerful the more other Wondrous Ones are active.
• Crossover: Between "Worm" and "The Wonderful 101".
• Dead Fic: Announced to officially be dead as of February 6, 2020, two years after the last update.
• Death by Adaptation: Danny dies killing Jack. Carol Dallon, AKA Brandish, died in the S9 attack on Brockton, and Mr. Dallon dies in the Leviathan attack. Dennis' father, though not a major character, also dies when Leviathan comes to town.
  • It's mentioned that of the "classic" Slaughterhouse Nine, only three remain alive- The Siberian Which really means Manton, Crawler, and Bonesaw- although Bonesaw is in prison and awaiting trial.
• Death Glare: When Emma visited Taylor after Leviathan's attack, she gave her brunette friend a heated glare because Taylor didn't even call to let her know if her mother and she were fine.
• Destination Defenestration: How Jack Slash meets his end, after Danny Hebert body-checks him through it.
  • Taylor threatens to do this to Emma and Sophia when they won't stop making fun of her being a fan girl of Glory Girl. When Emma points out that they're in the middle of a street, and thus that won't work, Taylor declares that she'll drag them to a building, climb up it, and then chuck them out.
• Didn't Think This Through: As much as Taylor things that people are wonderful when working together, she approaches the PRT to give them the Unite tech after its first test. People working together might be good, but it would be best if they weren't just random people on the street and were instead people who were paid and trained to fight.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: When Leviathan ripped the shelter open, Taylor and the remaining refugees fought him. Wonder Red's first attack was actually a punch.
• The Dog Bites Back: Skidmark began a gang war because he was fed up with being mocked by the remaining gangs, and it drove him mad that Nazis got more respect than him.
• Domino Mask: The Wonder Masks are elongated, black domino masks.
• Double Tap: Jack Slash was killed when Miss Militia shot him thrice in the head after Danny tackled him out a window and onto a piece of rebar.
• Dynamic Entry: When Taylor burst into the alley to save Emma, she did so by falling from a rooftop and kicking a thug in the face.
  Her gaze turned elsewhere as she saw a glint of metal. Another of the men had pulled out a gun, aiming it at the scuffling girl. Emma tried to find her voice, to cry out a warning…
  “TORYAH!”
  —until a second figure, in a bright red hoodie, fell from the rooftops to kick the gunner in the face. The man staggered, spinning in place, as the interloper landed in a crouch, and rose with an uppercut, fist covered in red light.
  “TOH!”
  The fist connected, and the gunner did a flip in the air, before crashing back down against the floor, face first.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Danny killing Jack Slash by tackling him through a window surely counts.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Emma, once she gets the heroic identity of "Wonder Star." Using Taylor's tech, she is capable of superheroic feats.
  • Everyone in the Endbringer Shelter who used Taylor's Tech to punch the Endbringer in the face.
• Enemy Mine: L33t got so mad when he realized that Squealer stole his tech and made it work that he and Uber fed information to the heroes to help them to beat up the Merchants.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Madison confronts Emma, Taylor and Sophia, convinced that she has their relationship figured out. Her conclusion, that Emma is a Cape (specifically, a Master, as that's the only way she can see that Taylor and Sophia haven't killed each other yet) leads to Taylor teasing her best friend about it.
  Madison: “I have five bucks on pink friendship lasers.”
  Taylor: “Uh, no. No pink lasers!” — “They are rainbow colored. And shaped like hearts.”
  • The PRT knew that a Trigger had happened in the final fight with Jack Slash, and that distracted the villain long enough for Danny Hebert to pull off his Heroic Sacrifice. They had assumed that, since Danny was mortally wounded by Jack, he was the one to trigger, to allow him to keep moving long enough to save the day. In reality, it was Taylor who triggered when she saw her father attacked, Danny was just a normal man.
• Establishing Character Moment: Emma and Sophia's first appearances show that Emma never stopped being Taylor's friend, and they never bullied her.
  • When Emma shows up, she complains about Taylor not calling her to let her know that both she and her mother were fine after Leviathan's attack.
  • Sophia shows up straight after, and she and Taylor are relatively civil to each other. Relatively.
• Flying Brick: Vicky's powers include Super-Strength, Nigh-Invulnerability and Flight... which make her the perfect cannonball.
• For Want Of A Nail: The point of divergence is the S9's early rampage. Taylor lost her father instead of her mother, and triggered. When Emma was attacked by the ABB she helped Sophia save her. Taylor and Emma remained friends, Sophia became Taylor's tolerated acquaintance, and Taylor was never bullied.
