Editing Taylor Hebert (section)

==History==
===Background===
Taylor Anne Hebert was born in June 1995, arguably on the 12th<ref>“It’s the nineteenth,” he said.  “Your birthday was a week ago.” - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/12/15 Excerpt] from [[Monarch 16.7]]</ref> (i.e., a week before the 19th<ref name="25.1 e1">“Will you state your name for the record?”<br><br>“Taylor Hebert.”<br><br>“Your date of birth?”<br><br>“June nineteenth, 1995.” - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/06/29/scarab-25-1/ Excerpt] from [[Scarab 25.1]] (this was later redacted by [https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/44301909/ WoG])</ref>) or the 11th (i.e., about a week before the 19th and the date Worm [[Gestation 1.1|began]]).<ref>'''Assembler:''' In Monarch 16.9, Danny said that Taylor's birthday was a week before June 19th. However, in Scarab 25.1, Taylor said in court that her birthday was the 19th.<br><br>'''Maroon Sweater:''' I like it being the 12th because i like the beat where she blanked out on turning 16<br><br>'''Assembler:''' I find it interesting that about a week before the 19th is June 11th, and June 11th, 2011 is the day you posted Worm's first chapter.<br><br>'''Wildbow:''' @ Asse - I do believe that was the rationale for it being her birthday. But yeah, it's not the 19th. - Conversation with Wildbow on Discord, archived on Spacebattles</ref><!-- https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/44301909 -->

Growing up, Taylor's parents showed concern for her safety. They warned her to stay on the [[Boardwalk]] and avoided the bad part of town, a command she scrupulously obeyed.<ref name="1.3"/>

When she was around five or six, she saw a meth addict freak out on the bus, making enough of a ruckus that the driver had to stop and force him off. This fright permanently affected her.<ref name="5.8"/>

Her mother, [[Annette Rose Hebert]], died in a car crash later attributed to texting while driving. As a result of the incident, Taylor becomes closed off and rigid. Her previously strong friendship with [[Emma Barnes]] became strained due to this change, but it still served as an emotional pillar.

A year and a half before the story begins, just before they enter high school,<ref name="1.1">[[Gestation 1.1]]</ref> Emma unexpectedly abandoned Taylor to befriend [[Sophia Hess]] and later [[Madison Clements]]. [[The Trio]] then began aggressively bullying Taylor, including one event in early January<ref name="I3c">[https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/interlude-3-2/#comment-11512 Comment by Wildbow on Interlude 3]</ref> that causes Taylor to trigger. They send her vicious e-mails, upend trash over her desk, and steal her mother's flute from her locker.<ref name="1.1"/> Others join in, ‘accidentally’ skipping her when passing out assignments and adding their own voices to the taunts and emails.Taylor begins lying low in the bathrooms during lunch and comes to view it as "refuge ... a place I could retreat to, a place where I was off their radar".<ref name="1.1"/>

In January 2011, she arrived back at school to find her locker had been filled with used pads and tampons, and then someone shoved her inside. She triggered after enough time had passed to realise no one who'd seen what happened was trying to help,<ref>[[Shell 4.3]]</ref> and was freed from the locker by or before the end of first period.<ref name="period">Taylor's classes are an hour and a half long, or an hour and fifteen minutes long, IIRC, with a bit of extra time for homeroom announcements and whatnot. She arrives at the start of the day and goes to her locker, she gets shoved into her locker and she has time to get a glimpse of people looking - and enough time passes that she realizes that those same people who saw didn't take any action on her behalf. She's not really in a position to bang, facing in, too cramped to turn around.<br><br>Not so much time passes that the next class starts - or it's as the class opens that people realize what happened and that's when she's let out. - Comment by Wildbow on [https://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/comments/9ap0iv/_/e4xkgwp/ Reddit]</ref> While she recovered in hospital she was visited by the PRT in case she had triggered. She was overwhelmed by the sensory input of her power and didn't notice.<ref name="TT">'''Wildbow:''' Generally the PRT will pay visits to likely triggerees - special cases, victims of extraordinary violence or disaster, etc. They paid a visit to Taylor in her hospital room, for example, though nothing came of that.<br><br>[Edit with afterthought: Crisis points, ftr]<br>[...]<br>'''Discreet:''' If she did get visited by a hero, I'd find it odd that she'd never mention it, especially when at one point or another she's fighting them later in the story or stuffing centipedes in their mouth<br><br>'''Wildbow:''' Taylor was near catatonic when she got a visit. - [https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/44301909/ Conversation with Wildbow on Discord], archived on Spacebattles.</ref> Her near catatonic state kept them from drawing any conclusions.

