"Worm" belongs to Wildbow and "Perry Rhodan" To Pawel-Moewig. This is a noncommercial work.

One Girl Force

1.1

"If you look closely, you can see how the worker bees are feeding the larvae with royal jelly. The intervals of feeding are very different between those destined to become queens and..."

Taylor, who stood a few paces behind her peers due to her height, was distracted from the elderly beekeepers explanation by a commotion at the entrance of the insect showroom.

A young man wearing the unnaturally green uniform of the Franklin Park Zoo was talking agitatedly to Nancy, her group's youth camp instructor.

His eyes were wide, and he seemed out of breath, as if he had been running a long way.

The words he was spewing at Nancy had a sharp edge to them, although Taylor couldn't understand them from her position, and the young woman was covering her mouth with both hands, as if to keep in a scream, or to hide her terror.

While Taylor viewed the adult's strange interaction, her stomach started to plummet in anticipation of bad news.

If her mother's death half a year ago had taught her anything besides the depth of emotional pain people could suffer, it was that no one and nothing was ever really save in this world.

More so than in any other historical period really, because there were capes now - and things like the Endbringers.

The other kids hadn't noticed anything yet, and were still listening to the beekeeper's explanation of insect biology, but as fascinating as it had been to her just seconds ago, Taylor couldn't care less about it now.

Something terrible must've happened to cause the boisterous and unflappable Nancy to look so shocked.

The deep dread that had filled Taylor a week ago, when she had first arrived at youth camp, separated from her depressed dad and thrown into a group of kids she'd never met before, returned to her with a vengeance.

As he left Nancy, who seemed rooted to her place, the zoo employee fell into a straight out run before the showrooms door had fully closed behind him.

Taylor felt her throat go dry as she observed the athletic blonde camp instructor's struggle to hide her distress.

Nancy's usually expressive, friendly and very pretty face formed into a cold mask.

This was going to be terrible, she just knew it!

After what seemed a to be a very long time to Taylor, Nancy straightened and walked over to them, fast but controlled, sending a message with her body posture as much as her calm facade.

Taylor felt sure that she would've bought into the young woman's acting, if she hadn't seen the instructors horrified reaction a minute ago.

A short burst of affection for the twenty year old and her up to now very good care of their group shot through Taylor's brain, before it drowned in her still rising fear.

"Listen up, peeps!" Nancy called out in her melodious inflection.

Her voice was shockingly loud, and to her credit, there was barely a tremble in it.

The old beekeeper stopped his talk, surprise over the interruption clearly showing on his face, and everyone stared at Nancy, confused by the normally easygoing girl's behavior.

"I'm sorry to cut our trip short, but I've been informed that the zoo is closing for the day because of … technical problems."

Unhappy muttering broke out between the other eleven teens, but Taylor kept quite, her focus on Nancy and what she was hiding from them.

"I know it's annoying, I was hyped up to see the dolphins myself, but we have to leave," she told them, her tone firm, brooking no arguments.

The complaints subsided quickly, everyone knew by now that Nancy was nice and playful most of the time, but meant business when she talked like this.

"Ok, this is how we'll do this, you will line up in front of the door in pairs, and everyone will grab his partners hands."

Some of the boys looked aghast and grumbled about "being treated like kindergartners", but Nancy cut this short by raising her voice and sharpening her tone to a knife's edge.

"There will be no discussion, we must leave quickly and the group must stay together. You can cry and moan later, for now you've heard what I said."

She pointed to the door with an imperative gesture, and everyone started to shuffle over and fall into line, cowed by her steely resolve.

Taylor found a place at the middle of the line, and took the hand of Cleona, a delicate black girl from Concord, whom she had befriended in the last days, mostly because they were both half-orphans.

While the last people were finding a position, Taylor saw Nancy talk to the beemaster, and felt her trepidation mount even higher when she saw the old man gripping his chest over his heart, while his eyes went so wide that they looked eerily white, as if his pupils had vanished.

