Fanfic / One More Trigger

I used to think Taylor was starting to get dull and boring. But she's just ... normal. And right now, I really need normal.

When Emma Barnes and her father are cornered in an alleyway, before they can be rescued by Shadow Stalker, Emma triggers with powers of her own, and fights the gang members off by herself. As a result, she's not impressed by Shadow Stalker's offers of friendship, and instead she holds even closer to her best friend, Taylor Hebert...

One More Trigger is a Worm fanfic by ack1308, published on FanFiction.Net (here), SpaceBattles.com (here), Sufficient Velocity.com (here), and Questionable Questing (here). It is in progress as of October 2023.

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The Samaritans have planned for these tropes:

• Adaptational Heroism: With Sophia never getting a foothold in Emma's life, and with the traumatic experience of the alley cut short, instead of casting aside Taylor's friendship and bullying her mercilessly for years, Emma values her more than ever. The two of them and Madison Clements form the core of an independent hero team together.
• Adaptational Relationship Change: Taylor has never been a villain, so she and Amy get along just fine. As a result, Amy gives her not just enough relay bugs to cover the entire city, but all sorts of other potent variants, such as glue bugs that gum up all Mannequin's joints, and leaf bugs that can camouflage themselves and survive pyrethrin.
• Adaptive Ability: The Slaughterhouse Nine includes multiple Tinkers, allowing them to devise countermeasures for anything used against them. After Taylor takes down the non-Brute members with batrachotoxin venom bugs, Bonesaw makes the survivors immune to it, and builds pyrethrum bombs to take out the swarm. Taylor also glued all Mannequin's joints together, so he crafts non-stick surfaces for them.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: The Samaritans fake this in a ploy to frame Victor, Othala and Crusader and get them into PRT custody. After eavesdropping on Empire 88's meeting and figuring out who's really running the show (ie Max Anders), the Samaritans knock the three of them out with Taylor's stinging insects, artificially make them drunk as skunks using Amy's power, and have them crash Victor's car into the lobby of the PRT Building, letting the Drink Driving and Criminal Damage charges open the door to all their other myriad criminal charges being dropped in their laps, and hoping one of them will crack and take a plea bargain to sell out the rest.
• Amazon Brigade: The Samaritans don't have a specific policy against recruiting boys, but it never seems to happen. Instead, in varying degrees of permanency, they have Taylor, Emma, Madison, Vista/Missy, Panacea/Amy, Glory Girl/Vicky, Tattletale/Lisa, Flechette/Lily, and Riley. Between them, they put away many of Brockton Bay's worst threats, from a flawless victory over Oni Lee to annihilating the Slaughterhouse Nine. The only males are the three dads, who are mostly in a support role.
• Ambiguously Bi: Madison. When Sophia tries to cause a scene when Emma kisses Taylor while trying to help her clean up after the locker incident, Mads is one of a few people claiming to be gay (or having a gay relative) to shut her up. She admits to Em and Tay that she was lying about it to show up Sophia, but later admits to getting a date with Lily (ie Flechette, though she doesn't know that at the time) despite still protesting to her two friends that she still likes boys.
• Attack Pattern Alpha: The Samaritans do have standard plans for a variety of contingencies, but Ladybug's plan for assaulting the Empire 88 confuses even the dads. Lisa, of course, followed along perfectly.^note Naturally, the plans are only explained to the reader after they're already in effect.
  Ladybug: We're thinking we'd locate them with a flytrap^note Plant bugs on people they know to be from the Empire, and tag anyone they interact with, then start out with a Blind Man's Bluff^note Use the bugs to determine who are the Empire's capes, while the latter don't know they're under surveillance leading on to Survival of the Unfittest^note Yet to be seen, but likely a pattern of taking out the strongest capes first and leaving the weaker ones for later. After we hit what we figure is a good number, we switch to shock and awe and steamroll the rest.
• Bizarre Alien Senses: The Samaritans can communicate in quite unusual ways using their powers — and their training forces them to practise doing just that. Such as Emma making a grid from her hairs and feeling how Taylor places bugs on it to mark the locations of assailants, and Madison senses the layout from the air currents, all in pitch blackness and silence.
