Fanfic / No Plumbers Allowed

No Plumbers Allowed is a Worm alt-power crossover with Super Mario Bros., in which Taylor is granted the ability to create Mushroom Kingdom-styled technology, power-ups, and so on due to a Wish Upon a Star for the ability to make a difference. By the author of Oogway's Little Owl, The Exodus, and Operation: B.U.T.T.E.R.F.L.Y..

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This Fan Fic contains examples of:

• Achievements in Ignorance: Taylor, not knowing that Sophia is Shadow Stalker, or that electricity is her Kryptonite Factor, uses the Zap Tap badge to try and deter her even though all she can get away with is a light static charge. Sure enough, the next time Sophia tries to trip her, she gets zapped.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Thanks to the intervention of one of Taylor's pipes allowing Brian a way out, he gets away from Coil's goons and joins the DWU, therefore never becoming a villainous Undersider.
  • Rachel, AKA Bitch, AKA Hellhound, also never joins the Undersiders, as early on in her time in Brockton, she stumbles into Cici. Despite a Chain Chomp obviously not being dog-shaped, she quickly identifies the ball-and-chain as a dog in personality, and soon gets the job of Cici's official caretaker. Kurt and Lacey then take her in, not knowing that she's a parahuman (until a Hookwolf attack forces Rachel to use her powers).
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Armsmaster and Taylor's relationship in canon was... interesting at the best of times, to put it as politely as possible. Here, Taylor clearly greatly respects Armsmaster, and in return he finds Taylor to be a promising future Tinker with a good head on her shoulders and fascinating technology.
• Afraid of Their Own Strength: Grape's explosive power is massively greater than the rest of the Bob-ombs, with even just a third of his power being enough to crack reinforced glass. He's well aware of the damage he could cause and so goes to great lengths to protect his fuse so it won't get lit accidentally. This unfortunately works against him when fighting Mush, as his own explosion knocks him and most of the others silly because he's not used to it while Mush is still able to fight, if barely.
• All Animals Are Dogs: Lampshaded with Taylor's Chain Chomp Cici, with the dockworker Lou asking Kurt why she acts like a dog.
• Amphibious Automobile: Squealer's Road Rager is a truck that's also capable of transforming into a boat able to outrun speedboats.
• Attack Reflector: Nobel gives Brian a set of payback wear, which has a 50/50 chance at reflecting an attack back at its source.
• Atrocious Alias: The PRT has taken to calling Taylor's cape identity "Toymaker". While initially interested, after a while she starts worrying nobody will take her seriously if they just think she makes toys.
• Bad Liar: Rigel tries to pose as a creation of Taylor's but he constantly misspeaks and ends up being revealed quickly.
• Bait-and-Switch: Vista and Clockblocker get an alert when on patrol that Squealer is in the area, and they see what they think is her, but after they stop the vehicle it turns out to be Taylor test-driving her new cart. Then, once that's cleared up it turns out that Squealer was nearby, and she ends up chasing the group.
• Bearer of Bad News: Averted. When Piggot receives a report on the attack of the ABB and Empire forces on the Dockworkers and the PRT, she steels herself when Battery finishes listing the injuries and casualties the first two groups received, preparing herself for the apparently inevitable followup on the latter two groups' own wounds and fatalities. To her pleasant surprise, Assault confirms that's it - having Toymaker's healing items at hand allowed both the troopers and the Dockworkers to avert any injury, with a trooper even flung hard enough to get seriously hurt or even killed only losing her ability to shoot fireballs and suffering minor neck pain.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Armsmaster, after taking some engineering courses, was able to get enough of an understanding of his power to not only not go into a Tinker fugue, but actually quietly patent several miniaturization techniques that could be replicated without powers.
• Brick Joke:
  • When Rune tries to recruit Taylor, the latter not knowing that she's in the Empire because she's new and not wearing her usual cape outfit, Glory Girl interrupts, both think that she's a guy. When Taylor meets Glory Girl and Panacea at the Rig, not only does Glory Girl initially think that she's a Nazi, she still thinks that Taylor is a guy, much to her annoyance. Later, Rune tries to flirt with Taylor and flies into a rage after Squealer laughs at her reaction to the truth.
  • When Taylor complains that Rigel didn’t cut the force field bridge so that Squealer falls into the Bay, Nobel points out that that’s not very heroic, causing Taylor to reply that if the other Tinker’s vehicle isn’t an Amphibious Automobile, she’ll eat her goggles. Sure enough, when the Rainbow Road fails, her truck turns into a boat to flee the PRT.
