Fanfic / Worm - Justice For All

Worm - Justice For All is a Worm and Infinite Dendrogram crossover by SeerKing where Taylor gains the power of Iustitia, an Embryo focusing on Justice.

When Taylor Hebert Triggered in the Locker, the Entities were slow to act. Instead of the [Queen Administrator], she was gifted with the seed of power known as an [Embryo], which becomes a powerful weapon one month after The Locker. How will this change the world of Earth Bet?

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Tropes found in this work:

• A-Cup Angst: While Taylor is not exactly one to care much about it, she is miffed that Iustitia, even though she looks younger than her, has a bigger bust than her.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Heavily implied, but ultimately averted. See Reasonable Authority Figure below.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Piggot views the holographic tele-meetings that the other PRT leaders insist on using as this, noting that a simple teleconference would work just as well, and for fewer resources.
• BFS: Hamelin's "Inverted Justice"/Violence incarnation, Frollo, wields a huge sword in battle.
• Berserk Button: As the Maiden of Justice, Iustitia despises injustice.
• Blaming the Victim: Tagg is all too eager to blame Justitia for Hamelin's actions in Brockton Bay.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Downplayed, but Iustitia is baffled at why someone like Parian would choose to not become a hero despite not being a villain.
• Bond One-Liner: Taylor's reply to Hamelin right before she defeats him.
  Taylor: Gun beats sword, you son of a bitch.
• Boom, Headshot!: Taylor defeats Hamelin by shooting him in the head with one of Kid Win's laser pistols on lethal mode.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • Hamelin not only kidnaps Taylor, a Trigger so new that she doesn't even have a costume yet, off the street in her civilian identity (a serious breach of the Unwritten Rules, which would tick off any cape who heard about it, villain and hero alike), he also kidnapped all of the Wards save for Shadow Stalker, along with Glory Girl and Panacea, pissing off every adult hero in the city.
  • Even though Justitia appeared seemingly from nowhere to incapacitate a robber and saved Parian's life, even though she was being interviewed by official Protectorate Capes at the time, the Enforcers attempted to force her to leave the area. Gallant made it quite clear that since a Parahuman was involved in apprehending the robber, this was a Protectorate investigation, which superseded the authority of the Enforcers.
• Burning with Anger: At the climax of their fight, Hamelin's Violence/"Inverted Justice" incarnation uses a skill that turns him into a skeleton wreathed in fire and using fire attacks, sacrificing the last of his sanity for power.
• Chekhov's Gun: Before the Wards and the Undersiders leave Hamelin's Pocket Dimension, Kid Win gives his laser gun to Taylor. In the end, with both Hamelin and Taylor almost wasted from their fight, Taylor pulls out the laser gun and shoots Hamelin in the face, killing him.
• Closest Thing We Got: Part of the reason why the PRT is letting Taylor handle the situation with the dimensional pockets is that there are currently no Tinkers or other powers available to them that would allow them to access the realms with the fragments themselves, so she's the closest thing to one they have.
• Combo Platter Powers: Hamelin has a large number of powers, most of which he's leeching off of captive parahumans.
• Corrupt Cop: The Boardwalk Enforcers are a private security version of this, with Taylor pretty much comparing them to a gang. They are also prone to "forget" report incidents if someone slips a few twenties in the right hand.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: While looking for Hamelin, Lady Photon gets confronted by Skidmark and his goons. She just blasts them all unconscious and moves on after calling the PRT.
• Cuteness Proximity: Vista loves cute things. Case in point, she takes one look at Iustitia's Maiden Form and gives the Embryo a Glomp.
• Dope Slap: Grue gives two to Regent while in Hamelin's dimension.
• Emotion Eater: Pequod, as the manifestation of Hamelin's despair, can draw upon the despair in the area around him to fuel his powers. The armor Taylor gets from beating him can do the same.
• Equivalent Exchange: Taylor can heal with her power, but expends her own stamina to do so.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Discussed. In a discussion with fellow Control AI Jabberwock, Cheshire states that even the King of Plagues would have been disgusted by The Locker.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • The PRT Directors call out Deputy Director Tagg for implying that, Taylor, who had only become active a few days ago, was in any way responsible for Hamelin, who had been kidnapping capes for three years.
