Spark's Writing (And Maybe Other Stuff Too)

[Through the Living Hope]

Hello! This is going to be where I put my works in progress and (hopefully) get feedback from y'all! We'll start with this one, prologue to a book based on a game my youth group plays once every year.

Spoiler

Prologue

Origin

 

Dear reader, I wish I could tell you that it ends well. I really do. But this isn’t one of those happy-ended stories you’ve been spoiled by. Not in the slightest.

Where was I going with this? Ugh, I hate when this happens. Unfortunately, forgetfulness is a common side affect to an immunity to blue radiation.

I was raised in a… well, let’s say it was a strange society. If you can’t already tell, it was post-apocalyptic at best, dystopian at worst. Fun fact about the word dystopia - it has practically the same meaning as utopia. But this definitely isn’t a utopia.

The group I was in was called the Abandoned. Bunch of young people with no families. No one has respect for anyone but themself. And maybe a friend or two.

I was always told that you couldn’t show weakness of any kind. You can have at most three close friends. Any more than that, you’re labeled weak and are exiled from the Abandoned. I didn’t have any, though, so people knew I wasn’t weak.

But I was loyal. Ask me to blackmail the Abandoned, the people who took me in, for a spot in a more powerful group, like the Mob? Nope. Leave a message at the beep.

We were all the same in the sense that we had and longed for no one and only survival. We were separated by the fact that some of us were immune to different types of radiation.

Radiation barriered what you could do. Blue Immunes could go anywhere that blue radiation was emitted. Green Immunes could do likewise, but with green radiation. Pure Red Immunes couldn’t go anywhere that had blue or green radia. Blue and Green Immunes couldn’t go places where the other’s kind of radiation was emitted. Everyone was immune to red radia. Rarely, you’d find someone who was immune to blue or green radia.

But you didn’t want to be immune to any radiation other than red.

Blue and Green Immunes could go places that Reds couldn’t, yes. But once someone in the Mob or other powerful groups caught wind that you were immune to blue or green radiation, they took you.

From what little I had been able to pick up, my mother was a Blue Immune, my father a Green Immune. After rumors went around that my mother was immune to something that wasn’t red, someone from the Mob came and held a knife to my father’s throat, threatening to cut it unless she said she was immune to either blue or green radia. She broke and admitted. They took her away, and later, my father revealed to everyone that he was a Green Immune. They took him too. When I was a year old.

When they took you, they took you to the Apocalypse Building. Then, you played the Game. No one knew what the Game was, really. We knew that they needed canisters to survive, and that if you survived long enough, you either joined the Staff, a subgroup of the Mob that oversaw the Game, or you disappeared. Most chose to disappear.

I didn’t want to play the Game. I couldn’t play the Game. That’s why I needed to keep my immunity a secret.

There were two people who did know - the Doctor and the Caretaker. The Doctor was commissioned by the Mob. He was supposed to inform the Mob when they found someone immune to blue or green radiation, but when the Doctor found someone that he deeply cared about to have been immune to those radia, he was a lot more lax about it and you had a better chance of him keeping you safe than of him turning you in. Each guild has one.

The Caretaker was who took care of me after the Mob took my biological parents. She’s the oldest person in the Abandoned, but she wasn’t the one who’s been there the longest. That would be our leader - or just the Leader. Knowing your guild members’ names is a luxury - one we do not possess. I found everyone food in the Wastes, so I was the Seeker.

Sounds cooler than Lyndon, at any rate.

 

 

The wind blew harder, pressing my hood against my face and making my scarf smack against the sides of my neck. The wind is full of sand, some of which is radioactive - red, green, and blue. I didn’t want to risk exposing myself to green radia, or revealing that blue radia doesn’t matter to me. My cargo, however, was a different matter, and could have been affected by any radia. I probably shouldn’t have been out there, thinking about it.

I swung into one of the alcoves in the cliff, stumbling a bit as I landed. The sand continued to pelt the cliff face. In a storm like that, I was grateful for the caves in the Outer Wall surrounding the Abandoned compound.

Technically, the cliffs we call the Outer Wall are all we really need. Our guild is based pretty much on a mountain, and the only way up to it is to climb. And unless you live there or are part of the Mob, no one wants to do that. I pulled my goggles of my eyes and set them on my forehead. Once they were secure, I pulled the mask off of my nose and bunched it at my neck. This landscape could be pretty treacherous, with all the climbing, and I’d been in the desert all day. About time for some water.

I was glad my sack had a zipper. All the food I’d scavenged throughout the day would have been ruined by the sand, especially by blue and green radia. The sling around my torso, however, is a different story.

I pulled back one fold of fabric from the sling. Newbie’s still asleep. Kind of impressive, actually, the way it was sleeping through the storm like this. Caretaker was going to be glad to have another one. We hadn’t had a Newbie in a while. And despite always having the sling on me, that was my first time ever finding one.

I replaced the fabric, making sure it was secure. As important as the food was, the kid was more important. The Abandoned’s numbers had started to dwindle. Deserters, mostly. A handful of deaths. One girl taken by the Mob a few months back. We needed this. Needed him.

The pelting began to become less and less. I stuck my arm out and felt only wind. I resecured the sling around my side and put my sack back on. I pulled the gloves onto my hands again, also readjusting my mask and goggles. I went to the entrance of the alcove, placed my hands on the holds in the cliff face.

My legs pushed me off one stone and onto another. The climb continued.

Fortunately, my gloves gave me better grip than my bare hands did, and I had a good grip anyway. But they were required outside the Abandoned compound. They were B/G radia proof, after all, and I had to keep my Immunity safe.

My fingers slipped off a handhold, and I hissed air in as I groped at it again. Thankfully, I didn’t slip the second time. Against my better judgment, I looked down. That fall would’ve killed both me and the Newbie. I couldn’t make a mistake like that again.

I didn’t have any more close calls before I reached the top of the cliff. I braced my left forearm on the cliff, as well as my right palm, and pushed myself up onto my knee on the flat surface of the Abandoned Plateau. I rose up again, my arm cradling the sling on my left side, and approached the Inner Wall.

The Inner Wall is a formality, really, just a security checkpoint. It’s the only way in or out. The Guard only let in our members, unless you have clearance from another guild’s leader. Or a Mob ID. We wouldn’t have it if it wasn’t required by the Mob.

For the most part, the guilds were created by the Mob, the first and most powerful of the guilds. They’re the only guild that it’s technically required to respect by all other guilds. There’s the Abandoned, obviously, but we were a bit of an exception. We were recognized as a guild, but we weren’t established by the Mob. Every other guild was.

The highest-regarded guild was the Wrights. The Wrights were builders, stoneworkers, welders, iron workers… like artisans, but more “needed” by society. The artisans were members of the next highest guild, the Makers. They made the more decorative things. Then was the Legion- soldiers, usually employed by other guilds, for defense. Technically, the Guard was in the Legion, but outcast. Not a deserter, really, but not welcomed there for whatever reason. He never said, and I never asked. The Analysts were scientists, developing technology for the city and Mob to use. Stuff like that rarely fell between the cracks to the Abandoned, though. There were other guilds, too, but they weren’t as important as those four.

Every guild had its own set of rules to be followed. If the rules were ignored or disobeyed, you would be cast out, like the Guard. People can’t survive long without other people, though. So those outcasts formed their own guild, one that the Mob never really opposed. The Abandoned.

A large number of the Abandoned were outcasts for a time, which is why we are the least respected guild. Most of them lived together in the City, where the Legion protected everyone and the Mob created the laws. But because most of the Abandoned were expelled from those guilds, they were not permitted to live in the City anymore. Which is why we lived on our own in the Compound, far away on a plateau where they would rarely go.

But a small number of the Abandoned weren’t outcasts. I wasn’t. I wasn’t a Newbie, either - someone found by an Abandoned outside of the City and the Compound. Someone alone with nowhere else to go. Usually they were kids. A decent amount of us, though, were more like me - someone whose parents were outcasts and was born into the Abandoned.

I came back to the present and stopped thinking about guild society. Now I was right outside the Inner Wall, approaching the Guard. I entered the check in area - some sheet metal panels put up by a former Wright. It was supposed to deter radioactive sand. We weren’t sure if it worked or not, but no one really wanted to take it down.

“Sign?” the Guard asked. A Sign was a branding given to a member of a guild at birth on the inside of their right wrist. If an Abandoned was an outcast, their Sign was their original guild with an X branded over it. If you were a Newbie or someone born there, your Sign was just an X.

I pulled down my right glove, revealing my X. The Guard glanced at it before he punched a code into a panel in the wall. The hatch below opened to let me into the Compound. “Welcome back.” I nodded at him without smiling. Keeping my arm around the sling, I dropped down the hatch and into the compound below.

My feet landed on the dusty rocks that formed the ground of our compound. It used to be a mine, apparently, but former Wrights carved out more of it for living space and a market, and the lights strung across the ceilings were crafted by former Makers. Each level of the compound was a large chamber that took up the entire length of the plateau. More sheet metal was placed around to make little shanties and shacks that people lived in. On the rare chance that you had a family, your shack was bigger to accommodate that. Most of us lived alone, though.

The Caretaker was on the first sublevel. For most of the sublevels, the higher up in the cavern that you lived, the more important you were in the guild, unless you lived in the bottom sublevel. It was the only one that didn’t take up the entire width of the plateau, since only the people who lived down there were the people who left daily, like me.

I walked down the sublevel - not hurriedly, but not slowly, either, turning when I got to the Caretaker’s shack. Apart from my own home, it’d always been the place where I felt safest.

I ducked under the doorframe - we didn’t have doors. They were too hard for ex-Wrights to make from sheet metal. A thin female frame was sleeping on a barely stable couch. “CT.”

The Caretaker startled and woke up. Apparently she took naps when she didn’t have anything to do. With no Newbies for a few months, she got bored. After a brief moment of disorientation, she recognized me and began to smooth her tangled hair.

“Seeker,” she said. “It’s been a while since you visited.”

“We’re not supposed to get too attached to anyone,” I answered, reciting one of the most important Abandoned rules. “I figured it was better for both of us if I stayed aloof. I’m here on business.”

Her eye sparkled, a look rarely seen in the Abandoned. “Oh?”

“Come take a look,” I said, breaking eye contact and pulling the sling around me. She stood and came over as I pulled back the fabric to reveal the Newbie’s sleeping face.

“He’s cute!” she said. Her eyebrows furrowed for a moment. “It is a he, right?”

“I think so.” I slid my arm under the scraps of cloth covering his back and lift him out of the sling. He may have a half of his shirt, but his legs are bare. “Yep. It’s a he.”

“That’s… embarrassing. I should have something in here we can use for him.” She turned around and started towards her drawers. She pulls a pair of Newbie pants and a shirt out of one of them and puts them on him. They’re a little baggy, but he’ll grow.

“Well,” I said, “I better head. You’re the only one who can socially acceptably form attachments anyway.”

“Hold on a sec,” she answered. “This is your first time finding a Newbie, right?”

“Yeah…?”

“Typically, when a Newbie is found, their finder names them and helps brand them. So? What do you think?”

“Well, he was found, right?” I asked. “And names can have meaning. He should have a name that means ‘found’.”

The Caretaker bounced the Newbie up into her arm. “Follow me.” Keeping him cradled in her arm, she led the way to a small shelf on her wall. Being there longer than just about everyone else, she had a single stone wall that her shack was built against. On the shelf was a set of tomes, each one listing names.

The Caretaker scanned the books with her finger, eventually pulling out the sixth one. “Turn to ‘found’ in this. Different names with that meaning are listed there.”

I took it from her and flipped to where she said. It took a few tries to find the right place. But I did find it. Just like she’d said, under the word ‘found’ was a list of names, and there was one that stuck out to me.

“Nayden,” I said. “His name is Nayden.”

“Until he gets a job,” the Caretaker responded. “He’ll still remember, but no one else will call him that again. Now.” She handed Nayden to me. “We need to brand him.”

I had never been present to a Branding before them. Usually it was an intimate ceremony. But I guessed that since I was the one who found him, I was the closest he had to a family, so I should be present for it.

She turned to get the branding iron, and I pulled up Nayden’s right sleeve. He already had a brand. It was three spears forming a triangle around a city - the Legion brand. The Caretaker turned back to us, the red hot X ready to be pressed against his skin.

In a different guild, I may have protested. Said that a Newbie shouldn’t have to go through pain like this. But I wasn’t in a different guild. I knew that pain was a part of life, and that Nayden wouldn’t even remember his Branding. He would only see that it had happened.

Knowing that he wouldn’t remember the pain is how I kept my composure while he screamed. While the metal made his skin sizzle.

Sorry, kid.

 

 

 

I left after the Branding and delivered what food I had gathered to the Chef. Nayden was in the Caretaker’s jurisdiction now, and he wasn’t my responsibility anymore. Now, I was sitting in my own hut on what would there be considered a luxurious mattress, though any other guild would see it as it was - a long, smooth rock with a moss shell.

The Gatherer bent down and entered my shack. He was one of the other food providers and lived on the bottom sublevel as well. His eyes were dark gray, and his teeth glistened ivory white - the only part of him that was ever clean. We were all like that, though - covered in sand and dust with matted hair. You got used to it eventually, though; it boosted your immune system.

“Hey, we need to head to the Doctor’s place,” he said. His voice wasn’t happy, wasn’t sad- just informative. “Immunity Check.”

I nodded, before furrowing my eyebrows. “I thought we just had a check.”

He shrugged. “Apparently, the Mob thinks he’s hiding Immunes from them and they sent someone to supervise this time.”

“Ah.” I stood and passed him, heading back to the ancient elevator that had been here since the mine days. It barely worked, but it worked, so we kept using it.

“Back up to the first sublevel, huh,” I muttered as the Gatherer pushed the button for that area.

“Yeah. Would’ve been more convenient if someone’d just told us that when we were up there before.”

“Was that a joke, Gatherer?” I asked, nearly grinning.

“What? No,” he responded before getting very quiet.

I put my hand on his arm. “Hey, you okay?”

He took a deep breath. “Yeah, yeah, just… nervous. And I know you shouldn’t have anything to worry about if you aren’t an Im, but you never know if they have enough Reds for the Game.”

“And you don’t want to take that risk.”

“Yeah…”

I wished I could say something to him to calm him down. But from what I knew, everyone was worried about being taken as a Red, or at least they pretended to be, if they wanted people to think they weren’t an Immune.

Since I couldn’t think of anything to tell him, I just nodded and turned away. I figured the best thing to do would be to change the subject. “So… how was your haul today?”

“... Pretty good, I think. Some nuts, wild fruits, root vegetables, you know… the usual.” He grinned, a sight not often seen in our guild. “The Hunter probably had quite the haul, though.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah. I heard him talking before we left this morning. Apparently fox season is starting, in addition to the usual snakes and rabbits. Oh, and lizards.”

My face scrunched. “I’ve never liked lizard.”

His shoulders shook in an almost laugh. “Me neither. But if there’s nothing else available…”

“If there was no other option for meat, I’d go vegetarian. Disgusting…”

“I think we know which one of us dislikes lizard more, then.”

The elevator shook beneath us, stopping its ascent. The two of us stepped off and turned left towards the Doctor’s. Since he was Mob, he had a decent house and not just a hovel. 

“Course he gets an actual house,” the Gatherer muttered. “The Mob only cares about their guys, not anyone else. Especially not us.”

“Keep talking like that and they will take you as a Red,” I responded. “Be careful what you say in public.” I dropped my voice. “Whether it’s true or not.”

He sighed. “You’re right. My bad.”

Since the Doctor had a house, he had an actual door. I opened it and waved the Gatherer through.

He shakes his head. “Ladies first.”

“Lady’s first to beat your butt if you don’t walk through the door.”

“Well, in that case…” He walked through the door, flicking me between the eyes on his way through.

“What a gentleman.” I rolled my eyes and followed him inside.

The Doctor did his Immunity Checks by drawing a small blood sample. Immunity itself comes from radiation in the bloodstream that is there from birth. It’s passed down genetically, so chances are if one of your parents was an Immune, so are you. After a sample was taken was put into a machine that checked for radiation traces. If it detected green or blue, the screen lit that color. If it didn’t, the screen turned red.

The Doctor pulled a syringe from the Gatherer’s left arm. He saw me, nodded in recognition, and set the Gatherer’s needle down on a counter. He grabbed another needle and antiseptic cloth - which he doesn’t normally do, but he’s being supervised - and wiped my wrist before sticking the needle into my vein. He turned, pushing the plunger with one hand and activating the machine with the other. He started to mutter. I didn’t catch everything he said, but I understood “two chambers.” Probably one for the Gatherer and one for me. He pulled the syringe out of my arm.

The door clicked. I turned around to see the Mob guy, who’d locked it. Every alarm in my body went off - the hairs on the back of my neck stood up; I felt dizzy, hot, ready to fight, and like I was about to puke all at once. I did my best not to let it show - I didn’t want his alarms to go off, too.

I turned back to the machine and the Doctor. He had put the syringes in the machine already and was now looking at me and the Gather, back and forth, downcast.

Oh no.

Both chambers beeped blue. Surprised as I was to find out the Gatherer was immune as well, that wasn’t the biggest concern on my mind. I wished I wasn’t an Immune; I wished the door wasn’t locked; I wished…

I wished I’d brought my gun like the Mob guy had. The one he was now pointing directly at the Doctor’s head.

“Should’ve known. We knew that Immunes were being hid from us by at least one guild, but we never figured it would be this one.” His voice was cold.

“How do you know their Immunity isn’t a recent development? One we were unaware of?” Respect the Doctor as I did, he was only delaying the inevitable.

“You checked three days ago. Plus, everyone knows Immunity is there since birth. You really don’t know how to cover your tracks.”

“How are you going to find others without me, huh?”

“Mob’s undergone some changes. We all know how to run the Probe. We don’t need specific doctors anymore, and there’s no room for traitors in our ranks. Which means we don’t need you anymore.”

I wanted to scream. I wanted to kick him in the groin. I wanted to take his gun. I wanted to do something. But I didn’t. And even if I had, there’s nothing I could have done to stop what happened next.

The bullet hit.

Dark red blood splashed on the floor. It wasn’t carpet, but it would still stain. And just like that, one of the only people I’d ever cared about was gone.

Two more Mobs emerged from the back room. One restrained the Gatherer, the other, me. Even though I knew it wouldn’t accomplish anything, I struggled against his arm. Even with just the one, I did nothing. With his other arm, he pushed a cloth against my face. Hard. A sweet smell went into my nose and mouth. That couldn’t be good.

I started fighting back even harder, and the scent began to overpower me. A glance his direction showed the same situation happening to the Gatherer.

I lost track of how long I’d been struggling, trying to fight back. It had been at least three minutes. I thought I was strong enough to overpower someone easily, but apparently not. Maybe the Mob was stronger than I expected, maybe I was weaker than I realized.