Three months before the story begins -- once Taylor recovered from her trigger event -- she started to prepare herself to become a hero.<ref name="1.2">[https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/gestation-1-2/ Excerpt] from [[Gestation 1.2]]</ref> She exercised, honed her abilities, doing research and preparing her costume. Her training schedule consisted of running every morning and every other afternoon.<ref name="1.3">[https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/gestation-1-3/ Excerpt] from [[Gestation 1.3]]</ref> She resisted using her power in school for three months, restricting it to a faint buzzing sound at the edge of her consciousness.<ref name="1.1"/> She conducted practice sessions, "far from prying eyes", to determine the extent of her power.<ref name="1.1"/>

At some point, her backpack was stolen from her locker by the Trio and stuffed in a trash can. She bought a new one for twelve bucks. This incident alerted her to the risk of someone reading her notes, and she rewrote them in code. Around the same time, she began hiding equipment for her superheroics in a boarded-up coal chute in her basement.<ref name="1.2"/>

=== Story Start===
On April 8th, 2011,<ref name="I3c"/> Taylor was discovered in the School bathroom, ruining her hiding place. The Trio drenches her clothes and bag in juice. She then throws her bag against the wall in anger, her midterm project -- due that day -- is destroyed. She finally lets her defenses drop and is automatically swarmed with bugs responding to her emotional distress, but she resists killing the trio.<ref name="1.1"/>

At home, Taylor discovers the juice also ruined many of the contents of her bag, including notes on her eventual superhero career. This event pushes Taylor to stop putting off the start of said career.<ref name="1.2"/> That weekend Taylor completes her costume and on Sunday night goes out in costume for the first time, crossing into the "bad part of town" just after midnight.<ref name="1.3"/>

On that first night out, Taylor notices a group of [[ABB]] members, including [[Lung]] (who she recognizes immediately from the news and online). She hears them discussing killing "children".<ref name="1.3"/> She [[Unnamed_Bug_Girl_vs._Lung|fights Lung alongside the Undersiders]].

Having been seemingly mistaken for a villain, Taylor joined the Undersiders, intending to gather information as a mole. She helped them [[Battle at the Bank|rob a bank]] and [[Battle at the Gallery|attack a fundraiser]], embarrassing the heroes. 

She was concussed when [[Bakuda vs. The Undersiders|the ABB ambushed them]]. [[Bakuda]] launched a wave of bombing against the city to free Lung, forcing the other villains to unite against her. Skitter personally defeated Lung after he defeated [[Kaiser]], [[Fenja]], [[Menja]], [[Bitch]] and [[Sundancer]].

She fought the [[Endbringer]] [[Leviathan]] when he [[Battle against Leviathan|attacked Brockton Bay]], helping to track his location and rescue wounded until her communicator was fried. She was nearby when [[Colin Wallis|Armsmaster]] duelled the monster and picked up his Halberd when he fell, using it to wound the monster and help other heroes clear rubble.

===Post-[[Battle against Leviathan|Leviathan]]===
Taylor discovered that the hero [[Shadow Stalker]] was in fact [[Sophia Hess]], one of the girls who had tormented her. In the ensuing conversation, Armsmaster was revealed by [[Tattletale]] to have fried her armband in order to prevent her giving away the beast's location to other heroes, which would have prevented him duelling it one-on-one. In revenge, he revealed Taylor's status as a mole to the Undersiders.<ref name="8.7">[[Extermination 8.7]]</ref>

Nevertheless, she rejoined the Undersiders, disillusioned with the heroes. She agreed to [[Coil]]'s plan to take over the city, claiming a territory. There she fought the [[Slaughterhouse Nine]].

