Drain
is a crossover between Worm and X-Men by Ellf.
Over Christmas Break, Taylor's Mutant Powers activate, giving her Rogue's powers. Then the locker incident goes pear-shaped when Sophia and Emma get knocked unconscious by skin-to-skin contact with Taylor.
Meanwhile, Raven Darkholme is principal of Clarendon, and is trying to assemble an all-Cape student body...
The fic is currently ongoing.
Drain provides examples of:
- Adaptational Heroism:
- The PRT seems to have absorbed a lot of the anti-Super government factions from the Marvel Universe, and softened their anti-Cape stances out of necessity. Some, however, think the PRT isn't going far enough and that it should be subordinated to the Armed Forces.
- Skidmark and Squealer are mentioned as joining with Magneto, rather than forming the Merchants.
- The chemistry teacher at Clarendon is heavily implied to be Bakuda, in which case this trope applies to her.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Robert Kelly is still an anti-superhuman politician and under the thumb of the Hellfire Club, but he's far less fanatical in his anti-superhuman bias, acknowledging there are good Capes.
- Adaptation Name Change: Taylor's Cape Name is Pícara, Rogue's Dub Name Change in Spanish X-men comics.
- Adaptational Superpower Change:
- Taylor is Rogue and has her Power Parasite abilities.
- Lisa is Dayspring, a full-on psychic, rather than Tattletale.
- Adapted Out: Crawler is the only Slaughterhouse Nine member who is ever directly mentioned, implying Jack Slash and the others are either dead or never existed.
- Adults Are Useless: The school nurse blames Taylor for Sophia and Emma going unconscious, brushing off the fact that Taylor wasn't trying to attack them.
- Badass Teacher: It is heavily implied that Principal Darkholme is hiring only Parahumans as teachers at Clarendon, considering she talked Wolverine into becoming a gym teacher and apparently hired Bakuda as a chemistry teacher.
- Berserk Button:
- Sabertooth is this for Wolverine. The feeling is mutual, seeing as Sabertooth throws all rationality out and attacks Wolverine with no provocation, even when he's under orders not to.
- Magneto is one for Danny Hebert, who reluctantly allows Raven to make contact with Taylor as long as she never makes contact with the older mutant and doesn't reveal her prior identity. While Raven agrees on principle, she also knows she can't do anything if Magneto gives her a direct order.
- The Cameo:
- Wolverine and Sabertooth appear in Rachel's interlude.
- Quicksilver appears as a high school student at Clarendon in Danny's interlude.
- Stan Lee Cameo: Stan Lee explicitly appears as a PRT official in a video-chat scene, complete with an "Excelsior" to Taylor.
- Canon Welding:
- Nightcrawler is a member of the Brockton Bay Wards.
- Black Widow is working with the PRT in her "Natalie Rushman" guise.
- Professor X is mentioned as a Protectorate Hero in upstate New York.
- Cyclops is mentioned as a Protectorate Hero in New York City.
- Rachel is Wolverine's daughter and implicitly X-23's half-sister.
- Mystique is Clarendon's current Principal and Annette Hebert was one of her previous identities.
- The Maximoff twins are attending Clarendon.
- Grant Ward, Malinda May, and FitzSimmons are part of the PRT, as is Jackson Norriss.
- Nick Fury is Rebecca Costa-Brown's second-in-command at the PRT.
- Senators Robert Kelley, Mathias Stern, Randolph Cherry, Stan Ori, and Jessica Oppenheim, Generals Thaddeus Ross and Glenn Talbot, Larry Trask, and Nick Fury (standing in for Rebecca Costa-Brown) are the members of the Senate Committee that handles the PRT budget in Senator Kelley's interlude.
- Bolivar Trask had died at the hands of Crawler some years before, putting Larry Trask in charge of the Sentinel Program. Andrew Richter had also collaborated with Trask on the Sentinels, prior to his death at the hands of Leviathan.
- Dragon is also mentioned as a member of Alpha Flight.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Raven goes into one when she learns Taylor was outed in front of the entire school and was taken into PRT custody.
- Cool Helmet: Averted. Magneto's is mentioned derisively, whenever someone refers to him as "buckethead".
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Gender-Inverted. Mystique had permanently abandoned her guise of Annette Hebert after the car crash, and Danny is upset at her for letting Taylor believe her mother is dead.
- Dead Fic: Subverted- After over a year in hiatus, the fic started updating again in the spring of 2021.
- Didn't Think This Through: Sending Sabertooth of all people to get Wolverine's daughter enrolled at Clarendon turns out to be a bad idea.
- The Dreaded: Magneto is a Greater-Scope Villain considered on par with the Slaughterhouse Nine or the Butcher. Anything involving him is considered suspicious.
- Fantastic Slur: Raven uses the anti-human term "flatscan" to describe normal humans she distrusts. She is willing to exclude certain humans from that term like her ex-husband Danny.
- Fastball Special: Invoked by Taylor in her first patrol as Picara, when she instructs Gallant to throw her at Lung while Lung and Oni Lee are fighting Armsmaster.
- Fusion Fic: Between Worm and X-Men.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Magneto is doing something with Clarendon, but is also The Ghost.
- Hates Being Touched: Since Taylor's power automatically applies to anyone she touches, Taylor has started avoiding direct contact with people.
- I Know You Know I Know: Averted. Taylor knows Sophia is Shadow Stalker, but the Protectorate and Wards don't know she knows; this gets lampshaded by Taylor.
- Mythology Gag:
- Not the first time Black Widow's used the "Natalie Rushman" alias.
- Taylor imitates a Southern accent during her introduction to the Wards.
- "flatscan" is casually used in a conversation between Danny and Mystique.
- Taylor is fine with a generic X logo, the very same as the comics X-Men.
- As mentioned above, Taylor's cape alias is Picara, Rogue's Dub Name Change from the comics.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Rachel sees right through Mystique's Wolverine impression because Mystique is a lot less straightforward than Logan is.
- Power Incontinence: Identified by the PRT as a "Case 63".
- Taylor has to wear full-body-covering clothes to avoid draining others.
- Cyclops is mentioned, as is his Tinkertech visor that keeps him from blasting his lasers everywhere he looks.
- Power Parasite: Taylor temporarily borrows Sophia's Shadow Stalker powers when Sophia tries to shove her into the locker.
- Shape Shifter Guilt Trip: Defied. Raven tries to manipulate Danny by taking on the form of "Annette", but Danny, upset that Raven ditched him and her only child, isn't having it.
- Shout-Out: A Streetcar Named Desire is name-dropped as where Taylor got her southern accent impression from.
- That Man Is Dead: Danny tells Raven that "Annette" died the moment she decided to abandon her own daughter.
- Twofer Token Minority: Senator Kelley's interlude explicitly notes how Jessica Oppenheim is the only woman and the only person of color (besides Costa-Brown) on the Senate Committee for the PRT budget.
- Touch of Death: Taylor's Power Parasite abilities puts Sophia and Emma in a coma.
