Chapter Text
Taylor
One of her bugs had found him lying at the park. It was about to attack him when it had come into Taylor's range. She had immediately noted the anomaly and went to investigate.
What she found was a man that looked like he was in his late fifties lying unconscious. And she had thought fighting lung would be the strangest thing that happened to her that day.
He was no ordinary man, He was—strange. If she was focusing on what made him similar to humans then he had a lot, he looked like any middle-aged man, with dark black, slightly grey hair, a powerful, if minuscule, build, a sharp beard, and violet eyes. However, that wasn’t what made him special. What made him special was his size. He was small. Small as in six inches small.
She quickly added in her mind that she was thinking about the size of the entire person. He was wearing odd-looking but definitely rich and custom-made clothes. She didn’t think she had ever seen that shade of blue anywhere before. He had a small sword strapped to his belt and a few rings on his fingers.
She wondered who made all of that for him, If he was a case 53 then he was someone who either already had a life on Bet or something about his appearance might hold the clues to where they came from.
Taylor anxiously waited for him to wake up. She had checked his pulse by extending a mosquito’s legs to him. He was either sleeping or unconscious.
It was when she was debating if she should take him to the PRT for medical help that the mosquitoes around him picked up movement.
He was waking up and he sounded groggy.
“Where in the rotten feline’s name am I?” Asked the man and to Taylor’s surprise, he didn’t sound small. He spoke at the same volume as she did without making any apparent effort to shout.
She wanted to greet the guy but before she could the small man opened his eyes fully.
She hadn’t thought about what reaction a pinky-sized man would have when he woke up with hundreds of mosquitoes all around him staring at him from all directions. If she did, then she would have greeted him herself. But the reaction wasn’t what she would have ever expected.
He shot up with the blade on his side raised. It was a blur as he met the first mosquito with his awfully sharp miniature blade. It tore through the limb of the first one seamlessly and cut it in half, the blood from the mosquito burst all over the small man drenching him in red. He didn’t stop there he went on a slaughter against the mosquitoes arrayed around him. Moving at speeds someone of his size has no reason to move in.
Taylor was too astounded to speak. She continued to watch as the man cut one mosquito after another. Then there was a brief pause at which he looked up.
He looked directly up at Taylor. And once he had seen her he crouched down as if he was going to leap towards her. And that’s when she finally opened her mouth.
“Stop. You are hurt. You will hurt yourself more.” She said.
“What are you? An [Insectmaster Assassin]? Sent to me to kill the Titan? I do not how you took me away from my city or how you managed to fool the world's highest level [Rouge]. However, you should have finished your work when I was still unconscious or at least taken away my enchantments. Speak now and you might be spared.” He spoke as he looked at her through her mask. As he spoke his hands were fishing for something in a pouch he had strapped to his belt.
This time his voice didn’t sound like her father’s. It sounded more authoritative and gruff. So much so that she wasn’t focusing on the fact that the little man had made a threat against her.
What she was focusing on though was the way he had spoken. Especially two words.
“What? What was that with the ‘Insectmaster Assassin’? What was that noise you made?”
When he had said ‘Insectmaster Assassin’, it had rung in her brain differently. Like there was something more to it. Something unquantifiable.
The small man had fished out something from his pouch. Something far too large to ever fit in the pouch (tinkertech?). It looked like a transparent flask with some glowing yellow liquid.
It seemed as if the small man was a tinker. She moved a dragonfly closer to him to get a better look.
“Bring your Insects closer to me and die.” Said the man. Taylor stopped bringing the dragonfly closer. There was a palpable threat in his voice and Taylor who had today faced down Lung today hesitated.
A little bit because she didn’t want to experience whatever the small man could bring forth but mostly because she could put herself in his shoes. Waking up with thousands of insects arrayed against you must not have been easy.
“Look—I don’t know what you think I am. I am a cape, a Hero. I can help you or if I can’t I take you to the protectorate who can. Do you have any of your memories?” She asked.
“A Hero or a [Hero]?” He asked.