• Blackmail: Director Piggot tries to pressure Flechette into bringing her girlfriend Parian into the Protectorate, by arranging to have Flechette transferred away unless there's a compelling reason to keep her in Brockton Bay, such as a relationship with another Protectorate member. The Samaritans help Flechette break free by proving that Director Piggot knew of their relationship before filing the transfer, and then lied about knowing, which entitles Flechette to resign. Her disgust at the situation also prompts Flechette's witness Vista to resign as well, and she joins The Samaritans full time. While he doesn't quit over it Piggot's witness Aegis isn't exactly impressed with her either.
• Blow You Away: Madison triggers when she's about to be raped by ABB members who had just kidnapped her. She can control nearby air, with enough force to lift herself off the ground (and passengers, for a short time), deflect bullets, and crush drone helicopters. She can also use fine control to protect herself from airborne contaminants, asphyxiate someone by pulling the air from around them or create vacuums. Her would-be rapists are promptly flung into a wall and knocked out.
• Bowdlerisation: After the moderators came down on Hope Comes to Brockton Bay, the SpaceBattles.com and Sufficient Velocity.com versions of this story were adjusted to remove or rewrite all scenes that hinted at underage physical relationships (even fake ones). FanFiction.Net still has them.
  • When Emma helps get Taylor cleaned up and showered after the locker, Sophia mocks them for being in the shower together, and Emma decides to roll with it and question what's wrong with that rather than argue. In the original version, she kisses Taylor and pretends to feel her up after quietly telling Taylor to play along. In the revised version, she just verbally agrees that they're in a relationship.
  • Lily and Sabah spend the night together after a Fade to Black. The original shows them waking up together and Sabah helping Lily get dressed; the revised version skips ahead to when Lily is picked up by a PRT transport.
• The Cassandra: Taylor has fun pretending to disbelieve her friends telling her that the Slaughterhouse Nine attacked the school while she was in the bathroom.
• The Cavalry: Vicky is almost finished, but she continues to Hold the Line until her family turns up and burns three holes through Shatterbird's chest.
• Chameleon Camouflage: The custom "leaf-bugs" made by Amy can change colour to match their surface, and can sustain themselves on chlorophyll to avoid airborne pesticides. The combination makes them potent infiltrators that are very hard to keep out of an area.
• Chekhov's Gun: In Part Nine, when Piggot decides to send Vista to become the PRT's liaison to the Samaritans, she mentions that she's not sending Flechette because she's in an outside relationship. In Part Thirty-Three, posted seven years later, Vista uses that exact comment to help Flechette leave the Wards and also leave the Wards herself, by proving that Director Piggot knew of Flechette's relationship before initiating her ploy to recruit Parian.
• Cool Big Sis: Having lost her own brother to suicide, Lisa tries to become one to a recovering Riley.
• Coup de Grâce:
  • For Rogers, firing on a single target, from a prepared position with plenty of time to set up, at a few tens of yards, is effectively point-blank range. Too bad his target is Immune to Bullets, and bugs jam his rifle before he can fire a second shot.
    Center mass. That's a kill shot.
  • Danny finishes off Jack Slash, with a shotgun directly to his eye while he's lying on the ground. Jack's reinforced skull might have survived anything less, but his eye socket isn't as tough, and the bullets shred his brain.
• Covert Distress Code: After being captured and threatened, Emma radios the dad brigade, apparently telling them that they need to surrender — but instead of using the correct designation for Mr Clements, Romeo Charlie, she instead addresses him as Papa Charlie, which signals them to enact Plan C.
• Crazy-Prepared: The Samaritans have concerned fathers who ensure that if their teenage daughters are going to put on suits and fight crime, then they'll have the best possible chance to stay safe. They use handicaps, mazes, paintball guns, and whatever else they can think of, to ensure that the girls are trained in creatively using their powers, maintaining situational awareness, adapting to the loss of senses, communicating covertly, protecting a vulnerable team member, dealing with Mastered team-mates, you name it. When Trickster swaps the positions of Ballistic and Ladybug, which normally allows Ballistic to wreak havoc amongst the enemy team while the other Travellers quickly overpower the person in their midst, their preparations for a sudden enemy in their midst take effect; Sparx immediately puts Ballistic down, while Ladybug blocks Trickster's sight and escapes.
