Fanfic / ULTIMATE ONE: TYPE-Taylor

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ULTIMATE ONE: TYPE-Taylor is a fanfic by Star Gazing Seraph. It is a crossover between the Nasuverse and Worm. It can also be found on Archive of Our Own here. As of March 26, 2025, this story is now complete.

Around two years before the events of the original web-serial, ORT- having heard the call of Gaia- lands on Earth. In doing so, it irrevocably alters the fate of one Taylor Hebert. Having gone with her best friend, Emma, to a summer camp for stargazing, she is caught directly within ORT's Crystal Valley. Although she's able to escape with her life, the crystal is slowly consuming her flesh, with there being no known way to cure the affliction. And little does she know, the infection has created a far more personal link with the being known as the Oort-Spider.

Ultimate Family: TYPE-Hebert is an omake that later spun off into its own ongoing fic. Here, Taylor's father Danny married Amaterasu, the personification of the sun. This leads to all the Ultimate Ones becoming Taylor's adoptive siblings.

ULTIMATE ONE: TYPE-Taylor contains examples of:

• Adaptive Ability:
  • ORT's infection of Taylor has granted her a version of this. Whenever she's affected by other Parahuman powers, she can cancel it out and then become immune to its effects the next time.
  • Arc 3 reveals this is the case with ORT itself. When a trio of Entities implied to be Eden, the Warrior, and Abaddon passed by the Oort Clouds, ORT attacked and attempted to dissect Abaddon, in turn leading to a confrontation between the Entities and the TYPE. Neither side is able to kill the other because of their adaptive capabilities, though by the end of the fight ORT would have managed to overcome and completely devour Abaddon had the Entity not unleashed one final desperate move to break free and escape as fast as possible.
• Adaptational Heroism: Due to having been caught in the same incident as Taylor, Emma is still her best friend, and in contrast to canon, when offered by Sophia to become one of the "predators", flatly rejects her offer and tells her to go to the Crystal Valley.
• Adaptational Intelligence: Fate-canon ORT's greatest weakness is that it is an Almighty Idiot, prone to Attack! Attack! Attack! and with absolutely nothing in the way of critical thinking, planning, or subterfuge; the ORT seen in the seventh Lostbelt spends a long time grinding agaisnt an easily-avoided obstacle in its way and only realises that it can simply move around said obstacle due to its recent meals. The ORT here, by contrast, is able to hold back during its fight with Abbaddon, before it even had the opportunity to engage in Power Copying, deliberately creates avenues for reconaissance to subtley assess the situation (instead of rampaging and devouring everything that attempted to fight back), and is even able to be reasoned with- something that canon Lostbelt ORT never even hinted at.
• All Your Powers Combined: When fully utilizing the ORT's power, Taylor has access to every single power she and the Spider have observed, though it's on Taylor to figure out how to best use them. With this, Taylor is able to one-v-one with Leviathan in a way only the likes of Eidolon could hope to.
• Always a Bigger Fish: In canon, the Entities were by far the most powerful beings in the setting, with absolutely nothing capable of remotely challenging them otherwise, but here certain other beings are capable of matching or exceeding them.
  • Arc 3 showcases an instance of this, where it's revealed that shortly after Abaddon and Eden exchanged shards, ORT launched an attack on Abaddon. While they're initially fairly evenly matched, once ORT starts to exert the full scope of it's power, it's able to quickly overpower Abaddon, to the point that it would have completely devoured them if the Entity hadn't been able to break free at the last minute, upon which it promptly flees as fast as possible.
  • In Chapter 37, ORT finally arrives to Brocktown Bay to deal with Leviathan. Up to this point, Leviathan has run roughshod over the assembled force of Capes fighting it, and even Taylor accessing the powers she's analyzed on top of her ORT drone physiology has simply forced Leviathan to actually get serious to the point it takes everything Taylor has to just restrain the Endbringer enough to drag it to the Ultimate One. When they're face-to-face, ORT chops clean through Leviathan's (admittedly restrained) super-dense body with one blow, obtains the data it wanted and then drops the crystallized halves to the ground in a way Taylor can only describe as casually dismissive.