After around four minutes, I began to get drowsy. I began to lose control over my limbs. My eyes started to droop, and my brain started to shut down. The Mob guy released me, and I fell to the ground. Somewhere distant, there was another thud. I saw the Doctor’s head with a new tunnel carved through it, and the feet of the Gatherer, who had not yet been released.

And then, emptiness.

 

Edited September 25, 2024 by Spark of Hope

[Guest Ψιτιsτηε Βεsτ]

12 minutes ago, Spark of Hope said:

Hello! This is going to be where I put my works in progress and (hopefully) get feedback from y'all! We'll start with this one, prologue to a book based on a game my youth group plays once every year.

  Hide contents

Prologue

Origin

 

Dear reader, I wish I could tell you that it ends well. I really do. But this isn’t one of those happy-ended stories you’ve been spoiled by. Not in the slightest.

Where was I going with this? Ugh, I hate when this happens. Unfortunately, forgetfulness is a common side affect to an immunity to blue radiation.

I was raised in a… well, let’s say it was a strange society. If you can’t already tell, it was post-apocalyptic at best, dystopian at worst. Fun fact about the word dystopia - it has practically the same meaning as utopia. But this definitely isn’t a utopia.

The group I was in was called the Abandoned. Bunch of young people with no families. No one has respect for anyone but themself. And maybe a friend or two.

I was always told that you couldn’t show weakness of any kind. You can have at most three close friends. Any more than that, you’re labeled weak and are exiled from the Abandoned. I didn’t have any, though, so people knew I wasn’t weak.

But I was loyal. Ask me to blackmail the Abandoned, the people who took me in, for a spot in a more powerful group, like the Mob? Nope. Leave a message at the beep.

We were all the same in the sense that we had and longed for no one and only survival. We were separated by the fact that some of us were immune to different types of radiation.

Radiation barriered what you could do. Blue Immunes could go anywhere that blue radiation was emitted. Green Immunes could do likewise, but with green radiation. Pure Red Immunes couldn’t go anywhere that had blue or green radia. Blue and Green Immunes couldn’t go places where the other’s kind of radiation was emitted. Everyone was immune to red radia. Rarely, you’d find someone who was immune to blue or green radia.

But you didn’t want to be immune to any radiation other than red.

Blue and Green Immunes could go places that Reds couldn’t, yes. But once someone in the Mob or other powerful groups caught wind that you were immune to blue or green radiation, they took you.

From what little I had been able to pick up, my mother was a Blue Immune, my father a Green Immune. After rumors went around that my mother was immune to something that wasn’t red, someone from the Mob came and held a knife to my father’s throat, threatening to cut it unless she said she was immune to either blue or green radia. She broke and admitted. They took her away, and later, my father revealed to everyone that he was a Green Immune. They took him too. When I was a year old.

When they took you, they took you to the Apocalypse Building. Then, you played the Game. The Game was broadcasted to everyone. And if you survived the Game with your team, you had two options. You either joined the Staff, a subgroup of the Mob that oversaw the Game, or you disappeared. Most chose to disappear.

I didn’t want to play the Game. I couldn’t play the Game. That’s why I needed to keep my immunity a secret.

There were two people who did know - the Doctor and the Caretaker. The Doctor was commissioned by the Mob. He was supposed to inform the Mob when they found someone immune to blue or green radiation, but when the Doctor found someone that he deeply cared about to have been immune to those radia, he was a lot more lax about it and you had a better chance of him keeping you safe than of him turning you in. Each guild has one.

The Caretaker was who took care of me after the Mob took my biological parents. She’s the oldest person in the Abandoned, but she wasn’t the one who’s been there the longest. That would be our leader - or just the Leader. Knowing your guild members’ names is a luxury - one we do not possess. I found everyone food in the Wastes, so I was the Seeker.

Sounds cooler than Lyndon, at any rate.

 

 

The wind blew harder, pressing my hood against my face and making my scarf smack against the sides of my neck. The wind is full of sand, some of which is radioactive - red, green, and blue. I didn’t want to risk exposing myself to green radia, or revealing that blue radia doesn’t matter to me. My cargo, however, was a different matter, and could have been affected by any radia. I probably shouldn’t have been out there, thinking about it.

I swung into one of the alcoves in the cliff, stumbling a bit as I landed. The sand continued to pelt the cliff face. In a storm like that, I was grateful for the caves in the Outer Wall surrounding the Abandoned compound.

Technically, the cliffs we call the Outer Wall are all we really need. Our guild is based pretty much on a mountain, and the only way up to it is to climb. And unless you live there or are part of the Mob, no one wants to do that. I pulled my goggles of my eyes and set them on my forehead. Once they were secure, I pulled the mask off of my nose and bunched it at my neck. This landscape could be pretty treacherous, with all the climbing, and I’d been in the desert all day. About time for some water.

I was glad my sack had a zipper. All the food I’d scavenged throughout the day would have been ruined by the sand, especially by blue and green radia. The sling around my torso, however, is a different story.

I pulled back one fold of fabric from the sling. Newbie’s still asleep. Kind of impressive, actually, the way it was sleeping through the storm like this. Caretaker was going to be glad to have another one. We hadn’t had a Newbie in a while. And despite always having the sling on me, that was my first time ever finding one.

I replaced the fabric, making sure it was secure. As important as the food was, the kid was more important. The Abandoned’s numbers had started to dwindle. Deserters, mostly. A handful of deaths. One girl taken by the Mob a few months back. We needed this. Needed him.

The pelting began to become less and less. I stuck my arm out and felt only wind. I resecured the sling around my side and put my sack back on. I pulled the gloves onto my hands again, also readjusting my mask and goggles. I went to the entrance of the alcove, placed my hands on the holds in the cliff face.

My legs pushed me off one stone and onto another. The climb continued.

Fortunately, my gloves gave me better grip than my bare hands did, and I had a good grip anyway. But they were required outside the Abandoned compound. They were B/G radia proof, after all, and I had to keep my Immunity safe.

My fingers slipped off a handhold, and I hissed air in as I groped at it again. Thankfully, I didn’t slip the second time. Against my better judgment, I looked down. That fall would’ve killed both me and the Newbie. I couldn’t make a mistake like that again.

I didn’t have any more close calls before I reached the top of the cliff. I braced my left forearm on the cliff, as well as my right palm, and pushed myself up onto my knee on the flat surface of the Abandoned Plateau. I rose up again, my arm cradling the sling on my left side, and approached the Inner Wall.

The Inner Wall is a formality, really, just a security checkpoint. It’s the only way in or out. The Guard only let in our members, unless you have clearance from another guild’s leader. Or a Mob ID. We wouldn’t have it if it wasn’t required by the Mob.

For the most part, the guilds were created by the Mob, the first and most powerful of the guilds. They’re the only guild that it’s technically required to respect by all other guilds. There’s the Abandoned, obviously, but we were a bit of an exception. We were recognized as a guild, but we weren’t established by the Mob. Every other guild was.

The highest-regarded guild was the Wrights. The Wrights were builders, stoneworkers, welders, iron workers… like artisans, but more “needed” by society. The artisans were members of the next highest guild, the Makers. They made the more decorative things. Then was the Legion- soldiers, usually employed by other guilds, for defense. Technically, the Guard was in the Legion, but outcast. Not a deserter, really, but not welcomed there for whatever reason. He never said, and I never asked. The Analysts were scientists, developing technology for the city and Mob to use. Stuff like that rarely fell between the cracks to the Abandoned, though. There were other guilds, too, but they weren’t as important as those four.

Every guild had its own set of rules to be followed. If the rules were ignored or disobeyed, you would be cast out, like the Guard. People can’t survive long without other people, though. So those outcasts formed their own guild, one that the Mob never really opposed. The Abandoned.

A large number of the Abandoned were outcasts for a time, which is why we are the least respected guild. Most of them lived together in the City, where the Legion protected everyone and the Mob created the laws. But because most of the Abandoned were expelled from those guilds, they were not permitted to live in the City anymore. Which is why we lived on our own in the Compound, far away on a plateau where they would rarely go.

But a small number of the Abandoned weren’t outcasts. I wasn’t. I wasn’t a Newbie, either - someone found by an Abandoned outside of the City and the Compound. Someone alone with nowhere else to go. Usually they were kids. A decent amount of us, though, were more like me - someone whose parents were outcasts and was born into the Abandoned.

I came back to the present and stopped thinking about guild society. Now I was right outside the Inner Wall, approaching the Guard. I entered the check in area - some sheet metal panels put up by a former Wright. It was supposed to deter radioactive sand. We weren’t sure if it worked or not, but no one really wanted to take it down.

“Sign?” the Guard asked. A Sign was a branding given to a member of a guild at birth on the inside of their right wrist. If an Abandoned was an outcast, their Sign was their original guild with an X branded over it. If you were a Newbie or someone born there, your Sign was just an X.

I pulled down my right glove, revealing my X. The Guard glanced at it before he punched a code into a panel in the wall. The hatch below opened to let me into the Compound. “Welcome back.” I nodded at him without smiling. Keeping my arm around the sling, I dropped down the hatch and into the compound below.

My feet landed on the dusty rocks that formed the ground of our compound. It used to be a mine, apparently, but former Wrights carved out more of it for living space and a market, and the lights strung across the ceilings were crafted by former Makers. Each level of the compound was a large chamber that took up the entire length of the plateau. More sheet metal was placed around to make little shanties and shacks that people lived in. On the rare chance that you had a family, your shack was bigger to accommodate that. Most of us lived alone, though.

The Caretaker was on the first sublevel. For most of the sublevels, the higher up in the cavern that you lived, the more important you were in the guild, unless you lived in the bottom sublevel. It was the only one that didn’t take up the entire width of the plateau, since only the people who lived down there were the people who left daily, like me.

I walked down the sublevel - not hurriedly, but not slowly, either, turning when I got to the Caretaker’s shack. Apart from my own home, it’d always been the place where I felt safest.

I ducked under the doorframe - we didn’t have doors. They were too hard for ex-Wrights to make from sheet metal. A thin female frame was sleeping on a barely stable couch. “CT.”

The Caretaker startled and woke up. Apparently she took naps when she didn’t have anything to do. With no Newbies for a few months, she got bored. After a brief moment of disorientation, she recognized me and began to smooth her tangled hair.

“Seeker,” she said. “It’s been a while since you visited.”

“We’re not supposed to get too attached to anyone,” I answered, reciting one of the most important Abandoned rules. “I figured it was better for both of us if I stayed aloof. I’m here on business.”

Her eye sparkled, a look rarely seen in the Abandoned. “Oh?”

“Come take a look,” I said, breaking eye contact and pulling the sling around me. She stood and came over as I pulled back the fabric to reveal the Newbie’s sleeping face.

“He’s cute!” she said. Her eyebrows furrowed for a moment. “It is a he, right?”

“I think so.” I slid my arm under the scraps of cloth covering his back and lift him out of the sling. He may have a half of his shirt, but his legs are bare. “Yep. It’s a he.”

“That’s… embarrassing. I should have something in here we can use for him.” She turned around and started towards her drawers. She pulls a pair of Newbie pants and a shirt out of one of them and puts them on him. They’re a little baggy, but he’ll grow.

“Well,” I said, “I better head. You’re the only one who can socially acceptably form attachments anyway.”

“Hold on a sec,” she answered. “This is your first time finding a Newbie, right?”

“Yeah…?”

“Typically, when a Newbie is found, their finder names them and helps brand them. So? What do you think?”

“Well, he was found, right?” I asked. “And names can have meaning. He should have a name that means ‘found’.”

The Caretaker bounced the Newbie up into her arm. “Follow me.” Keeping him cradled in her arm, she led the way to a small shelf on her wall. Being there longer than just about everyone else, she had a single stone wall that her shack was built against. On the shelf was a set of tomes, each one listing names.

The Caretaker scanned the books with her finger, eventually pulling out the sixth one. “Turn to ‘found’ in this. Different names with that meaning are listed there.”

I took it from her and flipped to where she said. It took a few tries to find the right place. But I did find it. Just like she’d said, under the word ‘found’ was a list of names, and there was one that stuck out to me.

“Nayden,” I said. “His name is Nayden.”

“Until he gets a job,” the Caretaker responded. “He’ll still remember, but no one else will call him that again. Now.” She handed Nayden to me. “We need to brand him.”

I had never been present to a Branding before them. Usually it was an intimate ceremony. But I guessed that since I was the one who found him, I was the closest he had to a family, so I should be present for it.

She turned to get the branding iron, and I pulled up Nayden’s right sleeve. He already had a brand. It was three spears forming a triangle around a city - the Legion brand. The Caretaker turned back to us, the red hot X ready to be pressed against his skin.

In a different guild, I may have protested. Said that a Newbie shouldn’t have to go through pain like this. But I wasn’t in a different guild. I knew that pain was a part of life, and that Nayden wouldn’t even remember his Branding. He would only see that it had happened.

Knowing that he wouldn’t remember the pain is how I kept my composure while he screamed. While the metal made his skin sizzle.

Sorry, kid.

 

 

 

I left after the Branding and delivered what food I had gathered to the Chef. Nayden was in the Caretaker’s jurisdiction now, and he wasn’t my responsibility anymore. Now, I was sitting in my own hut on what would there be considered a luxurious mattress, though any other guild would see it as it was - a long, smooth rock with a moss shell.

The Gatherer bent down and entered my shack. He was one of the other food providers and lived on the bottom sublevel as well. His eyes were dark gray, and his teeth glistened ivory white - the only part of him that was ever clean. We were all like that, though - covered in sand and dust with matted hair. You got used to it eventually, though; it boosted your immune system.

“Hey, we need to head to the Doctor’s place,” he said. His voice wasn’t happy, wasn’t sad- just informative. “Immunity Check.”

I nodded, before furrowing my eyebrows. “I thought we just had a check.”

He shrugged. “Apparently, the Mob thinks he’s hiding Immunes from them and they sent someone to supervise this time.”

“Ah.” I stood and passed him, heading back to the ancient elevator that had been here since the mine days. It barely worked, but it worked, so we kept using it.

“Back up to the first sublevel, huh,” I muttered as the Gatherer pushed the button for that area.

“Yeah. Would’ve been more convenient if someone’d just told us that when we were up there before.”

“Was that a joke, Gatherer?” I asked, nearly grinning.

“What? No,” he responded before getting very quiet.

I put my hand on his arm. “Hey, you okay?”

He took a deep breath. “Yeah, yeah, just… nervous. And I know you shouldn’t have anything to worry about if you aren’t an Im, but you never know if they have enough Reds for the Game.”

“And you don’t want to take that risk.”

“Yeah…”

I wished I could say something to him to calm him down. But from what I knew, everyone was worried about being taken as a Red, or at least they pretended to be, if they wanted people to think they weren’t an Immune.

Since I couldn’t think of anything to tell him, I just nodded and turned away. I figured the best thing to do would be to change the subject. “So… how was your haul today?”

“... Pretty good, I think. Some nuts, wild fruits, root vegetables, you know… the usual.” He grinned, a sight not often seen in our guild. “The Hunter probably had quite the haul, though.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah. I heard him talking before we left this morning. Apparently fox season is starting, in addition to the usual snakes and rabbits. Oh, and lizards.”

My face scrunched. “I’ve never liked lizard.”

His shoulders shook in an almost laugh. “Me neither. But if there’s nothing else available…”

“If there was no other option for meat, I’d go vegetarian. Disgusting…”

“I think we know which one of us dislikes lizard more, then.”

The elevator shook beneath us, stopping its ascent. The two of us stepped off and turned left towards the Doctor’s. Since he was Mob, he had a decent house and not just a hovel. 

“Course he gets an actual house,” the Gatherer muttered. “The Mob only cares about their guys, not anyone else. Especially not us.”

“Keep talking like that and they will take you as a Red,” I responded. “Be careful what you say in public.” I dropped my voice. “Whether it’s true or not.”

He sighed. “You’re right. My bad.”

Since the Doctor had a house, he had an actual door. I opened it and waved the Gatherer through.

He shakes his head. “Ladies first.”

“Lady’s first to beat your butt if you don’t walk through the door.”

“Well, in that case…” He walked through the door, flicking me between the eyes on his way through.

“What a gentleman.” I rolled my eyes and followed him inside.

The Doctor did his Immunity Checks by drawing a small blood sample. Immunity itself comes from radiation in the bloodstream that is there from birth. It’s passed down genetically, so chances are if one of your parents was an Immune, so are you. After a sample was taken was put into a machine that checked for radiation traces. If it detected green or blue, the screen lit that color. If it didn’t, the screen turned red.

The Doctor pulled a syringe from the Gatherer’s left arm. He saw me, nodded in recognition, and set the Gatherer’s needle down on a counter. He grabbed another needle and antiseptic cloth - which he doesn’t normally do, but he’s being supervised - and wiped my wrist before sticking the needle into my vein. He turned, pushing the plunger with one hand and activating the machine with the other. He started to mutter. I didn’t catch everything he said, but I understood “two chambers.” Probably one for the Gatherer and one for me. He pulled the syringe out of my arm.

The door clicked. I turned around to see the Mob guy, who’d locked it. Every alarm in my body went off - the hairs on the back of my neck stood up; I felt dizzy, hot, ready to fight, and like I was about to puke all at once. I did my best not to let it show - I didn’t want his alarms to go off, too.

I turned back to the machine and the Doctor. He had put the syringes in the machine already and was now looking at me and the Gather, back and forth, downcast.

Oh no.

Both chambers beeped blue. Surprised as I was to find out the Gatherer was immune as well, that wasn’t the biggest concern on my mind. I wished I wasn’t an Immune; I wished the door wasn’t locked; I wished…

I wished I’d brought my gun like the Mob guy had. The one he was now pointing directly at the Doctor’s head.

“Should’ve known. We knew that Immunes were being hid from us by at least one guild, but we never figured it would be this one.” His voice was cold.

“How do you know their Immunity isn’t a recent development? One we were unaware of?” Respect the Doctor as I did, he was only delaying the inevitable.

“You checked three days ago. Plus, everyone knows Immunity is there since birth. You really don’t know how to cover your tracks.”

“How are you going to find others without me, huh?”

“Mob’s undergone some changes. We all know how to run the Probe. We don’t need specific doctors anymore, and there’s no room for traitors in our ranks. Which means we don’t need you anymore.”

I wanted to scream. I wanted to kick him in the groin. I wanted to take his gun. I wanted to do something. But I didn’t. And even if I had, there’s nothing I could have done to stop what happened next.

The bullet hit.

Dark red blood splashed on the floor. It wasn’t carpet, but it would still stain. And just like that, one of the only people I’d ever cared about was gone.

Two more Mobs emerged from the back room. One restrained the Gatherer, the other, me. Even though I knew it wouldn’t accomplish anything, I struggled against his arm. Even with just the one, I did nothing. With his other arm, he pushed a cloth against my face. Hard. A sweet smell went into my nose and mouth. That couldn’t be good.

I started fighting back even harder, and the scent began to overpower me. A glance his direction showed the same situation happening to the Gatherer.

