(TAYLOR HEBERT) CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

What Paradox had called a settlement gradually came into view as they continued across the dry landscape.

Taylor had expected something more substantial, probably because she had grown up around cities and gotten used to thinking of settlements as places with roads, buildings, and clearly defined boundaries. This place was more spread out, with thatched huts and similar structures scattered across the land and people moving between them as they went about their lives.

She had seen places like this before, mostly in photographs and documentaries, but the memories were vague enough that she initially struggled to place what she was looking at. The people moving between the buildings were tall and dark-skinned, and many of them wore distinctive red and blue checked cloth that stood out against the muted colours of the surrounding landscape. Taylor had seen clothing like that before, and it took her another few seconds to place it.

They were Maasai.

She had never known much about them beyond the things she had picked up over the years. She knew that Maasai communities existed across parts of Kenya and Tanzania, and she vaguely remembered reading about their way of life and the fact that some communities welcomed visitors. She had no idea how much of that would apply to this particular community, especially in a world that had clearly developed differently from her own. She certainly didn’t know enough to pretend that she understood their culture.

That was what made her hesitate.

There was nothing obviously threatening about the people ahead of them, yet Taylor still found herself wondering whether walking straight into their home with Paradox was a good idea. They were strangers, after all, and she had no idea what these people thought about outsiders or whether they would be suspicious of two people who had appeared from the middle of nowhere. Paradox seemed entirely unconcerned, which was hardly surprising considering everything else about him, but Taylor couldn’t bring herself to share his apparent confidence.

For a moment, she slowed as she considered turning back.

The thought disappeared almost as soon as it came. She had nowhere else to go, and the longer she looked at the settlement, the more she realised that what bothered her wasn’t the place itself. It was the thought of how she would be seen once she entered it.

Taylor glanced at the people ahead again, then down at her exposed arms.

She had spent most of her life surrounded by people of different backgrounds, enough that the differences had rarely seemed worth thinking about unless someone else brought them up. Here, she suddenly became aware of how different she looked from almost everyone she could see. The thought was uncomfortable precisely because it was so unfamiliar. She had never needed to wonder whether the colour of her skin would make her stand out when walking into a community, and now she found herself wondering whether the people ahead would see her as an outsider before she had even spoken to them.

When she noticed Paradox glance in her direction, Taylor simply kept walking. She could feel the occasional glance he sent her way without needing to look at him, but he otherwise seemed as unconcerned as ever. She had no idea whether he had noticed her hesitation or simply found her sudden change in pace interesting.

She didn’t particularly want to explain any of her thoughts to Paradox. Besides, this was another version of Africa.

That thought followed naturally from the one before it, especially as she looked at the children, adults, and families going about their lives in this world, and Taylor found herself wondering how much of the continent had changed without the Endbringers. If these people had never experienced an attack from Leviathan or the Simurgh, what had their lives looked like instead? Had they even heard of Endbringers? Had the world developed the same way without them? Maybe there were heroes here, maybe there were villains, maybe there were parahumans living ordinary lives without ever having to worry about an Endbringer siren sending an entire city into panic.

She almost wished she could ask. Instead, the  line of questions made her think of Brockton Bay, and that led straight back to the battle she had left behind.

Taylor tried to push the thought away, but the effort only made it harder to avoid.

She could still picture the water, the buildings that had fallen through the portals, the people she had pulled from the ocean, and Armsmaster standing in front of her after everything had happened. She had no idea what was happening back there now, or whether the heroes had managed to stop the Simurgh, or even whether they knew where she had gone. Every second she spent thinking about it made the fact that she didn’t know how to get back hurt even more.

So she kept walking.

For now, that was all she could do.

Keep walking, and see what waited for her there.

Funnily enough, or at least funny to Paradox, who gave her a knowing smile that Taylor couldn’t quite stop herself from rolling her eyes at, their arrival in the settlement was met with polite disinterest. She was certain they were being watched, but nobody seemed particularly interested in engaging with them beyond the practicalities of their arrival. After Paradox introduced himself, money was exchanged for food and water, and the two of them were largely left to themselves.