• Death Glare: Glory Girl is not pleased that Lisa won't say what she was talking to Amy about. Lisa is unmoved.
  Lisa: Not a supervillain any more, Gee-Gee. I'm fairly certain you aren't allowed to use glare-of-death on me. Union rules, you know.
• De-power: As per canon, Bonesaw invents a prion powder that permanently disrupts a cape's control over their power. Both Taylor and Emma are exposed, but Panacea is able to study it and devise a cure. Then they use the prions on Bonesaw.
• Didn't See That Coming: Mannequin has a shell sealed against bugs, insulated against Sparx's lightning, and too heavy for Aerodyne to lift, which makes Jack Slash think he's a perfect counter for the Samaritans. But being mostly non-living, he's a sitting duck for Vista's spatial distortions.
• Door Slam of Rage: Subverted when Flechette storms out of Director Piggot's office; Armsmaster has upgraded the closing mechanism so it won't slam.
• Evil Gloating: Defied by Emma, who considers bragging to Mannequin about how unbreakable his bonds are, but decides it would be smarter to keep silent.
  He who gloats, gives away valuable information.
• Exact Words: When Armsmaster asks who shot Jack Slash and Burnscar, the Samaritans give perfectly correct answers that nonetheless hide the fact that it was their parents that did the deed.
  Emma: Well, you're the expert in firearms. I've never owned one in my life.
  Which was absolutely true. Her father owned the shotgun, not Emma.
• Fainting: Greg Veder is quite prone to this when it begins to dawn on him just how monumentally he's fucked up during the 2nd Slaughterhouse Nine attack, and he's going to be spending quite a lot of time in Prison, not to mention The Samaritans probably want him gone, and their dads probably want him dead, a request which the PRT are angry enough at him at that they would possibly accommodate.
• False Flag Operation: The Empire 88 fakes an attack by Oni Lee, to scare Parian into accepting their protection. However, the Samaritans actually manage to capture Oni Lee and question him, allowing them to discover the ruse.
• Flipping the Bird: The Samaritans use hand signals, somewhat like sign language, to communicate when it's not convenient to speak, but when Lisa pretends she didn't understand one after being temporarily deafened, "Emma gave her a hand signal that was not in their official repertoire."
• Flush the Evidence: When Tattletale is "caught" in the bathroom calling Coil for extraction, she drops her phone in the toilet ostensibly so the Samaritans can't check what she was doing. (It's actually all a ruse for Coil's sake, she's working with the Samaritans, but the phone really does get dropped in to sell the act.)
  Tattletale: I liked that phone too.
  Emma: Eh. Casualties of war.
• Frame-Up: Victor disguising himself as Oni Lee and attacking Parian's stall on the boardwalk to trick someone into taking him out and laying the groundwork for Empire 88 trying to recruit her. The irony being they don't know the person they're trying to butter up so much is of Arabic extraction, ie someone they hate with a passion.
• Framing the Guilty Party: Othala is taken aback to be charged with underage drinking. The Samaritans captured her along with Victor and Crusader, then Amy gave them high blood alcohol concentrations and had the three of them crash their car into the PRT building. Since she's also being charged with felony murder, the Samaritans aren't going to feel bad about the false drinking charge.
• Genuine Human Hide: When Bonesaw wants to make a disguise, she insists that the best material is real skin, and Jack Slash is happy to oblige.
• Good Feels Good: Lisa comments several times on how nice it feels to use her powers to actually help people instead of stealing.
• Gosh Darn It to Heck!: This is Bonesaw's reaction verbatim when Sparx shocks her to stop her from fleeing. After all, Mr Jack taught her that she has to be a good girl and not swear...
• Heel–Face Turn: When the Samaritans take down the Slaughterhouse Nine, they capture Bonesaw alive, and take on the job of rehabilitating her. She's resistant, but with all her prior support networks gone, along with her powers, she can't help getting attached to the freely offered camaraderie and warmth.
• Hero Insurance: A variation. A person can get insurance to cover property damage that occurs during cape battles. Blackwell can't believe Gladly somehow doesn't have it despite living in Brockton Bay for years.