  • The Fractal tragically proves to be this for Taylor, who up til now has managed to dominate almost every confrontation as herself. The Fractal proves to be so powerful, that she is forced to accept the upgrades that ORT had been pushing and that she had been desperately trying to avoid until then to maintain her humanity. The end result is that she turns the table on the Fractal, assimilates them into herself, and become Archetype; Cloud of Comets.
  • This is the fundamental truth of existence in the Oort cloud ecosystem. A new and more dangerous creature will always appear to destroy and assimilate the last generation of apex predators. The Fractals who once attempted to forge a civilization in the Oort cloud believed they had defeated the cycle until ORT emerged and destroyed them.
• Amputation Stops Spread: Played With For those infected by ORT's Crystal Valley, while amputation does indeed prevent the rest of the limb from being consumed when the PRT tried to restore the limbs using Panacea's powers, the limbs grew back crystalized. And when Taylor gets hers removed, they grow back right there and spread up further, as ORT has specific plans for her.
• And I Must Scream: The final fate of those who are infected by ORT's Crystal Valley, their bodies are reduced to living hunks of crystal, incapable of moving in any way, but still fully conscious.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Taylor has a habit of subconsciously aiming right for people's brains when she's fighting, whether just practicing or actual combat, as ORT is having her target (in the case of Parahumans) their corona pollentia.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Taylor wanted to have additional powers so she could impress the PRT, which ORT granted by giving her access to Starring Invade and Paradox Cancellation. After her arm crystallizes so she can use Ether Drinker for the first, Taylor subconsciously pleads for help only for ORT to refuse as giving her this power is a logical continuation of the previous request.
• Behemoth Battle: One occurs in a flashback sequence in Arc 3, between Abaddon and ORT, as shortly after Abaddon exchanges shards with Eden, ORT attacks it, both because it's an intruder and also to devour in order to analyze its makeup. The two proceed to engage in combat, and while they're relatively evenly matched at first, once ORT decides to exert the full scope of its powers, it's able to quickly overpower Abaddon, who only just barely manages to escape before fleeing as fast as possible.
• Bittersweet Ending: Scion is defeated, and ORT returns to its home system, leaving Taylor behind to deal with any further potential threats. As a consequence of the final battle, all parahumans have been depowered. While Taylor's friends and family have all led happy lives, she outlives them all. The fanfic ends with her going to sleep, awakening when the next threat to humanity comes knocking on their doorstep.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: How ORT operates given its Inscrutable Aliens mindset. What powers it allows Taylor to manifest are based on two overriding needs: Ensuring her survival as its drone and anything that would allow her and therefore it better access to new parahuman powers to study. When Taylor subconsciously convinces it to allow her request to use Starry Invade to save a victim of Grey Boy's time loops, it does so under the assumption that this will impress her superiors and thus gain them access to more extensive data configurations. It uses this same rationale later on to have Taylor access its Ether Drinker ability to kill a newly-triggered parahuman she frees from another time loop, and ultimately cares nothing for the mental trauma Taylor suffers from straight-up punching into her target's neck, draining the life out of him, and squishing part of his brain in her fist in full view of witnesses and crystallizing most of her arm in the process.
• Body to Jewel: The ultimate fate of anyone infected by Crystal Valley, unless they're able to remove the infected issue, is to be reduced to a hunk of crystal.
• Cannibalism Superpower: ORT is shown to have this in the same vein as in canon. Specifically in Arc 3, after it's fight with Abaddon, it's shown that ORT has gained the ability to hear Gaia's distress call over Eden and Scion's jamming of it, hence the reason why it arrives on Earth Bet instead of the other, more nearby Ultimate Ones, as they lack the ability to bypass the Entities interference.
