Cambrian

The Grimoire's Chosen Ch. 18 (Worm)

Added 2024-10-01 14:53:03 +0000 UTC

A/N: Jason and Taylor talk it out. Also give me ideas for potential Feats going forward btw. Since Taylor is going to be trying to make a list for them to mark off.

-x-X-x-

Taylor thinks about it for a moment, her face serious as the grave as she considers Jason’s question. Finally though, she grabs Jason by the hands and looks him in the eye.

“I know playing it safe is tempting, Jason… but I don’t think you can afford to take that risk.”

Huh? Jason can’t help but be a little baffled by those words. They don’t really seem to match up. Fortunately, Taylor goes on to explain her reasoning.

“Our world isn’t the kind of place where keeping your head down guarantees safety, Jason. You can be as introverted as possible, minding your own business and spending all of your free time inside and away from others, and you still might find yourself in the middle of a Parahuman Attack at any moment… or worse, an Endbringer Attack.”

Letting out a shuddering breath, Taylor squeezes his hands with her own.

“The Endbringers are inevitable. The bad guys that pollute Brockton Bay with their bullshit ideologies and vile actions aren’t going to just take a break so you can wait to power up in a careful and safe manner. Jason… if you don’t reach out with both hands and grab every last scrap of power you can get, you’re only going to find yourself running into a situation where you aren’t strong enough to win down the line.”

Well… damn. He gets it now. He understands what Taylor means. He could sit back, keep doing what he’s been doing, and accumulate power slowly. To be fair, even doing the slow method has netted him a pretty strong set of abilities by this point, and whether it’s by luck or some higher power, there’s even been significant synergy between said abilities.

However, is it really fast enough? Could he tackle an Endbringer tomorrow if one decided to attack Brockton Bay? No… no, he couldn’t. Taylor is right, if he’s not hunting for every last ounce of power he can find, then he’s only going to wind up too weak to do anything when the time finally comes.

That leaves continuing to do things the current way right out. But then, what’s his next best option?

“Should I join the Protectorate then, do you think?”

Even as he asks that, he’s a little hesitant to even consider the idea. It’s not that he dislikes the Protectorate or anything. It’s more that growing up all these years in Brockton Bay has shown him time and time again how ineffectual and useless the Protectorate and PRT seem to be. They might as well just be another gang holding territory in some parts of the city for all the ‘good’ they do.

Taylor shakes her head immediately, apparently having even stronger feelings about the Protectorate than he does.

“No, that’s a bad idea. They’ll only hamstring you, Jason. Bog you down in so much red tape that you never get anything done. Sure, they might help you get more power faster than just staying safe and doing nothing would, but they would also dictate how you use that power, and you’d be forced to follow their orders or face consequences. Better to stay independent.”

It made sense that Taylor would feel that way. After all, she had powers too, and she hadn’t tried to join the Protectorate either. Part of Jason wants to argue though a little bit. He wonders, if he could convince the Protectorate of his eventual capacity for sealing the Endbringers, wouldn’t that get him special treatment?

But a far larger part of him simply doesn’t want to join the Protectorate at all anyways, so he doesn’t bother bringing that up. Instead, he gives Taylor a smile.

“Then… do you want to team up? Going independent would be pretty dangerous… but if we could watch each other’s backs, we’d be better off right?”

Taylor beams right back, nodding happily.

“I agree. That’s our best path forward, really, to work together and focus on getting you as many more points as we can, so you can pick up more of these powers you get as they come in.”

Then, she starts to get excited.

“Oh! And you don’t have to waste your money on Parian either. I can make your costume for you!”

Wait, what? Jason blinks before growing more excited as well.

“Really?”

Taylor nods.

“Yes! I can use Black Widows to produce spider silk and then weave that into a costume that’s both knife-proof and bullet-resistant. I’ve been making my own costume for almost a month now!”

That… gives Jason pause. To her credit, Taylor seems to hear what she said a moment after she said it, because her smile drops and she suddenly looks a little… fidgety. Jason hates to rain on her parade, but given everything they just talked about, he kind of feels like he has to say something.

“A month is an awful long time, Taylor…”

Flushing, Taylor sighs.

“… Yeah, I didn’t really think before I spoke. I guess… I guess you should set up a meeting with Parian after all?”

It seemed like he would need to. Though to be fair to Taylor, who could say that Parian’s turnaround would be any faster than hers? Unless…

“Where’s the bottleneck at for you, Taylor? Is it in producing the spider silk, or is it in designing your costume?”

Eyes lighting up with understanding, Taylor starts to get a bit excited again, though far more muted than last time.