  • The members of Cauldron, who are of the kind that takes "the ends justify the means" to its ultimate consequences for the sake of humanity's survival, are also disgusted with how Coil somehow has no morals to speak of.
  • Armsmaster, when discussing press-ganging Justitia into the Wards, calmly and rationally points out the logical and selfless reasons for her staying behind to fight Hamelin. As Piggot notes, he rarely goes against orders from up the food chain, and he's saying why not to follow a suggestion from Alexandria herself.
• Excellent Judge of Character: For all her prejudice towards Capes, Piggot is one. Following the Hamelin incident, she told Lady Photon that the PRT has a spare bed in case Amy needs it, showing an awareness of how Carol treated the girl and the former's apparent urge to jump ship.
• Face–Heel Turn: Discussed, one of the reasons that Contessa has Alexandria as Chief-Director Costa-Brown stop any attempt to browbeat Justitia into joining the PRT is that the Path tells her it would make Justitia become a violent vigilante at best and a warlord even worse than her canon self at worst. Not only that, but this is the only play that Cauldron has as Justitia's growth is starting to muck with the Path to Victory and eventually will be immune to it.
• Genre Savvy: Prior to the meeting on Hamelin, Piggot knew that someone (most likely Tagg) would blow their kettle and outright not believe that Justitia was willing to make a Heroic Sacrifice, so she made sure that Dragon had recorded the entire fight between Justitia and Hamelin just to make the disbelievers suck lemon.
• Hated by All: Tagg is so disliked in the Protectorate that even Dragon (who is unfailingly polite to everyone and friendly with those she has regular contact with) is perfectly willing to openly show her complete lack of respect for the man. Given his War Hawk Fantastic Racism attitude that isn't even toned down by the professionalism that keeps Piggot a Reasonable Authority Figure, it's no secret why.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Taylor staying behind in Hamelin's dimension so that all the other capes can escape has elements of this. Subverted, however, in that she eventually escapes anyway.
• Hidden Depths: Danny was not only an avid Tabletop RPG player in his youth, he's also the Dockworkers' Association's World of Warcraft Guildmaster.
• Hypocrite: Sarah points out to her sister Carol the hypocrisy in the latter proclaiming 'innocent until proven guilty' while also treating Amy like a walking time bomb just because the latter is Marquis' daughter.
• Ideal Hero: In a sharp contrast from canon, Taylor conducts herself so well as an independent cape that when Deputy Director Tagg suggests pressing her into the Wards, the rest of the PRT directors all give him a What the Hell, Hero? for his idea.
• Immune to Fate: Downplayed, as according to Contessa, while she can still account the Path Justitia may follow, her growing power is making her increasingly harder to predict, and eventually she will be completely invisible to Path to Victory.
• Interface Spoiler: In-Universe, when Taylor stores Kid Win's laser gun in her inventory, it allows her to see it's a modular weapon, which Taylor points out as potentially being Kid Win's specialization.
• Internal Reveal: Taylor accidentally discovers Parian is Middle-Eastern after the latter gets shot in the abdomen and she tries to heal her.
• Invisible to Normals: The Shop that appears in the Boardwalk is invisible to anyone without an Embryo.
• Junk Rare: In-Universe, Black Burning Greatsword of Violent Tumult: Frollo is this for Taylor. An Epic rarity greatsword that draws its power from violence and aggression, it is the antithesis of Iustitia, to the point Taylor can't even equip it. Even worse, as a drop from a Unique Boss Monster, only the MVP of the battle, which Taylor is by default, can equip it, making it completely useless to anyone. As such, once she unlocked the Shop, it was sold off.
• Killed Off for Real: Taylor ends up killing Hamelin with one of Kid Win's laser pistols set to lethal mode, shooting him in the head.
