Disclaimer: I don't own Worm or Warhammer 40K, they belong to their respective creators and/or copyright owners. I don't make any money from this story. It is written with no commercial aim in mind. It is not for sale or rent.

=ED=

Interlude: Various

=ED=

Eden

A pair of Entities traveled to their new feeding and testing ground. The Warrior did his duty seeking the way and any possible danger that might dare approach his charge. At the same time, the Thinker was distracted. Not too long ago, she detected a breach in the dimension wall not too far off their course and a cursory investigation found what suspiciously looked like a strange, imprisoned shard.

The find piqued her Curiosity and the pair diverted to investigate. What she found turned out to be as if not more interesting than the Path shard she gained by the lonely entity they met shortly after the end of the previous cycle. Eden wasted no time in probing and prodding the new shard with everything she had.

Curiosity soon shifted into Fascination and Wariness. What she found was indeed a prison for a shard unlike any she had data on. Utilizing the Path and all her sensor shards and many defensive shards, she erected a safe area for her new toy and began slowly unraveling its prison. As she did so, the shard began to destabilize – it leaked energy and bursts of corrupted data in one moment, and in the next, it drew in as much energy of any kind there was, including from the defenses.

Eden distributed the fragmented and corrupted data to her thinker shards for processing and further analysis while she busied herself with crafting a better containment area. It was at that point that the pair began a final approach to their destination. Warnings came from multiple shards – what little data they could decipher raised all kinds of Inquiries and alarms. This new shard was dangerous – it had to be contained before Eden could pay more attention to the warnings, that much she gathered. The Path agreed too and she threw herself into reinforcing and stabilizing the prison she damaged as well as the containment area.

She succeeded too, unfortunately, doing so took too much of her concentration and capacity to pay proper attention to what was happening outside. Heat friction from plunging through atmosphere in relativistic speeds was her first clue she had miscalculated, terribly so. The second and final one came in the form of impact with the surface and the resulting shock scrambled her consciousness.

Eden was just beginning to recover thanks the piece of herself contained in her partially created Avatar, when a bipedal mammal, a member of the primary species targeted for the next cycle walked in and did the impossible – lobotomized her with a sharp knife of all things…

=ED=

Coil

There were a few things that concerned him anymore – his power made sure of it. After all, being able to be in two places at the same time, one of them almost always as safe as possible, ensured it. That's why, when a call came from Cauldron calling in the favour he owed them, Coil's mind blanked for a few moments. He was aware enough of their power and reach to not ever consider fucking with them and for someone who could split time at will, that was saying something.

Second, the nature of his request made him both wonder and swear bullets. They needed him to investigate a recent trigger in his city, one as it turned out he was tangentially involved with – well, at least in covering one of the main perpetrators.

Sophia Hess, Shadow Stalker was a troubled girl with mental issues that made her easily exploitable. In fact, due both to research and a few throw-away timelines, Coil knew that once he was in a position to run the local PRT, he would need to either dispose of her, ensure she got a transfer or use her as a stepping stone to bring down Piggot. The foolish girl was simply too unreliable to keep when he became the Director. On the other hand, turning her into one of his minions as Coil – that had potential to kill more than one bird with a single stone, or bolt in this particular case.

That's why he ensured evidence would go missing, reports misfiled and so on in order to ensure Hess could get away with her latest stunt. Revealing her dirty little secrets at the right time could certainly hammer another nail in Piggot's coffin.

In retrospect, that might have been a mistake. Nothing in the timelines he ran to make Hess getting away possible hinted at the girl she has been bullying triggering and that by itself was a concern. The fact that Cauldron of all people had an interest in said new trigger – that unsettled him.

Coil wasted no more time in pondering his actions and shut down the timeline that had him in home, watching TV and eating popcorn – relaxing after work as far as anyone was concerned. Then he split the timeline and in one ordered two teams of his mercenaries to the hospital housing his target, while in the other, he continued reviewing his operations.