===Post-[[Slaughterhouse Nine]]===
Spearheaded winning strategies against [[Dragon]]'s suits.

On June 19th, Coil completed his takeover of the city by faking his death and discrediting [[Emily Piggot]]. He claimed he was going to release [[Dinah Alcott]], as agreed, but instead [[Coil's Betrayal|attacked Skitter.]] After the Undersiders defeated Coil, Taylor killed him.<ref>[[Monarch 16.13]]</ref>

=== Post-[[Battle against Echidna|Echidna]] ===
Taylor felt increasing pressure from the authorities, who revealed her secret identity to the public during a confrontation at Arcadia, in which Dragon publicly outed her in a cafeteria with hundreds of her classmates and some faculty present. Though she revealed no secrets, she managed to sow distrust in the Protectorate by indicating her knowledge. Taylor's already-shaky confidence took a blow when Dragon revealed that Dinah Alcott had helped the PRT by determining that the odds of them capturing Taylor was 96.8 percent, high enough for the PRT and Protectorate to willfully violate the Unwritten Rules. Though hurt by this, Taylor didn't waver, and managed to leverage the heroic actions she had done to convince over a hundred students to help her successfully escape the Protectorate. Within the safety of her own territories, Taylor continued to operate in Brockton Bay alongside the Undersiders.

After learning that Dinah predicted the world's survivability was dependent on Skitter surrendering to the Protectorate, Taylor attempts to manage a conditional surrender to the PRT in the hopes of bringing about reforms that'll better their odds. This initially fails, but after she eliminates the [[PRT]]'s local and national leadership by killing Tagg and Alexandria, with the details of their demises subsequently fabricated, she was proclaimed a hero, and is rebranded as "Weaver".<ref>[[Cell]]</ref>  

Taylor is then charged as an adult due to the amount and severity of her crimes. PRT requests for leniency during the trial result in her being sentenced to probationary membership in the Chicago Wards, along with imprisonment in a medium security facility when off-duty. When introduced to the Wards, Taylor begins to chafe under the restrictions imposed on her, being limited to PR campaigns and a limited range of non-venomous insects when engaging in any serious operations, in addition to the wariness and mistrust in her by her teammates.

Took part in the battle against [[Behemoth]] in [[Behemoth vs New Delhi|New Delhi]].

===The [[Timeskip]] ===
Taylor spends the timeskip as a member of the [[Chicago]] [[Wards]], participating in many [[Endbringer]] fights. She helped her team expand their operations into neighboring cities.

Together with Golem, they studied and trained relentlessly in preparation for the end of the world and [[Jack Slash]]'s challenge.

She participated in the fight against the [[Slaughterhouse 9000]].

=== [[Gold Morning]]===
Taylor was mortally wounded during the [[Oil-rig battle]] and, after being healed by [[Amy Dallon|Panacea]], spent two to three days unconscious.<ref>Two days, at least, I’d been out, probably three, if I judged by the state of my hair.  Rachel rubbing my head hadn’t helped. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/08/31/cockroaches-28-1/ Excerpt] from [[Cockroaches 28.1]]</ref> Was present for the interrogation of [[Saint]] shortly after waking up. Going off of what Dinah told Taylor about what she saw in her vision of the end of the world, she and the Undersiders [[Lung|collected]] [[Shadow Stalker|company]] and went to convince the [[Endbringers]] to help humanity in the fight against Scion. 

Attended the cape meeting in the ruins of [[Agnes Court]]'s settlement. 