• Know When to Fold Them: Kaiser and Lung have their gangs stay inside and out of trouble during the Hamelin crisis, knowing that stepping out of line will bring the wrath of the heroes on their heads. Sure enough, when Skidmark tries to cause problems, Lady Photon just blasts him away.
• Lawful Stupid: Even after a mini-Endbringer Truce situation is declared, Aegis still tries to bring in the Undersiders after saving them from Hamelin's Pocket Dimension. Even Piggot, not exactly a fan of villainous parahumans, thinks that he's being an idiot, and decides that he needs flexibility training.
• Lesser of Two Evils: How Taylor regards the Boardwalk Enforcers. While they are a gang in all but name, are easy to bribe, and will threaten any non-Protectorate or Affiliate cape that shows up in the Boardwalk, they are still regarded as the better option in comparison to the Empire 88 or the ABB.
• Literal Split Personality: After his death, Hamelin's psyche fractures into several Bosses in pocket dimensions across the Bay, representing his Despair, who has already been defeated, Hate, Fear, Apathy, "Inverted Justice"/Violence, Arrogance, Cruelty, and Wrath. Each one can feed on the emotions around them to gain power.
• The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: The Shop appears in this manner in the Boardwalk once Taylor unlocks it.
• Load-Bearing Boss: Hamelin is this for his Pocket Dimension. If not for the unique loot drop Taylor gained after killing him, she would have died when the pocket collapsed.
• Mask of Sanity: Discussed regarding Hamelin, with the conclusion being that he's either fully sane or else so good at aping it that it doesn't matter. It turns out to be the second, based on the rant he gives Taylor about his goal of eliminating every A-Class and S-Class parahuman in North America as payback for the loss of his loved ones.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Iustitia is named after the Roman Goddess of Justice. Fittingly, she absolutely despises evil done for the sake of evil.
  • Besides the more obvious parallel of Hamelin capturing other parahumans, with an apparent focus on teens, his name is also a reference to his deceased children's favorite bedtime story.
  • The remnant of his despair that Taylor fights names himself Pequod, after Captain Ahab's ship from Moby-Dick, which makes Taylor wary.
  • The remnant of Hamelin's "Inverted Justice"/Violence named itself Frollo, after the favorite movie of Hamelin's kids.
• Morph Weapon: Iustitia. As it evolves according to Taylor's needs and desires, its powers also change depending on its form.
  • Justice Over Earthly Authority: her Maiden Form, a young girl. It allows her to determine the crimes anyone she sees has committed, heal people and boost Taylor's MP.
  • Swords and Scales of Justice: her First Form, a sword and a set of golden scales. The scales can alter enemies' physical abilities to match Taylor's (making strong enemies weaker or weak enemies stronger) and enforce any negative status she has on them.
  • Cudgel of the Law: her Second Form, a tipstaff made of white metal. It causes more damage the more enemies Taylor is facing at the same time and the lower her stamina is and reduces consumption of stamina.
  • The Lone Gun and Star of Frontier Justice: her Third Form, a revolver and sheriff star. The revolver reloads automatically ten seconds after being emptied and has two special attacks, one that doubles the damage the target suffers from any attack by Taylor during the next 24 hours (at the cost of not being able to hit it the first five minutes after using the attack) and another to do trick shots, while the star boosts her damage, dexterity and defense when facing more than one enemy.
• Not Enough to Bury: Hamelin. An unfortunate but inevitable side-effect of having a Pocket Dimension as your Collapsing Lair. Overlaps with No Body Left Behind.
• Not So Above It All: When Tagg expresses extreme skepticism about Justitia willingly committing a Heroic Sacrifice, Piggot takes great delight in forcing him to eat those words by showing the recording of Justitia's fight with Hamelin.
• One Riot, One Ranger: Several of Taylor's powers work better when she fights alone against a group of enemies. Fittingly, the skill granted by the Star of Frontier Justice that provides this boost is named after the trope.
• Picky Eater: Iustitia will only eat homemade meals.
• Pocket Dimension: Where Hamelin operates out of.