"Any idea what's up?" Cleona whispered from her right, her voice more suspicious than frightened.

"No, but it's serious." Taylor replied in a low voice.

"I think we should do exactly as she says, there's more to this than just," she paused, making air quotes with her left hand, "technical problems".

Nancy walked up to the group after making sure the beekeeper was alright, and took the point of the column, before turning to them.

"To make this absolutely clear," she stated, more coldly than she had ever spoken to them, "there will be no horseplay, no teasing, no stepping out of this line, until we are back at the bus. Is that understood?"

Variations of "Understood", "Yeah" and "Gotcha" answered her.

"Good. Follow me then."

The group left the insect house, walking at the quick pace enforced by Nancy.

Not a single person from the mass of tourists and excursionists who had been strolling up and down the paved ways when they had entered the showroom was still there.

The zoo looked utterly deserted, and only the low droning traffic noise from outside was proof that everyone hadn't been swallowed up by the ground.

Taylor felt cold sweat forming on her brow, and her hand gripping Cleona's fingers was getting clammy too.

The whole situation, the atmosphere around the group, reminded her more and more of an Earth Aleph horror movie she had seen a few weeks ago.

Taylor shuddered, she shouldn't have watched that Langoliers crap, but Emma had teased her until she had given in.

She was sure that this whole experience felt exactly like what the people on the deserted airport in that movie must've perceived before the world eating monsters showed up.

Time passed quickly as they moved with a clipped pace, and none of the other kids were talking, pressed down as they were by the emptiness of the formerly crowded place, and the unexplained severity of their instructor.

"There's the bird exhibit, we're nearly at the exit!" Nancy exclaimed, her tone indicating that she felt more than a bit relieved by the fact.

Seconds later, an obviously agitated mass of people came into view, all of whom were waiting impatiently, and in some cases quite disorderly, to pass the gates of the zoo.

Taylor was sure that she would get to know what was happening in short order from the shouting of the crowd, but before the group of youths came close enough to sort all the shouting and hollering out, all her questions were answered by another source.

The Endbringer sirens began to wail in the distance.

1.2

Their whole group stopped from one second to the next, as if they were one large organism, a centipede with human legs.

Taylor sympathized with the total shock and dawning horror she read on the others' faces, but she herself had anticipated something like this from the moment she saw Nancy's reaction to the zoo employee's news.

That foreknowledge enabled her to stay somewhat calmer than the others, as she had to confront her worst fears, the worst nightmares of humanity, really.

Not that she didn't feel gut-wrenching terror at the thought that one of the three mass murdering abominations called "Endbringers" was heading in her general direction, was coming to Boston right at this moment, with the only intention to kill and destroy everything in its way.

After a few seconds of paralysis, everyone but Taylor started to shout at their instructor and each other, a mix of rising anger, fear and hysteria audible in their voices.

A wave of panic was building up, Taylor could feel it in her own reaction to her peers, the quickening of her heartbeat, the rush of blood in her ears.

Nancy stood a few meters in front of the group, not listening to the accusations of being a "liar", "stupid babysitter" or "insane for confiscating our phones", and the other nasty insults some of the boys were hurling in her direction.

She had turned white like a sheet and her hands covered her mouth once again, and for a moment, Taylor feared that she had lost it, that the one adult who was duty bound to get her and the others out of this, was incapacitated by her own dread.

Luckily, Nancy caught herself after a few more seconds, and began to act.

She came back towards the group, until she stood directly in front of her accusers, where her tall and athletic frame towered over everyone, topping even Jeff, the oldest and most outspoken guy in the group.

"Yes, what we are hearing is an Endbringer alarm!" the instructor called over the whining and babbling youths, her trained and familiar voice quieting most of them down.

"I didn't want to panic you while it was only an east coast wide warning, but now it's certain – Leviathan is coming here."

Some of the girls around Taylor started to cry in fear, and Jeff and his gaggle of jock followers fell silent.