I lost track of how long I’d been struggling, trying to fight back. It had been at least three minutes. I thought I was strong enough to overpower someone easily, but apparently not. Maybe the Mob was stronger than I expected, maybe I was weaker than I realized.

After around four minutes, I began to get drowsy. I began to lose control over my limbs. My eyes started to droop, and my brain started to shut down. The Mob guy released me, and I fell to the ground. Somewhere distant, there was another thud. I saw the Doctor’s head with a new tunnel carved through it, and the feet of the Gatherer, who had not yet been released.

And then, emptiness.

 

This is really good Spark, I really enjoy your style. It was a pleasure reading it.!

[Through the Living Hope]

I wrote this for my writing class. I think I was going to call it Ether, but I don't really remember, it's been a couple weeks. But anyways...

Spoiler

Ether and I stood in the entrance of the cave. The wind from outside blew in air, and the moment it crossed the arch it turned stale and sour. The scent of evil. Despite this, I couldn’t help but think about the way it made the curl of his hair bounce playfully, or how the redness the bitter wind brought to his cheeks just accented his appearance, despite his evident nervousness.

“You’ve got this,” I said.

He looked back at me. Ether had always been horrible at disguising fear and worry in his eyes. In his beautiful eyes, the color of storm clouds over the sea. “You don’t know that, Allira.”

“You’ve been training for this for months. I do know that. You are the only one who can do this. All I can do is help you.”

He turned back to the mouth of the cave. He still wasn’t fully convinced, I knew, but he nodded. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the malicious air. He opened them once more and stepped into the cave. I followed.

The ground sloped into the depth of the cave. It felt as though we were descending into the belly of some once-great titan, slain and turned to stone. It certainly made the stalactites more foreboding thinking about them that way, like the teeth of this ancient monster.

A gust of air blasted us—the titan’s indigestion—and Ether pulled out his sword. It’s just wind, I thought to say, but wind wouldn’t come from the depths of the cave. Something was there, waiting for us. 

We turned a couple corners, further down into the belly of the beast. Always down. But Ether stopped. What he had come here to face was right in front of us.

A dragon. It was at least two hundred feet long with scales an ugly olive green the size of my hand along its sides and back. The ones on its belly were the size of finger- nails. “Indigestion” may not have been too far off for a description of the creature’s breath. Each of its claws was eight inches thick at the base, yet tapered to a point half an inch after about five feet.

Ether pulled his sword out of his sheath. If I were the dragon, I would have laughed. It may have been longer than his arm, but it was nothing next to the dragon’s claws. It eyed the sword and batted it away with its tail. The strike was powerful and made contact with a deep thud.  The top of the tail was lined with forearm-length spikes.

The sword clanged against the stone about fifty feet away. The dragon locked eyes with Ether. If Ether looked away, the dragon would kill him. Malice was not in its eyes, but challenge was.

Without breaking eye contact, Ether began slowly making his way to the sword, moving like a grapevine. He bent over to touch it. As his fingers grazed the hilt, plumes of smoke shot from the dragon’s nostrils like hellish snot rockets. Ether pulled his hand back, and the dragon calmed.

I heard Ether laugh - not a hearty laugh, but a small one, nearly a whisper. More an exhale than a laugh, really. “You’re not such a brute, are you? You just want to be safe.” He set his hand on the dragon’s tail near where it met his body.

This. This was why he hadn’t wanted to do this. Why I had also initially protested. Ether was a mighty warrior when it came to anything without a soul. Monsters stood no chance before him. While he felt bad about hunting animals, he would do so to feed the people he cared about. But this dragon… it wasn’t like most animals. It was intelligent, and it had desires beyond survival or destruction for destruction’s sake. A creature he could understand. As he and the beast gazed at each other, I finally understood. I felt like I understood his heart as well as my own, and I almost suggested that we just leave.

I understood him in that moment so well that I nearly missed it. The moment when its tail wrapped around Ether and impaled him thrice.

I wailed. Whether there were words associated with the yell, I don’t remember. The dragon roared, likely surprised at the outburst. It released Ether—its tail uncoiling like a snake slithering away—and flew from the cave to who knows where, off to ravage an unassuming village.

Ether groaned and as soon as the tail unwrapped him, he sank to his knees. I ran and fell down next to him. As soon as I was there, he collapsed onto me.

“No, nonononono…” 

Ether smiled. His stormy gray eyes began to cloud over. Groaning, he reached one arm up and pushed my hair behind my ear. His hand and now my lock of hair were drenched in blood.

“This wasn’t how this was supposed to happen.” My eyes began to flood. “The Elders… the Elders said-”

“The Elders were wrong.” His voice was weak, quiet. “I’m no hero. I’m a coward.”

“No, this is… This is wrong. The prophecy- you were supposed to kill it. And save us-”

“The Elders. Were. Wrong.” He gripped the top of my blouse, and his breathing was ragged. “I’m not the hero we needed. I didn’t stand a chance against that… monster.”

I met his eyes. He truly believed that.

“Why did you think it was me?”

My mouth hung open. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t.

“Allira. Why did you think it was me? Was it because you’re the Head Elder’s daughter? Or because I was your friend?”

“Both. And neither.” I took a shaky breath in. “The Elders’ children have… limited options. We must select between each other, and none of us want each other. We want to be allowed to love others. But if you were to save our people from that… that monster… an exception could have been made. We could have… we could have happened.”

“But now, because they chose wrong, we never can.”

“Don’t.” I shook my head. “Don’t let those be your last words.”

He smiled sadly. “I love you, Allira.”

I leaned down and kissed him. Had anyone been around, I never would have dared. An Elder’s daughter disobeying one of the oldest traditions of our people? My father would have been disgraced, cast out from his position.

But now, no one was around. 

I pulled back. There was no light in his eyes. I held his chest close to mine. “I love you too, Ether.”

 

 

 

The stone was covered in moss and vines. Six feet below it, the skeleton of a young man lay buried, its flesh long rotted. The woman ran her fingers along it. While it was covered in green, the inscription was still there. She didn’t need to read it to know exactly what it said.

The woman used to visit this stone every day at midnight. That was their time; their time of stolen moments when each one pined for the other, but knew that a relationship between them would be impossible. The time where the only ones watching them were the starts that glittered above in the sky. A moment away from prying eyes.

Then, she had grown. She hadn’t had the time to visit, though she wished she did. Eventually, she had been married, and her husband had believed that he had been her first kiss. He had died in an attack on their village, when a dragon had killed a third of its population. She was left a widow, with only their child left to remember him by. The village was abandoned.

“Mom? Why are we here?” The woman turned from the stone and looked to her son. She never had told him why they were here.

“This is the village where I grew up.” She looked around her at the burnt homes, all surrounded with rubble—what remained of the buildings destroyed in the dragon’s attack. Dead trees lined the graveyard; they had not been tended for over a decade. “And this stone marks the grave of the one who would have been its hero.”

“What happened to him?” Her son walked up to her side. He looked to her first, then touched the stone himself.

The woman smiled. “His heart. The evil creature he was supposed to slay took advantage of his kindness and killed him.”

“That’s not very nice of it.” Her son pulled his hand away. “What was his name?”

“That doesn’t matter now.” She said it, but didn’t fully believe it herself. “It is not our place to have fellowship with the dead. Let them rest where they lie.”

Her son looked at her. Worry shone in his eyes, a blue somewhere between the night sky and the river by their home.

His mother smiled back at him and pulled her hand from the stone. “It’s truly disappointing, though, that no one would return to tend his grave. He gave his life trying to save this people, and still…”

“Did you know him?”

“Yes.” She looked up at the night sky. The stars twinkled and looked down at her, just like they had that lonely walk home from the cave. “It’s getting late. We should start going back home.”

He nodded and looked back at the stone. “We aren’t going to die, are we?”

“Someday, we will. Everyone does. But that will not happen for a long time. And I will likely die before you do.”

The son hugged his mother. “I don’t want you to die. I love you, Mom.”

The woman smiled and embraced him back. “I love you too, Ether.”

 

[Cash67]

30 minutes ago, Spark of Hope said:

I wrote this for my writing class. I think I was going to call it Ether, but I don't really remember, it's been a couple weeks. But anyways...

  Reveal hidden contents

Ether and I stood in the entrance of the cave. The wind from outside blew in air, and the moment it crossed the arch it turned stale and sour. The scent of evil. Despite this, I couldn’t help but think about the way it made the curl of his hair bounce playfully, or how the redness the bitter wind brought to his cheeks just accented his appearance, despite his evident nervousness.

“You’ve got this,” I said.

He looked back at me. Ether had always been horrible at disguising fear and worry in his eyes. In his beautiful eyes, the color of storm clouds over the sea. “You don’t know that, Allira.”

“You’ve been training for this for months. I do know that. You are the only one who can do this. All I can do is help you.”

He turned back to the mouth of the cave. He still wasn’t fully convinced, I knew, but he nodded. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the malicious air. He opened them once more and stepped into the cave. I followed.

The ground sloped into the depth of the cave. It felt as though we were descending into the belly of some once-great titan, slain and turned to stone. It certainly made the stalactites more foreboding thinking about them that way, like the teeth of this ancient monster.

A gust of air blasted us—the titan’s indigestion—and Ether pulled out his sword. It’s just wind, I thought to say, but wind wouldn’t come from the depths of the cave. Something was there, waiting for us. 

We turned a couple corners, further down into the belly of the beast. Always down. But Ether stopped. What he had come here to face was right in front of us.

A dragon. It was at least two hundred feet long with scales an ugly olive green the size of my hand along its sides and back. The ones on its belly were the size of finger- nails. “Indigestion” may not have been too far off for a description of the creature’s breath. Each of its claws was eight inches thick at the base, yet tapered to a point half an inch after about five feet.

Ether pulled his sword out of his sheath. If I were the dragon, I would have laughed. It may have been longer than his arm, but it was nothing next to the dragon’s claws. It eyed the sword and batted it away with its tail. The strike was powerful and made contact with a deep thud.  The top of the tail was lined with forearm-length spikes.

The sword clanged against the stone about fifty feet away. The dragon locked eyes with Ether. If Ether looked away, the dragon would kill him. Malice was not in its eyes, but challenge was.

Without breaking eye contact, Ether began slowly making his way to the sword, moving like a grapevine. He bent over to touch it. As his fingers grazed the hilt, plumes of smoke shot from the dragon’s nostrils like hellish snot rockets. Ether pulled his hand back, and the dragon calmed.

I heard Ether laugh - not a hearty laugh, but a small one, nearly a whisper. More an exhale than a laugh, really. “You’re not such a brute, are you? You just want to be safe.” He set his hand on the dragon’s tail near where it met his body.

This. This was why he hadn’t wanted to do this. Why I had also initially protested. Ether was a mighty warrior when it came to anything without a soul. Monsters stood no chance before him. While he felt bad about hunting animals, he would do so to feed the people he cared about. But this dragon… it wasn’t like most animals. It was intelligent, and it had desires beyond survival or destruction for destruction’s sake. A creature he could understand. As he and the beast gazed at each other, I finally understood. I felt like I understood his heart as well as my own, and I almost suggested that we just leave.

I understood him in that moment so well that I nearly missed it. The moment when its tail wrapped around Ether and impaled him thrice.

I wailed. Whether there were words associated with the yell, I don’t remember. The dragon roared, likely surprised at the outburst. It released Ether—its tail uncoiling like a snake slithering away—and flew from the cave to who knows where, off to ravage an unassuming village.

Ether groaned and as soon as the tail unwrapped him, he sank to his knees. I ran and fell down next to him. As soon as I was there, he collapsed onto me.

“No, nonononono…” 

Ether smiled. His stormy gray eyes began to cloud over. Groaning, he reached one arm up and pushed my hair behind my ear. His hand and now my lock of hair were drenched in blood.

“This wasn’t how this was supposed to happen.” My eyes began to flood. “The Elders… the Elders said-”

“The Elders were wrong.” His voice was weak, quiet. “I’m no hero. I’m a coward.”

“No, this is… This is wrong. The prophecy- you were supposed to kill it. And save us-”

“The Elders. Were. Wrong.” He gripped the top of my blouse, and his breathing was ragged. “I’m not the hero we needed. I didn’t stand a chance against that… monster.”

I met his eyes. He truly believed that.

“Why did you think it was me?”

My mouth hung open. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t.

“Allira. Why did you think it was me? Was it because you’re the Head Elder’s daughter? Or because I was your friend?”

“Both. And neither.” I took a shaky breath in. “The Elders’ children have… limited options. We must select between each other, and none of us want each other. We want to be allowed to love others. But if you were to save our people from that… that monster… an exception could have been made. We could have… we could have happened.”

“But now, because they chose wrong, we never can.”

“Don’t.” I shook my head. “Don’t let those be your last words.”

He smiled sadly. “I love you, Allira.”

I leaned down and kissed him. Had anyone been around, I never would have dared. An Elder’s daughter disobeying one of the oldest traditions of our people? My father would have been disgraced, cast out from his position.

But now, no one was around. 

I pulled back. There was no light in his eyes. I held his chest close to mine. “I love you too, Ether.”

 

 

 

The stone was covered in moss and vines. Six feet below it, the skeleton of a young man lay buried, its flesh long rotted. The woman ran her fingers along it. While it was covered in green, the inscription was still there. She didn’t need to read it to know exactly what it said.

The woman used to visit this stone every day at midnight. That was their time; their time of stolen moments when each one pined for the other, but knew that a relationship between them would be impossible. The time where the only ones watching them were the starts that glittered above in the sky. A moment away from prying eyes.

Then, she had grown. She hadn’t had the time to visit, though she wished she did. Eventually, she had been married, and her husband had believed that he had been her first kiss. He had died in an attack on their village, when a dragon had killed a third of its population. She was left a widow, with only their child left to remember him by. The village was abandoned.

“Mom? Why are we here?” The woman turned from the stone and looked to her son. She never had told him why they were here.

“This is the village where I grew up.” She looked around her at the burnt homes, all surrounded with rubble—what remained of the buildings destroyed in the dragon’s attack. Dead trees lined the graveyard; they had not been tended for over a decade. “And this stone marks the grave of the one who would have been its hero.”

“What happened to him?” Her son walked up to her side. He looked to her first, then touched the stone himself.

The woman smiled. “His heart. The evil creature he was supposed to slay took advantage of his kindness and killed him.”

“That’s not very nice of it.” Her son pulled his hand away. “What was his name?”

“That doesn’t matter now.” She said it, but didn’t fully believe it herself. “It is not our place to have fellowship with the dead. Let them rest where they lie.”

Her son looked at her. Worry shone in his eyes, a blue somewhere between the night sky and the river by their home.

His mother smiled back at him and pulled her hand from the stone. “It’s truly disappointing, though, that no one would return to tend his grave. He gave his life trying to save this people, and still…”

“Did you know him?”

“Yes.” She looked up at the night sky. The stars twinkled and looked down at her, just like they had that lonely walk home from the cave. “It’s getting late. We should start going back home.”

He nodded and looked back at the stone. “We aren’t going to die, are we?”

“Someday, we will. Everyone does. But that will not happen for a long time. And I will likely die before you do.”

The son hugged his mother. “I don’t want you to die. I love you, Mom.”

The woman smiled and embraced him back. “I love you too, Ether.”

 

gosh dang it now I'm gonna be sad while I teach

[Through the Living Hope]

1 minute ago, Cash67 said:

gosh dang it now I'm gonna be sad while I teach

Sowwy...

[shortcake thr/eat ka/boom]

38 minutes ago, Spark of Hope said:

I wrote this for my writing class. I think I was going to call it Ether, but I don't really remember, it's been a couple weeks. But anyways...

  Reveal hidden contents

Ether and I stood in the entrance of the cave. The wind from outside blew in air, and the moment it crossed the arch it turned stale and sour. The scent of evil. Despite this, I couldn’t help but think about the way it made the curl of his hair bounce playfully, or how the redness the bitter wind brought to his cheeks just accented his appearance, despite his evident nervousness.

“You’ve got this,” I said.

He looked back at me. Ether had always been horrible at disguising fear and worry in his eyes. In his beautiful eyes, the color of storm clouds over the sea. “You don’t know that, Allira.”

“You’ve been training for this for months. I do know that. You are the only one who can do this. All I can do is help you.”

He turned back to the mouth of the cave. He still wasn’t fully convinced, I knew, but he nodded. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the malicious air. He opened them once more and stepped into the cave. I followed.

The ground sloped into the depth of the cave. It felt as though we were descending into the belly of some once-great titan, slain and turned to stone. It certainly made the stalactites more foreboding thinking about them that way, like the teeth of this ancient monster.

A gust of air blasted us—the titan’s indigestion—and Ether pulled out his sword. It’s just wind, I thought to say, but wind wouldn’t come from the depths of the cave. Something was there, waiting for us. 

We turned a couple corners, further down into the belly of the beast. Always down. But Ether stopped. What he had come here to face was right in front of us.

A dragon. It was at least two hundred feet long with scales an ugly olive green the size of my hand along its sides and back. The ones on its belly were the size of finger- nails. “Indigestion” may not have been too far off for a description of the creature’s breath. Each of its claws was eight inches thick at the base, yet tapered to a point half an inch after about five feet.

Ether pulled his sword out of his sheath. If I were the dragon, I would have laughed. It may have been longer than his arm, but it was nothing next to the dragon’s claws. It eyed the sword and batted it away with its tail. The strike was powerful and made contact with a deep thud.  The top of the tail was lined with forearm-length spikes.

The sword clanged against the stone about fifty feet away. The dragon locked eyes with Ether. If Ether looked away, the dragon would kill him. Malice was not in its eyes, but challenge was.

Without breaking eye contact, Ether began slowly making his way to the sword, moving like a grapevine. He bent over to touch it. As his fingers grazed the hilt, plumes of smoke shot from the dragon’s nostrils like hellish snot rockets. Ether pulled his hand back, and the dragon calmed.

I heard Ether laugh - not a hearty laugh, but a small one, nearly a whisper. More an exhale than a laugh, really. “You’re not such a brute, are you? You just want to be safe.” He set his hand on the dragon’s tail near where it met his body.

This. This was why he hadn’t wanted to do this. Why I had also initially protested. Ether was a mighty warrior when it came to anything without a soul. Monsters stood no chance before him. While he felt bad about hunting animals, he would do so to feed the people he cared about. But this dragon… it wasn’t like most animals. It was intelligent, and it had desires beyond survival or destruction for destruction’s sake. A creature he could understand. As he and the beast gazed at each other, I finally understood. I felt like I understood his heart as well as my own, and I almost suggested that we just leave.

I understood him in that moment so well that I nearly missed it. The moment when its tail wrapped around Ether and impaled him thrice.

I wailed. Whether there were words associated with the yell, I don’t remember. The dragon roared, likely surprised at the outburst. It released Ether—its tail uncoiling like a snake slithering away—and flew from the cave to who knows where, off to ravage an unassuming village.

