Canary

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<tabber> |-|Worm=

{{#if:Canary to KhepriSpeck 30.1|

“	I took Cauldron’s stuff, it messed me up, physically. I felt horrible, I went a little crazy. And maybe three years after I picked myself up and pulled it all together, everything went to shit. [...] So I- I know what you’re feeling. But you can make peace with it. So… don’t beat yourself up too hard? Take it from someone that’s done that too much.	”
{{#if:Canary to Khepri| —Canary to Khepri{{#if:Speck 30.1|, Speck 30.1}} }} }}

|-|Ward=

{{#if:SwansongInterlude 15.z II|

“	The one in yellow injected herself with the intact syringe. There was a long pause, and then she nodded. Then she stabbed her upper arm with the broken end of the other syringe.	”
{{#if:Swansong| —Swansong{{#if:Interlude 15.z II|, Interlude 15.z II}} }} }}

</tabber> <infobox> <title source="name"><default>Canary</default></title>

<image source="Image"></image> <image source="image"></image> <group><header>Basic Information</header> <label>Civilian Name</label> <label>Aliases</label> <label>Gender</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Death</label> <label>Age</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Post-timeskip</label> <label>Ward start</label> <label>Relations</label> <label>Family</label></group> <group><header>Professional Status</header> <label>Occupation</label> <label>Classification</label> <label>Unique Features</label> <label>Alignment</label>

<label>Status</label><format>

Alive

</format>

<label>Location</label> <label>Teams</label> <label>Previous Team(s)</label> <label>Base of Operations</label></group> <group><header>First Appearance</header> <label>Worm Debut</label> <label>Ward Debut</label></group> </infobox>Paige Mcabee is a Rogue and a singer. Her stage name is Bad Canary, or just Canary for short.

Personality

Paige is a lover of music. She showed no desire to harm others, only wishing to use her power to enhance her singing career.

For a full grown woman with her range of experiences she is still naive about things.<ref name=28.5e2> - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.5</ref>

She can be hard on herself.<ref>“Alright,” he said. He put an arm on Canary’s armored shoulder. “Canary? Please step through. I’ll be right behind you.”

She started to obey, then stopped. “I… I really know how you feel, Weaver. Sort of. I took Cauldron’s stuff, it messed me up, physically. I felt horrible, I went a little crazy. And maybe three years after I picked myself up and pulled it all together, everything went to shit. Like life was reminding me of the mistake I made. So I- I know what you’re feeling. But you can make peace with it. So… don’t beat yourself up too hard? Take it from someone that’s done that too much.” - Speck 30.1</ref>

During Gold Morning, when not being controlled by Khepri, she prioritized rescuing the wounded and getting them to where they could be helped.<ref>It was only twenty capes. Negligible. But I wasn’t going to settle. If I was going to compromise on any level, it was going to take more than this.

I created a portal, and I ensnared Canary, who was busy rescuing the wounded, flying here and there with her Dragonslayer suit, her arms full.

She set down the wounded, and then she passed through the portal. - Speck 30.4</ref><ref name="30.6 eRescue">I passed them, making a beeline for someone else, flying over the cloud of dust, trying to see people. She’d been doing rescue before, getting people to where they could be helped.

Now… now she was a tool I needed if I was going to win this.
[...]
I couldn’t get her to talk properly.
[...]
So I had her wail instead, a frantic sound that was justifiable in how little sense it made.

A girl with flying armor and bright yellow hair descended, ready to help the apparently wounded girl.

When she got close enough to touch them, she fell within my power’s range. - Speck 30.6</ref> After Gold Morning, she chose to join the Wardens under Valkyrie's division. She is much braver, participating in both the Attack on Teacher<ref name="II15.z eValkyrie" /> and the fight against the Titans.<ref name="II18.10 e1" /> When given mission-important syringes delivered by Swansong, although wary of the broken one, she still willingly injected herself with it.<ref name="II15.z eInjection">The conversation overlapped with another, similar one. The girl in yellow had the syringe, and another cape held the broken traces of the other one.

