She wasn't flinching because she had a phobia. She was flinching because she has an ALLERGY! And I just stung her in her airways more times than any normal insect swarm would sting her!
The Butcher's Bill is a Worm fanfiction by storybookknight
, where instead of Cherish driving the Butcher to suicide and becoming Butcher XV, Taylor accidentally kills the Butcher with bee stings. However, Taylor's secondary Thinker power gives her a chance to keep her psyche together in the face of the voices.
It is published on FanFiction.Net (here) and SpaceBattles.com (here), and is incomplete, last updated in 2016.
This story contains examples of the following:
- Gone Horribly Right: Taylor's attack on the Butcher is all too effective, killing her before Cherish can get involved.
- Heroic Suicide: Taylor's first impulse upon becoming the Butcher is to continue with the original plan, where Cherish makes the Butcher commit suicide. Tattletale talks her out of it.
- Plot Allergy: It turns out that Butcher XIV, despite her overall Super-Toughness, was allergic to bee stings — and Taylor had specifically targeted her airways to keep her off balance.
- Required Secondary Powers: Taylor is primarily known for her bug control, but the reason she can cope with immense swarms of them is because she has a Thinker power that reinforces her mind to handle myriad inputs at once. And although the Butcher voices are louder and more influential than insects, that same power helps her stay sane and in control of them. When Regent tries controlling her body, with her permission, he can use her bug control, but without the attached Thinker power it's difficult, clumsy, and quickly gives him a headache.
- Sanity Has Advantages: Taylor ultimately persuades the Butcher collective to give her a chance at being in charge, by pointing out to them how their violent self-indulgent rampages are ultimately self-defeating.What was the good of killing opponents unnecessarily when an Endbringer or something like Nilbog could come along and kill the whole world? Even if the Butcher did manage to survive through reincarnating, what good would ruling over an empty world be? "I" was already striking the right balance of ruthlessness and sympathy — I had the support of some of the strongest parahumans around, and was attracting more to "My" banner.
