Editing Taylor Hebert (section)

=== [[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"/>