Once he got a confirmation the mercenaries were in marked vans near the target, he ordered them to attack - Cauldron wanted a safe way to make a threat assessment and a few throw-away timelines would see to it.

=ED=

A rent-a-cop and two PRT agents hung near the entrance of the hospital. They stood no chance when a pair of vans screeched to a halt in front of them, side doors slid open and six mercenaries aimed automatic weapons at them. Burst of precise fire took them down and eight armoured men ran through the lobby shouting for everyone to get out of their way.

This wasn't the kind of operation they would usually undertake, however all of them were old hands working for Coil. They knew whatever his power was, he never lost – there hadn't been a single assignment he ordered that didn't succeed before and they always got away free. Otherwise, at least half of them would have balked at such a public attack – you needed to be alive and free to spent your money after all.

One team went to the elevators, while the second ran towards the stairs – they knew their target was on the third floor, as well as the precise location of her room and how to get to it. As always, the boss planned for everything – in this case that meant an up to date map of the hospital as well as actionable intelligence on the most of the opposition.

Team one entered the elevator and their leader pressed the button for the third floor. The doors closed and they went up only for the elevator to suddenly halt between the first and second floors. That was the mercenaries first clue that something went terribly wrong. The second came in the form metal fingers grabbing heads and crushing them along with the helmets as if they were no tougher than thin egg shells.

The sergeant and corporal in the front didn't even have time to begin turning around when metal fists crushed their skulls. The cameras and microphones that should have given Coil some intelligence caught nothing but the sounds of crushed bones.

The second team barely reached the second floor when a wicked bladed staff phased into existence and tore through the chest of a mercenary with no resistance and as easily impaled a second one. In one smooth motion, the staff, impaled people and all, swung to the left and smashed a third merc into the wall with enough force to crush his chest and left him suffocate with collapsed lungs. At least his camera caught a blur of green when the assassin impaled the team leader in the back – the man was just beginning to run when an inhumanly strong arm drove a blade in his back. All that could be more or less clearly seen were the three people impaled on that staff.

=ED=

"That could have gone better." Coil muttered after dismissing the timeline. "Time for round two." He split reality again. "Mr Pitter, bring me a cup of strong coffee and some snacks." This was going to be one long night...

=ED=

Part 1

=ED=

PRT HQ
Brockton Bay

All the way to the PRT building, Taylor felt like in a daze. After she awoke in the hospital and could again think more or less straight, there was one thought that was constant in her mind – that of being a hero. Thinking about it, her childhood dream, it helped her focus and stay centered.

Taylor looked at the floor of the van. When she left her mind drift, all her thoughts went to the sensation of warmth and light, basking in the heat of the sun, feeding off solar radiation… Her shoulders slumped. The robot, her robot, couldn't be right, surely? She could vividly remember his short and to the point explanation of what she was of what he expected her to do and the very idea made her want to hurl.

No, most disturbingly that wasn't entirely true. There was a part of her that was curious at the possibilities. She felt dull, distant yet real fascination at the thought of consuming souls… That much was something Taylor didn't want to admit to herself, much less the machine or worse, her father.

"Starfire, hey Ms Starfire!" Someone called her by the temporarily name given to her by the PRT.

Taylor raised her head and stared at a fully armoured PRT trooper – just like you could see them on the TV.

"We're here." The man smiled reassuringly.

"Fine." Taylor nodded and got up. She stared at the intangible robot that had stood protectively in front of her for the whole trip and pouted. What was she supposed to do with him?!

"Tay… Starfire? Are you all right?" Her dad asked.

"I think so." Taylor shrugged. How was she supposed to answer that? Physically she felt fine. That wasn't the problem. Perhaps it should have been before she became a Parahuman or worse but now?

"Was it the van?" Her father asked gently. "Too small?"