  • His Literal Split Personality fragments end up in various pocket dimension dungeons scattered around the Bay after his death. The fact that Taylor is the only one that can deal with them before they become bigger problems means that the PRT is forced to back off trying to recruit her for the time being, since the Youth Guard would never let her fight in them as a Ward.
• Power Parasite: Hamelin's true power allows him to leech off the powers of those capes that he's captured and left unconscious in his pocket dimension, even allowing him to use Tattletale's power while letting her suffer a Thinker headache from overusing it. It is, however, limited by how much time the capes have been out and how much he has used it.
• Pretty Little Headshots: Subtly referenced in Hamelin's death. Since it's a laser pistol and not a firearm, the shot just burns straight through his skull.
• Quality vs. Quantity: Pequod and Frollo's approaches represent the extremes of this - the former accumulated all of his energy for himself and his pet, while the latter uses the energy to spawn as many monsters as possible. Both approaches lead to their monsters being easy to defeat.
• Race Against the Clock: Iustitia tells Taylor that the fragments of Hamelin may eventually become too strong for the dungeons they are stuck in and escape, which would put the city in danger, so Taylor needs to become strong as fast as possible to prevent this from happening.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Piggot, of all people. Besides her reaction to Aegis' moment of Lawful Stupid (see above), when later faced with the signed-but-as-yet-undated Kill Order on Hamelin and a simultaneous "request" by the higher-ups to get Justitia into the Wards by whatever means necessary, Piggot specifically refuses to go the less-than-moral route of using it to coerce her. And when Justitia mentions the dungeons formed from Hamelin's fragmented psyche, she decides to not recruit her so she can solve the trouble without dealing with the obstacles being a Ward would put before her, although at the same time she tasks Armsmaster to find proof of Justitia's claims.
  • Danny as well, compared to most of his fanon iterations, acknowledges that Taylor's unique powerset means that the Wards would in fact stymie her growth in contrast to the "benefits" that it would provide, which are already given by her Embryo, thus making them superfluous.
  • Many of the PRT and Protectorate leaders take offense to Tagg's suggestion of forcing Taylor into the Wards with no grounds.
• Reverse Psychology: The pressure Alexandria was putting on Piggot to make her force Justitia into the Wards was done because Contessa knew Piggot would refuse to do so just because of her dislike of Parahumans - Justitia's warning on Hamelin's fragmented psyche and Armsmaster and Miss Militia's advice were simply the logical reasoning she grabbed to justify it.
• RPG Elements: Taylor's power allows her to have stats and jobs like a video game character, and she can see the levels of enemies and get drops (which can be tweaked).
• Rule of Symbolism: The places where the fragmented Dungeons are in represent much about the state Brockton Bay is in.
  • The Tower of Hate is in Medhall Building, the front of the Empire 88.
  • The Graveyard of Fear is in the Boat Graveyard, which is both a symbol of humanity's fear of Leviathan and also causes fear because of the gangs prowling it.
  • The Pit of Apathy is in the Trainyard, a symbol of Brockton Bay's decay and general inability to restore prosperity to the city.
  • The Fortress of Arrogance is in the Rig, representing the Protectorate's belief that they can control the situation in the city when it's on the edge of a knife.
  • The Hill of Inverted Justice (per Word of God) is a reference to how (in the future) Captain's Hill will host the Endbringer Memorial - a form of "inverted justice" due to how the Endbringers were created due to the unconscious wish from Eidolon for worthy opponents. It also looks like a vandalized cathedral to represent how Hamelin lost his faith in both God and Justice.
  • The Camp of Cruelty is in Winslow High School, where Taylor suffered from the brutal level of bullying that led to her gaining powers.
  • The Plain of Wrath is moving around the city, symbolizing the city's general state of mind caused by the gang fights and the collapsing economy.
• Shout-Out:
  • Taylor refers to her killing Hamelin as Indiana Jonesing him.
  • When discussing monsters to implement on Earth Bet, Jabberwock suggests a UBM with atomic breath.
  • The remnant of Hamelin's despair names himself Pequod.
  • When Taylor calls for Hamelin's Despair to come down and fight her himself, he quotes Carol Malus Dienheim.
