On the last day of school before summer break Taylor Hebert's life changed forever when she was locked in her own locker. When the door opened again, it wasn't to her school. Blessed with new powers and new possibilities Taylor hopes to become a hero... If she can convince her talking pet fox to stop telling everyone she's a god.
In which, several months before the horrific Canon Locker Event would have happened, Taylor is locked in her locker and has an unusual experience in which she is told she is the first of the New Gods.
Understandably, this changes her life a bit.
The Taste of Peaches is a Worm fanfic by Grounders 10 that can be found on Fanfiction.Net
, SpaceBattles, and Sufficient Velocity.
The Taste Of Peaches provides examples of:
- Alien Blood: As a goddess, Taylor has golden Ichor in place of blood now. When Panacea has a power reaction trying to read her, Victoria ends up getting blood with an odd golden tinge as well.
- Bequeathed Power: Taylor was given some of Inari's domains when she became a god, specifically her domains of Agriculture, Fertility, Industry, and Foxes.
- Beyond the Impossible: When the PRT tries to analyze Taylor's golden blood with a tinkertech system, it produces things that it shouldn't have been able to do, like an engraved copper plate.
- Big Eater: Taylor was able to easily down a Challenger, and still had some room left afterwards.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: The ways a specific domain manifests in a god depends on both their own perceptions and perceived limitations, and those of others. For example, one of Inari's earliest domains was Foxes, and since Japan views foxes as tricksters, she gained shapeshifting abilities, but with Taylor, what can be presumed to be the popularity of anime and manga, and the usual portrayal of kitsune in said anime, causes her to have, apparently permanently, fox ears and nine tails.
- Divine Assistance: Inari rigged things so she could advise the new Gods and becomes Taylor's mentor.
- Door Stopper: Some of the chapters are behemoths. Chapter 11 is a gargantuan 15,000 words, with Grounders saying it actually wasn't as long as she wanted it to be. Chapter 12 is 19,000 words, and Chapter 13 hit 24,000 words.
- Figure It Out Yourself: Somehow, it became the norm that the previous generation of gods would only leave cryptic messages for the next generation, stuff like telling them to "follow their heart" and so forth. Normally this isn't a problem because there's usually a century or two between major threats, so the new generation of gods has time to figure everything out, but the threat of the Entities is sufficient that Inari set things up that she'd be able to advise Taylor instead.
- In Spite of a Nail: The story begins with Taylor ascending and eventually joining the Wards during early summer 2010, six months before the canon locker incident.
- A God Am I: The PRT is leery about Inari saying Taylor is a god because they think she's part of Taylor's subconscious, indicating that Taylor herself holds this view.
- Götterdämmerung: The Old Gods died fighting off the Apocalypse. It is also indicated that the Entities either took advantage of this to make their own move, or they or another of their kind instigated the Apocalypse themselves.
- Heel Realization: Taylor punts Sophia through one by pointing out that her behaviour is that of a thug, not a hero - and when Sophia tries to claim that she is a hero, she remembers all the times she saw someone in danger only to turn away since they were not fighting back. This realization causes her to hit a Heroic BSoD.
- History Repeats: Every so often, the gods die fighting some extradimensional beings or other threats, with new gods rising later from mortals. In fact, the generation of gods before Taylor's may have actually broken a record with how long they managed to last.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Victor tries to use his power to "steal" skills from Taylor. He ends up in a coma.
- Stormtiger tries to use his Razor Wind against Taylor. Taylor uses her aerokinesis to turn his own attack right back at him.
- Hot God: Taylor is now very attractive, though it takes a while for her to notice, in part because the change happens more gradually than her ears and tails. It's hinted that at least part of it is from Inari's gifted Fertility domain.
- How Do I Shot Web?: Taylor's powers have a bit of a learning curve. In particular, trying to figure out something that's a small part of one of her domains (like controlling water or throwing lightning) tends to require her tapping into the entire domain first (i.e. flooding her living room or summoning a hurricane over downtown Brockton Bay).
- Human Furniture Is a Pain in the Tail: Taylor's sheer volume of tails makes furniture... inconvenient at times, from having to sit on chairs sideways, to taking up a sizeable portion of most couches. Or elevators. Or vehicles.
- I Am Not Pretty: Taylor really isn't used to being conventionally attractive, let alone as beautiful as she is now, and her lingering issues from being bullied don't help. Other people have to keep reminding her that 'yes', that girl in the mirror is her.
- Limited Wardrobe: Due to her physical changes, most of Taylor's clothes don't fit her anymore. At one point, she has to go to the PRT in her pajamas (which are stretchy enough to only barely fit) because she has no other options.
- Little Bit Beastly: Taylor no longer has human ears. She now has fox ears and nine tails.
- Victoria gets ears and a single tail from a power interaction between Amy and Taylor.