“What do I do with it?”

“I think you use it, Canary.”

“And the broken one? I don’t know how I’d get that little fluid in, but I don’t like the ideas, not when it’s mixed with broken glass, or whatever that is.”

“It seemed important.”

There was a pause. The two groups converged.

The one in yellow injected herself with the intact syringe. There was a long pause, and then she nodded.

Then she stabbed her upper arm with the broken end of the other syringe.. - Excerpt from Interlude 15.z II</ref>

Relationships

Dragon

Was touched by the efforts that Dragon went through to keep her out of prison.<ref name=I6e3>“Prisoner 601, codename Canary. PRT powers designation Master 8. Recommended protocols were properly carried out, with provided restraints and no human personnel being brought within three hundred yards of said individual’s position. Hi Canary.”

Paige blinked a few times in surprise, “Hi?”

“I followed your trial. I thought it was a damn shame things went like they did. I get that it was a reckless accident, but you don’t deserve to be here. I even wrote a letter to your judge, the DA and your governor saying as much. I’m sorry it wasn’t enough.” - Excerpt from Interlude 6</ref>

Felt that she owed the hero something after hearing everything Dragon did for her.<ref name=28.2e1>He nodded. “Well enough. There’s no risk in letting them near Saint. Imp is a stranger-five, Canary is a master eight, but I would be very, very surprised if she had taken control of anyone here for the purposes of misleading us or breaking Saint out.”

“Surprised in what sense? The nature of her power? Because of Weaver and the Undersiders? Or because Canary isn’t that type?”

“I somehow doubt the Undersiders would allow it, and yes, Canary isn’t the type.”

“Why couldn’t people have given me that benefit of a doubt during my trial?” Canary asked.

“Dragon did. She went through every legitimate channel possible in an attempt to help you,” Defiant answered. “The moment the topic of Birdcage inmates first came up, she had you on a list of release candidates. I used that list when we were negotiating the deal.”

I glanced at Canary. She was staring at Defiant, her expression concerned.

“So she’s the reason I’m free?”

Defiant nodded.

“I owe her, then,” Canary said, as if she’d made a decision.

“Yes. Probably.” - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.2</ref>

Lustrum

Paige entered Lustrum's cell block so that she would survive her time in the Birdcage. The super villain gave her protection.<ref name=28.5e1/>

Canary did not rejoin her block during the Birdcage release.<ref name=27.3e1>Other prisoners were arriving. Dozens. Some seemed to be subordinate to the cell block leaders. Others, they didn’t look like they had a place to go. I watched Lustrum beckon to a girl with yellow feathers in her hair, and the girl didn’t budge. - Excerpt from Extinction 27.3</ref>

Appearance

Paige is a young woman with bright yellow feathers growing among her hair. For PR reasons she dressed in bright colors to enhance her "canary" image and reduce any potential similarities between her and the marble-white Simurgh,<ref name=28.1e1/> who also happens to be a well-known Master with feathers.<ref name="SB1"/>

During Gold Morning, she wore yellow Dragonslayers body armor with a helmet.<ref name="29.3">“Grim group,” Floret commented. “I know black’s ‘in’ with the end of the world, but damn. Only one person with style.”

I looked over my shoulder.
[...]
Canary was the only one, apparently, who met Floret’s standards. Yellow body armor, her helmet in one hand, her hair and feathers free. - Excerpt from Venom 29.3</ref> She also wore power armor after the ice broke.<ref name="II18.10 e1">The de-facto meeting place. The lobby of Teacher’s headquarters, tracked with mud and muck from the recent passage of many people coming in from the winter, though it was largely empty now. A space that a four story building could have fit in, large front doors opposite an unnecessarily wide set of stairs. The stories above us looked down at the lobby, and there were already capes and civilians gathered there. At the base of the stairs, something that might have been a truck lift to carry a truck up the stairs had been elevated to serve as a stage.