Taylor was more than happy with the arrangement.

She had been worried that their arrival would attract a crowd, especially after seeing so many photographs and videos of tourists surrounded by curious groups, and she wasn’t entirely sure what she would have done if everyone in the settlement had decided to gather around them.

Nobody did. She got to eat.

The meal was filling enough that she found herself relaxing as she ate, and for the first time since waking in the desert, she wasn’t thinking about water, shade, or whether she was going to collapse again. She still had no idea where she was going or how she was supposed to get home, but at least she wasn’t starving while she figured it out.

finished, Taylor turned towards Paradox and opened her mouth. He raised one finger, and she stopped, more from surprise than anything else.

“Only three questions, Taylor, then we best be off.”

Taylor stared at him.

Three? There were considerably more than three things she wanted to know, and she suspected that Paradox knew the answers to most of them. Still, if he was going to impose a limit, she had better choose carefully.

Taylor looked down at the ground, considering the possibilities before settling on the question that had been bothering her since the moment she had first seen the device inside that metal capsule, long before Paradox had recognised it on her wrist.

“Just what is this watch?”

Paradox didn’t answer immediately.

He scratched his chin, his gaze drifting somewhere beyond her, and for a moment Taylor wondered if he had somehow forgotten the question. Then he sighed.

“There is a timeline where the Omnitrix never found Ben Tennyson, or anyone else in the Tennyson family. It surprised me at the time, but I put it down to the unpredictability of the cosmos and thought little more of it.” He shook his head. “Perhaps I should have looked into it sooner. I might have found this universe before things went quite so wrong.”

His expression darkened for a moment.

“Damn my restrictions.”

Taylor stared at him.

There was something in his expression that she couldn’t immediately identify, partly because she had never seen it there before. So it took her a moment to understand that what she was looking at was sorrow.

“Your watch, the Omnitrix, is the most powerful technological weapon in the vast multiverse. More importantly, it is the ultimate device for understanding all the beings in the multiverse.”

Taylor looked down at her wrist.

The watch—no, Omnitrix—suddenly seemed rather different.

She had known it was powerful. She had used it to fight things that would have killed her otherwise, and she had already seen what some of its transformations could do. Still, she had never thought of it as something intended to understand life itself.

Then there was Ben Tennyson.

Taylor had never heard the name before, yet Paradox had spoken about him as though his absence meant something. That raised a question she couldn’t ignore.

Why hadn’t it gone to him?

Why had it found her?

She glanced at the watch again, wondering what, exactly, that said about her.

There were plenty of people in her world who seemed more qualified to wield something like this. Armsmaster immediately came to mind, followed by Miss Militia, and even the Triumvirate, and yet none of them had been given the Omnitrix.

She had.

Taylor had no idea what to make of that.

Eventually, she sighed and got to her feet.

There wasn’t much point dwelling on it, especially when she still had two questions left. She was still slightly annoyed that Paradox had decided to limit her in the first place, particularly when it seemed as though many of the restrictions preventing him from telling her what she wanted to know were his own. She could hardly complain about it now, though, not when he had already given her more answers than she had expected when they first met.

She turned towards him, intending to make the most of the questions she had left.

Paradox stood.

Taylor paused.

For the first time since she had met him, his expression held none of his usual amusement or detached curiosity. His eyes had widened, and whatever he had seen or sensed had left him genuinely shocked.

Before she could ask what was happening, he seized her hand. The next thing Taylor knew, they were standing far away from the settlement.

Taylor stared at him, bewildered, before turning towards the place they had just left.

The settlement was gone, her confusion disappearing with it as she stared at the vast crater where the earth had been torn apart only moments before.

And above it hovered the Simurgh.

Her expression, usually serene and unreadable, was twisted into one of pure, unadulterated anger.