(AV) JUST HER LUCK

Her dad had always called her lucky.

Not in a cheesy, cutesy, ‘you’re my lucky star, kiddo’ kind of way. No, with Danny Hebert, it was more dry than that. Usually a resigned, you-survived-this-too-huh sort of mutter after the latest Hebert household disaster. Like the universe enjoyed dangling her over the edge, only to pull her back at the last second. Like survival was the same thing as success.

Taylor used to laugh when he said that, back when laughter came easy and the world didn’t feel like it was holding her underwater with both hands. Before her mom died in that stupid car crash. Before Emma changed. Before Winslow High became a daily game of social landmines, except they were all rigged to go off no matter where she stepped.

Now?

She wasn’t sure if she was lucky… or cursed.

Not when she was crouched behind a dumpster in the Dockyards, adrenaline fading into a cold sweat as she still reeled from what had just happened. The taste of bile was stuck in the back of her throat, and her hands shook so hard she had to dig her fingers into the dirty concrete just to feel grounded. It didn’t help.

She was absolutely, undeniably screwed.

She’d gone out tonight with a plan. A goal. She wasn’t looking to stop a bank robbery or dismantle a gang. She just wanted to help someone. Anyone. Even something as small as stopping a mugging or guiding a lost kid out of the dark could have been enough. To prove something to herself. To the world. To the ghost of her mom, if she was being honest. Something small. Something heroic. She didn’t even want praise. Just… a win. One tiny thing to tell her she could be more than Taylor Hebert, the motherless victim. A whisper of proof that her powers, her disgusting curse, weren’t just another layer of cosmic cruelty.

And then Lung showed up.

The literal fire-breathing dragon of Brockton Bay. Leader of the ABB. Not just a "local villain" like she had initially thought, but a classified A-tier parahuman threat. The kind of cape they warned about on the news. The kind who fought entire teams and walked away.

And she hadn’t even researched him properly.

She’d read enough to know he got stronger the longer a fight went on. That he breathed fire and could regenerate. That he had a temper. But she hadn’t internalized what that meant, not really. He was just a name on a list, an abstract danger. She hadn’t expected to somehow stumble into that boss battle in the first hour of her first night out.

But there he’d been.

And then… there she’d been. Alone. With only her bugs for help.

At first, all she felt was fear. Then instinct took over.

She didn’t think. She just acted.

She emptied her range, dragged in every flying, stinging, crawling thing in reach. She focused on vulnerable areas—eyes, nose, mouth, even his private part—and sent her swarm into every crevice of his half-transformed body. She layered them over his scales, smothered his flames with sheer volume. And she didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.

Not until he went down.

Not until the fire sputtered out.

Not until he collapsed, limbs twitching, the heat of his body steaming in the cold night air.

Not until… he stopped moving.

And then he didn’t get up.

Her knees had hit the floor before she even realized she was falling. 

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” Taylor whispered, knees pulled up to her chest. Her mask clung damp to her skin, tears hot against the encroaching chill. She couldn't stop replaying it in her head, and she wasn't sure if it was because of revulsion or triumph or terror or some horrible tangle of all three.

And then—because things weren’t bad enough—she heard the mechanical clink of boots on pavement.

Armsmaster.

One of the top heroes. Brockton Bay’s greatest Tinker. Striding into the alley, halberd at the ready, expression unreadable behind his visor.

She didn’t even wait for him to speak.

She ran.

What else was she supposed to do? Stand there and explain? Tell him it was an accident? That she hadn’t meant to kill one of the most dangerous villains on the East Coast with a bunch of bugs and blind panic?

Yeah. That would go over great.

No one would believe her. Not him. Not the PRT. And definitely not the public.

And like… sure. Lung was a monster. He sold drugs, ran protection rackets, and trafficked women and children. No one was going to light a candle for him.

But she didn’t feel like a hero.

She felt like a murderer.

She felt like a scared kid with blood on her hands and nowhere to turn.

Lucky, huh?

Maybe her dad was wrong.

. . . . .

The news broke the next morning.

LUNG FOUND DEAD IN DOCKYARDS. MYSTERIOUS BUG-THEMED PARAHUMAN SUSPECTED.

The words blared from the television, with bold red text scrolling across the screen beneath a footage of the crime scene: flashing lights, yellow barricade tape, half a dozen PRT troopers forming a perimeter. Behind them, a tarp barely covered what was unmistakably Lung’s massive body. Around him—everywhere—were dead bugs, thousands of scattered wings and legs and husks.

Taylor almost threw up right there at the breakfast table, cereal turning to sludge in her mouth. The spoon in her hand trembled. 

They even had a cell phone photo from the night of his death, blurry but damning. In the firelight of Lung’s attack, her costume was distinct, and anyone with eyes could tell she was the one controlling the bugs. 

It was as if she wanted to leave a message, and she inadvertently had. A brutal, terrifying message. 

She didn’t even get a chance to pick a cool name before becoming a fugitive, and now, just like that, she was a killer. 

Taylor managed to turn off the TV with a shaky thumb. The screen went black, but the headline burned behind her eyes anyway, and her heart pounded so loud she almost vibrated in place.

Her dad was still asleep. Probably. Hopefully. Still dreaming, maybe, of his ‘lucky’ daughter. The one who, despite the rampant bullying, kept her head down and her grades up. Who wasn't, as of twenty minutes ago, wanted for murder.

She swallowed hard.

This wasn’t what she wanted.

She hadn’t gone out last night looking for blood. She hadn’t planned to take a life. She just wanted to help. To matter. To make up for all the times she couldn’t fight back. All the times she’d stood there, silent, while the world crushed someone smaller than it. While the world crushed her. 

She wanted to be a hero.

And now the city thought she was a monster. A wanted cape, labeled a villain by the PRT and news before the morning had even dawned, and all it took was one mistake.

Taylor clenched her fists.

Fine.

Let the media and heroes speculate. Let the villains wonder if there was a new player in town. She’d prove them all wrong. She’d show them what a hero really looked like.

Whether they liked it or not.