Everyone understood what Leviathan was, what he had done, especially the fates of Kyushu and Newfoundland were well known.

No one and nothing had been able to stop him before he drowned millions of people and sank those two islands, not to mention all the other atrocities he had committed.

"It's fucking horrible, you can see that I'm as shaken as you," Nancy shouted, real anger entering her tone for the first time since Taylor had met her.

"My family lives here in Boston, I love this city, it's my home, and I'm terrified for it and my loved ones." the instructor said, her voice cracking just a little.

"But I'm responsible for all of you, and I know the drills, I know the nearest shelters."

She was obviously trying to cajole everyone into following her lead now, and her tone became intense.

"Please, please listen, we can't panic and run around like headless chicken. What we have to do right now is to leave the zoo in an orderly fashion, take our bus, and drive to the shelter at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, that's only a very short drive from here..."

Taylor felt some relief at the thought of a massive concrete bunker, at least until she heard Nancy completing the sentence.

"...there, we will be as safe as anyone can be in an Endbringer attack."

Taylor shuddered, picturing the hundreds of thousands of Japanese and Canadian people who had thought themselves "protected" inside their shelters, until their whole islands had been put under the tidal waves of the oceans.

"We will wait here, where we are now, until most of those people," Nancy pointed towards the gates "are gone. Then we will walk quickly - no running! - to our bus, staying together as a tight group for the whole trip."

Everyone was hanging on her words as if they were a lifeline, even the boys who had cursed her only moments ago.

Nancy's sheer presence and authority was soothing, she was making sense from the chaos, knew where the shelters were, had the only transportation to get there.

She reminded Taylor of her dad before her mother had died, resolute in the face of trouble, and simply competent.

"Hey Taylor?"

Cleona's hushed, unsteady voice pulled her from her slightly convoluted, self-distracting thoughts on the negative changes in her father and the great qualities of their camp instructor.

She turned towards her new friend and plastered a small smile onto her lips, obviously fake, but much better than the snarl of fear and hate she felt pulsing beneath the carefully controlled surface of her mind.

"Yeah?"

"I feel like crying and shouting and running away all at once, how can you stay so calm in all this?"

The other girl was actually trembling slightly, and clutched Taylor's hand with both her own now, seeking more contact.

"Don't know what you're talking about, I may seem calm, but inside it's all screaming and terror." Taylor mumbled.

While she spoke, she took a step closer, and hugged Cleona tightly, trying to give her what comfort she could.

They stood this way for a few minutes, while dark clouds were gathering above the city and a cold wind started to blow from the Atlantic.

When Nancy finally told them that everyone should get ready to move, the two girls separated only haltingly, unwilling to give up the small measure of human warmth and solace they had shared.

Observing the area in front of the gates, Taylor found that it had emptied massively by now, and only a few dozen people remained clustered there, more hindering each other in their need to get out than helping everyone to leave quickly.

"OK, remember what I said before, keep together, don't run, follow my lead to the bus, and soon we'll all be saved." Nancy reminded them one more time.

"Let's go!"

The group walked in a tight formation behind their instructor, who had timed their approach so perfectly that they passed the gates directly behind the last clustered family, and could move on without pause, albeit slower than before.

Turning left, they marched along the street, careful not to get on the tarmac and into the way of the cars which were speeding by recklessly in both directions.

An almighty chaos was developing on the parking lot, with people of all age groups and walks of life hastening to their vehicles, while cursing Leviathan, the PRT, God and everyone else one could think of.

Filled with fear and hatred, the atmosphere felt stifling, and Taylor had to do battle with herself to keep up even her outward stoicism.

Resisting the growing panic all around her got harder and harder, she had to actively hold down her own emotions, or she would succumb to the mindset of the stampede.

Their bus came into view, a Champion Crusader that seated up to fifteen people, a vehicle class chosen so that every camp instructor could drive their groups around without a need for a commercial license, as Nancy had explained on their trip into Boston.