- Loyal Phlebotinum: A trident washes up in a dead Megalodon by the docks, and anyone who tries to touch it gets shocked. Given that it reacts to Taylor when she gets close to it, and the fox symbols on it, it's presumably trying to keep others from using it.
- Making a Splash: One of Taylor's natural domains is the sea. Inari suspects it's because she grew up in a port town.
- Man Bites Man: Sophia, accidentally subjected to Marshmallow Hell by Taylor, and fearful of suffocation, resorts to biting her to try and get her off.
- Marshmallow Hell: Taylor accidentally gives one to Sophia Hess. The latter bites the former. Emma later gave Taylor a taste of this trope. Taylor, due to being much taller than Emma, escaped simply by standing up.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: Taylor is launched two blocks by a tinker-tech cannon into the side of a car. The car comes out worse for wear than she does.
- Nothing but Skin and Bones: Victor after trying to steal Taylor's skills, though all the medical tests say that he should be healthier than ever.
- Not Me This Time:
Word of God is that the locker incident at the beginning was not caused by Emma, Sophia, and Madison. Taylor does hear them laughing after she gets locked in her locker, but she doesn't know if they helped with it or were there by chance. - O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Emma's behavior after learning that Taylor has powers now is so unusual for her that not only is Sophia concerned for her mental state, but even Taylor, after everything Emma did to her, is seriously worried.
- Outside-Context Problem: Taylor's powers are divine in origin, not because she triggered; as such, she lacks a lot of the typical markers for a parahuman. Everybody else just marks this down as the same kind of delusion Myrddin (who just happened to be the strongest grab bag on record) has about his power.
- Prongs of Poseidon: A dead Megalodon washes up on the shore by the Docks with a trident embedded in its side. Said trident is apparently made for Taylor by the Cyclopes if the symbols on it are any indication, shocking anyone who tries to grab it.
- Running Gag: People keep wondering what shampoo Taylor uses for her tails.
- Science Cannot Comprehend Phlebotinum: Or at least, super-science can't. Tinker-tech scanners, if they don't immediately break upon trying to scan Taylor, produce results that they should be physically incapable of producing, and don't make sense besides, like engraved copper plates from a machine attempting to analyze Taylor's golden blood. Panacea spacing out when touching her, as well as Victoria after her transformation, implies that Thinker powers don't work on her either because the Shards lock up trying to process divinity.
- Shock and Awe: One of Taylor's domains gives her power over lightning. (Well, storms in general, but what's a storm without a few lightning bolts?)
- Shooting Superman: Taylor takes a volley of gunfire from the Merchants and Empire without so much as a scratch.
- Stepford Smiler: Emma has serious vibes of this after Taylor is revealed as a cape.
- Super Power Lottery: Taylor's a Flying Brick, is the strongest hydrokinetic behind Leviathan, can control electricity, wind, and the weather, can withstand extremely high temperatures, and suddenly looks like a supermodel. All those are just the powers the public is aware of. And as a goddess, her powers will only grow with time.
- Tail Slap: Taylor's new tails are very strong, despite their fluffiness. While testing her powers at the PRT, she pretty much disintegrates a training dummy. While fighting Hookwolf, Taylor uses her tails to knock him through a van, a streetlamp, and a wall. A wall two blocks away.
- Taken for Granite: Every living thing in the Celestial Realm was turned to stone in the aftermath of the previous Apocalypse, save for Inari's current incarnation, and the peach that granted Taylor her powers. What remains is a vast battlefield outside a massive city-fortress, populated by countless statues.
- Vulnerable Civilians: This is part of what prompts Taylor to join in a gang fight the day before she is supposed to debut. Not only were her PRT escorts caught in an overturned car, but there were numerous bystanders being threatened by collateral damage.
- Walking Techbane: Taylor, as a result of Inari's gifted Industry domain, has a technology domain. Unfortunately, it doesn't react well with a lot of Tinker-tech — scanners in particular tend to stop working when used on her, and while an attempt to analyze her blood doesn't break the machines outright, it produces meaningless results that it should have been physically incapable of producing. Even some non-scanning devices feel "wrong" to her.
- It's worth noting that this is due to standard Tinker-tech operating in ways that are scientifically impossible due to black box components. Once Taylor fully awakens her Industry domain, she's supposed to be able to rebuild Tinkertech without said black boxes.
- Weather Manipulation: One of Taylor's natural domains is storms, allowing her to control the weather. She inadvertently generates a hurricane over downtown Brockton Bay, then follows it up with a thick fog a couple days later.
- We Need a Distraction: Taylor's chewing out of Emma and Sophia is so loud it breaks some windows and attracts media attention. To draw attention away from the newest Ward, Vicky decides to publicly reveal her newfound Little Bit Beastly status.
- With Great Power Comes Great Hotness: Taylor's ascent to divinity came with a dramatic boost to her looks; people keep questioning why a trigger event also gave her a makeover. Inari passing down her Fertility domain to Taylor probably helped a lot there.
