FOREWORD

I'll be honest, I've only just started reading Worm. And that was after a recent binge of fanfics (of which my personal favourite so far is It Gets Worse by ack1308, which is pretty funny, in a dark way). And because I don't feel up to writing a fully-fledged fanfic yet, I thought I'd do a one-shot teaser of an idea I might yet come back to: what if Taylor gained the abilities of a Servant from the Nasuverse? This story, I hope, resolves that issue. I might yet come back to do this story, in modified form, but it'll have to wait until I've read more of Worm.

Anyway, onto the usual disclaimers. Firstly, there will be spoilers for both Fate/Stay Night and Worm.

Secondly, this will be an M-rated work for dark themes, swearing, and violence. You have been warned.

Finally, the following is a fan-written work. Fate/Stay Night and Worm are the property of their respective owners. Please support the official release. Otherwise, Taylor will send a swarm of cockroaches after you…

MAGISSA

She knew this wasn't going to do her many favours with the PRT and the other so-called heroes in the city, but she didn't care. Given what they had done, or at least had failed to do, she found herself not caring. She had been betrayed so many times in this life, the lines between a life whose memories she had inherited and a life she was living blurred inexorably.

And heroes? Heroes were only good people when it suited them. She knew this in her last life, as she did in this one. To be a hero suggested something, no, someone more than human, BETTER than human. But they weren't.

Oh, she was still going to do good. But she was under no illusions about how she would be treated. Even if they could overlook her appearance, which was highly unlikely, what she intended to do was going to have her hunted down. And not just by the heroes, either. The villains would most definitely be gunning for her when they found out what she could do.

Still, something had to be done. Which was why she was perched on the edge of a building, looking down at the ABB gathered there, around their burly, masked leader Lung. The smirk she had on her blue-coloured lips was predatory, and was, apart from her nose, the only feature of her face visible beneath the hood she wore. Not that anyone would be able to identify her if the hood was removed: her face was currently that of her old life. Lavender hair, framing a face of utmost lugubrious beauty, and pointed ears like an elf.

She heard Lung snarling about killing kids. While given the intelligence she gathered through her viewing crystal suggested that said kids were the Undersiders, she couldn't take that chance, especially as the Undersiders were at least not as bad as, say, the ABB or the E88 or the Merchants.

With a single word spoken in an ancient language, Lung and his men were held under a spatial warping that effectively held them in place, Atlas. With a thought, she took to the skies, and floated above them. She wondered how she looked to them, a sinister, robed figure, her cloak splayed out like the wings of a predatory bird, or a bat. Or, given the colourful glowing patterns glowing under her cloak, perhaps a butterfly was a better analogy.

"It's a beautiful night outside," she called out as she hovered above them. "Stars are shining, shadows are growing…on nights like these, fools like you…" Magenta and violet circles of patterns appeared in front of her, brimming with energy. "Should be burning in Hell," she concluded in a low growl(1).

With that, lances of violet energy split the skies, screaming down on the pinned ABB gang members, and they were hit, screaming. She held back, though. She was well aware of the Unwritten Rules of the code for superpowered beings, and while she didn't intend to adhere to all of them, she certainly intended to avoid killing if she could help it, if only to avoid even greater attention from the PRT. Than she was going to get anyway.

Chief among those reasons was the one member of the ABB who was left conscious at the end of it. Lung was beginning to transform into his more draconic form, surrounded by fire. "Bitch…" he growled, before roaring, "COME DOWN AND FIGHT ME!"

She chuckled. "This isn't a fight. This is dealing with a rabid dog." She landed near him, increasing the pressure of Atlas as he transformed and thus got stronger. Thankfully, she could afford to, with his thugs now unconscious. She held out her hand, and within it materialised a dagger, an ornate thing with a zig-zagging blade, beautiful and sinister in equal measure. "And I'm about to neuter and muzzle you." With that, she jabbed the dagger into his back as hard as she could, ignoring the flames, countering them with her abilities.

Lung convulsed, howling in pain, his bestial roars devolving back into admittedly impressive but decidedly more human cries of pain and fury. They matched his appearance, where he began changing back into his human self, free of fire. With a gesture, another ritual circle appeared in mid-air, and another violet beam smashed into him, knocking him out.

She smirked beneath her hood. A nice outing, all-round. Even if the night was young. But Taylor Hebert, aka the reincarnation of Medea of Colchis, thought it a good one…

The night certainly wasn't without further incident. Taylor encountered the Undersiders, who had been impressed by what she did, even if Tattletale seemed annoyed that she couldn't get much out of her. But that's what a bit of magic could do. Still, she made sure to vamoose before Armsmaster showed up as the Undersiders did.

After all, she knew what the reaction would be once they found out she had removed Lung's powers.

And she was right, when she watched what happened later in her viewing crystal. The PRT were wetting themselves at the thought of a cape with the ability to permanently remove powers. Not that that was anything new, but a Trump with those abilities was still a frightening thing. She nearly wet herself too…from laughing too much. Thankfully, her Workshop was soundproof.