“What is that, what was that with the second hero?” She asked
“I supposed that answers the question. While I would like to know what kind of Rhirian hell you crawled up from to not know how [Classes] sound. I would like to send word to my Company as soon as I can. Is it too much to ask for that a reputable [Mage’s] Guild or one of my company's foreign outreach facilities are available nearby?” He asked.
Each time he opened his mouth she was gaining more and more questions.
“I can take you to the PRT, I mean—I just bumbled a meeting with Armsmaster but I think I can get you a talk with them. I will do everything I can to get you the help you need. I don’t know if you fit the description well enough but I think you are a Case 53 or close to it.” Taylor said instead of asking any of those questions.
The small man didn’t respond. He looked deep in thought. It felt that it was only now that he was looking around. He looked at a ring on his hands. Then stared around some more. Then muttered something Taylor believed was a curse. Finally, he stared at the lightbulb behind her for a few seconds and Taylor saw complex feelings dancing on the small man's face.
The one feeling she could make out was shame. Which was followed by determination. So he spoke to her with determination and shame. “It seems as if my actions were truly hasty. I thought you were my abductor but I am seeing now how wrong I was. May I ask how you found me? Ah—before that, I am Niers Astoragon, the Titan of Baleros and the [Strategist] of the Forgotten Wings and a Fraerling.”
He had stood up from his curtsy midway through his speech and she felt like he was studying her through her mask as he said that last line.
She chewed on her lips within her mask. To say it was a tiring day would be an understatement. She had just fought and someone took down the strongest criminal in the city. She just wanted to sleep. Now she was talking with an angry small tinker in a park at night.
“This is all going very fast. I mean—Hello Niers. I haven’t chosen a name yet. Today was my first day out as a superhero and I thought a name would—come to me, organically, that is. We don’t share our real names here.” She said.
“Peculiar. Is everyone here the same?” Asked Niers.
“No. Just the capes.” She said assuming that he meant “all people” when he meant everyone.
“And these capes being—” Niers prompted.
“—uh, we are people like me and you?” She half-asked.
“If you were in my class I would deduct marks for not entirely thinking about the question being asked.” Said Niers.
“You have a class? Are you a teacher?” Asked Taylor beside herself. Imagining the small being in front of her teaching a class. She didn’t know if the small man was simply deluded or something more. She was too tired to seriously think about any of it.
“That’s not important. From what I can tell from where the singular moon is positioned, it is quite late at night, do you work at night? Some sort of nightly insect-gathering business? Is that why you are outside?” Asked Niers.
“No, I was just in a cape fight. Uhh—capes being people with powers to do things normal people can’t do. I am going back home. I fought lung and—I won.” Said Taylor with a bit of pride in her voice. Now that she thought about it outside of the battle, it really was something admirable she had done. She with her shitty bug control powers had taken down the man who called himself a dragon.
The next question by the man was something she wasn’t expecting.
“Can I come with you to your home? I cannot survive at night alone, some beast will tear me apart before tomorrow.” Said Niers.
Taylor nodded her head before she could think about it too much.
A less exhausted Taylor might have found a different way to deal with the small man, all she wanted to do was to sleep. If it wasn’t the middle of the night if she wasn’t covered in cuts and bruises, if most of her didn’t desperately beg for her bed, the result would have been different. If the request wasn’t coming from the mouth of a man the size of her pinky, she would not have agreed.
And if he was just a case 53—it couldn’t be all that bad, could it? Some part of Taylor’s brain asked herself. The small man was impressive when he fought literal insects. However, she didn’t think if the man was somehow hiding his strength he would be able to hurt her or her father.
“You won’t try to hurt anyone would you?” She asked.
“Never. Not as long as I am not attacked first. I apologize if the common mosquitoes I killed were somehow important to you. When I return home, I will do everything in my power to reward you sufficiently even if it means sending thousands of men to the heart of Baleros looking for the strangest and most exotic insects we can catch.” He said, fully sincerely.
She—she didn’t want to unravel what he had said. She ignored all her questions and chose the route that will take her to her bed the fastest.