• Heroic Sacrifice: When Panacea announces that she only recovered enough prion samples to fix either Emma or Taylor, not both, both of them insist on saving the other.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Taylor and Emma like boys, but they are so close that people think they are a couple.
• High-Voltage Death:
  • When Coil sets traps in his base, dropping a grating to pin invaders in place, he electrifies the grating for good measure. Tattletale can guess he's done it, though.
    "How much power's running through it?" asked Panacea.
    "About two and a half TFM units, I'd say," replied Sparx.
    "What's TFM?" asked Glory Girl incautiously.
    "Too Frickin' Much," replied Ladybug and Aerodyne at the same time.
  • Hatchet Face is killed by Sparx pumping as much electricity as possible into him.
• Hoist With His Own Petard: Riley is placed on probation, made possible by removing her powers with the prions she made for attacking the Samaritans. For bonus points, studying those prions is also the key to Panacea restoring the powers of the affected Samaritans, using Bonesaw's work to undo her work.
• Hold the Line: Glory Girl can't actually beat Shatterbird, she can only "Hold on... Hold on..." — long enough for the other members of New Wave to lethally ambush Shatterbird from behind. Vicky passes out from blood loss afterward, but the job is done and her family catches her before she can hit the ground.
• Humiliation Conga: Slaughterhouse Nine's second assault on Winslow, and what Vista does to Mannequin. Growing and shrinking with the size of his limbs, messing with stairwells to stifle his attempts to approach her Dio-versus-Polnareff style and ultimately being used as a Toboggan.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Lady Photon doesn't like to kill, but she doesn't actually regret nailing Shatterbird In the Back to save Vicky. She knows Shatterbird would kill everyone given a chance.
• I Know You Know I Know: Lisa had actually deduced that Amy is a biokinetic, not just a healer, before Amy confided it in her. However, for Amy's sake, she pretends to be surprised. But since Amy was leaning against her at the time, Amy can read all her biology and knows she isn't actually surprised. And Lisa knew that she would be able to tell that...
• I Need A Drink: Danny intends to get plastered after executing Jack Slash. He doesn't regret it, but he would prefer not to remember it so vividly.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Greg Veder isn't a romantic interest for Taylor, except perhaps in his own imagination, but he's still threatened with a shotgun by Danny if he ever reveals that she's Ladybug.
  Alan: Well done, Danny. I'm gonna have to remember how you said that, for when Emma starts dating.
• In Spite of a Nail: Sophia still traps Taylor in her locker full of rotten tampons, causing Taylor to trigger with bug control powers. (But rather than helping Sophia, Emma is incensed when she hears about it, and promptly breaks Taylor out.)
• It's All About Me: Glory Girl's inability to follow orders causes a lot of unnecessary headaches when the time comes to take down Coil.
• Jiggle Physics: Emma's preliminarily tour of the Wards and meeting Vista & Flechette gets to a discussion about breast sizes, sports bras and the practical problems of running across rooftops with anything approaching a decent cup size.
• Kryptonite Factor: Liquid makes Emma's hair collapse back to its unpowered state. It's not great for Taylor's bugs, either.
• Last Request: Noelle, in her execution chamber, gets a jacket to wear, so she won't be cold, and a Big Mac with extra pickles and a chocolate shake.
  She hadn't had a good shake in months.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Glory Girl isn't impressed by the Samaritans' insistence on caution and teamwork, and nearly gets kicked out of their first mission for trying to fly ahead.
  Glory Girl: Whatever happened to ‘hit them till they fall down’? Because you don’t need a plan to do that at all.
  • It is also the beginning of the end against Echidna in the Coil timeline mentioned in Total Party Kill.
• Little Miss Badass: Vista. Established from Canon that she's among the most experienced of the Wards and takes it with the most seriousness, her response to being told that, as The PRT's liaison to The Samaritans, she'll be expected to subject herself to their Training from Hell is basically "Bring It".
• Logical Weakness: Mannequin's body is almost entirely an artificial shell around his actual organs and is incredibly durable, making him very hard to injure at all, let alone put down. It also means his body is extremely vulnerable to Vista since her power can be used on any nonliving object.