She summoned up the dagger, and looked at it lovingly. The Rule Breaker, the severer of bonds, the dissolver of the uncanny, reverting the extraordinary to the mundane. It had been a hunch that had her using it to rob Lung of his powers, a dangerous gamble to be sure, but he was also one of the most dangerous capes in Brockton Bay. And he was a test case, one she was going to use against the worst, the heads of the gangs…villains of all kinds…and soon, the one responsible for this.

In a perverse way, she had that bitch Sophia to thank for reviving her true self. It took an act of betrayal, stretched out over a year of torment at high school and culminating in being shoved into a locker filled with filth, to bring forth the Witch of Betrayal from whence she lurked deep within Taylor's soul. Emma had been manipulated by Sophia, and between Sophia's contacts within the PRT (thanks to her being Shadow Stalker) and Emma's lawyer father, they, along with fellow bitch Madison, thought themselves untouchable.

Taylor, no, Medea of Colchis, was going to disabuse them of that notion.

While her plans for revenge against Emma and Madison were still being formed (after all, she needed to ensure that they weren't traced back to her, and there were so many possibilities for revenge, even non-lethal revenge), she knew what her revenge against Sophia would be: she would take documentary evidence of her bullying to the PRT and, regardless of what they did about it (she doubted they were going to punish her in any meaningful way, though), she was eventually going to use Rule Breaker on Sophia. Tear away her powers, everything that she thought made her strong.

Yes…Rule Breaker was going to be used quite a lot in the future. And the best part about it, she wasn't killing them or even truly harming them. No, all she was doing was stripping away what made them special. And that was an even crueller and yet apt fate.

And there was another side project she was considering. After all, she had memories from another time and universe, of participating in the Holy Grail War as a Caster, of summoning her own Servant, despite being one herself. Which was why, later that night, she was trying this. True, she didn't have something like the Grail to act as a catalyst, but maybe it was worth a shot.

As she finished the circle, she murmured, "For the origin, silver and steel. For the cornerstone, gem and the Archduke of Contracts. For the ancestor, my great master Schweinorg. The alighted wind becomes a wall. Close the gates in the four directions. From the crown, come forth. Trace the three-forked road leading to the kingdom. Fill, fill, fill, fill, fill. Repeat fivefold, and when each is filled, destroy it(2)."

To herself, she thought, The heroes here are so full of themselves. They think themselves to be at the top of the heap. Well, it's past time I stripped away their delusions once and for all. With that thought, Taylor Hebert thrust out a hand, and began pumping energy into the circle, intoning the ritual. "Heed my words. My will creates your body, and your sword creates my destiny. If you heed my call, and obey my will and reason, then answer my summoning! I hereby swear that I shall be all the good in the world, that I shall defeat all evil in the world! Seventh Heaven clad, and the great words of power, come forth from the circle of bindings, Guardian of the Scales!"

The ritual circle dissolved in an actinic flare of light, and Taylor reflected that, even if she hadn't succeeded, it was still an impressive failure. But as the light died down, she saw the figure standing in the circle, and felt the sting in her hand, knowing that Command Seals had etched themselves into it. The figure asked, "You have called, and I have answered your summons. I ask of you, are you my Master?"

Taylor, no, Medea of Colchis, grinned, and held up her hand, knowing that this would be the start of something truly grand. "Indeed I am. And we have much work to do, you and I. We will show the world what we can do…"

THE END…?

STORY ANNOTATIONS:

Hoo boy. Brockton Bay is fucked.

Now, this story may be something I come back to. But before you start whining about various problems, allow me to address them.

Firstly, is Rule Breaker too OP? Well, in Nasuverse canon, Rule Breaker can effectively reduce a magically-created object to its component parts. In effect, it removes the magic from something, though it is usually used to remove the magical contract between Master and Servant. So, giving it the ability to remove superpowers is not unreasonable. And as OP as it is, Medea/Taylor needs to get close to use it. Once her reputation spreads, she's going to find it harder than it already was to get close enough to use Rule Breaker.

Secondly, summoning Servants? Okay, there's no Greater Grail, but c'mon, Medea was able to summon the 'false' Assassin in Fate/Stay Night. Plus, the thought of having a Servant face off against Leviathan is too appealing to ignore. So, I'm basically saying, this is the Worm-verse, Medea can summon a Servant without the Grail, deal with it. Who it is, I left ambiguous in case I do do an actual full fic, so I have plenty of time to decide who, but Arturia and EMIYA spring to mind most readily.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this. Hopefully, I might do further Worm fics in the future, including an expansion of this one.

1. Yes, I totally ripped off Sans' pre-arse-kicking line from his boss fight in Undertale.

2. The ritual, aside from the climactic incantation, is a hybrid of two sources: the Fate/Zero manga, and Third Fang's fanfic From Fake Dreams, and is one I habitually use for Nasuverse stories. Incidentally, the final incantation is from the English dub of the Fate/Zero anime, albeit with a very slight modification.