A/N: I was reading "Queen of Rot and Fungus" by DarkPhoenixLady when this particular itch demanded I scratch. So here's a slightly lighter and fluffier Fae variant.

She slumped in her confinement, alone, no one would help her. No one cared.

"Excuse me?"

Locked away in her own locker, things crawling on her from the sodden mess they'd put in there before her.

"EXCUSE ME."

Taylor startled. "Now I'm hearing voices."

"Yes. I will forgive your impertinence this once. Do not try me further."

"I'm hearing a voice in my head and it has a major attitude."

"Well, this is better than the broken crying and the 'lost in despair' phase. I am offering you a deal, daughter of Eve. Do you know the honor being given you that I even bother to speak?"

Taylor tried forcing the locker open again, with no more luck than previously. "Sorry, I'm a bit busy right now. I'm being tortured by my former best friend, she was my sister in all but blood, and now I'm dying in a locker."

"Well, partly correct. Which is what intrigued me. So, daughter of Eve, do you want out of your confinement before the diseases currently making their way into your body poison you?"

"My name is Taylor. Taylor Hebert. May I ask to whom am I speaking?"

"My names are legion, but I am most commonly known as Titania. Queen of the Summer Court, Queen of the Seelie, among many other titles."

"...oh crap."

"Language. I take it you know of me and mine?"

"Enough to know that making a deal with one of the Fae is generally a bad idea."

"Worse than your current situation?"

"Yes."

"Good. Having some wisdom places you well above average. I have chosen well, it seems."

"My mother read me faerie stories, the old and unsanitized versions."

"My deal is simply this. Your humanity is cast aside, though not completely, and you become a princess of the Fae through my adoption of you. You gain the ability to free yourself, spread the green through your dreary gray world. Who knows, it may be enough to save it."

"Ah, well, what else will it cost me?"

"Nothing too onerous. Though I may court your father as Oberon has been a bit distant the past century or two."

"Okay," said Taylor, thinking about it.

"Then DONE."

"Wait... that wasn't..." She hadn't meant "okay" she was okay with this deal, she had meant "okay" as she understood what was being said. Now though, she could see where her slip of the tongue had consequences.

Wow, that was a lot of green.

* Winslow High School *

The door opened and a woman walked into the room, crossed to an empty desk, and sat down.

"Miss?" asked Mister Gladly.

"I was locked in my locker, Mister Gladly. It's been a rough day."

Madison straightened up and stared at the person sitting at Taylor's desk. Green skin. Red hair that looked kind of familiar in the thick full curls if not the shade. Wearing a dress that seemed composed of leaves and vines. Looking taller and had a figure that was a lot better than the stick-figure of earlier.

"You... Taylor Hebert?" asked Mister Gladly.

"It's been a very rough day," said Taylor.

Even the voice was different, realized Madison, sounding fuller and less whiny.

Out came her phone and a quick burst of thumb-typing.

Their target had Triggered and was a parahuman. This could change things.

* Three hourzzz laterrr *

Armsmaster got off his motorcycle and exchanged a brief glance with Miss Militia before she got off her own.

"Stand down," said Miss Militia to the troops debarking their vans. "Perimeter watch."

"I do NOT see any evidence of a parahuman attacking the school and menacing students," stated Armsmaster, sounding at least mildly annoyed.

"No," admitted Miss Militia. "What about over there?"

Armsmaster looked and saw a woman in green who was tending to - "is that a rather large apple tree?"

"It is rather magnificent," admitted Miss Militia as she walked towards the green woman. Obviously a parahuman, possibly a Case 53.

The woman stopped what she was doing and regarded them as they approached.

"Stand down! Hands behind you!" commanded Armsmaster, brandishing his halberd.

"Rude," said the woman.

"Armsmaster," said Miss Militia. "You just pointed out she's not attacking the school."

"Ah, true," said Armsmaster. "Unknown parahuman, identify yourself."

"Taylor Hebert, student," said the woman, "are you here about the girl who attacked me unprovoked?"

"You were attacked?" asked Miss Militia.

"Yes," said the green girl, stepping aside and picking three crossbow bolts off the ground. "First she shot me in the back, then the head, then she shot me in the butt! That was very rude of her, wasn't it?"

"Ah," said Miss Militia, recognizing that these were broadhead bolts and who the likely shooter had been.

"Right," said Armsmaster. "What happened to the girl who attacked you?"

Taylor made a gesture and the tree creaked and lowered a very floppy looking girl in a Shadow Stalker costume. "Knockout pollen. So, you going to take her into custody?"

"Yes, and if you come with us we can take your statements at that time," suggested Armsmaster.

"Okay, should I leave the other two for the police?" asked Taylor. "They assaulted me as well but they're normal humans, not parahumans."

"Why are you so sure the one in costume is a parahuman?" asked Armsmaster.

"Because she was using a dimensional shift effect to turn into some kind of ghost," said Taylor.

"Ah, and she wasn't immune to your spores in that state?" asked Armsmaster.

"She apparently still has to breathe," noted Taylor. "Any idea who it is? I thought it might be Shadow Stalker but the mask is wrong and Stalker's a hero, isn't she?"