Ether groaned and as soon as the tail unwrapped him, he sank to his knees. I ran and fell down next to him. As soon as I was there, he collapsed onto me.

“No, nonononono…” 

Ether smiled. His stormy gray eyes began to cloud over. Groaning, he reached one arm up and pushed my hair behind my ear. His hand and now my lock of hair were drenched in blood.

“This wasn’t how this was supposed to happen.” My eyes began to flood. “The Elders… the Elders said-”

“The Elders were wrong.” His voice was weak, quiet. “I’m no hero. I’m a coward.”

“No, this is… This is wrong. The prophecy- you were supposed to kill it. And save us-”

“The Elders. Were. Wrong.” He gripped the top of my blouse, and his breathing was ragged. “I’m not the hero we needed. I didn’t stand a chance against that… monster.”

I met his eyes. He truly believed that.

“Why did you think it was me?”

My mouth hung open. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t.

“Allira. Why did you think it was me? Was it because you’re the Head Elder’s daughter? Or because I was your friend?”

“Both. And neither.” I took a shaky breath in. “The Elders’ children have… limited options. We must select between each other, and none of us want each other. We want to be allowed to love others. But if you were to save our people from that… that monster… an exception could have been made. We could have… we could have happened.”

“But now, because they chose wrong, we never can.”

“Don’t.” I shook my head. “Don’t let those be your last words.”

He smiled sadly. “I love you, Allira.”

I leaned down and kissed him. Had anyone been around, I never would have dared. An Elder’s daughter disobeying one of the oldest traditions of our people? My father would have been disgraced, cast out from his position.

But now, no one was around. 

I pulled back. There was no light in his eyes. I held his chest close to mine. “I love you too, Ether.”

 

 

 

The stone was covered in moss and vines. Six feet below it, the skeleton of a young man lay buried, its flesh long rotted. The woman ran her fingers along it. While it was covered in green, the inscription was still there. She didn’t need to read it to know exactly what it said.

The woman used to visit this stone every day at midnight. That was their time; their time of stolen moments when each one pined for the other, but knew that a relationship between them would be impossible. The time where the only ones watching them were the starts that glittered above in the sky. A moment away from prying eyes.

Then, she had grown. She hadn’t had the time to visit, though she wished she did. Eventually, she had been married, and her husband had believed that he had been her first kiss. He had died in an attack on their village, when a dragon had killed a third of its population. She was left a widow, with only their child left to remember him by. The village was abandoned.

“Mom? Why are we here?” The woman turned from the stone and looked to her son. She never had told him why they were here.

“This is the village where I grew up.” She looked around her at the burnt homes, all surrounded with rubble—what remained of the buildings destroyed in the dragon’s attack. Dead trees lined the graveyard; they had not been tended for over a decade. “And this stone marks the grave of the one who would have been its hero.”

“What happened to him?” Her son walked up to her side. He looked to her first, then touched the stone himself.

The woman smiled. “His heart. The evil creature he was supposed to slay took advantage of his kindness and killed him.”

“That’s not very nice of it.” Her son pulled his hand away. “What was his name?”

“That doesn’t matter now.” She said it, but didn’t fully believe it herself. “It is not our place to have fellowship with the dead. Let them rest where they lie.”

Her son looked at her. Worry shone in his eyes, a blue somewhere between the night sky and the river by their home.

His mother smiled back at him and pulled her hand from the stone. “It’s truly disappointing, though, that no one would return to tend his grave. He gave his life trying to save this people, and still…”

“Did you know him?”

“Yes.” She looked up at the night sky. The stars twinkled and looked down at her, just like they had that lonely walk home from the cave. “It’s getting late. We should start going back home.”

He nodded and looked back at the stone. “We aren’t going to die, are we?”

“Someday, we will. Everyone does. But that will not happen for a long time. And I will likely die before you do.”

The son hugged his mother. “I don’t want you to die. I love you, Mom.”

The woman smiled and embraced him back. “I love you too, Ether.”

 

*sniff sniff* how do word so pretty... T-T

[Edema Rue she/her]

5 hours ago, Spark of Hope said:

I wrote this for my writing class. I think I was going to call it Ether, but I don't really remember, it's been a couple weeks. But anyways...

  Reveal hidden contents

Ether and I stood in the entrance of the cave. The wind from outside blew in air, and the moment it crossed the arch it turned stale and sour. The scent of evil. Despite this, I couldn’t help but think about the way it made the curl of his hair bounce playfully, or how the redness the bitter wind brought to his cheeks just accented his appearance, despite his evident nervousness.

“You’ve got this,” I said.

He looked back at me. Ether had always been horrible at disguising fear and worry in his eyes. In his beautiful eyes, the color of storm clouds over the sea. “You don’t know that, Allira.”

“You’ve been training for this for months. I do know that. You are the only one who can do this. All I can do is help you.”

He turned back to the mouth of the cave. He still wasn’t fully convinced, I knew, but he nodded. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the malicious air. He opened them once more and stepped into the cave. I followed.

The ground sloped into the depth of the cave. It felt as though we were descending into the belly of some once-great titan, slain and turned to stone. It certainly made the stalactites more foreboding thinking about them that way, like the teeth of this ancient monster.

A gust of air blasted us—the titan’s indigestion—and Ether pulled out his sword. It’s just wind, I thought to say, but wind wouldn’t come from the depths of the cave. Something was there, waiting for us. 

We turned a couple corners, further down into the belly of the beast. Always down. But Ether stopped. What he had come here to face was right in front of us.

A dragon. It was at least two hundred feet long with scales an ugly olive green the size of my hand along its sides and back. The ones on its belly were the size of finger- nails. “Indigestion” may not have been too far off for a description of the creature’s breath. Each of its claws was eight inches thick at the base, yet tapered to a point half an inch after about five feet.

Ether pulled his sword out of his sheath. If I were the dragon, I would have laughed. It may have been longer than his arm, but it was nothing next to the dragon’s claws. It eyed the sword and batted it away with its tail. The strike was powerful and made contact with a deep thud.  The top of the tail was lined with forearm-length spikes.

The sword clanged against the stone about fifty feet away. The dragon locked eyes with Ether. If Ether looked away, the dragon would kill him. Malice was not in its eyes, but challenge was.

Without breaking eye contact, Ether began slowly making his way to the sword, moving like a grapevine. He bent over to touch it. As his fingers grazed the hilt, plumes of smoke shot from the dragon’s nostrils like hellish snot rockets. Ether pulled his hand back, and the dragon calmed.

I heard Ether laugh - not a hearty laugh, but a small one, nearly a whisper. More an exhale than a laugh, really. “You’re not such a brute, are you? You just want to be safe.” He set his hand on the dragon’s tail near where it met his body.

This. This was why he hadn’t wanted to do this. Why I had also initially protested. Ether was a mighty warrior when it came to anything without a soul. Monsters stood no chance before him. While he felt bad about hunting animals, he would do so to feed the people he cared about. But this dragon… it wasn’t like most animals. It was intelligent, and it had desires beyond survival or destruction for destruction’s sake. A creature he could understand. As he and the beast gazed at each other, I finally understood. I felt like I understood his heart as well as my own, and I almost suggested that we just leave.

I understood him in that moment so well that I nearly missed it. The moment when its tail wrapped around Ether and impaled him thrice.

I wailed. Whether there were words associated with the yell, I don’t remember. The dragon roared, likely surprised at the outburst. It released Ether—its tail uncoiling like a snake slithering away—and flew from the cave to who knows where, off to ravage an unassuming village.

Ether groaned and as soon as the tail unwrapped him, he sank to his knees. I ran and fell down next to him. As soon as I was there, he collapsed onto me.

“No, nonononono…” 

Ether smiled. His stormy gray eyes began to cloud over. Groaning, he reached one arm up and pushed my hair behind my ear. His hand and now my lock of hair were drenched in blood.

“This wasn’t how this was supposed to happen.” My eyes began to flood. “The Elders… the Elders said-”

“The Elders were wrong.” His voice was weak, quiet. “I’m no hero. I’m a coward.”

“No, this is… This is wrong. The prophecy- you were supposed to kill it. And save us-”

“The Elders. Were. Wrong.” He gripped the top of my blouse, and his breathing was ragged. “I’m not the hero we needed. I didn’t stand a chance against that… monster.”

I met his eyes. He truly believed that.

“Why did you think it was me?”

My mouth hung open. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t.

“Allira. Why did you think it was me? Was it because you’re the Head Elder’s daughter? Or because I was your friend?”

“Both. And neither.” I took a shaky breath in. “The Elders’ children have… limited options. We must select between each other, and none of us want each other. We want to be allowed to love others. But if you were to save our people from that… that monster… an exception could have been made. We could have… we could have happened.”

“But now, because they chose wrong, we never can.”

“Don’t.” I shook my head. “Don’t let those be your last words.”

He smiled sadly. “I love you, Allira.”

I leaned down and kissed him. Had anyone been around, I never would have dared. An Elder’s daughter disobeying one of the oldest traditions of our people? My father would have been disgraced, cast out from his position.

But now, no one was around. 

I pulled back. There was no light in his eyes. I held his chest close to mine. “I love you too, Ether.”

 

 

 

The stone was covered in moss and vines. Six feet below it, the skeleton of a young man lay buried, its flesh long rotted. The woman ran her fingers along it. While it was covered in green, the inscription was still there. She didn’t need to read it to know exactly what it said.

The woman used to visit this stone every day at midnight. That was their time; their time of stolen moments when each one pined for the other, but knew that a relationship between them would be impossible. The time where the only ones watching them were the starts that glittered above in the sky. A moment away from prying eyes.

Then, she had grown. She hadn’t had the time to visit, though she wished she did. Eventually, she had been married, and her husband had believed that he had been her first kiss. He had died in an attack on their village, when a dragon had killed a third of its population. She was left a widow, with only their child left to remember him by. The village was abandoned.

“Mom? Why are we here?” The woman turned from the stone and looked to her son. She never had told him why they were here.

“This is the village where I grew up.” She looked around her at the burnt homes, all surrounded with rubble—what remained of the buildings destroyed in the dragon’s attack. Dead trees lined the graveyard; they had not been tended for over a decade. “And this stone marks the grave of the one who would have been its hero.”

“What happened to him?” Her son walked up to her side. He looked to her first, then touched the stone himself.

The woman smiled. “His heart. The evil creature he was supposed to slay took advantage of his kindness and killed him.”

“That’s not very nice of it.” Her son pulled his hand away. “What was his name?”

“That doesn’t matter now.” She said it, but didn’t fully believe it herself. “It is not our place to have fellowship with the dead. Let them rest where they lie.”

Her son looked at her. Worry shone in his eyes, a blue somewhere between the night sky and the river by their home.

His mother smiled back at him and pulled her hand from the stone. “It’s truly disappointing, though, that no one would return to tend his grave. He gave his life trying to save this people, and still…”

“Did you know him?”

“Yes.” She looked up at the night sky. The stars twinkled and looked down at her, just like they had that lonely walk home from the cave. “It’s getting late. We should start going back home.”

He nodded and looked back at the stone. “We aren’t going to die, are we?”

“Someday, we will. Everyone does. But that will not happen for a long time. And I will likely die before you do.”

The son hugged his mother. “I don’t want you to die. I love you, Mom.”

The woman smiled and embraced him back. “I love you too, Ether.”

 

Aww that was gorgeous, I want to come to your writing class.

[Through the Living Hope]

Just now, Edema Rue said:

Aww that was gorgeous, I want to come to your writing class.

Heehee thank you!

[Through the Living Hope]

I was lying in bed last night when I started thinking about my grandma. I started getting lines to a poem, so I got out my notebook and wrote them down. The wound has long since healed, but a scar remains, and last night it was particularly enflamed and it hit me like a train.

And I cried for half an hour after writing this and just thinking about her so... read at your own risk. And the context may be even more so.

To Lorraine

Spoiler

I still collect stones
I'll look in the gravel and rocks
And wonder about them

I hope you're in heaven now
But Mom says you were bitter
So I don't know
But now amount of prayers can change that

I still have the heart pillow
I'm not into Harry Potter anymore
Most of my other HP stuff is being sold
But I can't make myself get rid of it

My heart isn't broken anymore
God has helped it to heal
But sometimes I'll hear your voice
Or see your face in my mind
And the tears will start to flow

Someday I'll get a golden retriever
I always looked forward to seeing yours

One regret I have
I wish I'd known you more
But you lived quite a ways away
Doesn't make it hurt less
Just makes it make sense

I still have the rose quartz necklace
But I don't know where it is
I think it fell under my dresser

The sunset was beautiful today
I wish you could have seen it

We haven't forgotten you here
I hope we never will
But memories fade over time
The day I don't remember your face and voice
Will be an agonizing one

Mom is better
I think Ashley is too
I haven't seen Darryl in person since the funeral
But every time I see a cardinal
I think about you
And how much I still love you

For context:

Spoiler

My grandma Lorraine died in late July of 2020, and her funeral was the week before the school year started. A couple years before, she'd been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. We knew that in all likelihood, she had less than ten years to live, but the entire time she had it, I held out hope. I came to Christ personally in June of 2020, and I prayed so much for her. When she died, I felt like that prayer was unanswered, which might have made it hurt a little more.

In sixth grade, we had to write a biography of someone, conducting interviews with them to get our information. She was about 1-1/5 years diagnosed at this point, and I knew this might be the only chance I had to get to know her more. One of the things she told me was that she collected rocks and stones when she was younger. I started doing it too to form a connection to her. And when she died, me, my brother, and our cousins each got to take a rock or two from her collection.

2020 was the last year I got birthday presents from her. There was a winter hat embroidered with our college football team, a heart-shaped Harry Potter branded pillow, and a rose quartz necklace.

She had a lot of golden retrievers over the years. Maggie, Duke, Chance, and Biscuit were some of them.

There's a Native American legend about cardinals that says they are the spirits of the people we love who have passed on coming to visit us. I want to say that I don't believe it, because I don't believe in their myths. But when my mom, my aunt (Ashley) and my aunt's family stayed at my mom's dad's house the night before her funeral, a female cardinal sat in the tree above us.

Darryl is/was her third husband. He's also the pastor who preached her funeral. Us grandkids and our parents were in the front row bawling our eyes out. He couldn't even look at us because he knew he would break down himself.

I only remember one part of the funeral sermon, and it was an attempt at humor. It's funny now, but then I was in too much pain to notice. He said "She loved her kids, her grandkids, her dogs, and me, probably in that order."

So, yeah. I'm a lot better now. But I was absolutely wrecked last night. I don't know why.

 

Edited April 29, 2024 by Spark of Hope

[Edema Rue she/her]

5 hours ago, Spark of Hope said:

I was lying in bed last night when I started thinking about my grandma. I started getting lines to a poem, so I got out my notebook and wrote them down. The wound has long since healed, but a scar remains, and last night it was particularly enflamed and it hit me like a train.

And I cried for half an hour after writing this and just thinking about her so... read at your own risk. And the context may be even more so.

To Lorraine

  Reveal hidden contents

I still collect stones
I'll look in the gravel and rocks
And wonder about them

I hope you're in heaven now
But Mom says you were bitter
So I don't know
But now amount of prayers can change that

I still have the heart pillow
I'm not into Harry Potter anymore
Most of my other HP stuff is being sold
But I can't make myself get rid of it

My heart isn't broken anymore
God has helped it to heal
But sometimes I'll hear your voice
Or see your face in my mind
And the tears will start to flow

Someday I'll get a golden retriever
I always looked forward to seeing yours

One regret I have
I wish I'd known you more
But you lived quite a ways away
Doesn't make it hurt less
Just makes it make sense

I still have the rose quartz necklace
But I don't know where it is
I think it fell under my dresser

The sunset was beautiful today
I wish you could have seen it

We haven't forgotten you here
I hope we never will
But memories fade over time
The day I don't remember your face and voice
Will be an agonizing one

Mom is better
I think Ashley is too
I haven't seen Darryl in person since the funeral
But every time I see a cardinal
I think about you
And how much I still love you

For context:

  Reveal hidden contents

My grandma Lorraine died in late July of 2020, and her funeral was the week before the school year started. A couple years before, she'd been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. We knew that in all likelihood, she had less than ten years to live, but the entire time she had it, I held out hope. I came to Christ personally in June of 2020, and I prayed so much for her. When she died, I felt like that prayer was unanswered, which might have made it hurt a little more.

In sixth grade, we had to write a biography of someone, conducting interviews with them to get our information. She was about 1-1/5 years diagnosed at this point, and I knew this might be the only chance I had to get to know her more. One of the things she told me was that she collected rocks and stones when she was younger. I started doing it too to form a connection to her. And when she died, me, my brother, and our cousins each got to take a rock or two from her collection.

2020 was the last year I got birthday presents from her. There was a winter hat embroidered with our college football team, a heart-shaped Harry Potter branded pillow, and a rose quartz necklace.

She had a lot of golden retrievers over the years. Maggie, Duke, Chance, and Biscuit were some of them.

There's a Native American legend about cardinals that says they are the spirits of the people we love who have passed on coming to visit us. I want to say that I don't believe it, because I don't believe in their myths. But when my mom, my aunt (Ashley) and my aunt's family stayed at my mom's dad's house the night before her funeral, a female cardinal sat in the tree above us.

Darryl is/was her third husband. He's also the pastor who preached her funeral. Us grandkids and our parents were in the front row bawling our eyes out. He couldn't even look at us because he knew he would break down himself.

I only remember one part of the funeral sermon, and it was an attempt at humor. It's funny now, but then I was in too much pain to notice. He said "She loved her kids, her grandkids, her dogs, and me, probably in that order."

So, yeah. I'm a lot better now. But I was absolutely wrecked last night. I don't know why.

 

*hugs* that was so sweet and sad. It really does hurt...

I do the same thing with rocks, shells, leaves, whatever. My grandpa (who died before I was born) used to collect and label them, and in...2018, I think, I started doing it too. Now I have shelves and shelves of them.

[Through the Living Hope]

In writing class we're working on ekphrastic pieces - pieces based on another work. I wrote this small section based on The Flow of Time by Kristy Glass.

Image:

Spoiler

Writing:

Spoiler

You stand at the end of my waters, not quite daring enough to dip your toes in. How could you be? You don’t know what could happen, any of the various worlds you could see. But you are not quite ready; you still have much to learn.

This place, this… this not place, where there is access to every world, but nothing carried over from any of them. Lost in the flow of time and space, you could be a child on one world when you leave, but when you return five years later, millenia have passed.

The time of the worlds flows just as my waters flow; they stop for no one, and even as the surface freezes, currents move underneath. Time is not a force you can stop, merely one you can hope to channel for a time. You can only hope that it will not work against you.

But here, outside of time, over one moment and yet so many, you have the chance to learn, to become the woman you could never be on any of them. If you would only come to me, I could teach you.

Why did you step away? I have no desire to harm you. Why, preserving you would serve me better. If you were to face time, you would drown. I could shelter you, show you how to make time your servant, rather than your master.