Got irrationally annoyed when [[the Simurgh]], who was following the Undersiders, was tethered to Tattletale instead of herself.<ref>But a small part of me had hoped that the Simurgh had picked ''me'' to follow.  That same part of me had almost believed it, taken it for granted.  It was horrible and scary and almost ''wrong'', having an Endbringer at one’s beck and call, but I’d been prepared to shoulder the burden.  I ''wanted'' to handle it, so people I cared about wouldn’t have to.<br><br>Another part of me?  Maybe it had wanted her to be stuck to me, just to have one more tether keeping me connected, at a point where I felt like I wasn’t very connected at all.<br><br>And perhaps I wanted it to have the power so close to hand, so I could be ''relevant''. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/cockroaches-28-6/ Excerpt] from [[Cockroaches 28.6]]</ref> 

Spent an hour saying last goodbyes to [[Charlotte]], [[Forrest]], [[Glenn Chambers]] and [[Quinn Calle]]. 

Was reminded of Dinah's second message by the Simurgh when she visited Tattletale.

When [[Doormaker]] was incapacitated she led a strike team to investigate the [[Cauldron Compound]], and to find a viable weapon or a solution against Scion. She and her strike team killed a significant amount if not most of the [[The Irregulars|Irregulars]]'s leadership, including [[Mantellum]].<ref>One pass.  A lazy swoop with the swarm, the knife suspended by threads.<br><br>I couldn’t see, even with the camera, but I was aware of Mantellum stopping in his tracks.  The boundaries of the circle stopped drifting in the general direction of the stairwell.<br><br>I waited, ''willed'' the lights to flicker.  Time passed.<br><br>People were reacting, outside the circle.  How much damage had I done?<br><br>The lights went out.<br><br>Another pass.<br><br>Mantellum’s effect dissipated.  The blind spot filled in, a crowd, capes, blood spraying.  My bugs could sense them all. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/09/28/venom-29-5/ Excerpt] from [[Venom 29.5]]</ref><ref>Floret shrugged.  “We could handle a computer, a lock, even a vault, no sweat.  But not this.  The plan was to wait for the group on the other side of the facility to forge their way through the steel, or ''around'' the steel, but someone gave the Custodian a tinker-made super death knife, and well…”<br><br>“That was me,” I said.  “Nothing to do with the Custodian.”<br><br>“Ah, well,” Satyr said.  “Good and bad to any situation.  We’ll be able to assert control over that group more easily, with their leadership dead.  And there won’t be as great a chance that they take the good Doctor out before we can get a word in… but progress will be slower, and we don’t have much time to spare." - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/venom-29-6/ Excerpt] from [[Venom 29.6]]</ref> She made her team taunt Scion with his [[Eden|partner]]'s corpse before dropping the entire Cauldron compound on his head. 

After having successfully exfiltrated what remained of the Cauldron compound together with her team and the surviving Cauldron personnel, and with no clear-cut solution in sight, she asked [[Panacea]] to modify her [[Corona Pollentia]] as a move of desperation. The expression of her power changed drastically, gaining the ability to control nearly any living being in a short radius around her, at the cost of most of her control over her body, written text, speech, and a stark reduction in the range and precision of the control of her bugs. 

An attempt was made to seal [[Rise of Khepri|Khepri]] in a cave far away from the fighting, but was met with failure as she figured out her newfound powers. After her escape, she started experimenting, trying to figure out the powers of the people she could control. She talked with [[Glaistig Uaine]], who pressed her on the importance of Anchors: People and places that she would need to remember lest she risked irrevocably losing herself to her power. 

After connecting herself to the [[Clairvoyant]] and Doormaker, she breached the world the C.U.I was hiding in with the aid of [[Teacher]]'s tinkertech to control [[The Yàngbǎn|the Yangban]]. With her mental state deteriorating, she fought [[Dragon]] over the remaining Birdcage prisoners, and again after she faked her death. She momentarily lost control over her army when Dragon deployed a drone that scrambled Doormaker's portals. 

Free of hazards and enemies that could stop her, she finished building her army, pulling capes from all around the world and even different ones with her to fight Scion. She had long since stopped being able to comprehend languages, and she started forgetting the identities and faces of the people she knew, losing her anchors one-by-one. 

She tried one strategy after the other on Scion, temporarily trapping him in a world using one of Teacher's devices. She used the bought time to re-organize her army, to hit him with a constant variety of different powers to deny him adapting to any one of them. 