• Claimed by the Supernatural: What differentiates Taylor from the other victims of ORT is that Taylor was the first human to witness its arrival and was converted into a drone to gather data from humanity. It specifically grants her access to certain abilities to keep her alive and ensure better access to information. It's also very possessive of her, as when Taylor gets her crystalized arm amputated in order to get it replaced with a prosthetic, it grows right back, spreads even further, and when the surgeons try to remove it again by cutting higher, it rapidly spreads up and ends up infecting one of them.
• Crippling Overspecialization: How Taylor's abilities are seen at first, as while they negate other powers, in most cape work, non-powered attacks such as bullets, knives, and even fists are far more commonly encountered threats.
• Cutting the Knot: As the Fractal races towards Nilbog in an attempt to assimilate his power, Taylor is sent by the PRT to stop it. However, even after an extensive battle, she is ultimately unable to stop it from breaching the quarantine zone and finding Nilbog, so as a last ditch effort, she assimilates Nilbog first to prevent the Fractal from getting it entirely.
• The Dreaded: ORT quickly established itself as this, to the point that many first assume it to be a fourth Endbringer, having inflicted enormous casualties on the PRT, with only the Triumvirate surviving unscathed, and the entire area surrounding having been quarantined and closed off completely. Even more worryingly, Contessa's Path to Victory is described as seeming to actively avoid any sort of intersection with ORT.
• Eldritch Abomination: ORT, as anyone familiar with the Nasuverse knows. Even by the standards of Worm, it's shown to be this, as its crystallization of its victims along with its other abilities are completely incomprehensible to even Thinkers. Furthermore, it's shown to be a blind-spot to Contessa's power, in a similar vein to Scion and the Endbringers, with those infected by Crystal Valley also displaying varying degrees of interference to Path to Victory depending on how advanced their condition is.
• Evil vs. Evil: Downplayed, as neither of them are really evil in the traditional sense, but while ORT was called by Gaia to deal with the Entities, who are parasites that will eventually destroy the planet, the description of it's thought processes clearly shows that it's not doing it out of benevolent intent, as it has absolutely no problem with killing humans or subjecting/leaving them to horrifying fates. It's best exemplified by the fact that it initially refuses to allow Taylor to use it's power to save the victims of Gray Boy's time loops, only acquiescing under the assumption that doing so will ultimately grant it access to more information streams.
• False Friend: Downplayed. Aimee is a genuine friend to Taylor, but as a member of the Fallen sect worshipping ORT, she sees Taylor more as her "goddess" than as a friend.
• Fertile Feet: After her body becomes fully crystalline, Taylor develops a variant of this as standing on the ground will cause a patch of Oort ecosystem to sprout from around her feet. To avoid this, she levitates at all times.
• Foreshadowing: ORT notes that the distress call from Earth's planetary consciousness is seemingly being muted so the other planets won't respond. Late in the story, it's revealed the Entities are familiar with Ultimate Ones and deliberately avoid their notice as conflict with them is extremely dangerous..
• From a Single Cell: Oort beings are incredibly hard to kill, as even a fragment of them can regenerate into the original being if given access to a source of energy. The only way to truly destroy them is by either completely obliterating them on an atomic level or assimilating them entirely.
• Genetic Memory: When a creature of the Oort cloud assimilates another, they take both their powers and their memories. As a result, every creature in the Oort cloud has memories stretching back to the earliest days of the universe when the first version of the Oort cloud formed around an early proto-star.
• Godzilla Threshold:
  • Taylor repeatedly refuses ORT's offers of "improvements" to her body which would further distance her from humanity. She only accepts a limited version during her battle with the Fractal because her body was literally incapable of winning without changes.
  • Discovering the true nature of ORT serves as this for Scion, whose purpose as the Warrior is to combat major threats, including Ultimate Ones. The presence of ORT allows him to override all of his usual deployment limits and begin producing and assimilating critical shards to restart the cycle.