Where are you going? Dare you face time over me? I can shield you from its rot and decay. But, I do suppose, it is your choice what you drown in - time, or the waters it so clearly imitates.

 

[Through the Living Hope]

I thought up some lines that I have no plot for, so

Spoiler

I know you love me, but I know you’ll leave me.

 

Spoiler

Ah, memory. My tormentor, my teacher.

 

Spoiler

It was a part of my soul that I couldn’t lose, but I gave it up. I gave it to you. Look how far that got me.

 

Spoiler

That’s all life is, isn’t it? People trying to convince others that things can and will get better. But I won’t be convinced.

 

Edited May 30, 2024 by Spark of Hope

[SmilingPanda19 Any!]

13 minutes ago, Spark of Hope said:

I thought up some lines that I have no plot for, so

  Hide contents

I know you love me, but I know you’ll leave me.

 

  Hide contents

Ah, memory. My tormentor, my teacher.

 

  Hide contents

It was a part of my soul that I couldn’t lose, but I gave it up. I gave it to you. Look how far that got me.

 

Spoiler

I know you love me, but I know you’ll leave me. 
 

That’s how love works. It’s easily ignored. 
 

You can ignore me.

You can ignore how much it will hurt me. 
 

You would leave me in the blink of an eye. 
 

and I would love you in that same blink.

You’d leave me just as quickly as I’d love you.

I couldn’t write much more, but I tried. I love these a lot!

[Through the Living Hope]

The top post in this thread is the prologue to this story, Apocalypse. Well, here's chapter one, Preparation!

Spoiler

Chapter One

Preparation

 

My head pounded. The ground was shaking beneath me, and the air was stale. I felt exhausted. I cracked one eye open. A wall was directly in front of me. I looked down, closer to my feet. My ankles and wrists were tied together, and the Gatherer’s head was at my feet. When I looked up, I saw someone else’s feet. Other than that, it was too dark to see much of anything.

I pushed myself up with my elbow, rotated, and scooted so my back was against the wall. Apart from my splitting headache, I was ridiculously sore, and my hair didn’t fall over my face. It had been long (and admittedly matted) before, and now it stopped between my ears and jaw. What happened?

Then I remembered. The Doctor had been killed. The Gatherer and I had been taken by the Mob. They probably cut my hair. My stomach dropped. They would make us play the Game now.

A soft voice came from my left. “S…Seeker?” The Gatherer. I met his eyes and nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah.” My voice was just as quiet.

“Are we… are we okay?”

“I…” What could I say? We were tied up after being knocked out by whatever was on those cloths. We had no clue where we were, or where we were going. All I knew was that our lives as we knew them were over. “I don’t know. Probably not.”

He made a sound, almost like a strangled laugh. “How did you even sit up? And what happened to your hair?”

“I think they cut it. Looks like they cut yours, too. And we have elbows, Gatherer. Use your brain.”

“Listen, I’m too confused to brain at the moment.” He pushed himself up and scooted next to me. “So… you’re a Blue.”

“So are you.”

“Yeah, I know I am. I just didn’t know you were.”

“You know we’re not supposed to tell.”

“Yeah… Yeah, you’re right.” We sat in silence for a few seconds until he puked. My nose wrinkled at the smell, and the fact that a little had splashed onto my feet. He threw up a little more a few times, gasping for air between each wretch.

“I think I preferred the stale air,” I muttered when he seemed done.

“Me too,” he answered weakly. After a while he sat back up and stared at whatever was above us that was too dark to see. “I have no clue where that came from.”

“Side effect of the chloroform,” an unfamiliar voice said. “CHCl3. It’s what they used to knock us out. They can include dizziness, nausea, fatigue, and headaches.”

“You seem to know a lot about it,” I responded.

“My, um…” The voice went quiet for a few seconds. “My dad used to work in the labs where they made it. He talked about it a lot.” It was the person on my right.

The Gatherer and I looked at each other. “Dad?” he mouthed. I shrugged, and we both looked back to the mystery person.

The one on my right pushed themself up with their elbows. It was a girl. She had straight hair that went to her shoulders, but it was too dark to see any color on her at all.

“Sorry, I should have been better mannered than that. My name is Camilla Fleming. Former Analyst. And you two?”

I made eye contact with the Gatherer again before answering. “We, uh… didn’t really go by names.”

Her eyebrows furrowed, and the Gatherer added, “We went by our roles in the community.”

Camilla gazed up, lost in thought. “I don’t remember that happening anywhere in the City. So you two are…” Recognition sparked in her eyes. “Oh. I apologize. I didn’t think…”

“It’s… fine.”

I didn’t know what we were supposed to do. I didn’t just want to sit there, but then I remembered - I had a knife in my pocket.

“Hey, Camilla, I have something in my pocket that can help us at least get these ropes off, can you grab it?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Be careful - it’s sharp.” I lifted my arms and showed my jacket pocket. Camilla put her hands into the jacket. She winced, probably after cutting her hand on the blade. She pulled it out and I turned my wrists to her.

“I’ll try not to get you,” she said, and began to cut the ropes on my wrists. It took her about a minute - I probably should have sharpened it more - before the rope snapped and I took the knife back from her. I cut her wrist ropes, taking about five seconds, before moving to her ankles. I then did the same for the Gatherer, again, taking no longer than ten seconds total, and cut my ankle ropes.

“So, do you two know your names?” she asked as I sawed. “I mean, we’re not really in guilds anymore,” (her voice cracked) “so what does it matter whether you go by names or not?”

I thought for a few seconds, then sighed. “Lyndon… Bedad.”

“Jaxith Tanimara,” the Gatherer answered. “But just Jax works, I guess.”

“And just Lyn for me, too.”

“Lyn and Jax, huh. Well, no matter the circumstances, it’s nice to meet you.” Camilla held out her right hand. When we just stared at it, she smiled at us. “You shake it. It’s a customary greeting.”

I reached out with my right had as well, imitating what she had done. I clasped her hand, my thumb between her pointer finger and thumb, her hand in the same position, and shook it up and down. Jax did the same.

“You guys didn’t know about handshakes? How does- er, did - your guild greet each other?”

“Well, first off, thanks for rubbing salt in the wound. And we just started talking to each other,” Jax answered. “No ‘greeting’ needed.”

“If there was a greeting, it was usually ‘Hey’ or something like that. Nothing physical,” I added.

“I see. So, is it just the three of us?”

“We’re not sure,” Jax answered. “It’s really dark.”

Something began to crackle. “You both are, and aren’t.” The sound came from the sky.

“What’s that supposed to mean?! Who are you?! Where are you, and where are we?!” Jax yelled.

More crackling, which led to, “All in good time.” Whatever it was stopped making noise and we were returned to relative silence.

“Well, that was informative,” I said.

“You don’t say,” Camilla agreed.

We all stood, and no sooner than we did, the ground began to shake.

“What’s happening?!” Camilla yelled.

“You think we know?!” I shouted back.

The wall opposite us started to go down, and a light shone so brightly that I had to cover it with my arm. The wall kept lowering and lowering and I moved my arm closer and closer to my eyes to accommodate. Figures entered the room (which, it turned out, we were alone in). Squinting my eyes, I lowered my arm, which I immediately regretted. One of the people shoved a burlap sack over my head, the weaving forming a thick net.

Just wonderful.

 

 

 

They’d taken my knife. The sack was still on my head, but the hands on my wrists that had dragged me here were gone. It felt like I was in a metal chair, like I was sitting on a prisoner’s throne. Metal bonds held my wrists to the armrests, probably to keep me from lashing out against the Mob. My head was restrained as well, so I couldn’t shake the bag off.

I didn’t have to, though, because it got pulled off my head. It was yanked harder than I’d anticipated, and my eyes clenched in surprise. When I opened them, a young-looking woman shared my gaze. Her hair fell past her shoulders in a dark river. She wore a jumpsuit with glowing yellow stripes down both her sides.

She smiled, and I wasn’t sure whether it was sincere or forced. “Hello. My name is Shan, and I will be one of the people supervising your group in the Game.”

“So you’re Staff.” I raised my eyebrow, and she nodded once.

“I know what you’re thinking - ‘the Mob and the Staff are evil, I can’t trust these people,’ yadda. Maybe I can’t convince you otherwise. But if you don’t believe anything else I say, trust me when I say this - we’re not evil.”

“You oversee the most brutal Game known in the City. You take people from their homes because of something outside of their control, and never let them go back. And yet you still believe that?”

“I understand your viewpoint - I do. It’ll be hard for you to trust us, I get that. Please just believe that we’re trying to do the right thing. Everything will be explained to the full group later.”

“The ‘full group’? What’s that even supposed to…” I trailed off, realizing for the first time that apart from Shan, I was alone. No Jax, no Camilla, no anyone else. “Wh-”

“Every question you can ask will be answered when the whole group is put together, don’t worry. If you don’t attack me, I can let you out of that chair and introduce you to the other Blues you haven’t met yet.”

I tilted my chin up a little. “And if I do?”

“You stand a decent chance of not making it to the Game alive. We’re not evil like you think we are, but we do have to maintain as much order as possible.”

I thought about saying something smart again, but decided not to. Shan seemed sincere enough, but I still didn’t trust her. She walked around to the back of the metal chair and pressed something that released the metal bonds. I rubbed my wrist - the metal had irritated the brand.

I turned my head as she said, “This way, please.” I looked forward again as I stood up, and I followed her through a door.

There was a crowd of people behind the door. They all had jumpsuits with blue stripes on the sides.

A boy with black hair looked at Shan. “Two?”

“Three,” she answered. “We found three Blues.”

The boy’s expression didn’t change. He glanced at me. Everyone else around him didn’t react either. His eyes looked down and he nodded. He nodded his head to the side, signaling for me to follow him.

I did. Not like I had much of a choice.

Shan went back to the room, and the door closed behind her.

“What was that abou-”

“Don’t. Don’t ask questions about them.”

“I was ripped from my home, and you just expect me to let it happen? To do nothing?”

He turned quickly, jabbing a finger towards my nose. “You think you’re the only one they took?! All of us here lost everything. You’re not better than the rest of us just because you’re the newest.”

The two of us stayed frozen there for a few moments. This guy was wound up super tight, clearly. Stiff.

He sighed and his arm fell. I relaxed just a little.

“Look,” he said, “everyone here lost things. Our homes, families, lives… Do you know what I’d give to see my mother again? I’ve been in the Game for five years. I barely remember what she looked like.”

“Both my parents were taken before I was three.”

“That was a test, which you failed.” He turned, grabbed my wrist, and started walking.

“Hey!” He released my wrist.

“If you want to make it here, you’ll stop trying to one up people. We’ve all suffered, we’ve all lost. Doesn’t matter how soon in our lives, how badly. If you keep trying to assert superiority over the others, someone’s going to shoot you. I’m already tempted.”

My mouth opened. I’d wanted to defend myself, but I forgot how to speak.

“As much as neither of us like it, we’re stuck in this together now. We’re both Blues, and we both have to fight to make it another day.”

“You mean in the Game?”

“Yes.”

“They’re just Reds, aren’t they? Just like everyone else?”

“No. That’s what everyone out there thinks, but no. None of us are the same as we were before.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not just talking about hair.”

“They modified all of us. Before, you could survive even if there was blue radia. Now, you need it to survive. Same thing with the Greens.”

“How do you know?”

“Lost a lot of gutsy Blues and Greens. It’s the first thing we need to learn after getting here. And Reds… they’re not Reds as we knew them either. They can absorb radia from Blues and Greens, remove our immunity.”

“How is that even possible?”

He made gestures with his hands. “We don’t- we don’t know. Not for sure. From the information that’s slipped through the cracks, we think the first one was a failed experiment of some kind. They tried to remove a B/G Immunity by bombarding the person with red radia, more than we are supposed to be exposed to. Instead of simply removing radia from the bloodstream like they intended, it also rewired the person’s brain. It still wanted to survive, but it also wanted to infect. That’s how the Mob discovered that Immunes have one weak spot.”

“What do you mean, weak spot?!”

“I mean, if one of these Reds touches your waist, you lose your Immunity.” He grabbed my arm again and showed me the glowing blue stripes. “This, annoying as it may be, monitors both the environment around you and the radia in your bloodstream. When we leave the main Blue area and go into the main maze, it’ll stop glowing, and it’ll cover your head. Lots of people freak out at that. Hope you’re not claustrophobic.

“Anyway, it’ll stop glowing, and when it covers your head, a display will pop up on a screen that only you can see. It’ll show the amount of radia in your blood, as well as the environment. If the environment numbers hit less than 20% or your blood drops beneath 37%, run.”

“W-what?”

We went into a circular room with bunk beds lining the walls. “It means one of two things - you’re approaching an environment in which you absolutely can not survive, or your radia is being drained. And that’s only possible through what we call the Voids- the modified Reds. If that number plummets, it means if you can’t get back to a blue-dense area, and fast, you will not only lose your Immunity, you will lose your mind.”

He shoved me down onto a bed. “If you want to stand a ghost of a chance, you are going to listen to my orders. Got it?”

“I-I-”

“Good. Now if you’ll excuse me.” He left.

I sat there on the bed, in shock. Someone stood up on the bed to my left, then sat down next to me. They lifted their arm, hesitated, and put it on my shoulder.

“He seems… intense,” Jax said.

I sighed. “Very.”

He took off his hands and laced them, placing his elbows on his knees. For a moment, neither of us said anything. “So… I guess we’re here now.”

I rolled onto my side and faced the wall. “Seems that way.”

“Seeker…”

“I’m not the Seeker anymore,” I said bitterly. “We’re not in the Abandoned anymore. We’re Players. Don’t call me my Abandoned name.”

“Fine. I won’t. But if you’re giving up that Abandoned way of life, you also have to give up your aloof-ness. We have to work together to survive.”

I didn’t answer and tapped the bed. Part of me knew he was right, of course. But there was no way I was going to admit it.

I heard crying from the hallway, as well as the boy’s voice. It was very soft, a comforting tone. I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“Probably that other girl,” Jax said. “What was it… Camilla?”

Again, I said nothing. The boy opened the door again, and he was indeed with Camilla. He led her to another bed across the circle from mine and Jax’s.

“It’ll be okay,” he said, squatting in front of her. “We’ll take care of you. Don’t worry. You’ll be okay.”

Camilla sniffed, trying to contain her sobs. She nodded and wiped her nose, then turned and lied facing the wall. The boy left her, walking to the center of the room. The other Blues, who had come there while Jax and I were talking, sat on their beds. There were maybe thirty of them. Reluctantly I sat up and put my back to the wall.

“I have both good news and bad news for us,” he announced. “The good news is that we have three more Blues to help us in the Game.”

They started to cheer and pounded their feet on the ground. Either they were glad to have help, or to have new blood to use as bait.

“What’s the bad news?” someone asked. The cheering died quickly, and all attention returned to the boy in the middle. He sighed.

“The bad news is that our time here has run out. We thought we’d explored the whole maze, found every canister we could. But there was a cave-in in the third quadrant that revealed undiscovered maze. They’re sending us and the Greens back in tomorrow.”

The others started yelling unintelligibly above each other, but he raised his hands before they could get too deep into it. They fell silent quickly.

“I know. I’m pissed too. But there’s nothing we can do about it, and we can’t go against the Staff again. Remember what happened last time?”

The Blues started to murmur between themselves. Bad memories, I guessed.

“We could try again?”

The boy sighed and looked at the girl who’d spoken. “We can’t, Xinyi. You know that. Our numbers are low as is.”

“Ryne would still try!” the boy next to Xinyi protested.

The boy turned to him, his voice almost monotone. “Ryne would want us to survive. He wouldn’t do something like this again.”

“Naes, please-”

“No. We’re not losing anyone else.”

Xinyi leaned slightly back. Naes sighed. “Look, I want to get out of this hell they call the Game as much as all of you. But I already lost him. I’m not losing anyone else. Understand?” Xinyi looked down, but she nodded. I kept watching her. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen.

“Going on,” Naes said, bringing everyone’s attention back to business. “Everyone get as much rest as you can now, because soon enough we’ll have barely any chances to get rest once they send us back in there. From what probes they’ve sent in, there’s only two blue-radia-dense areas in the new section of maze, same with green. But it’s almost guaranteed that we’ll find canisters in there.”

“Why don’t they just get them themselves?” I blurted out.

All eyes darted to me. I tried to melt into the wall. Obviously, that didn’t work.

“Because,” Naes answered, annoyance laced in his voice, “the canisters give off radiation too strong for them to tolerate. It would kill them, destroy any drones that came near them. Even the Staff lost their modification over time, so they can’t handle it.”

“We can lose our modification?” Jax asked.

“You can, but you don’t want to. It’s a very painful process. Changes you. Even your own best friend would be unable to recognize you.”

Naes stared me down. I looked away. “Anyway,” he continued, “we need those canisters. The Mob tells you that we need them to survive, but that’s not true. We need them to cure the ones who lost their Immunity. It’s the only chance we have of saving them.”

“Why do you care about saving them when they’re already lost? We should be more focused on finding a way out.”

“We’ve lost a lot of good people to those Voids, Lyn. If there’s even a way to get out, we’re not leaving them behind. We can’t do that here. We need as many people as we can get.”

I didn’t answer, but I still felt him staring at me. “Alright, guys. That’s enough for the night.” I could tell by “guys” he really meant “Lyn”. “Get some rest. As much as you can, anyway.” Naes climbed up to an upper bunk across the circle. Had to keep an eye on the annoying new girl, I guessed.

Jax sighed through his nose and went to his bed. I rolled and faced the wall. My fingers found their way into a fist. Naes was clearly the leader here, and he was keeping everyone stuck. There was something about him, how short-fused he was with only me, that I didn’t trust.

It didn’t matter what Naes said. I was going to find a way out of here, whether he approved or not.

 

[Through the Living Hope]

Asch Dawn - Chapter One

Spoiler

Bliztasch Surral-Imperos slowly awakened - but he didn’t know he was called that. He didn’t know anything. He couldn’t remember anything from before he woke up. He didn’t know his name. He didn’t know his past or where he came from. He didn’t know why his head throbbed. Most of all, he didn’t know the face of the woman next to him.

Wait-

Bliztasch jumped back while staying on the bed - gurney? - and hit his head right at the source of the throb. He moved his arm to rub his head, but his arm refused to move, like it was connected to something. An IV was attached to his arm. He must have been out for a while.

The woman was writing something on a desk nearby. When she noticed that he was awake, she approached him slowly. Her arm was stretched towards him. Bliztasch didn’t trust the mysterious woman; he pulled away from her arm.

She seemed to notice his distress - although, to be fair, it was pretty obvious that he was freaked out. The woman pulled her hand back.

“I… apologize,” she said. “I tend to forget that people panic when they wake up in a strange place.”

“W-where am I? Who are you?” Bliztasch was on the verge of yelling, eyes wide in fear. He began staring into space and his voice dropped. “Who… who am I?”