“Oh! I can produce tons of the stuff to be honest. I’m only held back on that front by the number of spiders I’ve collected. But the designing and construction, that takes a lot longer. I think I see where you’re going with this.”

Jason grins and nods.

“We should reach out to Parian together and offer her a trade. A steady supply of your spider silk in exchange for my costume, and maybe help finishing your own? And after that, we can work on continuing to supply her with the material in exchange for a discount or something!”

Only, Jason stops himself a moment later, flushing a bit.

“Ah, not that I’m trying to lay claim to your creations or anything like that Taylor. Obviously the spider silk would be yours to decide what to-mmph!”

Taylor cuts him off mid apology though, wrapping her arms around his neck and silencing him with a deep kiss. When they pull apart a moment later, she shakes her head.

“We’re in this together, Jason. My resources are your resources. And you’re right, once we get our costumes, we can sell the spider silk to Parian and start building up a war chest. We’re going to need a lot of money to get you the things you need to seal the Endbringers, right?”

Letting out a shuddering breath, Jason smiles.

“Right.”

He has a teammate now. Talking to Taylor, getting her on board… it really was the best decision he could have made. That said…

“What do we tell Vicky?”

Taylor pauses at that and tilts her head to the side.

“What do you mean? Are you planning to continue to tutor her?”

Jason doesn’t really have to think too hard about that before nodding.

“Yes. Even if there are arguably more important things to focus on now, I’m not the kind of person who goes back on his deals. I’ll keep tutoring Vicky till the end of the month. We’ll have to work around that bit of scheduling, I’m afraid.”

But Taylor doesn’t seem too concerned. She even shrugs in response.

“That’s fine. I’ll quit my job at the coffee shop if we can work out a deal with Parian that eventually starts bringing in money. That will give us plenty of extra free time. Still, I don’t think you should tell Glory Girl about your powers. She might want you to join New Wave, and then they would want you to reveal your identity. It seems like a bad idea.”

That brings a frown to Jason’s face, until he realizes one key fact… Taylor doesn’t know about Vicky’s true intentions. Nor does she know that New Wave is almost defunct at this point. Jason knows more than most because of his work as Carol’s TA, his friendship with Crystal, and now his tutoring of Vicky.

He knows that Glory Girl is pretty much New Wave’s flagbearer at this point in time, the only one actually going out on regular patrols. He also knows that she’s planning on taking a sponsorship with the Lavere Clinic at the end of the month, which is likely to sever her connection with New Wave in its entirety and leave her independent.

In a lot of ways, Vicky would be a perfect third member of their burgeoning team. But getting Taylor on board with recruiting her would involve revealing Vicky’s secrets to Taylor. He was fine telling Taylor the truth about himself, but Jason had reservations about exposing someone else’s secrets without their permission.

… Maybe he could get Vicky to sign off on him telling Taylor the truth without revealing Taylor’s powers or his own. It couldn’t hurt to ask, right? But for now…

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Okay, which one of us should contact Parian?”

Taylor bites her lower lip, before nodding her head at him.

“You do it. You’re way better with people than I am. Although, if we’re going to interact with another Cape, you realize… we’re going to need codenames?”

Jason blinks, not having thought of that. Shit… she was right. Every Cape had a moniker for their parahuman antics. Even New Wave, who didn’t hide their identities, went around with codenames when they were out and about on Cape Business. If you didn’t come up with your own cape name, you were likely to be saddled with one by those around you. It was inevitable.

“Well… yours is obvious, at least.”

Taylor looks surprised by that.

“Really? I’ve been trying to think up a good one for ages but they all suck or sound too… buggy if you know what I mean. What do you have for me?”

Adopting a somewhat crooked smile, Jason shrugs, downplaying it in case she doesn’t like it.

“I mean, you’ve practically made your own costume out of spider silk, and you’re about to make a deal with a costume designer for a supply of said spider silk. Seems to me that your name should relate to that. Maybe… Silk? Or Weaver?”

Falling silent for a moment, Taylor slowly nods.

“… I like it. Weaver, I mean. Silk is a little too seductress-adjacent for my taste. But Weaver? Weaver is good… really good.”

Jason can’t help but feel pleased with himself. Of course, then Taylor fixes him with a look.

“But what about you?”

Ugh… what about him? He had so many powers, and he was only going to get more. He didn’t want something pretentious though. Even if they were planning on going full steam ahead and getting him as much power as fast as possible, he sort of wanted to downplay things all the same.

“How about… Potential?”

There’s a pause at that, as Taylor gives him an uncertain look.

“It’s a bit of a mouthful, Jason. Not exactly the easiest thing to shout out in the heat of combat.”

Ah, he hadn’t really thought about that. Suddenly, Taylor gets excited again.

