Useless Without You (Worm Au/Dr. Stone Crossover)

Prologue

Out of all the possible epiphanies she could have had in this moment, Taylor thought, the one she'd never have expected, not in ten million years, was that Emma would mean so little to her anymore.

It was a distant realization, barely audible in the back of her head over the cacophony of her heart pounding, her fists banging, and her classmates' malicious laughter. Her initial disorientation after having been shoved face-first into the mess in her locker had dispersed the moment she felt something move, And been replaced only with mounting terror and panic when her attempt to climb out was cut short by the clang of the door being slammed shut behind her.

Well, that and disgust, of course.

In truth, even after the bullying had petered out in the weeks before the break, the sting of betrayal at Emma's actions upon its dramatic return was pretty minor; What was once so devastating to her had become a cold, dull ache that never really went away, so familiar a sensation that it barely registered.

It wasn't surprising to her that Emma would make a return to form. The reprieve in her torment being just another hoax meant to break her spirit seemed so obvious in retrospect, that Taylor couldn't help the flash of recrimination and self-hatred that seared through her chest for falling for it, once again. Long gone were the days of crying herself to sleep, desperately wishing for her closest and dearest friend to come to her senses. The Emma of the present shared with the Emma of the past her face and little else. She'd gone to pieces in visceral chunks, and the bits that were lost had all been carelessly replaced with the flesh and soul of a monster. Birds fly, fish swim, and Emma hurts people. Such is the truth of her world these days.

More surprising, but not altogether too much, was that she'd escalate to something of this scope. Her aggressors thrived in the borderlands of obscurity and deniable accountability, while this latest attack would be testing the boundaries of both in short order. Still, Taylor's experiences so far called for an appropriate amount of cynicism in all things, and the bottomless font of power tapped by an innocent smile and a lawyer father had yet to be surmounted regardless of the offense. This would likely hold true even now.

The real surprise, Taylor noted distantly even as her voice grew hoarse and her breathing ragged, was the callousness shown by the rest of her peers. Abandoning her to her fate, an apathetic crowd was a sore point for her that came up a few times in the past, but for it to reach a level where her pleas of distress were met only with derision? That kind of malice from Emma was commonplace, but the weight of betrayal she felt from the faceless crowd in this moment outranked what she felt from Emma by an order of magnitude. It was as if her faith in the decency of humanity itself was being corroded away, second by painful second. Was no one really going to help her, even now? The bitterness towards the bystanders sought to consume her thoughts, leaving little room for consideration of the likes of Emma.

It was so overwhelming, in fact, that it was only when she ceased hammering on the sealed door of her makeshift prison, in order to rest her now burning muscles, that she noticed the jeers from beyond the slatted door of her locker had been turned into a deafening silence.

Had they actually left her here, and so quickly? Taylor's heart leapt to her throat and escaped her lips as a tremulous whimper at that horrifying thought. Any further introspection stamped out by the potential of being left to literally rot, she stopped all movement and strained her ears to their utmost, ignoring even the chilling sensation of various bugs skittering across lengths of skin, both exposed and not.

There was still an occasional murmur. It was too difficult to distinguish much from the voices at their current volume, and in her present state. Taylor was beginning to suspect that she was verging on a mix of hysteria and shock by this point. She could almost detect a note of confusion from the tones, or maybe fear? What was happening? Was someone finally going to let her out?

To help her?

Her fragile spark of hope was met only with a steadily growing humming noise, which was soon accompanied by a glow of sickly green light that filtered through the gaps and bathed the locker around her, before she was overtaken by complete darkness, and silence.

That day, all the humans around the world… turned to stone.