After they filed inside one by one, Taylor and Cleona took a bench in the front, directly behind the driver's seat.

Nancy, who had waited outside to count heads, followed Jeff into the bus, and swung herself behind the wheel in one fluid motion.

"Alright people, fasten your belts and keep calm, it's only about two miles to the shelter." she told the group with a raised voice, while she started the bus.

It took a few more minutes to navigate the car park in its current state, but Nancy managed it somehow.

Just as their vehicle rolled onto the road, with Nancy ignoring the aggressive honking of some anti-social jerk, who obviously thought he alone should get to safety, it started to rain.

Leviathan's tempest had begun.

1.3

The drive from the zoo towards the shelter at the hospital went much slower than Taylor had hoped, the traffic ahead of them was thick, and a lot of people were trying to speed along as fast as possible, endangering themselves and others.

Directly in front of the bus, a plumber's pickup, loaded with a rack holding a dozen gas bottles, made its way through the dense sheets of rain which were coming in from the shore.

The downpour was driven into nearly horizontal flight by the intensifying storm.

Taylor had taken a window seat, and she tried her best to get a picture of what was going on outside, but it was increasingly difficult to see even the trees and landscape of Franklin Park, despite the fact that they were passing right through it.

She knew that a golf course took up a lot of the area to her left, and wondered for a moment why anyone would place such a thing squarely in the middle of a heavily populated zone.

Giving up on deciphering the secrets of urban planning, she focused on the mood of the group and looked around inside the bus.

Everybody seemed subdued, there was very little chatter, but she detected a tiny smattering of optimism mixed in with the scared murmurings the others exchanged.

A few more minutes passed, mostly in tension filled silence.

Taylor had begun to look ahead, over Nancy's shoulder and through the windshield, and she thought she could make out the first signs of the hospital, bright lights greeting her with hope from the upper floor windows.

They were nearly there, they would make it.

"Shit!" Nancy screamed suddenly, and Taylor's gaze snapped down to street level.

She saw the dim lights of the pickup, driving into a right bend curve, maybe fifty feet in front of them, but a fleeting moment later she discovered why Nancy had cursed, and was already hitting the brakes for whatever they were worth, causing everyone to be thrown into their seatbelts, followed by a cacophony of terrified screams and screeches.

A very fast car with what looked like tinkertech headlights, intense enough to spear through the rain and darkness, was ripping down a small street that met the road they were on in the midst of the curve.

Time seemed to slow down, and with eyes widened by horror, Taylor watched as the insane sports car driver accelerated even further, only to smash himself into the pickup in a head on collision that no one could've possibly survived.

Somehow, Nancy's breaking allowed them to avoid piling into the terribly twisted wreckage blocking the street, which had seconds ago been two separate cars, but as they swerved to the left and bumped off the pavement, slowing down to slightly above walking speed, their luck ran out.

The explosion of the gas bottles sent a wall of pressure and searing fire in every direction, it shattered the windows of the bus, drove deadly shards into the bodies of the helpless teens inside, ignited their hair, their clothes, the whole interior, while throwing the vehicle on its side, reduced to a flaming deathtrap.

The agony was indescribable, nothing Taylor had ever felt came close to it. She was burning alive, on fire like a living torch, and there was no respite from it, no "inner movie" that was reputed to play out a persons live in their dying moments, no comfort from some mysterious light in a dark tunnel, only pain, pain, pain, desperate, uncoordinated movements, and more pain.

Then, everything changed.

She saw titanic shapes dancing around each other, their outer shells disintegrating into a myriad of splinters, or maybe shards, and one of them was falling towards her through the blackness of space, speeding up while tumbling around its own axis, until it hit her...

A pair of monstrous creatures, easily twelve feet in height, and of an enormous, unnatural width, stamped down a seemingly endless, unlit corridor.

Their six huge red eyes gleamed in the darkness, it looked as if triangles of embers had been placed in the creature's dome-like, black skinned heads.