• Make Sure He's Dead: The dad brigade takes no chances after some of the Slaughterhouse Nine escaped the first time; once Jack Slash and Burnscar are down, Burnscar is shot again in the head, and Jack gets a Coup de Grâce to the left eye.
• Mercy Kill: Noelle persuades the PRT to execute her using a facility designed to kill Crawler, since she has no realistic prospect of healing, no control over most of her body, and is a tremendous threat to the world. She has attempted suicide several times before, but didn't have the resources to make it stick.
• Moral Myopia: Coil is incensed about Tattletale betraying him. The fact that he recruited her at gunpoint doesn't cross his mind.
• Morton's Fork: A truly karmic example, when Tattletale calls Coil and tells him that she has the information she was sent to get, and that she needs to be extracted. He splits the timeline, with one version sending a pickup and the other refusing, figuring that whether she's betrayed him or not, he'll just keep whichever one works out better. But the call was actually just to ensure that he would be distracted by her, while the Samaritans hit his base. Whether he's distracted by sending the vehicle for her, or distracted by arranging to silence her, it doesn't matter. Furthermore, unbeknownst to Tattletale, the very fact that he split the timeline for her meant he was already doomed, since he had to drop his "safe" timeline to do it.
  • The subsequent assault on Coil's base only ever ends badly for him. If he stands and fights (Universe B) he quickly founds out his means of doing so have already been neutralised thanks to Ladybug denying both his escape route and his armory, and the delay in getting out just gets him punched out by Glory Girl, forcing him to drop the timeline. If he flees (Universe A) he finds out that the PRT are already making their own move against him and he gets arrested by Armsmaster. Being led back into the base to disarm the self destruct presents him with an opportunity to try to sic Echidna on the invaders. If he's prevented (Universe C) he's carted off to prison without further incident. If he's allowed to (A) she goes on a rampage, he escapes and everyone is killed by either Echidna or the base exploding. Tattletale's attempt to stop him ends in a shootout that she loses, only for Coil to get murdered by Danny, forcing him drop the timeline too and reluctantly accept being arrested.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Saint attacks the Dragon Craft carrying the Nine to their execution point to steal one of the armors, allowing the Nine to attack the Samaritans again.
  • When Winslow is evacuated as part of the Samaritans' plan to end the Slaughterhouse Nine, Greg Veder stays behind to get a video of whatever is going to happen, which leads to him and Taylor being kidnapped by the Nine and Taylor and Emma (temporarily) losing her powers.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Danny loses Taylor in one timeline due to Coil's plots, and proceeds to run Coil down with his car, then take out a tyre iron and break every part of Coil's body he can reach. Coil eventually closes the timeline when he's about to have his skull smashed in.
  Coil could not speak; Danny chose not to. He began to systematically, brutally, beat Coil to death. The only sounds that he made were the hissing of his breath through his teeth. He broke both of Coil's legs, shattered his kneecaps, and then his arms and collarbones. The fact that some of these bones were already broken mattered not at all to him.
• Not So Above It All:
  • When Taylor and Emma suggest Vista to use Mannequin as a toboggan, Vista says she can't believe she's the youngest of the three... but she agrees as long as she gets to steer.
  • Amy returns from getting prion samples saying that she only has enough to heal either Emma or Taylor, not both. Just as Taylor and Emma point at the other to be healed, Amy grins and reveals she was kidding.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Amy initially thinks that being a hero and a villain means she and Lisa are poles apart, but Lisa points out that they both got railroaded into teams with people they don't properly relate to, and saw the Samaritans as a way out.
• Papa Wolf: Danny Hebert, Alan Barnes, and Rod Clements are very protective of their daughters. This initially takes the form of giving them extensive training so they'll have the best chance of surviving. Later, Danny hunts down Coil in a timeline where Taylor, Emma, and Madison were killed by Noelle or Coil's base's self-destruction charge, and systematically beats him to death with a tyre iron, forcing him to drop that timeline. The dads also kill Jack Slash and Burnscar with a shotgun after they took the girls hostage.
• Prehensile Hair: Emma triggered with a mouthful of her own hair that the ABB cut off and was forcing her to eat. She gains the power to make her hair grow near-instantly to several metres long, moving under her control with enough force to wrap and immobilise an adult man, extremely tough and heat-resistant, and capable of emitting powerful jolts of electricity.