“You are my patient,” the woman replied. She appeared young - maybe 19 or 20, at most - although she had silvery hair. “More specifically, they call you Bliztasch Surral-Imperos, and you are approaching your twenty-first year. I am Kenia Silvaka, with seventeen years, and trained in the art of Amelioration - that is, healing. It may not be the easiest form of Allurance to learn, but… well, there are harder.” Kenia shrugged and grinned. Now that he was no longer in a state of panic, Bliztasch could see that she had a kind face. “As for where we are, the Head of the Amelioration department has asked that I not tell you.”

Now, he wasn’t afraid of her anymore - at least, not really - but Bliztasch was beginning to get suspicious of Kenia and, more intensely, the top Ameliorator. “Why’s that?” he asked.

“Well, this place is technically-”

“Off limits to practically everyone,” an older woman interrupted, shoving her hand on top of Kenia’s mouth. She must have just entered. Bliztasch assumed she was the Head. She seemed much more aggressive than the young and innocent Kenia, and her face was covered in battle scars. With a glare, she whispered something to Kenia. Whatever it was, he was glad he couldn’t hear. After a few moments, she removed her hand and muttered, “Tch, dumb fairies.” The woman sat down at a desk farther away from him than the one belonging to Kenia, who was now pouting. Now that the Head mentioned it, he could see transparent shimmery wings coming away from Kenia’s back.

Kenia scooted slightly closer to Bliztasch, who then muttered, “Who’s Miss Sunshine over there?”

“That would be the Head, in case you have not guessed so,” Kenia whispered in kind. “She… is not too fond of fairies.”

“Yeah, I guessed both of those. But what’s her name, and why doesn’t she like fairies?”

“I suppose it may be because she doesn’t like our perkiness,” Kenia replied, head cocked thoughtfully. “We do tend to be spry and energetic. And to your other question, I do not know what her name is - no one has told me.” She leaned closer and muttered, “I do not mind working under her, however she could be more polite about her distaste of my kind.”

“Shut your piehole, Private!” the Head ordered as she swiveled around in her chair. Kenia’s mouth snapped shut. “Besides, the Top wants you. Skedaddle.” Kenia sent an uncomfortable but courteous smile to Bliztasch and exited the ward.

Now that Kenia had left, there was an awkward atmosphere to the room. The Head was constantly staring - glaring - at Bliztasch, which just made him want to die. It felt like forever until someone else entered the room.

A man who looked about Bliztasch’s age was the one who entered next. He didn’t know why, but he felt a small pit in himself when he realized that it wasn’t Kenia returning. “Ma’am,” the newcomer said stiffly. He saluted. The Head nodded, and the man put his arm down. Bliztasch thought he was acting kind of shifty.

“The Garion Admiral would like to speak to you regarding the ‘Twilight Alpha’ situation.” Garion Admiral and Twilight Alpha sounded familiar…

The Head frowned. “Dismissed.”

“If it’s the same to you, ma’am, he’d like me to escort you to him. He wants to take precautions regarding this matter.”

“Very well.” She stood up and exited with the man just as Kenia returned. The young fairy stood to the side and let her superior pass.

“That was a strange encounter, I must say,” Kenia joked. “Do you not agree?”

“Um, yeah… I’m sorry, Kenia, but could you talk just a bit more… well, normal, maybe? It’s a little hard to understand you.”

“Oh, I apologize, Bliztasch Surral-Imperos, but I am afraid I can not do that. This is the way I speak. It is how I was taught to speak. It is how my people speak. I can understand the other ways, however I cannot speak in the other ways. It may be strange to you, but this is how I have always spoken. It is how my…” she swallowed, looking as if she was fighting back tears. “It is… how my parents spoke.”

“Are they…”

“Yes, they have gone to the great city in the sky, where the Father of all waits for us.”

“I’m… I’m so sorry, Kenia…”

“Did you cause their deaths?”

“I… uh…”

“Oh, that is right. I apologize, I forgot that it is not currently within your ability to remember. The Head said you have ‘am-nee-zee-ah’. (That is a strange word, do you not agree?) However, I doubt you were the one responsible for the demise of my parents. Therefore, you have no need to apologize over something you did not cause.”

“I think you’re saying, it wasn’t my fault, so I don’t need to worry about it?”

“That is correct, Bliztasch Surral-Imperos.”

“Thank you, Kenia.”

“You have no need to thank me for this, either. It is only common courtesy. You would say the same to me, I think.”

“Thanks- I mean, not thanks- agh!”

Kenia laughed. “You are very entertaining to listen to, Bliztasch Surral-Imperos.”

“You…” Bliztasch paused to translate. “You think I’m funny?”

“Yes. You cause me to smile and laugh. I think you are my favorite human that I have met.” There was a moment of silence, and Kenia laughed again. “That is something that is generally said ‘Thank you’ to in my culture.”

“Ah-! Thanks, Kenia! Sorry!”

Kenia doubled over in laughter. “Yes, I find joy in your company, Bliztasch Surral-Imperos.”

“I… I like spending time with you too, Kenia.” For the first time since he woke up, he actually felt safe. Kenia was a little… socially awkward, but she was very friendly towards him. He still had a vague feeling of suspicion, but it had continued fading ever since she had returned. The Head would take some getting used to, but… Bliztasch had a feeling that had he spent a lot of time with people like the Head in the past. Yeah… Yeah, he could definitely start a new life here. 

 

⇆⇆⇆

 

 

She was in a similar boat, in some ways. She, too, couldn’t remember a thing. But she had instead chosen to remain still, eyes closed, with the one phrase that she could pull from the void that was her memory - Aryefis Cuichade.

A blinding light shone from beyond her eyes. She tightened her eyelids and moved her hand to block the light, finding another hand on her wrist. That was what it took to make her open her eyes.

 

The man who stood before her - gripping her arm - was a startling sight. She couldn’t see a bare inch of skin that wasn’t scarred or tattooed. He gave her the creeps. It didn’t help that their eyes were locked.

“Hey, Boz,” the man growled, still not looking away, “she’s awake.”

She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and broke the eye contact she’d had with the creepy guy - and some of the tension. Boz was a woman, that much was sure, but she couldn’t see the woman’s features.

“What do you want me to do about it?” Boz groaned. “She’s your responsibility.”

She looked back at the beefy hand on her wrist. Unlike our friend Bliztasch, she did not have the courage to ask any questions.

“You’re a quiet one, arren’ ya?” the man said. “Boz, she’s not going anywhere. The thing’s too scared to run.”

Bos shrugged. “Well, then, let her go, Racs.”

The man - Racs - let go of her arm, and she scrambled back to the wall. “I-I’m not a thing.”

“She speaks!” Racs cackled. “Coulda fooled me. I seriously thought you were mute, kid!”

She still had her guard up, but she needed to know: “I- I have a few questions. One, who are you, two, who am I, three, where the heck are we, and four, where’s the bathroom?”

Racs smiled. “One: I’m Racs, and this is Boz. We’re just making sure you stay out of trouble with everyone else. Three, this is our home, so please be a bit more respectful. Four, that way.” He pointed down a hall.

“You missed number two,” Boz grunted.

“Oh, right. You’re Aryefis Cuichade.” So that’s why I could remember those two words.

“I’m… I’m going to go over here…” Aryefis stood up and began to move towards the bathroom. Racs was staring directly at her, and Boz was watching her out of the corner of her eye.

Aryefis closed the door behind her. She didn’t actually have to go to the bathroom, but she needed a minute to think. She’d woken up with practically no memory, and these two just expected her to trust them right off the bat? Aryefis looked into the mirror above the sink and placed her hands on the counter. Her long, shimmering gold hair cascaded down past her elbows. Her gaze met an identical pair of pearlescent eyes.

She heard a click in the door behind her. A panicked state began, and she tried to open the door. Nothing. It wouldn’t budge. They… they locked me in!

“Sorry, kiddo!” Racs’ scruffy voice said, muffled through the wood of the door. “We’ve got a meeting, and we can’t have ya running off on us!”

Aryefis released a ticked off grunt in response - but she doubted he could hear her. As the echoes of Rac and Boz’s footsteps faded into the distance, she continued to struggle with the door. It felt like hours that she struggled to open it, but glancing at a quartz clock, she noticed that only a few minutes had passed, maybe… ten, at most?

She sat in the corner and buried her face in her hands. She couldn’t cry though - not here, not near people like Boz and Racs. She’d have to hold out as long as she could.

Her eyes began to feel wet. She wiped the tears away and tried to stop any more from forming. It wasn’t the most successful, but she did what she could. She had a feeling that it wasn’t a good idea to show weakness around here.

She lifted her head out of her hands and wrapped her arms around her bent legs, resting her chin on her knees. With her eyes closed, she tried to remember what had knocked her unconscious and stolen her memory. Again, not very successful. All she could get was a vague wisp of falling through… smoke? Mist? Fog? Well, whatever it was, it was something gaseous. And she wasn’t alone when it had happened.

It was all Aryefis could do to steady her breathing. She could feel herself losing control of her tear glands and it would be any time now that she broke. In, out. In, out. The deep, slow, soothing breathing helped her calm down. After about ten breaths, her shoulders stopped shaking so much.

Eyes still closed, she tried to listen now that she had calmed down. She couldn’t hear any voices, though. Only echoed footsteps with an emptiness that made her feel as though the feet were falling millions of miles away.

Tick. Tick. Tick. The moving of the clock’s second hand should’ve helped calm Aryefis, but it didn’t. All it did was remind her of a ticking bomb that could go off at any moment. She knew the ticking was from the clock, but… still.

Eventually the adrenaline began to fade, as did her sense of being threatened. Part of her wanted to sleep. The other part wanted to slap that part of her because we were in a coma, genius! It had also been forever since she’d eaten. Her body was giving in to fatigue, and it was getting ever harder to stay awake. She had minimal energy left, and with her body automatically draining a good part of it to do necessary bodily functions (she was very fond of being alive - even if Aryefis didn’t know anything else, she knew that much), there wasn’t a lot left to move around with. She slumped against the wall and entered the hazy arms of sleep.

 

 

 

“We have to get out of here, Frost Eagle!” she was yelling.

 

 

 

“Not with you - never with you!” he yelled back.

Aryefis grew aware of the scene unfolding around her. The woman she recognized - she had the same features as the woman she’d seen in the mirror. She was the woman. She realized that this must be a memory.

Obviously she knew Frost Eagle, but she had no idea who he was. He had hair that went down to his chin, which was brown at its roots and green at the bottom. He had black eyes, cold as the floor she was vaguely aware that she was sleeping on. Whoever he was, he didn’t seem to like her.

“This mist is probably poison - if we don’t work together, we’ll die! We need to go!” Dream Aryefis was close to tears.

“Better we both die than I let you live and keep doing this.” Dream Frost Eagle kept resisting. Real Aryefis couldn’t understand his bias towards death over letting Dream Aryefis live.

“Please, I’m doing this for the good of everyone! You can start again!”

“Enough, Twilight Alpha. Better to let the mist take both of us than to let you torment this world any more.”

“Torment?! I am trying to save everyone!”

“Yeah, uh huh, and what of those people who don’t want to be saved. Like me.”

“People like you will always exist, but people like me will always persist.”

“Maybe… but you’ll never win. People like you fall easily.” He went to his thigh and pulled out a knife.

Dream Aryefis moved faster. She lunged and jumped up, kicking the back of Frost Eagle’s head. The impact knocked him unconscious; he fell into the mist.

Dream Aryefis realized her mistake - now she couldn’t escape. She landed low to the ground - in the mist. Her eyes widened and her body collapsed, and at that moment, Real Aryefis woke up.

 

[Through the Living Hope]

Prologue to my MHA fanfic (SFW)

Before U.A.

Spoiler

My birth name is Dekui Takami. When my uncle adopted me, he changed that name and added his last name to the end of mine. That’s why I’m legally Akarui Aizawa.

My birth father was a serial thief and murderer, and I don’t even know his name. I know that my mom kept him from getting caught, so she never went to the police because she knew she would get in trouble. I was born shortly before he was caught by the pro hero Endeavor, so it was a stressful time for Mom. Her brother, my uncle, adopted me to take some stress off of her. I still got to see my big brother Keigo sometimes, but not long after my father was caught, he was training to be a pro himself, so it wasn’t often I got to see him.

With both Keigo and Uncle Shota working as pro heroes, I was sure what I wanted to do when I was older. Other people will tell you they wanted to be a hero after seeing All Might in action, like my two best childhood friends, Izuku and Katsuki. But not me. I wanted to be a hero after seeing Eraserhead and Hawks in action.

My quirk is called Omnipotent. It’s an adaptive quirk, with new aspects being added depending on which people I’m around. I have to be able to give a basic summary of them and their quirk. One of the few powers that it started with was my wings, which are lavender. I can fly with them and use them as extra limbs, among other things. A power that it adapted to was Katsuki’s Explosion, which my quirk developed into its Bombshell.

As kids, Katsuki was a jerk, I’m not going to lie, but especially to Izuku, who was quirkless. It seemed like with me around, he was able to hold himself back more, and was slightly nicer. I wasn’t quite sure why back then. My grades started dropping a bit during middle school because I put more effort into training myself to be a hero with Uncle Shota than I did studying for school work. I dropped from all A’s to mostly A’s with a few B’s sprinkled in. Okay, they didn’t drop a lot, but they still dropped.

My fingers drummed my desk as I gazed out the window at the sky. Lecture hadn’t started yet, and I really just wanted to go for a flight at that moment. That was one of the benefits of sitting in the back of class and by the windows - there was just something so calming to me about looking at the sky.

“You guys are all third years now,” the teacher said. I sighed and looked to the front of the classroom. My fingers still tapped, but near silently.

“It’s time to start thinking seriously about your futures. I would hand out these future career forms, but I assume you all want to be heroes.”

“YEAH!” Most of the class erupted in a cry of agreement. I didn’t yell with the others, but I did say yes. Almost everyone used their quirks. A shiver went up my wings- wait, I didn’t release those! I pushed them back into my back. Like always, there was a quick sting of pain. I had forced myself to learn how to do that to avoid the prevalent mutant stigma - a general distaste for anyone whose quirk permanently altered their physical appearance. Uncle Shota didn’t like that I hid a major part of my identity, but I had still done it.

“Yes, you all have wonderful quirks. But you know that it’s against the rules to use them in school.”

“Hey, don’t lump me in with these losers!” Katsuki yelled from the third row. “As if I had anything like their crappy quirks.”

“Get over yourself, Katsuki!”

“SHUT UP! Extras should act like extras!”

I laughed to myself. “Wow, he just pulverized the fourth wall!”

“Ah, Bakugo, of course. You must be aiming for U.A. high school.”

“That national school?! The cutoff score for this year is 79, right? I hear they barely accept anyone!”

That much was true. U.A. was one of the most prestigious schools in Japan- and maybe even the whole world. It was pretty much a must-have on the resume of anyone who wanted to be a hero. Uncle Shota had gone to U.A. - and he was still going there when he adopted me - or rather, when I was forced on him by my mom. Two of his friends, Oboro Shirakumo and Hizashi Yamada, had helped watch me sometimes. Yamada a bit more because… well, Shota tries to avoid talking about it, so I do too, but Shirakumo was killed in action.

“Stupid, chattering extras! I aced the mock exam! I’m the only one here with the stuff for U.A.!”

“Ahem,” I glared.

“Shut it, featherbrain! Anyways, I’m even going to surpass All Might and become the best hero out there! Not to mention, I’ll be one of the richest people in the world!”

The teacher continued, “You’re also going for U.A., aren’t you, Kiseki and Midoriya?”

As usual, everyone’s attention went to Izuku, the quirkless fanboy. Even though he didn’t have a quirk, he was still determined to be a hero. I admired it. Everyone else mocked it.

“Midoriya?! No way! Good grades alone can’t get you into the hero program!”

“Th-that’s not necessarily true!” Izuku said, now standing up. “Sure, there’s no precedent, but-”

“COME ON, DEKU!” Katsuki blew up Izuku’s desk. “Forget the crappy quirks- you’re totally quirkless! And you think you can rub shoulders with me?!”

“Wait, no, Kacchan! I wasn’t saying I could compete with you! Not at all! I mean it! It’s just… been my dream. Since I was little. And, well… there’s no harm in trying…”

“Try? Try what?! The entrance exam?! You’re taking the exam just to try?! What can you even do?!”

“Leave him alone, guys,” I scolded.

“Are you taking the side of this quirkless loser?!” one of my classmates said.

“Look, we’re still in school. Let’s get our work done before we do anything else. So sit. On your butts. Now. Because trust me… you don’t want to underestimate me, and if you don’t take this seriously, I will handle you myself.”

By this point, everyone knew about my quirk and what it was called. And someone with a quirk that is literally called “All Powerful” is not the type of person you wanted to tussle with. Especially when that person was the class rep. And they knew that. Everyone trudged back to their seats.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Thank you for getting the class back under control, Ms. Kiseki. The threat was a little much, though. Anyways, on to the lesson…”

 

 

 

Classes were done for the day. I put everything in my bag and started heading to the exit. I was about to stand up and leave when I realized I didn’t have my phone. I started looking around for my phone when I heard Katsuki say, “We ain’t done here, Deku.”

Just from that, I could tell something was up. By that point, I’d found my phone in my desk, but I pretended like I hadn’t and kept looking around.

“What’s that, Katsuki?” someone asked.

“‘For my future’,” another of the bullies read. “This guy…”

“Come on, give it back!” Izuku pleaded.

Katsuki blew up the notebook he had swiped from Izuku.

“Why?!”
“The best heroes out there, well, they showed signs of greatness, even as students. I’ll be the first and only hero from this crappy public school! The first to win the honor of becoming a student at U.A. Guess I’m just a perfectionist. In other words, don’t you dare get into U.A., nerd! You wanna be a hero so bad? I’ve got a time saving idea for you.”

I could tell where this was going, so I put my phone in my bag.

“If you think you’ll have a quirk in your next life, go take a swan dive off the roof.”

I grabbed the back of the neck of Katsuki’s jacket. “I think that’s enough out of you.” I started dragging him out of the door (despite being 18 centimeters shorter).

“Hey, paws off!”

“Have. You. Lost. Your. Marbles? ‘Take a swan dive off the roof’- That’s instigating a suicide! If the police - or worse, a hero caught wind of that, do you have any idea what would happen? Prison time - or worse. And you could say goodbye to any hopes you have of being a hero.”

“Let me go, shorty!”

“Well, that’s not happening. I am walking you home, pretty boy.” His eyes widened as I turned to the two others with him and pointed. “And you guys aren’t exempt from this either! I’m taking all of you home.”

I dragged Katsuki with one hand and the other two with the other. I might not be a ton to look at height-wise, but my physical strength was nothing to be laughed at. Once we were in an alley off campus, I released them. “I am still taking all of you home.”

Katsuki kicked a gunk-filled plastic bottle on the ground and the other two got out cigarettes and started smoking.

“Haven’t you known him since you were kids?” the dark-haired one asked.

“Yeah, you went too far today,” the lighter-haired one agreed.