“Oh! What about ‘Potent’ instead?”

Potent? As in Powerful? Hah, that was the exact opposite of what he’d originally wanted. And yet… Taylor looks too thrilled to have come up with something after how he helped her. So in the end, Jason smiles back.

“I like it. Potent and Weaver. Weaver and Potent. Not sure if it’ll stick… but we’ll sure try.”

No sooner has he said those words as Taylor nods along, then he gets another feat.

Feat Achieved: Come up with a Cape Name! 100 Points Earned!

You now have 100 Points saved up!

“Oh! I got a Feat for that. Nice…”

Taylor perks up at that, before getting a downright predatory look in her eyes.

“I have to work tonight, but I’m going to spend all the slow hours thinking up potential Feats for you, Jason. Going to make a list, and then we’ll go through them as fast as possible.”

Chuckling nervously, Jason rubs the back of his head. He wasn’t going to tell her that she shouldn’t do that, especially since he knew how boring the coffee shop could be, especially later in the day before closing. But at the same time, he was starting to wonder if he might have unleashed a monster of some sort.

-x-X-x-

Ding!

Chaos Infected – Source – 400 Points

Hold on. How, exactly, have you managed to maintain your sanity? It appears your nature as a being from outside of reality has left you with... talents. Talents that are quite uncommon to the natives of this world. Namely, you can use Chaos magic without being tainted. Chaos magic will twist any spells in the vicinity, animates the dead, and breaks people’s minds almost as a side effect. The Chaotic disadvantage is mandatory, and does not count against the Drawback cap.

You now have 200 Points saved up!

The next pull from his power comes just as Jason is striding up to Vicky’s apartment door for their afternoon tutoring session. He’s sent off a message through PHO to Parian but hadn’t gotten a response back yet in the scant hour or so it’d been since. Jason almost doesn’t even read the pull, planning from the get-go to just Bank it and check it out later… but then the name of it catches his eye and he pauses for a moment to read the entire thing. As he does so, his nose wrinkles more and more in disgust and horror, until finally, he just shakes his head.

Pass.

Sure, his Bank Slot would remain empty for the time being, but frankly, he would rather it be empty than holding something that… disturbing. Even if it allowed him to use Chaos Magic without being tainted himself, it straight up said that it would still affect those around him, not to mention that last part about a ‘Chaotic disadvantage’ being mandatory. Yeah, no thank you.

Jason supposed they couldn’t all be winners, in the end. With a sigh, he knocks on Vicky’s door and is quickly let in by the bombastic bombshell of a blonde. Fortunately she turns away from him the moment he steps inside, because the first words out of her mouth have him freezing up for a long, perilous second.

“Jason! Glad you made it over okay. Apparently, there’s a new Cape skulking around my neighborhood, so we need to be extra careful for a little while.”

Recovering fast, Jason swallows thickly.

“Skulking? Are they a… villain?”

More importantly, did Vicky think that he was a villain? Sure, the woman he’d helped had been a prostitute… but he’d also called the authorities for the man with the broken jaw, right?

Letting out a huff, Vicky throws herself down onto her couch.

“Hmph! They better not be if they know what’s good for them. But… nah, they’re probably heroic. Only, it’s not confirmed yet and neither are their powers, so I still want you to be careful alright? In fact… probably best if you stay overnight for a little while!”

That… wasn’t going to work if he and Taylor were going to start doing nightly patrols as soon as they got in touch with Parian and got their costumes in order. Maybe it was time to bite the bullet.

“Actually Vicky, I did want to talk to you about something. Taylor couldn’t be here today because of work, but I know she wishes she could be. That’s why… I wanted to ask for your permission to tell her the truth. About you and this tutoring and your intentions at the end of the month.”

Vicky pauses at that, blinking at him owlishly.

“What? Why?”

Well, he couldn’t tell her the whole truth obviously, but Jason had come up with an idea on the way over.

“I just… don’t want her to put her all into helping me tutor you for the rest of the month and have her only learn after the fact that I knew your true plans. And she’s trustworthy, I know she won’t snitch or anything. But… I won’t tell her if you don’t want me to.”

What he leaves unsaid is that Taylor will probably understand if they get to the end of the month and he reveals he knew Vicky’s secret all along. After all, Jason is keeping some pretty huge secrets for Taylor now as well.

Still, if Vicky says he can tell her, then Jason will have an avenue through which to try and convince Taylor that they should bring Vicky onboard, maybe. It all comes down to Vicky’s next decision.

-x-X-x-

A/N: Will try to keep this up to date at the end of every chapter, get on me if I forget please. Though if it gets too out of hand, might have to change it at some point.

Jason's current banked points:

200 Celestial Points

Jason's current banked power: