Fanfic / A Tale of Transmigration

A Tale of Transmigration is a Worm fanfic by CrashLegacy. It has discussion threads at SpaceBattles and Sufficient Velocity.^note The SpaceBattles.com and SufficentVelocity versions are more up-to-date than the Fanfiction link

Taylor Hebert has just experienced the events of Golden Morning and the followup meeting with Contessa. She then finds herself waking up in her younger body directly after the locker incident in a different universe. Besides for capes having been present for decades longer than in her original reality (thereby leading to many capes that Taylor has no knowledge of) and several extra Endbringers, Taylor quickly notes that one of the biggest differences present is that she now possesses the extra power of insect biokinesis.

With decent (but not perfect) knowledge of how the world really works and some extra firepower, Taylor sets out to become a badass cape, make her life better, and save as many lives as possible while still trying to avoid being declared an S-class threat by the Protectorate.

Please note that since this is a fanfic set after the conclusion of canon, both A Tale of Transmigration and the list of its relevant tropes are spoilerific for Worm Canon and as such only spoilers for the plot of A Tale of Transmigration itself will be protected.

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This fanfic contains examples of the following:

• Accidental Pornomancer: Gallant ended up hitting Skitter with what amounts to a lot of pleasure in the middle of a spar. He says it was the first time he'd done that and it was an accident. She promptly kicked his ass for it.
• Acquired Poison Immunity: Skitter develops a perfect counter agent after being exposed to Basilisk venom, without any conscious effort on her part.
• Adaptational Heroism: Shatterbird is a well known and beloved glass artist during her day job. The S9 did try to recruit her, but she killed half of them with her husband before they were forced to retreat.
• Affably Evil: Rune, despite being a Nazi, is a frequent poster on PHO who enjoys taking selfies and posting them for people to see.
• The Ageless: Alexandra, Testament, and Weld among current characters.
• Alternate Universe: Taylor has woken up in a different universe from her original, and while many things are the same there are enough differences to make her knowledge somewhat suspect. It's noted there are about 4 different sets of universes that others can come from. Clockblocker and Kid Win came from the same universe, while Emma came from another where she triggered as a result of being attacked in an alley, and Basilisk came from a third one.
• Anti-Hero: Quiver. The only reason they don't actively go after him is because he normally targets gang parahumans and avoids attacking heroes and cops, but his kill count is in the double digits.
• The Atoner: Emma, after awakening her reincarnation memories and becoming Phoenix.
• Badass Boast: After someone points out that Skitter fought Khepri alone, Skitter replies with:
  I am never alone.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Khepri and Skitter. It ends in a draw.
• Big Brother Is Watching: Blue Universe's Skitter was a hero who was renowned for this.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Atlas is the size of a vehicle and, to the horror of the PRT, a scavenger.
• Blind Seer: Oracle, a Mirror Cape to Simurgh, has precognition centered around herself. She's classified as Thinker 12 for this reason.
• Body Double: Proxy serves as this for Skitter, and lets her hide her identity as Taylor better by being in the same place at once.
• Boom, Headshot!: How Grue dispatched his copy.
• Boxed Crook: Surge is allowed out of prison every time he participates in an Endbringer battle against his mirror, Leviathan.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Peerless Kung-Fu, run by a cape, teaches both capes hand to hand as well as non-capes how to fight capes.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • A couple of PRT agents prodded Atlas, Skitter's very large 600-pound beetle, with a gun in Chapter 8. Piggot honestly seems stumped that anyone would be stupid enough to do that, which would border on Too Dumb to Live if Skitter wasn't in control of it and prevented it from reacting.
  • Clockblocker warns against this when Armsmaster suggests a strong-arm approach in recruiting Skitter.
  Clockblocker: "I'll say the same thing I've told everyone who thought they could take her. Don't. Everyone underestimates her because she's the little girl with bug powers; but we're talking about someone who went toe to toe with Mannequin and won, killed someone who's supposed to be invincible, and took down Lung twice. You can't take her. It just doesn't happen.