“It’s his fault for messing with me. Seeing him so full of stupid dreams like when we were kids just pisses me off.” He made an explosion in his hand.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the plastic bottle cracked and the gunk began to seep out.

“Well, get used to it, Blasty. If you want to get into U.A., you’d better get used to being around people who see things through rose-colored lenses,” I scolded.

Katsuki turned back for the first time and saw the other two smoking. “I thought I told you to stop smoking! Get caught, and it’ll go on my record, too…”

“So you’re fine with getting caught initiating a suicide, but not your buddies smoking?” I asked sarcastically. I turned to the other two. “Still, it is illegal- What?” They were frozen in terror, and they pointed to the other side of Katsuki. I turned and gasped.

The gunk wasn’t just sludge - it was a villain. And it was attacking Katsuki. “A body with a good quirk…”

“LOOK OUT!”

The villain clamped down over top of him.

“KATSUKI!”

The villain seemed to be trying to absorb Katsuki. I knew that despite the power of my quirk, in that moment I wouldn’t be able to do anything to help him. Even if I could, I legally couldn’t - you needed a license to attack a villian. But I could do a little without worrying about that. I could protect the other two without attacking.

I threw out my arm and yelled over my shoulder, “Stay back! We need to avoid anyone else being attacked!”

The sludge villain began moving away. “Go home! I have bigger problems now!” I yelled, and sprinting away, pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed 911.

“911, what’s your emergency?” the police officer on the other end answered.

“My- my friend is- being attacked- by a- a villain!” I answered, near breathless as I chased after the villain.

“Please describe the villain.”

“He’s- a greenish- sludge! I think- I think he’s trying to- absorb my friend!

“Tell me where you are so I can alert nearby heroes.”

“I’m- I’m just west of- Musutafu Public- Middle School! Please hurry!”

“The local heroes have been alerted. Thank you for your call.”

I hung up the phone and kept sprinting. I saw glittery spots dance along the ends of my vision and tried to steady my breathing. I couldn’t stop chasing the villain, and soon my lungs felt like they had been lit on fire. I released my wings and began to fly after them.

I did everything I could to keep the sludge villain in my line of sight. But eventually I did lose sight of him. I took a guess about where the villain was heading and took a detour to get there. I saw Mt. Lady, Kamui Woods, Death Arms, and a handful of other heroes soon after.

“Please hurry! That villain is attacking a friend of mine!” I yelled to Kamui Woods.

“We’ll do everything we can!” he responded. By that point, a crowd had gathered around me. The villain had used Katsuki’s quirk to set an entire block on fire.

“GAAAAAAAAH!” It was Katsuki’s voice, but… How could I even tell if his voice was still his?

“Woah, this is a hardcore villain!” someone in the crowd said.

“Go get him, heroes!” a woman called in support.

“A single lane street? I can’t get there!” Mt. Lady told the other heroes.

“Explosive fires are my weakness! Someone else has to take this one!” Kamui added.

“I’ve got my hands full, too!” a water-wielding hero yelled. “Where are the firefighters?!”

“He’s too slippery to get ahold of!” Death Arms said. “But his hostage with the explosive quirk is resisting! It’s like a minefield out here, but we can’t do anything against him!”

“It’s no good!” Kamui yelled. “We’ve just gotta wait for someone with the right quirk to show up!”

“Until then, keep the damage to a minimum. Someone’ll come! We need that kid to hold on just a bit longer!”

My adrenaline rush began to wear off and I started to feel the fear creeping in. There was nothing I could do but stand there. I knew I could blow the villain back with my wings, but that would blow Katsuki away with him… and besides, it was illegal. My eyes started tearing up.

“Wait, isn’t that the villain All Might was chasing?”

“All Might?! No way, he’s really here?!”

“Yeah, I saw him earlier.”

“Then what’s All Might doing now?!”

“Can you stop worrying about All Might! My friend is in big trouble!” I yelled at the crowd. I looked back at Katsuki and the villain, and I could see Katsuki’s eyes. There was a different look in his eyes, one I never saw in him…

Terror.

The seal holding my tears broke and they began to fall.

Suddenly, Izuku ran straight out of the crowd at the villain.

“Get back here, you idiot! Stop!” Death Arms yelled at him.

“It’s that kid,” the sludge villain said.

“Deku…” Katsuki groaned.

“You’re dead.”

Izuku threw his backpack at the villain as he kept running. He landed on the villain and began to claw away at the sludge. “KACCHAN!”
“You! Why?!” Katsuki yelled.

“My legs just started moving! I don’t know why! You- you looked like you needed saving!”

“Stop it!” the villain growled. “Just a bit longer… so stop getting in my way!”

“Does he have a death wish? He’ll die for nothing!” Death Arms yelled.

Out of nowhere, All Might suddenly appeared. I may not be a super huge fan of All Might, but I gotta say, he had quite the presence in person.

“The lesson I left you with… I should practice what I preach! A pro should always be ready to risk his life! Detroiiiiiit… SMAAAASH!”

The shockwave of the punch made the villain release Katsuki, and All Might grabbed both him and Izuku. The villain was blasted to puddles. It started to rain.

“He changed the weather with a single punch!” someone from the press called out.

All Might vanished. The heroes captured the sludge villain, Izuku got a scolding from them, and they fawned over Katsuki.

Once the heroes got their fill of asking him to sidekick with them when he goes pro, I walked over to him. I punched him in the shoulder. “Don’t scare me like that! Do you have any idea how worried I was?! Who knows how long you would have lasted if I didn’t call for help-”

“Shut up!” He went off in the direction of Izuku’s apartment.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?! I’m not done yelling at you yet!” I had to run after him to move at the same speed he was.

“Hey, Deku!” he yelled, stopping Izuku in his tracks. “I never asked you to save me! As if you could! I could’ve beaten him myself. I can’t believe a quirkless failure like you would pity me. Don’t mock me, stupid nerd!” He turned and started to stomp away.

“Sorry about him!” I said to Izuku. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow!” I turned and began to chase after my other friend. “Katsuki!”

“Stop following me!”

“After what just happened? Yeah, right after I become a villain. I’m still taking you home.” I started walking side by side with him. “Then you’re Mitsuki’s problem.”

“Tch.”

I took him home and, just like I expected, he got the scolding of a lifetime from his mom. I got out of there before she could yell at me for letting her son get into that much trouble.

A couple days later, Izuku started acting a bit weird. He became somewhat obsessed with working out, and was more mutter-y than usual. (That ended up continuing for ten months.)

“Hey, Midoriya, did you hit your head in that villain attack?” the teacher asked.

“Ridiculous how he still thinks he can get into U.A.,” someone said.

“Heroics is about more than quirks. It’s also about your attitude towards the people you’re assisting.” I looked up from the U.A. entrance requirements paper. “In that context, Izuku’s a lot closer to being a hero than any of you. Solely because all of you don’t have the best record with how you treat others.”

Surprisingly, Katsuki didn’t retort like I was expecting.

Not soon enough (ten months later), on February 26, was the U.A. entrance exam. U.A. wasn’t extremely far from home, so I decided to get there myself - by flying. As I arrived, I saw Katsuki walking past Izuku, who was freaking out when he saw Katsuki. It did surprise me that there was no extended torment, but it was a good surprise.

Then Izuku tripped on the ground (I’m not judging, I do the same thing sometimes) and a girl with a short brown bob who seemed to have some kind of flotation quirk stopped him from hitting the ground. His face turned beet red and he said no intelligible words to her. As I approached, I caught the tail end of the “conversation”.

“This sure is nerve wracking. Well, good luck to the both of us! See ya!” She waved as she walked up to the building.

“I talked to a girl!” he muttered to himself once she was out of earshot.

“Did you, though?” I asked, making him jump.

“A-Akarui! Hi!” He shook his head and got rid of the bright red blush.

“Now you talked to a girl,” I grinned.

“You don’t count.” I raised my eyebrows. “I mean- I knew you since we were little, so I’m not uncomfortable talking around you. Sometimes I even forget you’re a girl- uh!”

“Put down the shovel before you can’t get out of the hole.”

“Sorry!”

I laughed. “Don’t worry, I know what you mean. I’m just teasing you.” I pointed to the building with my head. “We should probably head inside. We don’t want to be late to one of the biggest days of our lives!”

“Right! And, uh, thanks for ten months ago. With Kacchan. And… well, staying my friend even after I was quirkless.”

“You shouldn’t be thanking me for any of that. Quirks aren’t everything that makes a person. And any decent person would’ve done the same with the bullying. Seriously, some people should be more worried about being decent human beings before they chase any dreams of heroics.” I smiled. “That’s what I meant when I said you were closer to being a hero to anyone else.”

He smiled back.

“Now come on. Let’s go in.”

I was sitting between Izuku and Katsuki. The teacher “hosting” the first part of the test was Hizashi Yamada - or, by his hero name, Present Mic. “Welcome to today’s live performance! Everybody say ‘Hey’!”

Silence.

“Well, that’s cool, my examinee listeners! I’m here to present the guidelines of your practical! Are you ready?! YEAAAAAAH!”

Silence again.

“It’s the voice hero, Present Mic! Wow…” Izuku whispered. “I listen to his radio show every week. It’s really inspiring! Guess all the U.A. teachers are pro heroes.”

“Shut up,” Katsuki ordered.

“Would both of you please focus? Thank you.”

“This is how the test will go, my listeners! You’ll be experiencing ten-minute- long ‘mock cityscape maneuvers’! Bring along whatever you want. After this presentation, you’ll each head to your assigned testing location.”

“That’s so kids from the same middle school can’t help each other out, yeah?” Katsuki asked.

“Yeah,” I responded.

“And why consecutive I.D. numbers are assigned to different locations,” Izuku added.

“I’ll crush ‘em all. But you get to live another day.”

“Each site is filled with three kinds of faux villains. Points are awarded for defeating each according to their respective difficulty levels. Use your quirks to disable these faux villains and earn points! That’s your goal, listeners! Of course, playing the antihero and attacking other examinees is prohibited!”

“May I ask a question?!” one of the other students stood and asked. “There appear to be four varieties of faux villain on this handout! Such a blatant error, if it is one, is highly unbecoming for U.A., Japan’s top academy! We’re all here today in the hopes of being molded into model heroes!

“And you, with the curly hair!” He pointed to Izuku. “You’ve been muttering this whole time. It’s distracting! If this is some sort of game to you, then please leave immediately!”

“Sorry!”

“Alright, alright, examinee 7111, nice catch. Thanks. But the fourth faux villain variety gets you zero points. He’s more of an obstacle! Have you all played Super Mario Bros, the old game? It’s kind of like a Thwomp! Only one at each site! A gimmick that’ll rampage around in close quarters!”

“Got it, so it’s like a stage gimmick to be avoided.” 7111 bowed. “Thank you, sir. I apologize for the interruption!”

“That’s all from me! I’ll leave my listeners with our school motto. The great hero Napoleon Bonaparte once said, ‘True heroism consists of being superior to the ills of life.’ Plus Ultra! Break a leg, everyone!”

 

 

 

I made my way to the testing location I was assigned. I looked around at some of the other students in the area. There was a guy with spiky red hair… one with a bird head… one boy with short blond hair… one guy with decently long black hair… a girl with long green hair that looked like vines… one girl with short blonde hair with a red accent… one with a black braid and turquoise framing strands…

“Oh gosh, this is a lot of people,” I gasped.

“Yeah, but I can’t wait to cut loose on these faux villains!” the red-haired kid said, punching his palm. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. That wasn’t very manly of me.”

“Don’t worry about it! I just wasn’t expecting anyone to respond,” I answered. “My name’s Akarui Kiseki. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Eijiro Kirishima! And the honor’s all mine!”

“I can already tell I’m gonna like you,” I smiled.

“If we both get in,” he sighed.

“Tell you what - how about we help each other? Make an alliance for the exam? We give each other a basic rundown of our quirks and do what we can to help each other pass!” I said.

“That’s not a half bad idea! My quirk is Hardening… that’s pretty much it. I can harden any part of my body.”

“I can fly, teleport, and make light pillars and small explosions, mostly. I can do a few other things too, but they aren’t much use in battle.”

“That’s a lot of quirks,” the black-haired kid said.

“Well, it’s an adaptative quirk. If I know someone and their quirk well enough, I gain an ability that’s at least similar to their quirk. Like, I’ve always been able to fly and teleport and make the pillars, but the explosions came from a childhood friend of mine.”

“Ah.” The black-haired kid lowered his voice. “And if you’re going to make an alliance for the test, at least try to be quiet about it, okay?”

I facepalmed. “Right. That’d probably be a pretty smart idea.” I sighed. “Did you hear my introduction, too?”

“Yes, I did. Name’s Hanta Sero. And my quirk’s Tape. I can shoot it from my elbows.” He pushes up his sleeve (which now that he mentioned it, I could see that the sleeves bulged at the elbows).

“Can you guys stop fraternizing?” the girl with black and turquoise hair groaned. “You’re so freaking loud…”

“Sorry…”

“Never mind. Jikan Yumiko.”

“Huh?”

“Since you seem to be so introductory today… I’m Jikan Yumiko. Quirk’s Remote. I can act like a TV remote and freeze, speed up, or slow down time, and with my record setting I can turn their memories into items..”

“You know, you can join the alliance if you wa-” Kirishima starts, but Yumiko interrupts him.

“I don’t. Now shut up and leave me be.” She stalks away.

“Well. Wasn’t she a ray of sunshine,” Sero jokes.

“Sunshine is overrated,” the bird head guy said.

“If she doesn’t join, can I?” the blond girl with red highlights asked. “I might need some help if my quirk is going to be much use…”

“I don’t see why not,” Kirishima answers. (She slightly blushed, and I could tell something was starting.)

“Um… I’m Nensho Trobashi. My quirk is Combustion - I can make fire, but I have to have enough body heat to do it, or my environment has to be hot. I also make fire when I’m angry. Humidity doesn’t help, though.”

“And I want this guy, too,” I said, wrapping my elbow around and pulling in the bird guy.

“Huh?” he responded, surprised that I’d pulled him over.

I released my wings. “You know what they say about birds of a feather! So, what’s your name and quirk?”

“His name’s Fumikage Tokoyami, and I’m his quirk!” a shadowy bird answered.

“Whoa!” Trobashi jumped back. “Wasn’t expecting that!”

“Control yourself, Dark Shadow,” Tokoyami ordered, and the bird went back inside his belly button. “That was my quirk. His name is Dark Shadow.”

“Oh, that’s why your head’s a bird!” Sero said.

“No, that’s a different thing.”

“Begin!” the intercom sounded.

“Let’s hurry!” I shouted as we started running. “I’ll get my faux villains last - I’ll go up into the air and scout out the area!” I started flying up high and scouting for robots.

“I see two three-pointers and five one-pointers to the north! Six two-pointers to the southwest! And the zero-pointer is to the east!” Below me, I could see the four others split into teams - Kirishima and Tokoyami, Sero and Trobashi. I stayed lookout for a little while. Once they all had at least thirty points, I went back down to the ground. As I went to rendezvous with the others, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. I caught a brief glimpse of the blond guy from before he ran away.

“That’s… weird.”

As I went to find the others, I took down quite a few robots and by the time I had found them, I was up to over thirty myself. We all fist bumped (well, Tokoyami was too “above it” so Dark Shadow ended up bumping us instead) when we heard screaming.

“I think that’s that Yumiko lady!” Trobashi said.

“We’ve gotta go help her!” I responded.

We all ran towards the screaming, and it turned out, she had encountered the zero-pointer and was trying to run away from it.

“Yumiko!” Kirishima yelled. “Keep running! We’ll get that off your back!”

“I don’t- need any- HEEEEELP!”

“Sero!” I yelled. “You ever seen that old movie Empire Strikes Back?”

“Yeah, a long time ago, why?”

“Wrap your tape around the zero-pointers legs like they did to that big walker on the ice planet! Tokoyami, I’m going to take you up to the roof. Use Dark Shadow to distract it! Trobashi, start doing jumping jacks! Once it falls over and you start flaming up, melt through to the circuit boards. Kirishima, once she melts through, I’ll take you up and you can smash up the internal wiring! Everyone understand your assignments?”

Everyone nodded.

“Alright, let’s go, Tokoyami!” I grabbed him under the elbows and flew up to a nearby rooftop. Once he was steady on the roof, he released Dark Shadow, who flew around in front of the zero-pointer.

“Nya, na na, na na, na!” Dark Shadow teased.

“Sero! Now!” I yelled down. Using one arm to swing around (kinda like the American comic book hero Spiderman), he used the other to wrap up the legs of the faux villain. Once the legs were completely wrapped up, he swung away. After a few seconds, the robot tried to move and fell over because of the tape.

“Trobashi! Go!”

She stopped doing jumping jacks and sprinted to the robot. I airlifted Tokoyami down to the ground, and as we approached the ground, I could see small flames escaping from her hands. Once we touched down, she started melting her way through.

“Get ready, Kiri!”

“Did you just call me Kiri?” he asks.

“I like using nicknames! Just get ready!”

“Done!” Trobashi says from the back of the robot. She’d melted a hole through the back. Kirishima ran up and jumped through the hole into the robot.

I ran around to the robot’s head and watched the “eyes”. Eventually, they went out. I flew up to the hole. “You need help getting out, man?”

“I got it,” he said, rock-climbing his way out of the hole.

I turned to Yumiko, who was lying on the ground propped on her elbows in shock. “You okay?”

“Y-yeah, yeah. I’m fine.” She shook her head and turned like she was going to leave. She turned her head back and muttered, “Thanks.” She ran away, and I lost sight of her.

“IT’S ALL OVER!” Mic’s voice said over the intercom. I sat on the ground in exasperation. For a while I took deep breaths.

“I’m going to die,” I muttered, laughing to myself. “I’m gonna get hypoxia and die.”

“Are you kidding? That was awesome!” Sero yelled.

“So manly- er, womanly!” Kirishima added.

I grinned. “Thanks, guys. Hope to see you again.”

 

 

 

A week had passed. Since my only “parent” worked at U.A., he was still working on grading the entrance exams. He left early in the morning and came home fairly late at night. I figured that mailing the letter to the (adoptive) daughter of a U.A. teacher didn’t make sense, and that he’d just bring the letter home with him. So every day, I waited for news when he got home.

But finally - finally! - he came back with a letter with results of my entrance exam.

“Here’re your results,” Shota said, handing me the envelope. He rubbed his face. “I’ve been pretty much sleep deprived this whole week. I’ll see you in the morning.”

I took the envelope. I hadn’t been nervous at all before, but now the nerves began to set in. I walked down the hall and to my room. As I went, I opened the envelope.

I grabbed the small holo-disk out of the envelope. “Well, moment of truth. Here goes nothing…”

I set the disk down on my desk and the hologram message activated.

“HELLO!” the hologram shouted, and I fell out of my chair. It was All Might speaking in the recording this year. He must be a new teacher.

“Oh, are you alright?!”