• Frontline General: Taylor fights together with her troops.
  Fight alongside me, because I will NOT ask you to do this without putting myself in the line of fire.
• Gardening-Variety Weapon: The Wonder-Mop is a mop modified by Taylor to be more efficient, but she stored it away because she couldn't calibrate it properly and it made a hole in the floor. During the battle against The Merchants' tanks, she found out that if you want to mop floors, it's useless... but if you want to smash war machines, it's excellent.
• Genki Girl: Taylor is an enthusiastic motor-mouth.
• Giant Equals Invincible: When a house-sized tank attacks the team, the Wonderful Ones manage to destroy it... although they needed to use giant weapons to do so.
• Giant Robot Hands Save Lives: Not a robot, but when an enemy tank shot Vicky away at high speed, Wonder Red's giant hand caught her, saving the girl from crashing against anything tough.
• Heroes Love Dogs: After Taylor manages to make Wonder Masks for Rachel's dogs, everyone wants a Wonder Dog.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Danny died to save Taylor and everyone from Jack Slash.
• Hot-Blooded: Taylor is enthusiastic, idealistic, and loves making passionate heroic speeches.
• Human Cannonball: When Wonder Shadow formed her giant crossbow, Vicky became the ammo.
  It took perhaps a few more moments than it had for her—which likely said something about the relationship between Sophia and the rest—but in a matter of moments, Sophia was holding out a massive, glimmering black crossbow.
  Despite its size, Sophia held it up with ease, took careful aim, and fired.
  Glory Girl, encased in a black forcefield shaped like a bolt, led out another startled cry as she was shot towards the tank, piercing straight through it.
• Humanity Is Special: The basis behind Taylor's methodology is that sure, we can be bad at times, but working together, we can be... well, wonderful.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: When Taylor needs a weapon, it just... appears.
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite the different circumstances and timeline, Taylor still doesn't want to join the Wards initially. Like in canon, it has to do with her wanting to be more impressive before she joined up (her other motivation, teen drama, is not mentioned, probably due to the lack of bullying). By the time the story starts, she's willing to join the Wards because she has things under her belt that are not the Wonder Mop.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: When Jack Slash threatened Taylor, Danny tackled him straight through a window. Both plummeted into the street below, and Jack was impaled through his chest by a piece of rebar.
• Improbable Weapon User: Emma's weapon is a mop. A tinker tech, super-destructive mop called Wonder Mop
• Insistent Terminology: When Taylor wants to block an attack, the group morphs into a jelly-like wall. She calls it a bunker, and she gets annoyed because people keeps calling it a flan.
  A quick command, and the group morphed into the Wonder Bunker (it was NOT a flan dammit why did people keep calling it that).
• Intangibility: One of the powers of Sophia. When she and Taylor link hands, she can turn everyone wearing Wonder Masks intangible.
• Lighter and Softer: This story is more idealistic than canon Worm.
• Little Miss Badass: Vista is thirteen. She also can warp space, and avert cannonballs.
  The tank fired the next shot, and Vista made space curl. The shell did a loop in the air, before coming back down upon the tank. It managed to dodge out of the way, but the ensuing explosion made the tank tumble over.
  “Have I mentioned that you are TERRIFYING when you get angry?” Clock idly commented, and Vista just grinned.
• Lovely Angels: Taylor and Sophia (or Taylor and Emma) when they fight together.
• Mêlée à Trois: Shortly after Leviathan's attack the Merchants declare war on everybody else. In chapter 12 the battle between the local Protectorate, the ABB, the Empire 88, and the Merchants begins.
• Memetic Badass: In-Universe, Blue Steel is one (a minor Brute her from the Washington DC area). He took down Mannequin with the help of a villain. When this was reported, the thread on Parahumans Online was quickly derailed by Blue Steel memes.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Taylor turned a mere mop into a very destructive weapon. It was how she got unmasked to her mother- her mom grabbed the mop from the closet to kill a cockroach, and knocked a hole into the basement. Emma later uses it to crush tanks.
• Only Sane Man: When the three girls are together, Emma is level-headed and rational while her friends are busy bickering. She's so much this trope in comparison to Sophia and Taylor that Madison thinks Emma is secretly a Master-type cape.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Taylor says to Sophia's face that they shouldn't put up with her crappy attitude and Sophia shrugs her comments off, the Wards wonder if she's been brainwashed or mind-controlled.