• Healing Factor:
  • During its battle with Abaddon, ORT's body was repeatedly ravaged and at times reduced to only fragments, but each time it restored itself no worse for the wear. This is a general trait of Oort creatures, as they can regenerate from even a few atoms given a source of energy.
  • Taylor has a minor one in her crystallized body parts, as they will repair themselves if something hits hard enough to damage them, and in her body, in general, that lets her recover from minor injuries much faster than a normal person. When she fights Bakuda, ORT uses the data gained from observing Aegis's own Parahuman powers to boost Taylor's healing to the point she can heal fast enough to restore damaged parts despite being repeatedly bombed by Bakuda's power, all to Implacable Woman levels. Not even getting her face blown off stops her for very long, though it's implied from Bakuda's horrified screaming at the sight that Taylor's regular flesh isn't what's regenerating in its place. By the time of her fight with Leviathan, she gains the ability to reverse time on herself by several seconds to undo any injuries she received in the targeted interval.
• Heroic BSoD: In the aftermath of the Leviathan battle, Taylor all but shuts down and becomes an unresponsive wreck after having destroyed Emma's crystalline body as a form of Mercy Kill and to ensure ORT couldn't turn her into something worse.
• Heroic Sacrifice: When Taylor is undergoing a full conversion into a proper ORT drone, thereby removing any free will it left her, Emma shows up in an attempt to comfort and convince Taylor to fight back. When Emma succumbs to crystallization, the emotional damage causes Taylor to fully fight back against ORT's orders.
• Hero Killer: We find out during Bakuda's interlude that ORT has already firmly cemented itself as this, as in her inner monologue, she states that it killed around 50 capes within the span of a minute. To put that into perspective, during the entirety of his assault on Brockton Bay, Leviathan killed around 40 capes.
• Hope Spot: After much consideration, Taylor decides to have her arm and legs amputated in Arc 3. The operation is a success...until Taylor wakes up afterward and learns her crystalized limbs grew back. After spending most of the story until now in bitter resignation, Taylor can only scream in hopelessness and despair.
• Horrifying the Horror: It's partially fueled by the encroaching approach of ORT, but by the end of the Brocktown Bay battle Leviathan isn't so much fighting to kill Taylor as it's just trying to delay her long enough to get back to the ocean and escape, and Taylor's refusal to give up the chase just makes its attacks all the more desperate to buy itself breathing room.
• Implacable Woman: Taylor turns into this when she fights Bakuda, as her determination to stop the villain fueled by seeing several of her victims firsthand, some of her fellow Wards nearly being blown up, and herself getting hit with said bombs prompts ORT to enhance her Healing Factor to be able to tank and heal damage no matter what the bomber throws at her. It gets to the point where she barely slows down after getting most of her face blown off, doesn't even pay attention when a bunch of goons get ripped to pieces trying to rush her, punches down a locked metal door even as she crystallized fist breaks into a stump from her incorrectly striking it, and finally walks right through Bakuda's final desperate bombing attempt until she gets close enough to start strangling her. Only snapping out of her rage right at the end is the only reason Taylor didn't just stab Bakuda right through the brain but instead capture her.
• Jumped at the Call: Taylor, upon receiving a recruitment offer from the PRT for the Wards, immediately leaps at the opportunity. Played With in that it's shown that ORT seems to have had at least some role in directing her to that decision, in its desire to come into contact with more parahuman powers.
• Life-or-Limb Decision: This tends to be the choice facing those infected by ORT's crystallization but haven't progressed to non-extremity infection yet. When one of the surgeons trying to amputate Taylor's crystallized arm gets infected on the hand by the rapidly-regrowing structure, he tells the newly-arrived Armsmaster to chop it off right then and there. Meanwhile, Leviathan repeatedly resorts to tearing off parts of its body that become infected before it can spread too far, which ultimately forces Taylor to restrain it in such a way it can't do so.