“Sure—whatever. I can take you to my house. It’s nothing special and it will just be me and my dad. I am trusting you with my identity.”
“You will not find your trust misplaced.” Said Niers and Taylor hoped she could trust him.
“Now how would you like to come with me, would you ride on my shoulder or on my larger insects?” Asked Taylor.
“Are any of them bred for Fraerling transportation?“ Asked Niers.
“Bred for? No these are all regular bugs.” Said, Taylor.
“Then I will have to take you up on your offer and ride on your shoulders. I have more experience riding on tallfolk shoulders than I do with insects. I would love to experience moving on them at a later time.” He said.
Taylor with great fascination bought down her hand towards the small guy—or maybe Fraerling, she wasn’t sure. It felt strange when he climbed onto her arm, he was slightly heavier than she was expecting but not too much.
He didn’t move or hug her arms as she moved her hands, he instead was looking around from the vantage point he how had. He was clutching his hands around that same vial he had been since the beginning of their chat. He jumped onto her shoulder the moment she neared her shoulder.
She then started moving. And through the bugs kept an eye on the small man. If she had any doubt that the man she was moving with wasn’t someone from her own world, then it had all abided by the time she looked at how his face changed when looking around.
He was not making a great deal of effort to look nonchalant even if he was stopping himself from shouting. It was as if with each step they took, the man—or Frearling found something world-shattering to his psyche. He stared at cars, poles, houses and printed paper like he had never seen any of those.
She could tell he was bursting at the seams with questions just like she was. In her case, she opted not to ask because she was too tired to find answers but she wondered why he was so quiet.
They passed one house after another under the dim lights of Brockton Bay street lamps. She scouted with her bugs to make sure that she wasn’t being followed or that she wouldn’t run into anyone else this late at night.
—
She climbed into her room through the window she had left open.
“Why are you entering your house like a [Theif]?” Asked Niers.
Taylor made a shooing noise, quieting the Frearling.
“Dad’s asleep. He doesn’t know I went out today and please keep it that way.” Said, Taylor.
Niers nodded. He looked—wistful.
“The days of sneaking out for an adventure. How I don’t miss those horrible old days.” Said Niers.
Niers was perhaps the oldest parahuman Taylor had ever seen. She wondered what “Horrible old days” he meant.
“How old are you, Niers?” Asked Taylor.
“Would you truly want to know, now?” Asked Niers.
She had to think. Did she really want to know when Niers was born? She was too tired for that, wasn’t she?
“I guess we can do that tomorrow.” Said Taylor as she yawned.
As she fell asleep in her costume, she didn’t notice Niers doing—something as he pointed at her.
She did notice the sounds echoing in her head as she was embraced by sleep.
[Beekeeper Class Obtained!]
[Pestilance Mage Class Obtained!]
[Hero Class Obtained!]
[Arachnid Druid Class Ob—
[Parahuman Class Created!]
[Parahuman Level 8!]
[Skill – Valor of Champions obtained!]
[Skill – Sure Footing obtained!]
[Skill – Dragonhide Skin obtained!]
[Skill – Shadowcloak Stealth obtained!]
[Unit – Ashfire Bees obtained!]
[Unit – The Crimson Stingers obtained!]
[Skill – Minds in Infinity Learned!]
[Affliction – Shards of the Warrior obtained!]
[Affliction – Conflict Drive obtained!]
—
AN: If someone feels like Taylor’s reasons to trust Niers are too convenient. It will be explained in the next.
This story started as a thought experiment on how a TWI character will act in the modern world. The options I considered were between Niers, Flos and Dionamella. I tried writing with Flos, but it was proving impossible. He was just—too much. I might actually try writing a Dionamella in worm (or maybe Young Justice or MCU) since chronomancy fascinates me but for now, we have everyone’s favourite smol [Strategist] in worm.
Also, Niers is level 64. We know ~50 of his skills. He should have ~100 skills if we go by ~1.5 skills at every level as an average. I am trying to say that I reserve the right to create possible skills for Niers that are not shown in TWI