  “Can you speak louder Red? I barely heard that!”
  “I said to NOT PUT UP WITH ANY OF YOUR SHIT!” Taylor yelled back as Vista’s eyes widened.
  Her eyes widened further as Sophia called back. “Got it!”
  “… OK, that’s a bit freaky.” Kid Win spoke up, looking between her and the room where Sophia was in. “I feel like I should be calling Master/Stranger protocols just about now.”
• Papa Wolf: NO ONE threatens Danny's daughter and lives. You were warned, Jack.
• Posthumous Character: Danny's heroic demise inspires Taylor to be a better person and a hero.
• Powered Armor: The Sentinel Suits worn by Taylor and her allies.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: In episode 12, Lung:
  Lung: Roaches, feeling brave behind their metal toys. Bakuda. Lee. Crush them.
• Primary-Color Champion: Emma's Sentinel Suit is red and white.
• Red Is Heroic: Taylor “Wonder Red” wears a red suit, jacket and scarf.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Taylor is the Red –Heh!- to Emma’s Blue. The former is bold and loud whereas the latter is calm. Emma often helps to keep Taylor grounded.
• The Rival: Squealer and Bakuda are the chief Tinkers of the Merchants and the ABB, respectively. Squealer regards Bakuda as her rival, and built one of her tanks to fight her, specifically.
• Robot Buddy: P-Star, a little floating robot created by Taylor and named by Emma. It helps her, gathers and analyzes data and information, and follows Taylor aroud.
  She was answered by a quiet, stuttering *p-ping!* as the door unlocked, and out floated a small, smooth white and red robot with a green visor. “Welcome home Taylor! Welcome home!” It chirped.
• Rocket Punch: One of the weapons of Wonder Red.
• Roofhopping: In chapter 5, Taylor and Emma make use of roofhopping to test Taylor's new Sentinel Suits. Justified, since the Sentinel Suits enhance the wearer's physical capabilities.
  Roof hopping WAS pretty fun. Sophia could grant her that much. She would never know.
• Rousing Speech: Taylor used one to encourage people fighting Leviathan:
  “So this… this is what I ask of you. It is a lot to take, especially in this moment. I know that you could run. I know that. This is scary and terrifying. I wouldn’t blame you for it. With the device you… might be able to escape. Maybe. What I’m asking for you, is to stay here... and fight.
  “Fight against the monster. Fight against the flood. Fight alongside me, because I will NOT ask you to do this without putting myself in the line of fire. You will know who I am, the device will tell you. It is unfair for me to ask this. I wish this hadn’t happened, that the fight would be over and you could just go back home, I wish I could have had more time to do this PROPERLY.
  She sounded progressively more desperate as she spoke… but when her voice came again, it was strong once more.
  “… so I beg of you… fight with me. I cannot do this alone. We all cannot do this alone. But together, we WILL be able to drive the beast back. We WILL save everybody else in the shelter. We WILL save everybody else in the city. Together, we can be mighty. Together, we can be invincible. Together…”
  “… We can be WONDERFUL.”
• Running Gag: “… Shadow Stalker? Why are you wearing a mask over your mask?”
• Samus Is a Girl: Nobody realized that Wonder Red was female until they saw her.
• Scarf of Asskicking: Taylor wears a red scarf. It's her "battle scarf", and she doesn't appreciate Sophia calling it dorky.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: One of the first comments on the Parahumans Online messageboard thread discussing Squealer's latest creations is someone declaring they're going to take a long vacation somewhere the junkies don't have an armoured division.
• Science-Fiction Fanfic
• Secret Identity:
  • Taylor's secret identity is "Wonder Red".
  • Emma's is "Wonder Star".
• Secret-Keeper: Emma and Sophia knew that Taylor was a cape.
  • The PRT kept Mr. Hebert's identity a secret for years so that his surviving family wouldn't draw any attention, instead saying that Armsmaster and Miss Militia were the ones to kill Jack Slash. This proved wise, as several copycats claiming to be "the Next Jack Slash" rose up over the years and tried to kill the two who did claim credit.
• Shout-Out: The Merchants's final mecha is a three-headed, dragon-like giant mecha called Mechasaurus.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Annette Hebert, Taylor's mom, survives in this story (though her husband does not). Dean, AKA Gallant of the Wards, survives the Leviathan attack where his counterpart did not, though he winds up in a coma.