• Mercy Kill: Victims of crystallization remain conscious even after their entire body has been converted, leaving them trapped in an immobile state. After learning about this, the PRT began atomizing victims as a final mercy.
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Played for Horror, as it's revealed that when Gallant was sent to a hospital with Oort-Spider Crystallization survivors as part of a PR event, his powers allow him to see the thoughts and feelings of those who have been completely consumed, which he describes as "trapped in a cold, crystal body, constantly screaming but making no sound". It's shown that even months later, he still has nightmares regarding the experience.
• Muggles Do It Better: Taylor is able to cancel the esoteric effects of every single one of Bakuda's bombs, so how does the mad bomber get around this? By shooting her with a completely ordinary grenade.
• Outside-Context Problem: ORT is this to the world of Worm, as it's an immensely powerful, otherworldly Eldritch Abomination that is completely disconnected from the Entities. Subverted as Scion is fully aware of Ultimate Ones as the Entities try to avoid drawing their attention. He didn't respond to ORT's presence because it camouflaged itself as an Entity construct.
• Power Copying: While its Cannibalism Superpower is the primary method of gaining strength, ORT (and by extension, Taylor) is perfectly capable of using Paradigm Inflation to copy shard-based powers.
• Power-Upgrading Deformation: What Taylor's crystallization process essentially is. As ORT has made her its "drone" to observe and gather data about parahumans, tapping into the powers it gives her speeds up the crystallization of her body to change her into a form that can better wield them. It goes into overdrive if she's put into a situation where she's taking heavy damage on top of it.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Downplayed, in that while ORT isn't really evil per say, it cares little to nothing for humans, and at first rejects Taylor's subconscious request to use Starring Invade to nullify Gray Boy's time loop under the assumption that the data gained isn't significant enough to bother with. It eventually accedes to her demands under the assumption that doing so will impress her superiors and thus gain her, and by extension it, access to larger and more extensive data configurations. When Taylor fights back against its attempts to fully convert her, it decides to let her be, but only if she manages to kill Leviathan or bring it into ORT's killzone. Similarly, ORT gives her the ability to undo crystallization in exchange for gathering data on parahuman capabilities.
• Single-Stroke Battle: When ORT finally arrives to deal with Leviathan, it slices the Endbringer in two with a single movement. While that doesn't kill Leviathan on its own, it's left completely helpless to being crystallized and assimilated by the Ultimate One in the next few seconds before it drops its crystallized corpse to the ground after getting everything it wanted.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: Aimee slips larval Oort beings into the drinks consumed by Fallen cultists in order to kill them.
• Trojan Horse: ORT has avoided Scion's attention by disguising itself as a shard using multiple layers of misdirection and shard crystal matter. This allowed it to observe parahuman powers at its leisure and interfere with the events on Earth Bet.
• Vampiric Draining: ORT grants Taylor its Ether Drinker ability in order to deal with a recently-Triggered parahuman who she just freed from one of Grey Boy's timeloops. The manner in which she uses it involves stabbing her arm right into the liquid metal mass his body had become and grabbing his corona pollentia before draining his life away.
• The Worf Effect: In canon Worm, the Entities are by far the strongest beings in the setting, with even the Endbringers being hopelessly outclassed by them. So the fact that ORT is able to not only match but outright overpower one of them (Abaddon) to the point of forcing it to run for its life, serves as an indication as to just how unfathomably powerful ORT is.
• Your Days Are Numbered: The assured situation of everyone not Taylor infected by ORT. With no means of curing or reversing it, anyone who either doesn't choose to get their limbs amputated or is infected through a non-extremity is doomed to be completely assimilated. Taylor's in more of a grey area in that everyone including her believes this to be the case, but none of them yet realize ORT has specifically chosen her as its "drone" and thus has a different fate in mind.