Herald is a Worm and Warhammer 40,000 crossover written by Shadows of Vanity, author of Seraphim (Worm), Nothing Is True, and Because Of The War.
Official summary: A song on the wind. A howl in the night. A blade in the darkness and a performance for the ages. The Coming of The Herald will drastically upset the balance of power, first in Brockton Bay and then the world, as she forsakes the status quo. Neither hero nor villain, and gathering those of like minds to her side and to her service, that she will be a Herald of Change is guaranteed. But will it be for good...or for ill?
Or, the one where Taylor is the reincarnation of Yvraine, the Emissary of Ynnead, and Earth Bet is definitely not ready.
It can be found on Space Battles
, Sufficient Velocity, Questionable Questing, Archive of Our Own and FanFiction.net.
This work contains examples of:
- The Ace: Taylor. She's beautiful, intelligent, charismatic and an incredible dancer and fighter.
- Adaptational Badass:
- Taylor aka Herald, who has the memories and powers of Yvraine Alarielle.
- In canon Emma was just a normal human, here she is a reborn Phoenix Lord.
- Adaptational Curves: Taylor and Emma are described as having "generous proportions".
- Adaptational Sexuality: While at the beach, Taylor cops a feel of Emma's butt. Emma, meanwhile yelps and scowl...but notably blushes profusely and does not protest.
- Asshole Victim: Heartbreaker, absolutely no one is sad when he dies.
- Berserk Button: When a Youth Guard representative implies he will use his position to separate Taylor from her parents (because they would not prevent her from unleashing a well-deserved "The Reason You Suck" Speech), Taylor turns to him and makes it clear she will make everything she did to the Merchants will look like a walk in the park if he even tries.
- Death by Adaptation: Heartbreaker dies in the opening chapter of the story.
- Future Me Scares Me: Emma and Kaiya were both shown how they turned out in canon and were both horrified by what they saw.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Heartbreaker spend years Mastering people into being fanatically loyal slaves. Herald Masters him into freeing everyone, guides him to the gates of his compound, puts a noose around his neck and shoves him over the edge.
- Mind-Control Music: Herald Masters Heartbreaker by playing a flute.
- Named by the Adaptation:
- Uber and Leets full names are Johnathon Curtis and Eret Solvet.
- Aegis' full name is Carlos Dorent.
- Miss Militia's full name is Hana Washington
- Mouse Protector's full name is Miria Wilberforce.
- Fleur's full name is Jessica Richardson.
- No-Sell:
- In Chapter One, Heartbreaker tries to Master Herald when he sees her. It goes about as well as expected.
- In Chapter Four, both the cannon on Squealer's latest monstrosity and the various rifles and pistols of the Archer's Bridge Merchants prove to be entirely useless against Taylor. This is after she telekineticly froze a large truck in place, despite the driver's best efforts, when it tried to run her over.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Heartbreaker has just a second to realise he's in trouble before Herald kills him.
- People in charge of maintaining the Containment Zone around the compound when they realise what happened.
- And the Protectorate loses their shit when they learn what happened.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When the Protectorate comes to attempt to recruit Taylor, she makes it clear how low she thinks of the organization (as well as the Youth Guard) for how poorly they have been training, equiping and treating the Brockton Bay Wards.
- Shipper on Deck: Among a boatload of innuendo and trolling, Taylor tries to set Miss Militia up with BOTH of her parents.
- Shout-Out:
- Herald hypnotises Heartbreaker by playing Narnian Lullaby on a flute.
- A two for one during Herald's first action against the Merchants: first she begins signing the main theme of Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers while she strikes down Skidmark's goons like Batman. The second one is called out in the text itself.
- In Chapter Five we have Commander Elara Dorne of Strike Team Havok.
- Herald hypnotises Heartbreaker by playing Narnian Lullaby
- Spared By Adaptation:
- Annette is still alive when the story starts.
- Fleur survives the attack that ended her life in canon.
- A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Heartbreaker gets Mastered by Herald before dying.
- The Tease: Taylor is a unapologetic flirt, this is first seen when she pinches Emma's butt. It’s later seen during her interview with Armsmaster and Battery when she constantly flirts with the latter.
- Uncle Pennybags: Taylor gets the very large reward from killing Heartbreaker and begins to use it by forming a company that buys the Dockyards and hires the Dockworkers Association at a high rate.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Director Tagg's reaction to Heartbreaker's death is to demand the Birdcaging of the Parahuman that killed the villain.
- Unscrupulous Hero: Herald, as befitting someone with memories of a Dark Eldar from the Warhammer 40k universe. She may hold back on small time villains or powerless crooks but everyone else is fair game.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Some of the PRT Directors call Director Tagg out for wanting to send all of Heartbreaker's children and Heartbreaker's killer to the Birdcage and all of his victims contained in the compound. One of them even requests that Tagg be fired just for suggesting such level of human's rights violations.