Thanks to her omniscience and support from dozens of [[Thinker|Thinkers]] in her thrall, she could react to Scion's attack near instantaneously. As a result, casualties were relatively light. She had to switch gears and use [[Canary]]'s power to induce calmness into her army after [[Moord Nag]] got a stroke. Her control didn't extend to the mind, and everyone started to succumb to the stress. 

Meanwhile a massive tinker project, a collaborative effort of hundreds of tinkers whose powers had been distributed among themselves by Null, was built and finished by Khepri's subconscious. It was meant to break through the dimensional barrier hiding Scion's true body. It didn't succeed.  

Scion, using his own path-to-victory power, started going after her specifically. Despite linking up every precog with Null's power, partially circumventing his precog immunity, Khepri didn't succeed in throwing him off her tail. In a last ditch effort, she had [[Flechette|Foil]] and [[Ballistic]] use their powers on a rock, and observed how Scion broke off his pursuit to dodge the projectile. She theorized that Scion had fail safes and contingency measures in place that would override his existing path should he be placed in a situation where he could be threatened. 

Keeping him busy with capes tough enough to withstand him, she organized the Tinkers to rebuild their dimensional breach device into a weapon. 

After observing an artificial construct resembling Scion's partner and his emotional reaction to it, Khepri figured out Scion's weak point. With an actual plan in hand, she started sending every cape under her control to [[New York]]. Unfortunately, she had used Doormaker's shard to such extent it had run out of power, closing every portal she had created. She lost control of most of her army beyond her personal range. 

Khepri's mental state deteriorated rapidly from this point onward, but retained enough awareness to notice her brain swelling and changing.<ref>Except ''thinking'' was harder still.  I was a husk, and things were rotting from the inside out.  I’d hoped I’d recuperate some when I had less people in my control, but it didn’t seem like it worked out that way.  Damage done was damage done.  One section of my brain was swelling or creeping out to take over other sections, like it had overwritten dog-girl’s social perceptions. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/speck-30-6/ Excerpt] from [[Speck 30.6]]</ref> Regardless, after instilling confidence into the battlefield with Canary, relayed through every available phone, she started building up an army consisting of [[Changer|Changers]] and [[Shaker|Shakers]] with the help of [[Labyrinth]]'s and [[Scrub]]'s powers. She recreated parts of the partner's body and their face, which Scion would prioritize destroying before fighting. 

After repeated taunting by both Khepri and others who had started copying what she was doing, Scion released an indiscriminate destructive blast. She offered her friends, whom she could barely name at this point, a way out which they declined. [[Glaistig Uaine|Glaistig Uiane]], with Doormaker's shade, opened up portals to evacuate everyone but Khepri, leaving her alone. Khepri survived by making her own portals with Labyrinth and Scrub, using Narwhal's forcefields to propel them out of range. 

In the immediate aftermath, Khepri created a portal right next to Glaistig Uiane, taking temporary control over her and Doormaker's shade. She delivered the killing blow to Scion by opening a portal between him and [[Oliver]], whose power made him resemble his dead partner, making him feel a brief moment of hope before it faded away. He didn't resist Foil's arrows tearing into him and, in perfect synchronization, the tinkertech interdimensional gun that destroyed his true body. 

Almost immediately after, Khepri's mental degradation was complete. She couldn't remember her own name or past, and she mistook the people cheering for Scion's defeat as them fighting amongst each other. Conflict followed, where Khepri tried and failed to flee with as many people as possible with the intention to re-assert control over the world when she recovered. Her friends tried to talk her down, using the pepper spray can she had used earlier to prove her identity.<ref>“I’m not getting enough details here to paint a picture.  I trust the hell out of you, but I’m not sure this ''is'' you, Taylor.”<br><br>I pocketed my phone, then reached into my belt.  I hesitated for an instant, then pressed my hand to my chest for long seconds.  I knew I didn’t have time to spare, but…  no.  I didn’t have time to spare.<br><br>I opened a portal twenty feet above Tattletale, then opened my hand.  The little tube of pepper spray dropped through the portal.  Tattletale caught it. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/speck-30-2/ Excerpt] from [[Speck 30.2]]</ref> It failed, she could neither recognize the can or her friends. 