Taylor opened her mouth to answer and shut it with an audible click. She hadn't even thought about that but now… "I don't think I can get into the elevator..." She trailed off hating how weak she sounded to herself.

"We can… use… another way…" The robot rasped.

"Your fading thing?" Taylor wondered aloud.

The machine gave her a very human nod.

"I would like that."

"I'll have to check with…" One of the troopers began when the robot put one hand on her shoulder and the other on her fathers then reality twisted in a very interesting way that she could almost see happening. Green lighting surrounded them yet failed to touch their skin and suddenly they were somewhere else.

"Done…" Did the robot sound smug?

"What?!" A surprised woman exclaimed. Alarms screamed making Taylor's ears hurt then nozzles appeared on the ceiling and white stuff poured everywhere only to meet more green lighting and vaporize.

While the chaos unfolded, two men who until moments ago sat in front of an old fashioned desk jumped as if stung and went for weapons they apparently didn't have on them. A large scowling woman sat behind the desk and she fished a very large gun she pointed at the robot.

"That is… enough..." Pure menace radiated from him and his tone… Taylor actually found it rather reassuring. The nozzles stopped trying to fill up the room with foam and the lighting vanished as suddenly as it appeared.

"Explain yourselves!" The armed woman demanded in a furious tone, which made something within Taylor bristle.

"Herald!" She snapped at the robot. "Why did you do this? That agent was about to ask permission!"

The robot turned his head to look at her with its two glowing eyes. Whatever he tried to convey failed miserably.

"Ahem. Excuse me, Director Piggot, I presume?" Her father asked. "I think this is just a misunderstanding… My daughter is afraid of enclosed spaces after what happened to her. Herald here suggested that he could bring us up without using an elevator and then did it without waiting one of your people to ask for permission."

"You know, I can have you arrested for this." The newly named Director glared at Taylor then at the robot.

Needless to say, that made Taylor bristle at the large woman. Herald turned his head to stare down the Director as if reacting to her indignation.

"You can't… contain… C'tan avatar..." Her robot stated and even if his voice was metallic and emotionless, somehow it conveyed utter conviction.

"Avatar?" One of the men, the thin sickly looking one asked.

Herald nodded at Taylor who gave him a questioning look.

"I think it would be for the best if we all calm down, sit down, shut down the alarms and talk?" He suggested. "Thomas Calvert, PRT Strike Team leader and consultant. Nice to meet you?" He smiled nervously.

The director sighed, put her gun under her desk muttering something about Master/Stranger protocols and paperwork. For a bit she ignored everyone as she began to type on her computer. The alarms did shut down at least.

"Sit down and explain." The woman grated.

"Herald?" Taylor looked expectantly at the robot.

"Protocols… C'tan needed to avoid… enclosed space… I complied..." He unhelpfully explained.

"A mishap with projection you don't know how to use fully yet?" Calvert asked.

"That's dangerous and irresponsible." The Director sighed. "That's one of the reasons why we require you to test your powers, Starfire – to avoid such misunderstandings. A security team was this close..." She showed with thumb and index finger, "from storming the room. If that happened and your projection overreacted…"

"Herald? You wouldn't have killed anyone, right?" Taylor had the sinking feeling that she already knew the answer.

"Clear and present danger to the C'tan is to be neutralized as soon as possible." Herald stated flatly.

"It made my point, I think." The Director fixed her with a stare and this time Taylor felt no indignation as it began to sink how close she came to becoming a villain by accident of all things!

"Now can someone explain to me what is this about Star Gods…" The Director rolled her eyes while saying it, "and eating souls?"

"C'tan feed on stars… energy… they find souls tasty… irresistible after having a taste… Designation Taylor Hebert is a C'tan..." Herald unhelpfully declared.

"This is one strange projection..." Calvert peered curiously at Herald.

"Not a projection… Necron Lord… Herald of War..."

The Director scowled, Taylor's father cleared his throat and Taylor wondered if this day could get any worse...