  Aegis: Two words. Taser hair.
• Punctuated Pounding: Emma hunts down Sophia after the latter causes Taylor to Trigger, then pins Sophia down and starts punching her in the face.
  "What." Smack.
  "Does." Smack.
  "It." Smack.
  "Take." Smack.
  "For." Smack.
  "You." Smack.
  "To." Smack.
  "Get." Smack.
  "The." Smack.
  "Message?" Smack.
• Put Them All Out of My Misery: When Noelle gives up hope, she just wants to kill the whole world, and she has enough captured capes that she could probably pull it off. Fortunately, that timeline ends with Coil's death.
• Skewed Priorities: Mr. Gladly is more concerned about his car potentially getting damaged in an upcoming cape fight than the fact said fight involves the Slaughterhouse Nine. When he tries to ask what guarantee he has that his car won't get damaged, Blackwell points out there's no guarantee the school will still be there after the fight.
• Required Secondary Powers: Taylor deduces that Kaiser must have the ability to dismiss or retract the metal he generates, because otherwise he wouldn't cover himself in full body armour.
  Taylor: Would you do that if you couldn't get it off again without requiring a pry-bar?
• So Proud of You: There's more work to do after taking down Coil, but Danny makes sure to tell Taylor that the team did a very good thing and he's proud of her.
• Spanner in the Works: Coil's plans get derailed because the bank the Undersiders are robbing as part as the former's plan to kidnap Dinah Alcott was also being attended by the Samaritans.
• Stalker without a Crush: Despite being told in no uncertain terms to leave Emma alone, after sitting back and doing nothing during her Trigger Event, Sophia is still hellbent on trying to convince Emma to team up with her. Her refusal to even acknowledge her while being friends with the "weak" Taylor is the source of Sophia's animus towards the latter in this version of events.
• Starter Villain: Shadow Stalker's plot relevance ends when after the Locker Incident (and Emma beating Sophia bloody), Emma and Alan out everything about Emma's Trigger Event (ie Shadow Stalker sitting back and watching how they'll react instead of immediately rescuing them) and throw Sophia under the bus. She and several hangers-on are quickly expelled and Sophia herself is implied to have had her probation revoked and carted off to Prison.
• Telepathic Sprinklers: Vista sets off a hallway full of sprinklers with one lighter flame, to neutralize Burnscar and give Taylor an opening to escape from her.
• Together in Death: When he realizes that Noelle really intends to let herself be executed, Trickster decides to stay with her rather than keep living on without her. She kisses him while giving a thumbs up to the camera for the explosives to go off.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Greg Veder stays behind at Winslow when there's an order for evacuation, thinking he can get a video for PHO, not realizing that there might be a reason why everyone's being evacuated.
  • He also takes out his phone to post on PHO about the ABB hitting the dance, after everyone was told not to try to call for help.
• Torso with a View: Shatterbird has a hole burned in her torso from behind by the combined efforts of Lady Photon, Laserdream and Shielder before she can finish off Glory Girl.
• Total Party Kill: The timeline where Coil manages to agitate Echidna into going berserk results in everyone either dying at her hands or being killed in Coil's base blowing up. Only Coil himself being run over and clubbed to death by Danny stops this from sticking.
• Training from Hell: The Samaritans attract several people interested in signing up, but they're not all equally enthusiastic about the dads' idea of effective training in fitness and small unit tactics. After they actually experience it, there are groans and grumbles and "please just kill me" lamentations from everyone except Vista, who is thrilled by being pushed to get stronger.
  Taylor: Let's just say, Mr Clements is really good with a paintball gun.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: When the Undersiders try to rob a bank and end up fighting the Samaritans, Sparx grabs Regent's taser-sceptre and shocks him with it.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!:
  • Lisa boggles at the realisation that the Samaritans have used Vista's power to turn Mannequin into a toboggan.
    Lisa: Oh, you didn't. Oh, man. You did. You really did.
  • All PRT staff present are gobsmacked when Ladybug tells them that she would like to rehabilitate Bonesaw.
    Director Piggot: You can not be serious.

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