• Suggestive Collision: When Chariot and Lisa were running away from the tanks, Chariot crashed into Taylor and the three of them went tumbling across the ground.
• Super Fic
• Tank Goodness: Squealer's tanks are heavily modified: they are equipped with multiple cannons which shoot fireballs and spiked cannonballs, they can turn invisible, rotate thirty-sixty degrees, deploy electrical shields... and some of them are taller than buildings.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Taylor and Amy are sitting on a rooftop, thinking that they’re having a peaceful day at last. Cue explosions.
    Amy simply nodded. Wonder Red looked like she wanted to ask more, but she thankfully finally looked away to continue staring at the city.
    It was a good day.
    Something exploded far in the distance, and Amy choked back a curse.
  • Right after being shot and smashing through a tank, Vicky has this to say:
    “That… was… AWESOME!” Vicky exclaimed with glee. “Can we do it again?!”
    Whatever reply there might have been was silenced as a fireball hit the side of the PRT building, and they turned to see two more tanks in the distance.
    Vista shot Victoria an angry glare. She had the decency to look sheepish.
• This Is a Drill: Taylor uses a giant drill against Leviathan, after Kurt suggests it.
• Took a Level in Badass: Taylor's suits let people gain or increase their badassery: Emma becomes a hero, Sophia gains Brute skills...
  • If Taylor has time to calibrate a Wonder Suit and Pendant to the person, they help in an individual way- Sophia's allows her to be tougher and to share her power with others, for example. However, for those who have the generic Wonder abilities, it's just low-level brute powers as well as the standard Wonder abilities.
• Took a Level in Idealism: After Leviathan, Sophia has to agree very grudgingly that Taylor proved her point.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Sophia is still a Jerkass, but she's somewhat kinder and more tolerable than her canon self, in addition to ditching her Social Darwinist tendencies.
• Troperiffic: Worm deconstructed Western-styled super-hero stories. “The Wonderful 101” celebrated Eastern-styled super-hero stories. If you’re looking for a super-hero trope, it’ll surely be here.
• Unfinished, Untested, Used Anyway: Taylor finished her Wonder Pendants and passed them out right before Leviathan hit the shelter where she was hiding, for an unusually literal example of the Godzilla Threshold in action. The reason she didn't pass them out beforehand? She finished them in the middle of the battle, literally minutes before the shelter she finished them in was hit. Fortunately they worked perfectly... or at least, they lasted long enough for the battle to end. Then they started burning out.
• Upbringing Makes the Hero: Danny instilled the idea that people are capable of amazing things when they work together in Taylor, and his Heroic Sacrifice encouraged her to become a hero.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Taylor and Sophia are “frienemies”. They don't get along but they hang together.
• What the Hell, Hero?: As in canon, Sophia didn't try to help Emma when she was assaulted by ABB goons until the red-haired girl tried to fight back. After rescuing Emma, Taylor called Sophia out on her inaction.
  • Vicky does one subtly, asking why Wonder Red helped the people in that particular bunker and not earlier in the fight. While it's resolved peacefully, and she accepts the answer (Wonder Red figured that bunker was likely to be hit and didn't join earlier because her tech wasn't finished until after the fight had begun), she is angry because her father died and her boyfriend is in a coma.
• With Friends Like These...: Taylor and Sophia are friends... after a fashion. Still they fight and argue constantly, and Taylor trolls Sophia every so often.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Taylor gives Emma the speech after her best friend was attacked by ABB thugs.
  “Taylor… I…” Emma gulped, and looked straight at her. “I don’t want to ever feel like that anymore. I… I want to be strong… I can’t—“
  “You ARE strong!” Taylor’s voice rang loud and clear. Emma’s mouth closed as Taylor moved past Sophia and towards her. “Emma… if you hadn’t been there for me when dad died, I’d… I would be here now.”
  Her friend’s gaze fell, and Taylor stopped. “… Somebody can be another person’s strength.” She whipped around and pointed to the interloper. “There is NOTHING wrong with helping others when they are down! And in FACT…” She slowly grinned. “… I’m going to demonstrate it to you.”

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“The point is that people are amazing.” Her voice, nervous before now, rang with conviction. “The point is that people don’t need powers to do the incredible. They were able to do great things before parahumans existed. They are STILL able to do great things. But sometimes people look at capes like us, and forget that, because capes seem to do the impossible. In the end? All I’m offering is a way to equal the field for them.”

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