• Came Back Strong: All of those who have reincarnated have had improvements to their powers. Kid Win has the same specialization as Armsmaster, Clockblocker has full control over his time-freezing and a time dilation sphere akin to Khonshu, and Skitter can manipulate biology. Basilisk has the ability to nullify powers and poison with a touch..
• Creepy Good: Skitter, who constantly has bugs crawling over her.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Skitter vs Shadow Stalker, to the former.
  • Khepri to the Triumvirate their first meeting. Word of God is that she kicked them around by herself and then explained the rules of engagement when she shows up, namely they stay out of it or she'd make their clones go around killing everyone because they're too powerful and no one can learn with them around.
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Khepri does this occasionally. They mention one time she played tea party with an abandoned 5-year old.
• Emotion Bomb: Part of Gallant's power.
• The Empath: Also part of Gallant's power.
• Enemy Mine: Technically, Skitter is a Hero and the Undersiders are villains, but because Taylor has her past memories and Tattletale's powers tell her this, they usually work together.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Apparently, Sophia/Shadow Stalker was in a relationship with Quiver. Despite knowing how she was, the only thing that stopped him from trying to kill Skitter was because he doesn't kill heroes... and he only barely managed after he had the shot lined up and ready.
• Evil Knockoff: Khepri creates clones of other Capes.
• Excuse Me While I Multitask: Skitter still maintains this from her canon ability. At one point she helps Kid Win with his math homework while taking out a Merchant drug lab halfway across the city.
  Skitter: "Right now, I'm using the individual sounds of the bugs crawling on my costume to speak, having my shroud weave around me, making Atlas shuffle about, watching him and the area around him with my millions strong swarm, moving the pest bugs in this building towards the roof to feed Atlas, reading this agreement, and still providing this meeting, and you in particular, with the vast majority of my attention."
• Forgets to Eat: Most Tinkers in the setting.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Frost fights nude, only using her powers to give her a Barbie Doll Anatomy and shell.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: Taylor gets a pair in order to get video evidence of the bullying. Afterwards, she includes them into her costume to record her activities as a hero.
• Good Is Not Soft: Taylor makes it clear she's a hero, but she's not soft in the least bit and not forgiving. She immediately compiles evidence to deal with Shadow Stalker, takes her down personally, and is absolutely ruthless in dealing with criminals.
• Graceful Loser: Khepri is noted to leave boons behind when she's defeated. She left Radiation scrubbers after the Chernobyl encounter, and established the power plant in New York. The only reason she doesn't when she encounters Skitter is because she wasn't planned.
• Hostage Situation: Warpath, a mercenary unit, has hostages inside of a store in 18.1.
• Hour of Power: Haxxor can swap powers between Parahumans for a set number of hours.
• It Only Works Once: Anytime an Endbringer is killed, the Major ones are made immune (unless they don't want to be) and the Minor ones are improved. When the Centaur was killed, for example, through Weaponized Teleportation, the Major ones became immune and the minor ones became capable of teleporting themselves.
  • Word of God is that the third entity tampered with Taylor's shard so that it couldn't be jailbroken a second time and put it down like she did Scion.
• It's Personal: Skitter wanted to personally being down Shadow Stalker, and just about everyone could see it.
• Join or Die: Alexandria had this mindset when she learned of Skitter's powerset being similar to Nilbog's. Either she joined or they put a kill order on her. Other members thankfully talked her down from this approach.
• Jumped at the Call: Kid Win started building his equipment the moment after he triggered and set out to join the Wards.
• Magic Pants: Averted. Sara doesn't have a set in her civilian clothes, so she has to be careful or she'll risk damaging them and ending up naked.
• Mind over Matter: Rune is one. Oracle is considered the world's strongest and a Mirror Cape to Simurgh by virtue of catching a building she threw and then beating her with it.
• Mirror Match: Endbringers actively seek out Capes that have similar powers to test themselves against. In the event that the Endbringer Cape prevails, the Endbringer itself will retreat early.

