Taylor Hebert

<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Taylor Hebert</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>

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<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>

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS RELATING TO SOME OF THE MOST PIVOTAL PARTS OF WORM. DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE FINISHED THE ENTIRETY OF WORM.

Taylor Hebert is the main character of Worm.

Background

The first major event involving Taylor was the death of her mother, Annette Rose Herbert, in a car crash later attributed to texting while driving. It is widely speculated throughout the story that this was the cause of her first trigger event. 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.

Just before she entered high school, Emma suddenly and unexpectedly abandoned her to form a trio with Sophia Hess and Madison Clements. They began aggressively bullying her for more than two years, including one event that caused her to trigger. Once Taylor recovered, she started to prepare herself for when she would become a hero. She started exercising, training her power, doing research and preparing her costume.

Appearance and Personality

Taylor

Taylor is a relatively-tall, rail-thin 15 year old girl with long, dark curly hair. She describes herself in 1.1 as "the gloomy girl that never spoke up in class." She steadily gains confidence throughout the story as her civilian life is subsumed by her cape life.

Skitter

"...Skitter is an unpredictable young woman tending towards acts of apparent kindness to those she deems her subjects and bursts of sudden and extreme violence towards those she sees as her enemies." ("Know where you are" pamphlets, Colony 15, 10)

Skitter's costume consists of a black-and-grey bodysuit made out of spider silk with armor panels made out of shells and exoskeletons augmented with more silk. Her mask has sections of armor imitating mandibles covering her jaw and dull yellow lenses (taken from a pair of goggles) that incorporate lenses from a spare pair of glasses. Her mask leaves the back of her head uncovered and her hair free to fly behind her. Throughout the story her costume adapts to include a full-head mask, clawed fingertips, a tattered half-cape and a tattered, knee-length skirt.

Weaver

Weaver's costume consists of a light grey bodysuit with cleaner, slim dark gray armor panels. The mantle around her shoulders and the cloth hanging from her belt are marked with electric blue with the Undersiders' emblem in miniature at each corner, flipped upside down so that they face upward. <ref>"Worm" Web Serial, Cell 22.6</ref>

Khepri

The Khepri costume consists of a black body suit with white armor panels and lenses. It includes none of the stylistic elements of the previous costumes.

Abilities and Powers

Taylor has complete mental control over most invertebrate (e.g. insects, arachnids, crustaceans) within a three block range. She has a secondary ability which gives her increased mental multitasking - allowing her to give specific orders to individual bugs in her swarm simultaneously. She is able to "see" through her insects by sensing the shapes of the surfaces the bugs were crawling on, or the areas the vermin wasn’t occupying.

In addition, Taylor has come up with a multitude of creative uses of her power. For example, she can produce large quantities of spider silk, coat her insects in petroleum jelly and capscaicin to use them like pepper spray, create humanoid figures, mask her movements, and clear out rat infestations.

After Panacea removed the restrictions on her power, Taylor's range and fine control were cut and her power increased to affect everything within sixteen feet of herself.

Utility Backpack

Taylor's utility compartment, where she stashes necessary items and weapons in the armor panel that covers her back. In 18.3, Miss Militia  takes a look at the contents and sees:

• A handgun (Trickster's spare).
• A length of spider silk fashioned into a long cord.
• Pepper spray.
• A changepurse, containing cotton swabs (to muffle the noise), needles, smelling salts, and change.
• A collapsible baton.
• A combat knife (sturdy enough to be used as a crowbar if needed)

Appearances in Worm

Taylor Herbert

Taylor anxiously waits for Mr. Gladly's World Issues class to end. At the end of class, Mr. Gladly gave them a homework assignment on capes. Taylor was the first out of the classroom where she made her way to the third floor's bathroom to eat her lunch. Unfortunately, before she could finish her Pita Wrap, Emma Barnes, Madison Clements, and Sophia Hess find her and trap her in her stall. When she looked up after hearing noises coming from either side of her stall, Sophia and Madison poured juice over her and her backpack. She tried to force her way out, but ended up slipping on the juice and falling to the floor.

Emma, Madison, and Sophia laughed at Taylor after opening the stall door. Taylor didn't say anything; merely climbing to her feet before going to get her backpack. Once Emma, Madison, and Sophia leave she looked over herself in a mirror and tried to clean her glasses. When that failed, Taylor kicked a plastic bucket and flung her backpack towards a nearby wall. She raged about being powerless to do anything to stop Emma, Madison, and Sophia all while resisting the urge to use her powers on them and the school, telling herself that she was better than that. She eventually decides to go home despite having an art project due. <ref>"Worm" Web Serial, Gestation 1.1</ref>

On the bus, Taylor reflects on her former friendship with Emma before opening her backpack to see how bad the damage was. She finds that the notebook she had put all of her research and notes about her powers have been ruined. After arriving at home, she changes out of her stained clothing and contemplates what she should do as she takes a shower. She then heads to the basement and starts working on her costume as she had decided to move up her timetable and go out the next weekend to try and be a hero. <ref name=":1">"Worm" Web Serial, Gestation 1.2</ref>

