"The Emperor wasn't sure how he ended up in a different universe, or what the parasite leeching off Humanity was. He had never even considered the thought of having a successor. But someone had to save humanity, and he wasn't in a fit state to try."
— Fanfic summary
Empress Ascendant
is a Worm/Warhammer 40,000 crossover fanfic by Unruly Marmite on FanFiction.Net. It can also be read here on Archive of Our Own. The first chapter was posted on May 12, 2017.
Besides, if the Eldar Phoenix Lords could do it, how hard could it be?
Empress Ascendant contains examples of:
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Glory Girl regarding psychic powers, which Taylor is a bit surprised by, given all the other ways parahuman powers break physics in some way or another.
- Big Eater: Taylor's enhancements increase her caloric intake as they take effect, since she needs more energy than she once did. There's a reason why increasing digestive efficiency was a priority with the Astartes, after all.
- The Chains of Commanding: The Emperor explains to Taylor, using his own experiences with Horus, that sometimes the right decision is the hardest.
- Clone Degeneration: Taylor's augmented physiology makes her Noelle clones particularly prone to this. Luna, the first Taylor Noelle clone, mainly avoids this because the Queen Administrator Shard jumped ship to her, giving her Taylor's canon powers.
- Death by Adaptation: Brandish, Hookwolf, and Krieg are killed during the battle against Leviathan when all three survive that fight in canon.
- Dream Spying: Taylor can see in her dreams the timelines Coil drops.
- Entertainingly Wrong: Doctor Mother suggests that Circaetus has Scion's version of Path to Victory.
- Evil vs. Evil: Luna attacks the McVeay Fallen in order to take over the city they control and forge an Imperial Cult.
- Explosive Overclocking: Taylor defeats Hookwolf partially by purposefully destabilizing the battery of her lasgun and using it as a makeshift grenade.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Taylor can make technology, using the Emperor's memories, millennia more advanced than Earth Bet's tech.
- Heroic RRoD: Taylor damages her powers temporarily when fighting Lung, forcing her to use the Emperor's tech knowledge to compensate.
- I Did What I Had to Do: The Emperor deliberately shortened the lifespans of the Thunder Warriors when they came out so bloodthirsty.
- Ignored Epiphany: This is a key part of why the Emperor hates the Craftworld Eldar so much. Their sheer depravity brought forth a Chaos God that consumes the souls of every Eldar it can grab, dooming trillions of Eldar in the process, Slaanesh's birth also bringing forth the Eye of Terror... and after they fled the galaxy for the Webway and returned, didn't even try to help or make reparations. Instead of learning anything beyond that they shouldn't engage in the kind of excesses that birthed Slaanesh, something that the Emperor deems obvious to anyone with a remotely functioning moral compass, they continued to act as if they were unimpeachable, dooming millions and billions to save a few Eldar. The key point is when he tells Taylor about the plan to create Ynnead, which hadn't come about at the time the Emperor had been cast to Earth-Bet... which Taylor summarizes as the dumbest idea that she'd ever heard of, and basically a repeat of the events that birthed Slaanesh.
- I Have Your Wife: Lung kidnaps Victoria to get Amy to heal Bakuda.
- Immortality: Taylor inherited the Emperor's status as a Perpetual, meaning that she won't age past maturity and she has a slow Healing Factor that can eventually heal her from pretty much anything.
- Killed Off for Real: Skidmark and Squealer die in a fight against the E88.
- Browbeat dies in the fight against Noelle.
- Luna kills Emma and her father.
- Taylor kills Coil.
- Brandish, Velocity, Fenja, Krieg, and Hookwolf die during the Leviathan fight.
- More than Mind Control: The reason why Taylor's psychic suggestion to Danny not to pay attention to anything too unusual goes so far as to keep him from noticing anything unusual? He was already trying to ignore strange things on his own, and it's feeding on that mentality.
- My Grandson, Myself: The Emperor discusses this trope with Taylor, mentioning that he did it in the past.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Taylor using her psychic powers so her father would not pay attention to anything too unusual end up rendering him completely unable to even speak of anything that is not ordinary. Taylor is naturally horrified when she realizes this.
- Taylor threw so much Warp energy around during the first Noelle fight that Luna is able to use it to heal herself enough to get Taylor's staff out of her.
- Not Quite Dead: Taylor stabs Luna through the heart with the remains of her staff, seemingly killing her, but her regeneration is strong enough, with a boost from the Warp energy Taylor left behind from her fight, at least, to allow her to get it out.
- Play-Along Prisoner: After killing Valefor, Taylor has to be put in a Master-Stranger cell as a precaution to make sure that they're not being Mastered. It's pretty clear to everyone involved that she's only staying in the cell as a formality, and that if she really wanted to get out, she could easily do so.
- Psychic Powers: Taylor gains the Emperor's powers as a psyker.
- Religion Is Wrong: As in canon the Emperor has this view, and while Taylor isn't as extreme in it as he is, his views on it clearly have affected hers.
- Sharing a Body: Taylor has the Emperor sharing space in her head, due to the latter hijacking the QA shard. Taylor is definitely the dominant one, though.
- Super-Empowering: The Emperor manages to make Taylor a Psyker and a Perpetual by bonding with the QA shard before it connects to her.
- Tempting Fate: Played for Laughs when Clockblocker says that there's not much action in the Bay anymore, unless the Slaughterhouse Nine or something shows up. He then realizes what he just did, and everyone in the room gets very tense until Dragon confirms that the last sighting of the Nine was in Missouri.
- Thinking Up Portals: Taylor eventually develops the ability to create portals in the Warp.
- Touché: When the Emperor criticizes a nickname that Taylor came up with, Taylor points out that he called his bodyguards "Custodians" in Canis Latinicus. This is his response.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Luna's plan is to give rebirth to an Imperial Cult centered on Taylor as the Empress and force an evolution of humanity as psykers. She doesn't care if she actually dies or not, as long as she can convince Taylor to follow her plan.
- Winged Humanoid: Taylor eventually develops a pair of wings.
- Wound That Will Not Heal: The weapon Taylor created to use against Lung fragmented, the bits stuck in him compromising his Healing Factor.
- Wrong Context Magic: Taylor's Psychic Powers to Earth Bet's parahumans.
- You Kill It, You Bought It: Lampshaded by the Emperor regarding the Butcher before Leviathan attacks, asking that, if the Butcher jumps to the parahuman that kills it, do the Endbringers count as human in that regard?