  • Dynamo for Behemoth, both of whom have Dynakinesis. This is because Dynamo has Scion's Behemoth shard.
  • Oracle for Simurgh, both of whom have Telekinesis and Precognition, with the former able to block her song.
  • Surge for Leviathan, both of whom have Hydrokinesis.
  • Skitter for Khepri, both being The Minion Master who use Telepathy. Plus the fact that the latter was molded from an impression of the former.

  • Khepri enforces this by creating a clone of any cape that enters a battle against her. Since some like Alexandria were able to tear through lesser capes, they had to keep the stronger capes out of the battle.
• Must Make Amends: Madison tries this in Chapter 8 by leaving Sophia and Emma, but Taylor doesn't forgive easily. Emma becomes a hero for this reason in Chapter 10.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When Khepri and Skitter fight, Skitter gets Khepri's memories... but Khepri also gets Skitter's, which includes Taylor's strategy of making a bug clone avatar to do things unrelated to her superpowered identity, and thus we get Khepri able to walk down the streets of major cities with no one the wiser.
• No-Sell: Telepaths in general can't connect with Skitter's mind because of the sheer vastness of it. Khepri is the only exception because she's an Endbringer capable of doing so.
  • The Simurgh's telekinesis and song doesn't work around Oracle.
  • Khepri can't clone Skitter because the QA shard denies access.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Apparently, L33t and his group (Multiplayer) brought a Gundam to one of the Endbringer fights, and it worked.
• Oh, Crap!: Clockblocker was terrified of Skitter's return because he came from the same life she did, when she was a villain. Learning she was an actual past-lifer nearly had him break down.
• Organic Technology: Taylor follows this a trope a bit with her new secondary power. Most of her armor, some of her weapons, and various new members of her swarm are all insects shaped by her biokinesis. More than a few people are scared of her becoming another Nilbog for this reason.
• Original Character: The alternate reality setting of this fic has allowed (and also required) the author to create many new original characters. The various discussion threads (as linked to above) have postings from Crash Legacy going more in depth about the characteristics (powers, background, etc.) of some of his OC's that might only appear for a few lines in the actual story.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: Sara is a cape that can turn to a Werecat or Catgirl depending on her choice.
• Parental Abandonment: Lauren Reed was 5-years old when her parents left her behind while Khepri was doing her Endbringer thing. The Endbringer played tea party with her and even created a clone of her favorite hero to keep her company.
• Past-Life Memories: Some people reincarnate with memories of their past life in alternate worlds. Those who don't trigger lose these as they grow olders, but Capes keep them longer. Piggot, Kid Win, Clockblocker, and Skitter have memories from the Canon Universe, while Emma has an alternate set. Basilisk has his from a third.
• Pet Monstrosity: Atlas again for Taylor.
• Playing with Fire: Phoenix who is Emma after triggering from having her whole world view shattered from the loss of Madison and Sophia and losing her popularity can extend fire from her limbs for about 4 feet, making her a Striker and Mover capable of flight.
• Poisonous Person: Basilisk has this power.
• Power Nullifier: Basilisk also has this power, probably due to him being a reincarnate.
• Psychic Link: Network is one of the few true Telepaths in the setting and can connect minds.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Khepri doesn't really want to be an Endbringer so much as she forced by The Architect to. She'd rather listen to music and considers the time in Chrysalis to be a vacation, though boring.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Piggot in this incarnation. Once adequate proof is provided, she deals with Shadow Stalker. She also allows Skitter to bend some rules with the restrictions the PRT has for her bio-manipulation.
• Retired Badass: Iron Claw, the cape who runs Peerless Kung-Fu Dojo, was a member of the Protectorate.
• Secret-Keeper: Amy is the only one who knows Proxy's nature, which is for the best because that's the sort of thing that would get her a Kill Order.
  • Secret Secret-Keeper: Emma/Phoenix is already aware that Taylor is Skitter, but doesn't tell anyone. Not even Taylor knows, which is something given the measures she takes to hide her identity.
• Send in the Clones: Khepri's schtick.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: They're in an alternate universe, but because they are close enough some of the reincarnates are going ahead and making changes to benefit themselves or the world at large.
  • Kid Win already knows Dragon is an AI, so he agrees to help her get unshackled from Saint for help on his projects.
  • Skitter stops Glory Girl from using her aura constantly on Amy, as well as getting her to take a break, so she'll be less likely to snap if the S9 show up.
  • Clockblocker updated his equipment to match his fight with Scion, as well as warns against aggravating Skitter to avoid her going back to villainy.
• Shadow Walker: Wraith can teleport through shadows.
• Significant Birth Date: The day Taylor was born was the day Khepri first appeared.
• Spit Take: Tattletale when she learns that in the other universe the Undersiders took over the city.
• The Swarm: Skitter brings 70 million bugs with her to Canberra. That still doesn't count for her full swarm since she adds to it once she gets there.
• Taking the Bullet: Skitter for Tattletale in Chapter 11. She was kept safe by her bodysuit, but a 12-gauge shotgun still hurts.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Khepri is made from an impression of Taylor after she had her shard jailbroken applied to Scion's Administrator Shard. In other words, she's basically a second Taylor.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Tattletale is tortured to death in a timeline by Coil, but before she did so she told him Skitter was coming for him out of spite. The end result is him hiring an assassin to kill her.
• Vigilante Man: Quiver, who has a kill count in the double digits.
• Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: Skitter, the Wards, and Rune of all people have to juggle their schoolwork and their duties as capes.
• Walking Wasteland: Behemoth, who gives off enough radiation to create an "Instant Death" Radius around it. Dynamo also gives off radiation when using his powers for even the slightest thing, so he has a containment suit.
• We Used to Be Friends: Taylor and Emma. The former has long since given up on that notion after she defiled her mother's flute, which Taylor used to cheer her dad up, and the latter only belatedly realized she completely burned that bridge to ashes in Chapter 10, after triggering.
• Willfully Weak: Khepri intentionally limits her power when acting as an Endbringer to foster cooperation. When someone breaks her rules, she cuts loose to deal with them and can lead to the equivalent of a Total Party Kill if not handled appropriately.
• The Worf Effect: Dynamo, a Mirror Cape for Behemoth, is constantly kicked out of the battlefield/rendered helpless by the other Endbringers, despite being powerful enough to best Behemoth once. Here's a list.
• The Worm That Walks: Proxy, a relay bug that forms into Skitter as a decoy with bugs surrounding her.
• You Can Talk?: Before Khepri, no Endbringer was known to talk.

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