A few of the Wardens were there on the stage. I saw Naphtha, and I recognized Canary’s face and uncannily yellow hair, though she wore power armor. Roughly thirty capes with a minimum of armor and weapons were by the front doors, forming a loose line.
[...]
“…Thank you,” Naphtha said. “When the portals open, we’re going to need you to move swiftly. The Titans won’t be close, but they may be aware and they’ll be swift to arrive. Some of the ones I noted in particular. Titan Oberon’s cell is swift-moving in particular.”

Placing us at a location far from the titans, but close to one of the presumed focal points. The screen perpetually had a corner with a map of the paths the energy had traveled.

“We’ll be right at your side,” Naphtha stated. - Radiation 18.10</ref>

Abilities and Powers

Canary's power makes her a superlatively-good singer, but it also makes anyone who hears her song susceptible to suggestions. This Master aspect of her power is capable of affecting anyone that hears her singing and is powerful enough for the PRT to issue her a threat rating of Master 8.<ref name="I6"/> An issue with her powers is that it doesn't come packaged with any kind of instinctive ability to tell when someone is under the influence of her Master ability, which can accidentally cause words that were intended to be part of an ongoing conversation to turn into a power-enforced command. This caused an unfortunate incident when she inadvertently told someone who she was unaware was currently under the influence of her power to "Go fuck yourself!".

Her power does not only make those who hear it susceptible to her suggestions. Anyone can give suggestions. These suggestions have a wide range of applications. From physical reactions such as being told to nod ones head to involuntary actions. Being told to calm down will calm an affected subject even if the situation is immediately dangerous to the individual.

The suggestions tend to be taken extremely literally. The above incident for example. Another example is one subject being told to hold still results in the subject attempting to hold his breath until the suggestion was amended with additional commands allowing breathing. Whether he would have suffocated or passed out from oxygen deprivation or taken in a breath at the last possible moment is left unclear. Forgetting is also a possibility <ref>Re: Boyfriend

Treads on villain territory, and she has the unfortunate factor that she can’t tell someone to ‘forget’ what she instructed them to do (not that she’d practiced this aspect of her powers). Telling her boyfriend to be happy with an amicable breakup (and not to tell anyone, I assume) would lead to her being charged with assault with a parahuman weapon in a fashion not much different from what happened in this chapter, as soon as he found another way to communicate it to someone, as soon as someone else found out, or as soon as the effect wore off. - Comment by Wildbow on Interlude 6</ref>

Her power is severely muted when transferred by technology.<ref>She normally only has a minor effect in actual recordings or speakers. It was Swansong. - Excerpt from Interlude 15.z II</ref> Even minor effects can be dangerous of course, as can be seen in the descriptions of some of her raw vocal recordings.<ref>Featherlight - Raw track, has no non-raw variant. Ethereal vocal rock. Anyone who's been listening from the start gets hard-shoved into a dissociative state for the last minute or so. Really scary. Some 'vendors' are allegedly refusing to push it out there. Hypnosis music. Only saving grace is that bad actors really need a solid sound system and there's a four-minute lead-up time to make it work. Excerpt from PHO Sunday</ref>

History

Background

Paige purchased a vial from Cauldron, asking them to give her a power that would help her build a career as a stage musician.<ref name=28.1e1>“Maybe Canary could shed light on this?” Tattletale suggested.

Canary’s eyes opened wide.

“You bought Cauldron powers?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Pretty rare for a natural cape to get powers with physical changes,” Tattletale said. “Cauldron capes? Yeah. You definitely see stuff like feathers.”

“I wasn’t disgruntled,” Canary said. “I freaked, and I couldn’t exactly charge back on my credit card or sue them. But I adjusted. I got what I really wanted in the end. By the time I realized I’d gotten too much of what I wanted, I was already in jail.”

“Shit sucks,” Aisha said. “Scammed hard, grow yellow feathers on top of a shitty fashion sense, get what you want and then boom, it’s all over. Off to jail.”

“I dress colorfully so people don’t connect me to the Simurgh so easily,” Canary said. “Keeps me from getting cussed out or beaten by someone who lost a friend or family member.” - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.1</ref>

She became a moderately successful singer. Her songs included but were not limited to: Vulgarishous, Ur-sound, Lineless,<ref name="29.3 e2">“Vulgarishous,” he said. “Ur-sound? Lineless?”

“You’re probably cheating,” [Canary] said - Excerpt from Venom 29.3</ref> Traveling Hum, Meet Screen, Anti-insomnia, Without Whisper.<ref name=YT/>

The effect of her songs on people was known but was usually edited out and deleted out of commercial products. Some of her corporate sponsors didn't feel the need to take any extra precautions.<ref name=YT/>

Story Start

Paige accidentally compelled her ex-boyfriend to maim himself after an argument. He claimed that he encouraged her to perform on stage and was therefore responsible for her success, and that because of this he deserved half of her earnings, conveniently ignoring the fact that he then cheated on her and left her while telling her she would never make it for real. Her retaliatory insult when heard by her power-influenced ex was interpreted literally.<ref name="I6"/>

She was tried while under heavy restraints, both to keep her from speaking as well as physically restrained for a suspected and non-existent Brute rating. Her master rating also hindered her ability to contact her lawyer, who at times could take hours or days to reply to her emails. This was partially due to the effect of the Simurgh on the psychological state of the world and Canary's similarity to the endbringer.<ref name="SB1">Wildbow:
Think of it in terms of political context, the simurgh attack on Australia being recent & rather a loss for the good guys, her being a Simurgh-alike, news & public perception turning on her, and other factors playing in.
For Canary's court case ending up an uphill battle.
People are ~scared~ of mind/emotion control. - Wildbow on Discord, Archived on Spacebattles</ref> Despite Dragon's personal support for her, the court eventually sentenced her to life imprisonment in the Birdcage.

She was transported there with Bakuda and Lung.<ref name="I6"> - Excerpt from Interlude 6</ref>

She was pointed towards Lustrum's cellblock by Dragon.<ref name=I6e4>“I’m afraid I’ve got to do my job, and that means carrying out my role in enforcing the law. You understand? Whatever my feelings, I can’t let you go.”

“I- Yes.”

“Listen, I’m sticking you in cell block E. The woman that put herself in charge of that cell block goes by the codename Lustrum. She’s a pretty extreme feminist and misandrist, but she protects the girls in her block, and it’s also the block furthest from the hole the men opened into the women’s half of the Birdcage. If you’re willing to play along, buy in or pretend to buy into her way of thinking, I think she’ll keep you safest.” - Excerpt from Interlude 6</ref>

Paige was questioned, following Lung's rampage through the prison the earn cred, about her fellow prisoner by the other cell block leaders about him.<ref name=28.5e1>“Lung,” I said, almost absently.

“You know him?” Canary asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“He was kind of notorious in the Birdcage. A lot of people, they come in, and they do something to make a statement. Kill someone, pick someone suitable and claim them, challenge someone suitably impressive to a fight, that sort of thing.”

“What did Lung do?” I asked.

“He marched into the women’s side of the prison, killed his underling, and then killed and maimed a bunch of others before the cell block leaders ordered people to pull back. I got called into a meeting, too, where a bunch of people in charge of cell blocks asked me to come and tell them what I knew about him, since we arrived at the same time.”

I nodded. “But you didn’t know anything.”

“No. I think some of them were really worried, too. I thought they were going to hurt me, until Lustrum, uh, my cell block leader, backed me up, gave me her protection.”

“Geez,” Imp said. “That’s messed up.”

Canary shrugged. “How did you put it? A Tuesday? A Tuesday in the Birdcage.” - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.5</ref> She was unable to be a useful source of information.

Post-Echidna

Upon the announcement of Alexandria's death Canary performed a funeral dirge heard by everyone in the Birdcage.<ref>The broadcast ended, with news reporters discussing the fallout, reiterating details.

The noise of it was broken down by singing, echoing through the Birdcage. A dirge.

The yellow feathered girl who was in the truck, Lung thought to himself.

“That’s for Alexandria, I imagine,” Marquis said aloud. “Undeserved, I think, but I imagine Lustrum gave her cell block a very good reason to honor the woman.” - Excerpt from Interlude 22.y</ref>

The Timeskip

In 2012 a collection of her unfinished tracks was stolen by unidentified villains who had been hired by fans of Canary, the music was put on the internet coming in two versions, one of which hadn't been scrubbed of its mind-affecting properties.<ref name=YT>[PHO Sundays 'Yellow, Though', the fans Win] by Wildbow.</ref> Some interesting side tracks are also included.

Gold Morning

Canary was eventually freed to help in the fight on Gold Morning.<ref name=27.3e1/>

Paige wound up sharing a hospital room with a recovering bug controller.

She joined with Weaver and the remaining Undersiders to help deal with major threats, although her powers and personality made her of minimal use as an offensive damage-dealer. Nevertheless she was outfitted with a suit that belonged to the Dragonslayers by Saint as a gesture of goodwill.<ref name=28.2e2>“If you keep me here, you need to maintain guards. The people with clearance are you and Narwhal, two of the strongest capes around. Bring me to the field, and you have two more capes on your side.”
[...]
“If it helps, there’s a better chance of me dying horribly out there than in here.”
[...]
I’d also be able to offer up my side’s suits. Something for the Rogue girl, so she’s a little more durable.” - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.2</ref>

Was in the Cauldron Compound infiltration team.

Canary's power ended up being absolutely critical to achieving victory during the Gold Morning. In addition to allowing Khepri to calm down the parahumans making up her swarm, who had started dying to stress-induced aneurysms, it was the key that allowed Khepri to keep coordinating the capes even after Doormaker's shard running out of power caused her to lose direct control over almost every single parahuman in the swarm.<ref>Speck 30.5</ref> Khepri's own encroaching insanity had made it impossible for her to understand or use anything resembling language, and she had no way of extending the radius of her power and restore direct control over the parahuman swarm without Doormaker. However, Canary was still within her range of influence and Khepri's plans and ideas were communicated to the swarm of capes via Canary's singing, and most importantly the Master influence that accompanied the singing made those capes use their own initiative to work together and thus successfully implement Khepri's plan of attack.<ref>Speck 30.6</ref>

Post-Gold Morning

At some point Paige joined The Wardens under Valkyrie's aegis.<ref name="II15.z eValkyrie">“I think it’s from our side. Swansong’s cape with the yellow costume… there aren’t a lot of them. Most would be Advance Guard, but they’d be together, not with Valkyrie. I think that’s Canary.”

“The celebrity?”

She’s a Warden now. Under Valkyrie’s wing. They knew each other in the Birdcage. - Excerpt from Interlude 15.z II</ref>

Post-Time Bubble Pop

Canary was a part of the Wardens' raid on Teacher. She played a key role in Contessa's plan to win the losing battle.<ref name="15.zII">Interlude 15.z</ref>

The Ice Breaks

Canary was one of the Wardens assisting with the mass incursion into The Shardspace.<ref name="II18.10">Radiation 18.10</ref>

Fanart Gallery

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  Illustration by liujuin on DeviantArt
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  Illustration by kingdaume on Reddit
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  Image by Pabel and Nine on Tumblr
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  Image by knightonahorse on Reddit
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  Illustration by SereneNocturne on Reddit

Trivia

• Like many characters in Worm, Canary took her turn as the protagonist for one of the story's many drafts.<ref name="27.4 c1">Originally, the Birdcage was conceived of in ‘The Cat and the Canary’, wherein Canary was the main character, and Siberian was a notorious inmate, who decided Canary was her newest victim. - Comment by Extinction 27.4</ref>

References

<references/>