  Pequod: "You're disturbing my reverie, you know? I hope you realize that I will make you pay for that?"
  • Taylor mentions feeling she's going to be ZERG-Rushed several times in the Hill of Inverted Justice dungeon.
  • The "Inverted Justice"/Violence remnant named itself Frollo.
• Situational Sword:
  • Taylor's "Balance The Scales" ability renders all the enemies within a certain range at her own level of strength, which means that while it weakens stronger enemies, it also makes weaker ones stronger, rendering it less effective or even useless in some situations (although Miss Militia makes the case that someone empowered by this might find themselves having problems, since they would be unused to their new strength level).
  • Hamelin's stolen Super-Speed powers that allow him to go faster than anyone chasing him, but doesn't work when he's not being chased. The cape that he stole this power from is aptly named "Road Runner".
• Slave to PR: Taylor's annoyance about PR being prioritized to the point that the Wards are virtually weaponless, save for Kid Win, is part of why she doesn't want to join the Wards.
• The Sleepless: As an Embryo, Iustitia doesn't need sleep any more than Miss Militia. Even if Taylor needs a quick catnap in hostile territory, her Maiden is capable of being her lookout around the clock.
• Super-Empowering: Cheshire stumbled across Taylor during her Trigger Event, giving her Iustitia so she could beat out the shard about to connect to her. Cheshire then mentions that Taylor is doing this for all of Earth Bet, as he predicts that when Iustitia reachers her sixth evolution, more people will have the potential to form Embryos. In fact, it's implied in Quest 2-1 that Danny is already forming an Embryo.
• Super-Speed: See Situational Sword above.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: After killing Hamelin via a laser pistol shot to the head, Taylor sees Hamelin's face and notes that he looks like any guy that you would see walking down the street.
• Tragic Villain: Hamelin lost his family to a fight between Legend and some other heroes versus the Elite, then lost his new girlfriend as a result of the Nine.
• Trauma Conga Line: Hamelin lost his wife and children to a battle between Legend and the Elite, and then, after he managed to try dating again, the Nine came to town and killed his girlfriend Emily, who was helping him piece his life back together.
• Tranquil Fury: When Frollo sees Iustitia's Form One is the very thing he despises, he vows to break her. Taylor's response is to call him a Dead Man Walking.
• Vagueness Is Coming: At the end of her first visit to the Infinite Dendrogram shop, Taylor was given a message from the one who gave her access to the system: 'Prepare for a change.' No other details were given, much to Taylor's frustration.
• Visual Pun: The Hill of Inverted Justice dungeon requires Taylor to advance by going upstairs from the bottom - an inverted dungeon, so to speak.
• Wrong Context Magic: Embryos, due to not being shard-based powers, are this. While initially Thinker abilities can parse them, Contessa mentions that even her Path of Victory is starting to fail as Taylor gets stronger, meaning she has to enact her steps on a relatively shorter-term basis and states that Coil is pretty much guaranteed to do something stupid because he won't be able to simulate his timelines around her and his Control Freak personality will take offense to that.
• Wham Shot: Danny acquires an Embryo of his own at the end of Chapter 10.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Sarah Pelham has some strong words to tell to her sister Carol Dallon over her psychological abuse of Amy, telling her that either she straightens out or she's taking Amy out of her hands.
  • Earlier, Justitia calls out Aegis for planning to arrest the Undersiders when they have been depowered and all parties are in a situation where they need to work together. Regent naturally cracks a joke about it.
  Regent: This should be on daytime TV. A rookie hero pushing around the leader of the Wards... I'd go pay per view for that!"
  • During a discussion between the PRT heads about Justitia, Tagg, filling in for his indisposed boss, suggests forcibly pressing her into the Wards. Almost everyone present called him out, with Legend explaining in simple terms that aside from reforming villains and rehabilitating vigilantes that have gone too far, joining the Wards is strictly voluntary.
• Worf Had the Flu: It's made clear that Taylor defeating Hookwolf was largely because he underestimated her and she caught him off-guard, something that's not going to happen in the future.

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