Skitter

Taylor headed out towards the Docks on Sunday, a little after midnight. She avoided the civilians in the area while looking for some sort of trouble. She stumbles upon a collection of Azn Bad Boys gangsters and then watches as Lung emerged from a nearby building. After getting a better vantage point, she overhears Lung talking about murdering kids. <ref>"Worm" Web Serial, Gestation 1.3</ref>

Taylor laments on not having a phone to contact help with and eventually decides to do something to stop Lung. She ordered her swarm to attack, mindful to keep the venomous insects at bay, before Lung used his pyrokinesis to attack the swarm and defend himself. She then sent her reserve bugs in, reasoning that his regeneration will help him fight off their venom, and has them attack his more sensitive areas. He uses a rolling detonation of flame to wipe out the bugs in his immediate vicinity, setting fire to his clothes, several pieces of litter and one of his gang members.

Taylor attacks again with wasps and bees to his eyes, which succeeds in partially blinding him. Lung continues to grow bigger and stronger, and he sets himself on fire from head to toe to protect himself against further attacks from the bugs. With no hope of winning and having let the rest of Lung's gang in no shape to commit any crimes that night, she decides to retreat and inform the authorities. The moment she places her foot in the gravel of the roof, Lung whirls to face her. She realizes, belatedly, that his powers include superhuman hearing. <ref>"Worm" Web Serial, Gestation 1.4</ref>

Lung jumped across the street and started to climb the building towards Taylor as Taylor waits for him. After looking for something useful, she settles on pepper spray and aims for Lung's eye when he appears on the edge of the roof. She misses the first, hitting his shoulder, but succeeds with the second shot. Lung stumbled, but didn't fall off the edge of the building. Having nothing useful left and knowing that striking Lung with a hand or foot would hurt her more than it hurt him, she bolts for the fire escape. Lung strikes her down with a wave of fire, and she is sent sprawling.

Unable to move or attack without alerting him to her location, watching as he swiftly recovers from the pepper spray, Taylor braces herself for the inevitable. She's saved when a massive animal the size of a van hits Lung and forced him to his knees. The ensuing brawl sees the creature and Lung falling from the edge of the roof.

Two more creatures similar to the first one arrive to the rooftop, each with a pair of riders, two girls and two guys. They dismount and introduce themselves: Grue, Tattletale, Bitch and Regent. They reveal that when they heard that Lung had planned on attack them that night they decided to meet him halfway, but they found only Oni Lee and half dozen members of the Azn Bad Boys. Tattletale informs everyone present that a cape is coming, Bitch summons her dogs and the group mounts them. Grue offers Taylor a ride, but she refuses, and the group departs. In the wake of all this, processing the information the group had just shared, Taylor realizes that these teenaged villains were the "kids" that Lung was talking about killing. <ref>"Worm" Web Serial, Gestation 1.5</ref> ... Knowing that a hero is on the way, Taylor stays at the scene, in part to avoid being labeled a 'bad guy' by another individual. The hero turns out to be Armsmaster, leader of the local Protectorate team. Armsmaster verifies that she isn't dangerous, accepting her assurance that she's a hero with a speed that surprises her. He checks that she is okay, and she verifies she is. After exchanging some words on the Wards and Taylor verifying Lung's successful capture, Armsmaster sheds some light on the group that Taylor had just encountered, the Undersiders; primarily that the local heroes know very little about them.

Armsmaster raises his next concern - he urges Taylor to stay quiet about her involvement in Lung's capture, suggesting that she'd face retaliation from Bakuda and Oni Lee, or to join the Wards, in which case her team would be able to protect her. Taylor recognizes Armsmaster's true motives: that he wishes to take credit himself, and she reluctantly agrees, knowing it puts her in his good graces.

Taylor ventures home, assuring herself that her first night in costume didn't go too badly, and bemoaning the fact that she would be waking up to face the same sort of day in school that she ran into at the arc's beginning. <ref>"Worm" Web Serial, Gestation 1.6</ref>

Trivia

• Taylor likely triggered Monday the third of January 2011 as it was described as the first day of school in the new year.
• "Khepri" is a god in ancient Egyptian religion connected with the scarab beetle, because the scarab rolls balls of dung across the ground, an act that the Egyptians saw as a symbol of the forces that move the sun across the sky.

Quotes

• (To Lung): "Don't underestimate me."
• (To Triumph): "Sorry. I didn't want to go this far."
• (To Doctor Mother): "I know what that's like, I've walked down that road. Maybe not so ugly a road, but I've gone that route. All the way along, I told myself it sucked, but I wouldn't do it differently. I did everything I did for a reason. Except now, having reached the point I was working towards, I finally do regret it all. The last two years, the way I treated my teammates, leaving the Undersiders... I'd change it all in a heartbeat."

References

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