"Ah, yes, right, of course. Good reasoning," said Armsmaster.

* Two Hours Later *

"Chlorokinetic?" asked Director Piggot.

"Plant control," said Miss Militia. "She can take seed to fully grown plant within minutes."

"If we could get her working for farms, she'd be a godsend," said Emily Piggot, sitting back in her reinforced chair. "What's the problem?"

"Her tormentors, responsible for her Trigger event, were named. Emma Barnes, Madison Clements, and Sophia Hess."

"Oh," said Director Piggot. "Do tell. Barnes? Why does that name sound familiar too?"

"Because Alan Barnes and Emma Barnes were character witnesses that were used to verify that Shadow Stalker could be recruited as a hero instead of going to trial for attempted murder," said Miss Militia.

"Any evidence that Hess is guilty beyond trying to shoot Miss Hebert in the back? How did she survive that, anyway?" asked Director Piggot.

"In some ways, she's more plant than mammal," said Miss Militia. "Apparently if we do recruit her she needs to have direct sunlight for a few hours per day."

"What's her range?" asked Director Piggot, thinking it probably wasn't very far.

That Armsmaster paused and looked to Miss Militia had her consider that maybe that wasn't correct.

"At least ten miles," said Armsmaster.

"She can manipulate plants at that range?" asked Director Piggot.

"And sense what's in their immediate vicinity," added Miss Militia.

"What about these knock-out spores?" asked Director Piggot.

"She can alter plants that she's in contact with. Only plants," clarified Miss Militia when she saw the reaction her words had.

"Still, I want her under constant observation to prevent another Nilbog," said Director Piggot, biting the name out like a curse.

"If we put her in the Wards alongside..." Armsmaster paused and looked around.

"Something wrong?" asked Director Piggot.

"She needs a plant to be present to listen in, but you don't have anything here," said Armsmaster.

"Unless she can listen in with spores or pollen," said Director Piggot. "In which case we'll know in a moment. If she goes into the Wards with Shadow Stalker already there, what is your guess for the result?"

"I'd expect to find trees in the building," said Miss Militia.

"Poison ivy everywhere," guessed Armsmaster.

There was some uncomfortable looks between them but no tree branches or vines were erupting out of the walls.

"Well, at least it wasn't something really scary like insect control," noted Miss Militia.

Armsmaster nodded, glad that it wasn't something that could be that problematic.

Director Piggot nodded. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. What about... hold on." She picked up the phone after it had started blinking. "Piggot here. Yes. I see."

Armsmaster and Miss Militia tensed a bit. Had Taylor Hebert monitored them despite the lack of foliage?

Director Piggot cleared her throat. "She wanted to thank us for dealing with the problems, so she used her power testing to produce a plant. A plant that can accelerate healing. Give it sufficient room to grow and sunshine and it will produce berries that halve the time for natural healing."

"That will take years to test," noted Miss Militia.

"Except that we can submit it to the ThinkTank and get an evaluation within days," said Director Piggot. She took a deep breath. "This changes a few things."

"How so?" asked Armsmaster.

"First, we delay, and we see if these claims about Shadow Stalker are accurate. If they are, she is about to have some very bad days ahead of her. If not, then the plant-girl needs to be the one under a microscope. When we get the report back from the Thinkers we can further adjust things. In the meantime, Hebert has a mostly-good opinion of us if she's handing out healing berries. I want to encourage that and trying to strong-arm her into the Wards or throwing her into isolation would not help us in the long run."

"I see," said Armsmaster.

"Do we have a report on those sleepy-spores she's used?" asked Director Piggot.

"Analysis of Hess during and after she recovered shows no sign of side-effects," said Armsmaster, accessing the report on his tablet. "Non-narcotic but similar in effect to ketamine but at a lower dose. If it can be duplicated it might well be useful in restraining some targets that containment foam is ineffective against."

* Taylor *

It was strange being her, more so than ever.

She knew, without any uncertainty at all, that she was now not human. Not entirely. She was fey, and cold iron could burn her.

Taylor Hebert was now Taylor Hebert kai Titania roi Sidhe, Princess of Green, with dominion over un-wild plants. One of her elder sisters was Princess of Green with authority over wild plants. If she or mankind had altered the plant in question, whether they'd intended to or not, then she had dominion over it.

She had enough of her humanity left to her that she wasn't going to come across as alien in some uncanny valley manner, unlike her elder sisters, but her mind had been influenced by the change.

For one thing, unless disturbed, plants were at peace. They might fight for root space and access to sunlight, but these things were done slowly and patiently over time.

She was definitely NOT going to tell the PRT about everything she could do. They were a government agency so assigning any level of trustworthiness to them was a fool's game.

No, she was not a fool.

The physical alterations were permanent and she couldn't switch them off. So she was green and was going to remain that for the next thousand years or so. At which point she might spend another thousand years rooted into place and spreading her leaves wide in some grove somewhere like her third oldest sister.

For now though, she had to weigh options and determine next moves while enduring the gaze of such organizations as the PRT.