Chased by a small army of flyers, Khepri was herded towards Glaistig Uaine, who offered her a portal to an empty world to escape to. Her passenger managed to convince Khepri to let go of all the capes under her control before entering the portal and letting go of the Clairvoyant on the other side, going unconscious for days as a side-effect of using the Clairvoyant's power. 

When she roused, she came face-to-face with [[Contessa]], who tracked her down to the world she was in. They had a meaningful conversation, aided by Contessa's power, about past events, legacies and regrets. Contessa gave her the choice of two options, and, as a result of the unexpressed self-depreciation for herself, Taylor chose death.<ref>“A choice?”<br><br>“Life and death.  Or so I thought.  I chose death, and she gave me life, and I’m still trying to reconcile ''why''.” - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/interlude-end/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude: End]]</ref> Contessa then shoots two bullets into the back of Taylor's head.<ref name="30.7"/>

===Post-[[Gold Morning]]===
Against Taylor's wishes, [[Contessa]] appears to have spared her: the two bullets seemingly disabled Taylor so that Contessa could arrange a [[Corona_Pollentia#Power Removal|power removal]].<ref>Her hand touched her forehead, and she felt a pair of soft spots, each barely wider across than a dime.  She ran her hand over her short hair.  She didn’t know how it had happened, but she could guess.  Bullets to disable her, surgery to seal her power away.<br><br>Cauldron, apparently, did have a means of locking powers away.  Or maybe it was Contessa, doing the work, or perhaps she’d simply been kept alive, carted to Panacea or Bonesaw, who could fix things up.<br><br>But dwelling on those things wasn’t healthy, and it was pointless in the end.  She’d likely never get a serious answer.  She only had the two dimples or holes in her skull, the sole apparent casualty of some kind of brain surgery. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/interlude-end/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude: End]]</ref> Contessa then appears to have exiled the unpowered Taylor with her dad to a world sealed from the multiverse. Taylor now possesses an artificial right arm she is learning to get used to, and her long hair is cropped short. She also has two dime-sized dimple scars on her forehead (and presumably the back of her head as well) from the gunshots. She meets an alternate version of her mother there who is still alive, had married someone other than Danny and had two young sons. Taylor aims to pursue a normal life, but struggles to find peace now that she has it after all the decisions she's made and how nothing she'll ever do will ever come close in importance to what she did before. Taylor also questions why Contessa spared her when she asked for death, forcing her to come to terms with her regrets and causing her to doubt things could be going well for her and her dad. Taylor expressed the difficulty she was having in reconciling the past, and the doubts she was having for both the present and the future.<ref name=":1"/> 

Confiding in her mother about her identity and her troubles, they agree to meet again for more casual conversation. As Taylor leaves with her thoughts more clarified from her talk, she spots a boy that reminds her of Alec, but dismisses the similarities as minor if entirely absent. Meeting up with her dad, who has a new chance to be a parent to her in aiding her recovery in their new life, Taylor states that, although she has a lot of stuff bothering her, she's dealt with worse and could maybe deal with it and learn to be okay.<ref name=":1"/> 

After Gold Morning, speaking of or mentioning Taylor by any of her names was considered taboo by most parahumans. Her survival or demise was unknown to wider society: Taylor is gone.<ref>'''Point_Me_@_The_Sky:''' Now she’s gone and you’re still here.<br><br>FlippinMad: Gone?<br>FlippinMad: she retired?  Or she’s dead?  Gone gone?<br><br>'''Point_Me_@_The_Sky:''' She is *gone*. - [[Glow-worm P.9]]</ref><ref>'''ViVaVl29:''' Dropped ward a couple months ago. Just want to know do we ever definitively find out Taylor’s situation?<br><br>'''Wildbow:''' In Glow-Worm, it's stated outright that she's gone. - Conversation with by Wildbow on Reddit</ref><!-- https://redd.it/f9k816 -->