• Brown Note: According to Coil, Eidolon has used powers in the past that he still gets a migraine just from 'thinking'' about.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: When Brian is trying to hint to Taylor that he knows that she's Toymaker, Rachel just blurts it out without seeming to understand why it's such a big deal. Presumably her own identity being known the PRT is a big part of this.
• Chekhov's Gun: The pipes that Rigel inadvertently made when he screwed up the calculations become plot-relevant in 3-2 when Taylor is testing her boots and falls into one when she miscalculates a jump. Later explorations reveal that it has integrated with an older pipe system, connecting Earth Bet to the Mushroom Kingdom.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Taylor unknowingly makes boots that give the wearers the ability to super jump and safely land from great heights. She also makes pins that grant special abilities and overalls that have a chance of reflecting attacks.
• Comically Missing the Point: When Nobel suggests Taylor get driving lessons, Taylor, who is currently driving her cart through Brockton, points out she's too young to get a license.
• Contrived Coincidence: A pipe emerges from the ground when Brian has been forced into an alleyway with no exit running from Coil's goons, and he falls in trying to use it to climb a fence and escape. It then recedes into the ground literal seconds before the goons round the corner. In the previous chapter, Taylot falls directly into one when she misjudges the distance of a jump while testing out her boots, and they end up running into each other in the tunnels.
• Cool Car: Squealer's personal vehicle, the Road Rager, is a red truck she stole from her father which she gives all of her best creations. It has an anti-gravity generator, can convert into a speedboat, and thanks to decentralizing the engine Squealer has jammed dozens of weapons under the hood.
• Creating Life Is Unforeseen: Nobel being sapient was not something Taylor was expecting when she made him. This continues to be a problem for Taylor, as she's not entirely sure which of her creations will be sapient or not. The FLUDD, for example, was just supposed to be a power washer, but it turns out it had a full AI.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Taylor eventually starts selling her creations, first to the PRT.
• Curse Escape Clause: One of the shamans explains that any method of hiding things with magic, like in the forests where Boos live, needs to have a solution built into it or it will fizzle.
• Didn't Need Those Anyway!: So long as it still has a steering column and four wheels, the Road Rager can keep driving even if it loses 80% of its total mass.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Rigel turned the bridge to the Rig into a replica of Rainbow Road but forgot to make a way for the racers on it to get off. He also didn't realize that the bridge would disappear if it had no connection to the emitters.
  • In Shroom 3-5, Tess' actions in creating more Toads comes to bite her in the ass when Piggot cracks down on Taylor and practically forces Toymaker to reveal her civilian identity by threatening to treat the DWU as a gang. On the other end of the spectrum, Piggot hoped her actions would put the PRT in a better position and expected Toymaker to refuse. Instead, Taylor reveals who she is. Armsmaster makes it very clear she fucked up in this regard and may have ruined Taylor's trust with the PRT irreparably.
• Dramatic Irony: Taylor wonders if the Zap Tap badge would really be any use against Sophia, since all she can get away with is a light static shock, though she puts it on anyway. Unbeknownst to her, Sophia is Shadow Stalker, and electricity is her Kryptonite Factor, so she gets a major zap every time she tries to touch Taylor.
• Drives Like Crazy: Taylor's driving tends toward the reckless and aggressive, often terrifying her Bob-ombs.
• Eating Machine: Even though Taylor made him from mechanical parts and he has No Mouth, Nobel can somehow eat, much to Danny and Taylor's befuddlement.
• Elite Mook: Rob the Koopaling, in terms of combat. While the Bob-ombs are, well, bombs, Rob was designed by Taylor as someone who can help protect things. It's necessary because Rob has a Brute rating, and while Taylor's inventions are nice, Bob-ombs aren't always effective in combat due to their short statue, Toads aren't good at fighting at all, and while Cici the Chain Chomp is strong, she has the mentality of a dog and isn't the easiest to control.
• Empowered Badass Normal:
  • In addition to her mushrooms, Taylor sells her Fire Flowers to the PRT, and they use them to grant Troopers temporary Playing with Fire powers.
  • How the Dockworkers figure out that something is up with the items Danny got for them- after Lacey falls off a very tall ladder and takes no damage, they start experimenting with the equipment. They suspect something might be up after another person fails to break their legs from falling off a ladder, and Lacey is able to jump eight feet in the air from a standing start.
• Failed a Spot Check: Upon returning to her base, Taylor greets the Toad there and leaves without realizing that they aren't Tess, who should be the only Toad in the world.
• From Bad to Worse: Armsmaster's experience with the Warp Pipes just keeps getting worse. At first, it was that Taylor's experimental pipes hadn't just made two way trips between her house and the DWU extremely fast, it was that it was creating a network of pipes all over the city that she had no way of controlling. Then, once he and Taylor got in the pipes, he suspected that Taylor's power was out of control and had randomly created man-eating super-poison Piranha Plants. Then it turns out that no, Toymaker's powers didn't make the plants- the Warp Pipes connected to a gateway to another universe, where apparently Toymaker's powers are coming from, and on the other side of the gate is a dead kingdom with poison land infested with even more Piranha Plants. The only benefit that he and Dragon can find in this ruined kingdom is that there are apparently tech-using individuals, as an airplane was detected above the cloud cover.
• Gentle Giant: Grape. He's the largest of the Bob-ombs, coming close to Taylor in height... but he's also aware that his explosions are correspondingly bigger, and so he rarely takes to the field. He's known on Youtube for videos of him painting.
• Get Out!: When Skidmark dents the Tinkertech gravity generator she just made, Squealer aims every defense turret in the room at Skidmark and yells at him to get out.
• Gone Horribly Right: Director Piggot wasn't trying to force Taylor to give up her ID. She was thinking in terms of contract negotiation- offer something unreasonable, and then when that gets refused, offer something more workable to make what you really want more palatable. What Piggot was angling for was more PRT control over a Biotinker's lab, which gives her screaming heebie-jeebies. Unfortunately, Taylor unmasked herself to the PRT, which damaged Piggot's working relationship with Armsmaster and Taylor.
• Guilt by Association: Danny grounds Taylor for the Rainbow Road incident, which was the work of Rigel and no one else. He later subverts this by explaining he was grounding her not for the Road incident, but because she was jumping into incredibly dangerous situations without thinking, and he was terrified she'd get herself killed. Her actions during the Rainbow Road incident were part of that.
• Hammerspace: The Road Ranger seems to have this as its engine compartment contains so many weapons there shouldn't be room for an engine. Turns out the engine has been decentralized throughout the truck's body, leaving the engine cavity free for weapons.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Taylor initially struggles with some aspects of her new powers, especially those which veer more towards the overtly magical.
• I Know You Know I Know: Skidmark tells Mush about somebody poking around in their now-abandoned weed farm knowing that he prefers marijuana and will go recover what he can. Mush is well-aware he's being manipulated but goes along with it because he wants a joint.
• I Never Told You My Name: Although he doesn't immediately realize it, when Coil sends his men to recruit Brian they use his name without him telling it to them.
• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: Semi-literally, when Armsmaster questions why the F.L.U.D.D. would need an A.I., Lacey says that apparently they just keep popping up in them. Later, when Rigel and Taylor are talking about designing a potential irrigation system for their mushroom crop, the former notes that he's having trouble coming up with one that won't spontaneously become intelligent.
• It Can Think: Taylor is shocked to realize that Nobel is alive and can talk.
• Lady Looks Like a Dude: Taylor's cape persona is rather androgynous, so more than one character assumes that she's a guy.
• Magic Wand: One of Taylor's latest projects as of 3-7, though Rigel says that a Magikoopa would likely be required to have someone actually capable of using it to do much of anything.
• Man-Eating Plant: In 3-3, Taylor and company discover that the pipe tunnels that Rigel inadvertently created have an infestation of Piranha Plants.
• Meaningful Name: Taylor names her first Bob-omb "Nobel", after the man who invented dynamite, but desired peace.
• Mechanical Lifeforms: Lampshaded by Taylor regarding her Bob-ombs and Cici, as they're mostly mechanical, but counted as "alive" for her power. Panacea is surprised when her power registers Nobel as living.
• The Minion Master: Many of Taylor's creations so far have been minions of some kind, from Bob-ombs to a Chain Chomp to Toads to Koopalings. Armsmaster even surmises that creating minions, along with tech for them to use, may be her Tinker specialty.
• Mistaken Identity: Vista and Clockblocker, on patrol, get a warning about Squealer in their area and mistake Taylor/"Toymaker" testing out her cart for her. Then, once that gets sorted out, Squealer actually shows up, forcing them to flee together.
• MST3K Mantra: In-Universe, when Armsmaster questions how the Bob-ombs can eat with No Mouth, Lacey tells him that it's best not to think about it.
• Mugging the Monster: Hookwolf attacks Kurt and Lacey while they're with Rachel, recognizing the F.L.U.D.D. as a Tinker creation. Unfortunately for him, besides Rachel being a parahuman, Cici is also there, and she hates Hookwolf almost as much as Rachel does. He goes through the wringer, and ultimately has to flee when Miss Militia shows up.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Tess T. has never met another Toad, but she's been told by Rigel that she's a lot different from them. Given that he's given her the impression that normal Toads are rather ditzy, Tess doesn't mind being grumpier than normal for her species.
• The Needless: The Bob-ombs can eat, but presumably don't need to, and they only need to breathe so they can talk, not as any inherent part of their biology. That said, they do like eating from time to time.
• No Indoor Voice: Guy, one of the Toads Tess made, has no concept of "volume control". It doesn't help that his voice is really grating.
• Non-Fatal Explosions: The Bob-ombs are only dazed by their own explosions and the damage they cause to their surroundings and opponents is significantly less than might be expected.
• Noodle Incident: Assault apparently once walked in on Dauntless "whispering sweet nothings" to his lance.
• No-Sell: At one point Taylor is exposed to Glory Girl's aura, but shrugs it off, and doesn't even really realize what happened. It's implied to be due to one of the status-effect nullifying badges she wears.
• Not Worth Killing: Shadow Stalker comes across a Merchant who was defeated by Taylor's Bob-ombs, and considers shooting him a waste of ammo.
• Only Sane Man: Beans, the accountant for the Merchants, is the most sensible of the lot and periodically checks what Skidmark is ingesting to see if he'll be coherent enough to do his job.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Costa-Brown is seemingly very unconcerned about the pipes under the Bay opening up into an alternate dimension, with Dragon lampshading that it seems irresponsible and very out of character for her.
• Playing with Fire: In addition to the Fire Flowers Taylor grows and sells to the PRT, she makes a Koopaling named Rob with fire breath.
• Popularity Power: Star Power can literally be generated by an In-Universe online presence. After noticing the boost to their reserves that the Rainbow Road and roof-hopping incidents generated, Rigel gets the Bob-ombs to start making videos for a YouTube channel so they can boost their production rate.
• Power Misidentification: According to Taylor's analysis, Clockblocker isn't actually freezing something in time when he uses his power on it, he's inflicting a sort of molecular stasis on it. She admits that it's functionally the same result, but the mechanics are different.
  • Coil always thought that his power was literally splitting timelines and allowing him to choose which one to use akin to Schrodinger's Cat, but the apparent interference Taylor's powers cause has him reconsidering this in Stars 4-0.
• Power Nullifier: Taylor apparently has a badge that allows her to negate Clockblocker's time stop on her cart.
• Psychic Static: Taylor can interfere with Coil's powers, with him accidentally dropping the wrong timeline when Brian escapes his men trying to recruit him. The fight at the docks, where one timeline shows the actual events and another has what seems like a more plausible scenario that isn’t what happened, implies that his power has trouble simulating the more mystical elements of Toymaker’s.
• Puff of Logic: Jubilee is somehow holding onto a flailing hose, when this is lampshaded she suddenly loses her grip and goes flying. The trope is even all but name-dropped in the narration.
• Pulling Themselves Together:
  • Armsmaster's best guess at how the Bob-omb's Non-Fatal Explosions work is that they're breaking apart at the moment of detonation and near-instantly reforming so fast that even with his best cameras he could only capture what happened in a single frame.
  • Hookwolf is mentioned as doing this in fights. When he's in his "Blender of Blades" form, he's mentioned as reaching out and grabbing split off limbs and reattaching them.
• Punny Name: Tess T. is a rather grumpy Toad. She later creates the flirty Fleur T. and the potential felon Nass T.
• Purple Is Powerful:
  • Grape, the biggest and most powerful of Taylor's Bob-ombs, is named for his color.
  • The poison that the Piranha Plants creates is capable of eating through PRT Trooper armor and knocking people out from the smell alone, and is purple in color as well.
• A Rare Sentence: Danny has this reaction after realizing he said "Yes, Taylor, listen to the bomb."
• Really Was Born Yesterday: When Nobel blows up in the Hebert living room to demonstrate that he's immune to his own explosion, drawing attention, he tries to use this as an excuse. Danny just gives him a Death Glare and tells him to try again, and he says that he's got nothing.
• Recognition Failure:
  • When Rune shows up trying to recruit Taylor Nobel doesn't immediately recognize her because her normal costume is in the wash, so she's wearing green robes instead of red, and since she's new to the Empire Taylor initially assumes that she's a new Ward.
  • In 3-Mushroom, Sophia has no idea who Toymaker is, even though this is some time after the Rainbow Road incident.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: After finding that Toymaker's powers seemingly correlate to another universe (based on her knowing about Piranha Plants despite not making them, and said plants coming from a portal to another world), Armsmaster begins to suspect that powers come from alternate realities. This is very close to the actual explanation of powers in Worm canon, but leaves out some pretty big details (such as the "alien invasion" and "Shard" aspects of it), and that Taylor's powers come from a different source.