The two giants were wearing armored battle dresses in the color of blood, ornamented with multiple futuristic gadgets, but an inkling of their hulking muscles could still be gleaned beneath their armament.

Both of them carried massive guns, huge enough to be the onboard weapons of fighter jets or attack helicopters, intimidating in their deadly, sleek simplicity.

The silent, menacing march ended in front of a massive air-lock, where one of the beings started to manipulate a switch board with both hands, but without putting its weapon down...

That was no problem at all, because the mysterious giants had not one, but two pairs of arms.

The upper one was much longer, and more massive, while the lower had less muscles, and looked slightly misplaced on the body, as if it had been added as an afterthought.

After a long period of fruitless tinkering, the ogre at the airlock controls stepped aside, and the other one retreated back into the darkness of the corridor.

A minute later, the giant returned into view, barreling down the corridor like a living cannonball, moving on its legs and lower arms like an unstoppable force of nature.

It crashed through the reinforced steel hatch as if it was made from paper, spraying the tunnel with shrapnel.

The other one didn't even react when the fragments hit its face, but just followed its comrade through the air-lock, demonstrating an agility that was at odds with its bulky form.

Inside was another long tunnel, this time illuminated by emergency lights giving off a sickly green glow.

The two giants continued their silent march for a long time, until finally, the tunnel changed.

The walls retreated, and in their stead, the beings found huge holding cells, hundreds of feet deep and equally long, secured with titanic steel bars - and filled with skeletons.

Thousands, tens of thousands of skeletons.

The carcasses looked ominously similar to the body structure of the two giants, with four arms, dome like skulls and measurements only negligibly smaller than theirs.

Having stopped, the two stared at the gruesome vista before them, obviously shocked to find themselves in a place filled with their own dead.

For the shortest moment, they were truly distracted by the horrific sight, and therefore didn't notice the green energy fields that sprang up all around them, or the heavy automated guns that popped up from hatches in the walls and ceilings.

Before they could react, they were bathed in beams of debilitating energy, and thrown to the ground by kinetic pulses.

Agony surrounded them on all sides, caused by weapons invented to deal with creatures of their kind... there was no way out, no mercy, no respite...

… until Taylor found herself stretched out on her back, encompassed by flames, but without feeling pain, without hurting at all.

She sat up slowly and took in her surroundings, stared at the red hot fire consuming everything around her, functionally blinding her through the sheer amount of brightness.

Taylor swiveled her head around, but couldn't see anything with a discernible form, nothing but flames and chaos.

She couldn't remember her past.

Had anything at all happened before this moment in existence? Was she dead or alive?

No!

This wasn't right!

If this was hell, she should feel horrific pain, as sinners deserved according to the major religions, but... there was just nothing.

Wait, major religions? How did she know that? Did she even know it?

What was happening to her?

She tried to stand up from the burning ground, decided to bolt away, regardless in which direction, but she just stumbled half a step, and fell back, unable to balance her body, utterly confused by the wrongness that hammered into her mind through all her senses.

She sat there, incomprehension overwhelming her, the thought process in her brain a swirling mess that threatened to just collapse on itself.

Taylor didn't know how long this state lasted, but after what seemed like an eternity of dazed existence, something alien entered her unraveling mindscape.

She couldn't fight it, and she wouldn't have even if she knew how, because this alien presence was a point on which she could focus, a sort of anchor in the messy melange her body and mind had become.

With a jolt, the presence expanded inside her, spread into her body and took it over effortlessly.

Her arms started to move without any command from her, and her form was pushed up in a graceful motion, bringing her upright and giving her solid footing.

She/The Presence bend her knees, and with a sudden eruption of power, her body was catapulted from the fire, landing elegantly on all sixes (sixes?) in front of a large truck.

The Presence/Taylor straightened once again, and her head became visible in the windshield of the vehicle, which was illuminated by the flames behind her.

Three red eyes stared back at her from the glass.