• The Rival: Squealer does not like the idea that Taylor managed to juke her during a chase and is determined to show her up because she's the best vehicle Tinker in town.
• Seen It All: Assault is disappointed when none of the other PRT members react to his description of a Chain Chomp, since they've all seen things that are just as weird.
• Self-Mutilation Demonstration: Danny gives himself a small cut with his pocketknife to demonstrate the healing effect of a mushroom.
• Shout-Out: Taylor's power tells her what she's working on is "a surprise tool that will help you later".
• Speaks Fluent Animal:
  • Taylor can understand what her Chain Chomp Cici says.
  • Kurt and Lacey surmise that a downplayed case of this applies to Rachel, AKA Hellhound, AKA Bitch. When they put the film "Air Bud" on, Rachel got noticeably calmer and pointed out precisely what the dog actor was feeling.
• Super-Empowering: One reason the PRT is very interested in what Taylor is selling is because she's selling fire and ice flowers. Like in their original forms, they allow someone to take a single hit without taking damage (defined here as "Strong enough to break a bone,") as well as minor control over the element in question. Director Piggot is practically salivating over the thought of soldiers who can go into battle against capes with temporary powers of their own.
• Terse Talker: Grape talks very little, and when he does it's usually just one word.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Jubilee and Cici both wear bows, and they're both female.
• Thememobile: Assault finds himself wishing for one after watching Armsmaster race. Battery, his wife, demands that it not be called "The Assaultmobile."
• Too Awesome to Use: Grape's explosions are powerful, but he can't tone them down that much, making them impractical in most scenarios.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The PRT specifically remarks that while a bouncing, barking living wrecking ball is worthy of noting as a tinker creation, its absolutely normal and not at all strange insofar as Tinker creations go (particularly if it's not bothering anyone aside from the poor person who had to walk Cici).
• Wacky Racing: Rigel manages to trigger an impromptu race on a replica of Rainbow Road between Taylor in her Gold Mantis, Squealer in her Road Rager, Armsmaster on his Armscycle, Uber and Leet in Donkey Kong carts, and Rune on her chunk of concrete. Squealer ends up being the most dangerous competitor as she essentially has an engine compartment full of power-ups.
• Weirdness Magnet: Taylor notes that while the Bay has a lot of capes, it seems like she's running into one every week at least.
• Wham Episode: In Warp 2-5, the voice behind Taylor's powers reveals itself to be a Starbunny named Rigel, and Danny learns about Taylor and Emma not being friends anymore and the Squealer incidents.
  • Stars 3-0 has a number of major events, namely an unseen group, including a would-be Merlon, sensing Brockton Bay and planning to travel there.
  • In Shroom 3-Mushroom, Goombella sends a student of hers with the would-be Merlon to travel and explore Taylor's world, we learn that Taylor interferes with Coil's powers, Skidmark ends up in the Pipes, and Tess creates new Toads to aid her in her duties.
  • In Shroom 3-5, Armsmaster and Piggot learn Taylor's secret identity.
  • In Shroom 3-6, Hookwolf attacks Kurt and Lacey while they're walking with Rachel, resulting in the latter revealing her powers.
  • In Shroom 3-Castle, Cricket and Stormtiger are captured by PRT agents using fire flowers, Taylor makes a Koopaling, and Oni Lee blows up her lab, after taking interest in how one of her badges briefly restored his lost emotions.
  • In Stars 4-0, Coil starts reconsidering how his power works in response to how Toymaker and her creations seemingly have a Psychic Static effect on it, Rosalina is implied to be planning a trip to Earth Bet, and Gomez and his team makes it to the Ruined Kingdom and encounter both Skidmark and Dragon's drone.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Danny gives one to Nobel when Nobel decides to test if he can explode and survive... inside Danny's living room. Next to Danny and Taylor. And nearly setting the house on fire. And drawing the attention of the cops.
  • Danny gives another one, though much more subdued and very much an Anger Born of Worry case, to Taylor after she complains about being grounded from the Rainbow Road incident.
  • Clockblocker gives a brief glare to Toymaker when it's revealed that Toads don't have houses, though it goes away when she reveals that she and the Dockworkers are trying to fix that problem.
• Wish Upon a Star: How Taylor gets her powers here.
• Wrench Wench: Besides the obvious example of Taylor as Toymaker, Stars 4-0 reveals that Rosalina has some mechanical skills as well, helping Pam with some repairs.

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