“Yeah, fine. Just startled.”

“Well, then, first of all, congratulations on your passing the written exam with flying colors, Young Kiseki! And then your score on the practical… 37 from defeating the faux villains!”

Is it enough? The 36 top scorers get in… maybe I didn’t get enough. What will I do then?”

“However, we were not only looking at scores from defeating the 1, 2, and 3 point villains.” All Might moved to reveal a screen behind him. A security tape began to play, and it showed Yumiko running from the zero-pointer. “I don’t- need any- HEEEEELP!”

Slightly distantly, you could hear my voice telling my plan to everyone. My eyes began to tear up when I saw myself in the camera for the first time. I had just landed with Tokoyami next to Kirishima. “Get ready, Kiri!”

“Did you just call me Kiri?”

“I like using nicknames! Go!”

Just from my body language, you could see that I took this seriously. My brow was furrowed, my stance was authoritative. After the robot was down and the situation was handled, I was still on camera talking to Yumiko.

“You okay?”

“Y-yeah, yeah. I’m fine…. Thanks.” The video cut off.

“37 points from the faux villains… plus 40 points for heading the rescue. “Congratulations, Kiseki… you’re in.”

The hologram cut. For a few seconds, I just stood there. I felt a tear run down my cheek and felt it plop onto my foot. I started to laugh quietly to myself. Then, it got louder… and louder. Finally, I went to the window and threw it open. I swung myself onto the roof and stood at the highest point of it. And I let out the roar that I had held inside of me since the video had ended.

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

 

@Clinically insane @Dabi

[Keke They/he]

7 minutes ago, Spark of Hope said:

Prologue to my MHA fanfic (SFW)

Before U.A.

  Hide contents

My birth name is Dekui Takami. When my uncle adopted me, he changed that name and added his last name to the end of mine. That’s why I’m legally Akarui Aizawa.

My birth father was a serial thief and murderer, and I don’t even know his name. I know that my mom kept him from getting caught, so she never went to the police because she knew she would get in trouble. I was born shortly before he was caught by the pro hero Endeavor, so it was a stressful time for Mom. Her brother, my uncle, adopted me to take some stress off of her. I still got to see my big brother Keigo sometimes, but not long after my father was caught, he was training to be a pro himself, so it wasn’t often I got to see him.

With both Keigo and Uncle Shota working as pro heroes, I was sure what I wanted to do when I was older. Other people will tell you they wanted to be a hero after seeing All Might in action, like my two best childhood friends, Izuku and Katsuki. But not me. I wanted to be a hero after seeing Eraserhead and Hawks in action.

My quirk is called Omnipotent. It’s an adaptive quirk, with new aspects being added depending on which people I’m around. I have to be able to give a basic summary of them and their quirk. One of the few powers that it started with was my wings, which are lavender. I can fly with them and use them as extra limbs, among other things. A power that it adapted to was Katsuki’s Explosion, which my quirk developed into its Bombshell.

As kids, Katsuki was a jerk, I’m not going to lie, but especially to Izuku, who was quirkless. It seemed like with me around, he was able to hold himself back more, and was slightly nicer. I wasn’t quite sure why back then. My grades started dropping a bit during middle school because I put more effort into training myself to be a hero with Uncle Shota than I did studying for school work. I dropped from all A’s to mostly A’s with a few B’s sprinkled in. Okay, they didn’t drop a lot, but they still dropped.

My fingers drummed my desk as I gazed out the window at the sky. Lecture hadn’t started yet, and I really just wanted to go for a flight at that moment. That was one of the benefits of sitting in the back of class and by the windows - there was just something so calming to me about looking at the sky.

“You guys are all third years now,” the teacher said. I sighed and looked to the front of the classroom. My fingers still tapped, but near silently.

“It’s time to start thinking seriously about your futures. I would hand out these future career forms, but I assume you all want to be heroes.”

“YEAH!” Most of the class erupted in a cry of agreement. I didn’t yell with the others, but I did say yes. Almost everyone used their quirks. A shiver went up my wings- wait, I didn’t release those! I pushed them back into my back. Like always, there was a quick sting of pain. I had forced myself to learn how to do that to avoid the prevalent mutant stigma - a general distaste for anyone whose quirk permanently altered their physical appearance. Uncle Shota didn’t like that I hid a major part of my identity, but I had still done it.

“Yes, you all have wonderful quirks. But you know that it’s against the rules to use them in school.”

“Hey, don’t lump me in with these losers!” Katsuki yelled from the third row. “As if I had anything like their crappy quirks.”

“Get over yourself, Katsuki!”

“SHUT UP! Extras should act like extras!”

I laughed to myself. “Wow, he just pulverized the fourth wall!”

“Ah, Bakugo, of course. You must be aiming for U.A. high school.”

“That national school?! The cutoff score for this year is 79, right? I hear they barely accept anyone!”

That much was true. U.A. was one of the most prestigious schools in Japan- and maybe even the whole world. It was pretty much a must-have on the resume of anyone who wanted to be a hero. Uncle Shota had gone to U.A. - and he was still going there when he adopted me - or rather, when I was forced on him by my mom. Two of his friends, Oboro Shirakumo and Hizashi Yamada, had helped watch me sometimes. Yamada a bit more because… well, Shota tries to avoid talking about it, so I do too, but Shirakumo was killed in action.

“Stupid, chattering extras! I aced the mock exam! I’m the only one here with the stuff for U.A.!”

“Ahem,” I glared.

“Shut it, featherbrain! Anyways, I’m even going to surpass All Might and become the best hero out there! Not to mention, I’ll be one of the richest people in the world!”

The teacher continued, “You’re also going for U.A., aren’t you, Kiseki and Midoriya?”

As usual, everyone’s attention went to Izuku, the quirkless fanboy. Even though he didn’t have a quirk, he was still determined to be a hero. I admired it. Everyone else mocked it.

“Midoriya?! No way! Good grades alone can’t get you into the hero program!”

“Th-that’s not necessarily true!” Izuku said, now standing up. “Sure, there’s no precedent, but-”

“COME ON, DEKU!” Katsuki blew up Izuku’s desk. “Forget the crappy quirks- you’re totally quirkless! And you think you can rub shoulders with me?!”

“Wait, no, Kacchan! I wasn’t saying I could compete with you! Not at all! I mean it! It’s just… been my dream. Since I was little. And, well… there’s no harm in trying…”

“Try? Try what?! The entrance exam?! You’re taking the exam just to try?! What can you even do?!”

“Leave him alone, guys,” I scolded.

“Are you taking the side of this quirkless loser?!” one of my classmates said.

“Look, we’re still in school. Let’s get our work done before we do anything else. So sit. On your butts. Now. Because trust me… you don’t want to underestimate me, and if you don’t take this seriously, I will handle you myself.”

By this point, everyone knew about my quirk and what it was called. And someone with a quirk that is literally called “All Powerful” is not the type of person you wanted to tussle with. Especially when that person was the class rep. And they knew that. Everyone trudged back to their seats.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Thank you for getting the class back under control, Ms. Kiseki. The threat was a little much, though. Anyways, on to the lesson…”

 

 

 

Classes were done for the day. I put everything in my bag and started heading to the exit. I was about to stand up and leave when I realized I didn’t have my phone. I started looking around for my phone when I heard Katsuki say, “We ain’t done here, Deku.”

Just from that, I could tell something was up. By that point, I’d found my phone in my desk, but I pretended like I hadn’t and kept looking around.

“What’s that, Katsuki?” someone asked.

“‘For my future’,” another of the bullies read. “This guy…”

“Come on, give it back!” Izuku pleaded.

Katsuki blew up the notebook he had swiped from Izuku.

“Why?!”
“The best heroes out there, well, they showed signs of greatness, even as students. I’ll be the first and only hero from this crappy public school! The first to win the honor of becoming a student at U.A. Guess I’m just a perfectionist. In other words, don’t you dare get into U.A., nerd! You wanna be a hero so bad? I’ve got a time saving idea for you.”

I could tell where this was going, so I put my phone in my bag.

“If you think you’ll have a quirk in your next life, go take a swan dive off the roof.”

I grabbed the back of the neck of Katsuki’s jacket. “I think that’s enough out of you.” I started dragging him out of the door (despite being 18 centimeters shorter).

“Hey, paws off!”

“Have. You. Lost. Your. Marbles? ‘Take a swan dive off the roof’- That’s instigating a suicide! If the police - or worse, a hero caught wind of that, do you have any idea what would happen? Prison time - or worse. And you could say goodbye to any hopes you have of being a hero.”

“Let me go, shorty!”

“Well, that’s not happening. I am walking you home, pretty boy.” His eyes widened as I turned to the two others with him and pointed. “And you guys aren’t exempt from this either! I’m taking all of you home.”

I dragged Katsuki with one hand and the other two with the other. I might not be a ton to look at height-wise, but my physical strength was nothing to be laughed at. Once we were in an alley off campus, I released them. “I am still taking all of you home.”

Katsuki kicked a gunk-filled plastic bottle on the ground and the other two got out cigarettes and started smoking.

“Haven’t you known him since you were kids?” the dark-haired one asked.

“Yeah, you went too far today,” the lighter-haired one agreed.

“It’s his fault for messing with me. Seeing him so full of stupid dreams like when we were kids just pisses me off.” He made an explosion in his hand.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the plastic bottle cracked and the gunk began to seep out.

“Well, get used to it, Blasty. If you want to get into U.A., you’d better get used to being around people who see things through rose-colored lenses,” I scolded.

Katsuki turned back for the first time and saw the other two smoking. “I thought I told you to stop smoking! Get caught, and it’ll go on my record, too…”

“So you’re fine with getting caught initiating a suicide, but not your buddies smoking?” I asked sarcastically. I turned to the other two. “Still, it is illegal- What?” They were frozen in terror, and they pointed to the other side of Katsuki. I turned and gasped.

The gunk wasn’t just sludge - it was a villain. And it was attacking Katsuki. “A body with a good quirk…”

“LOOK OUT!”

The villain clamped down over top of him.

“KATSUKI!”

The villain seemed to be trying to absorb Katsuki. I knew that despite the power of my quirk, in that moment I wouldn’t be able to do anything to help him. Even if I could, I legally couldn’t - you needed a license to attack a villian. But I could do a little without worrying about that. I could protect the other two without attacking.

I threw out my arm and yelled over my shoulder, “Stay back! We need to avoid anyone else being attacked!”

The sludge villain began moving away. “Go home! I have bigger problems now!” I yelled, and sprinting away, pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed 911.

“911, what’s your emergency?” the police officer on the other end answered.

“My- my friend is- being attacked- by a- a villain!” I answered, near breathless as I chased after the villain.

“Please describe the villain.”

“He’s- a greenish- sludge! I think- I think he’s trying to- absorb my friend!

“Tell me where you are so I can alert nearby heroes.”

“I’m- I’m just west of- Musutafu Public- Middle School! Please hurry!”

“The local heroes have been alerted. Thank you for your call.”

I hung up the phone and kept sprinting. I saw glittery spots dance along the ends of my vision and tried to steady my breathing. I couldn’t stop chasing the villain, and soon my lungs felt like they had been lit on fire. I released my wings and began to fly after them.

I did everything I could to keep the sludge villain in my line of sight. But eventually I did lose sight of him. I took a guess about where the villain was heading and took a detour to get there. I saw Mt. Lady, Kamui Woods, Death Arms, and a handful of other heroes soon after.

“Please hurry! That villain is attacking a friend of mine!” I yelled to Kamui Woods.

“We’ll do everything we can!” he responded. By that point, a crowd had gathered around me. The villain had used Katsuki’s quirk to set an entire block on fire.

“GAAAAAAAAH!” It was Katsuki’s voice, but… How could I even tell if his voice was still his?

“Woah, this is a hardcore villain!” someone in the crowd said.

“Go get him, heroes!” a woman called in support.

“A single lane street? I can’t get there!” Mt. Lady told the other heroes.

“Explosive fires are my weakness! Someone else has to take this one!” Kamui added.

“I’ve got my hands full, too!” a water-wielding hero yelled. “Where are the firefighters?!”

“He’s too slippery to get ahold of!” Death Arms said. “But his hostage with the explosive quirk is resisting! It’s like a minefield out here, but we can’t do anything against him!”

“It’s no good!” Kamui yelled. “We’ve just gotta wait for someone with the right quirk to show up!”

“Until then, keep the damage to a minimum. Someone’ll come! We need that kid to hold on just a bit longer!”

My adrenaline rush began to wear off and I started to feel the fear creeping in. There was nothing I could do but stand there. I knew I could blow the villain back with my wings, but that would blow Katsuki away with him… and besides, it was illegal. My eyes started tearing up.

“Wait, isn’t that the villain All Might was chasing?”

“All Might?! No way, he’s really here?!”

“Yeah, I saw him earlier.”

“Then what’s All Might doing now?!”

“Can you stop worrying about All Might! My friend is in big trouble!” I yelled at the crowd. I looked back at Katsuki and the villain, and I could see Katsuki’s eyes. There was a different look in his eyes, one I never saw in him…

Terror.

The seal holding my tears broke and they began to fall.

Suddenly, Izuku ran straight out of the crowd at the villain.

“Get back here, you idiot! Stop!” Death Arms yelled at him.

“It’s that kid,” the sludge villain said.

“Deku…” Katsuki groaned.

“You’re dead.”

Izuku threw his backpack at the villain as he kept running. He landed on the villain and began to claw away at the sludge. “KACCHAN!”
“You! Why?!” Katsuki yelled.

“My legs just started moving! I don’t know why! You- you looked like you needed saving!”

“Stop it!” the villain growled. “Just a bit longer… so stop getting in my way!”

“Does he have a death wish? He’ll die for nothing!” Death Arms yelled.

Out of nowhere, All Might suddenly appeared. I may not be a super huge fan of All Might, but I gotta say, he had quite the presence in person.

“The lesson I left you with… I should practice what I preach! A pro should always be ready to risk his life! Detroiiiiiit… SMAAAASH!”

The shockwave of the punch made the villain release Katsuki, and All Might grabbed both him and Izuku. The villain was blasted to puddles. It started to rain.

“He changed the weather with a single punch!” someone from the press called out.

All Might vanished. The heroes captured the sludge villain, Izuku got a scolding from them, and they fawned over Katsuki.

Once the heroes got their fill of asking him to sidekick with them when he goes pro, I walked over to him. I punched him in the shoulder. “Don’t scare me like that! Do you have any idea how worried I was?! Who knows how long you would have lasted if I didn’t call for help-”

“Shut up!” He went off in the direction of Izuku’s apartment.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?! I’m not done yelling at you yet!” I had to run after him to move at the same speed he was.

“Hey, Deku!” he yelled, stopping Izuku in his tracks. “I never asked you to save me! As if you could! I could’ve beaten him myself. I can’t believe a quirkless failure like you would pity me. Don’t mock me, stupid nerd!” He turned and started to stomp away.

“Sorry about him!” I said to Izuku. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow!” I turned and began to chase after my other friend. “Katsuki!”

“Stop following me!”

“After what just happened? Yeah, right after I become a villain. I’m still taking you home.” I started walking side by side with him. “Then you’re Mitsuki’s problem.”

“Tch.”

I took him home and, just like I expected, he got the scolding of a lifetime from his mom. I got out of there before she could yell at me for letting her son get into that much trouble.

A couple days later, Izuku started acting a bit weird. He became somewhat obsessed with working out, and was more mutter-y than usual. (That ended up continuing for ten months.)

“Hey, Midoriya, did you hit your head in that villain attack?” the teacher asked.

“Ridiculous how he still thinks he can get into U.A.,” someone said.

“Heroics is about more than quirks. It’s also about your attitude towards the people you’re assisting.” I looked up from the U.A. entrance requirements paper. “In that context, Izuku’s a lot closer to being a hero than any of you. Solely because all of you don’t have the best record with how you treat others.”

Surprisingly, Katsuki didn’t retort like I was expecting.

Not soon enough (ten months later), on February 26, was the U.A. entrance exam. U.A. wasn’t extremely far from home, so I decided to get there myself - by flying. As I arrived, I saw Katsuki walking past Izuku, who was freaking out when he saw Katsuki. It did surprise me that there was no extended torment, but it was a good surprise.

Then Izuku tripped on the ground (I’m not judging, I do the same thing sometimes) and a girl with a short brown bob who seemed to have some kind of flotation quirk stopped him from hitting the ground. His face turned beet red and he said no intelligible words to her. As I approached, I caught the tail end of the “conversation”.

“This sure is nerve wracking. Well, good luck to the both of us! See ya!” She waved as she walked up to the building.

“I talked to a girl!” he muttered to himself once she was out of earshot.

“Did you, though?” I asked, making him jump.

“A-Akarui! Hi!” He shook his head and got rid of the bright red blush.

“Now you talked to a girl,” I grinned.

“You don’t count.” I raised my eyebrows. “I mean- I knew you since we were little, so I’m not uncomfortable talking around you. Sometimes I even forget you’re a girl- uh!”

“Put down the shovel before you can’t get out of the hole.”

“Sorry!”

I laughed. “Don’t worry, I know what you mean. I’m just teasing you.” I pointed to the building with my head. “We should probably head inside. We don’t want to be late to one of the biggest days of our lives!”

“Right! And, uh, thanks for ten months ago. With Kacchan. And… well, staying my friend even after I was quirkless.”

“You shouldn’t be thanking me for any of that. Quirks aren’t everything that makes a person. And any decent person would’ve done the same with the bullying. Seriously, some people should be more worried about being decent human beings before they chase any dreams of heroics.” I smiled. “That’s what I meant when I said you were closer to being a hero to anyone else.”

He smiled back.

“Now come on. Let’s go in.”

I was sitting between Izuku and Katsuki. The teacher “hosting” the first part of the test was Hizashi Yamada - or, by his hero name, Present Mic. “Welcome to today’s live performance! Everybody say ‘Hey’!”

Silence.

“Well, that’s cool, my examinee listeners! I’m here to present the guidelines of your practical! Are you ready?! YEAAAAAAH!”

Silence again.

“It’s the voice hero, Present Mic! Wow…” Izuku whispered. “I listen to his radio show every week. It’s really inspiring! Guess all the U.A. teachers are pro heroes.”

“Shut up,” Katsuki ordered.

“Would both of you please focus? Thank you.”

“This is how the test will go, my listeners! You’ll be experiencing ten-minute- long ‘mock cityscape maneuvers’! Bring along whatever you want. After this presentation, you’ll each head to your assigned testing location.”

“That’s so kids from the same middle school can’t help each other out, yeah?” Katsuki asked.

“Yeah,” I responded.

“And why consecutive I.D. numbers are assigned to different locations,” Izuku added.

“I’ll crush ‘em all. But you get to live another day.”

“Each site is filled with three kinds of faux villains. Points are awarded for defeating each according to their respective difficulty levels. Use your quirks to disable these faux villains and earn points! That’s your goal, listeners! Of course, playing the antihero and attacking other examinees is prohibited!”

“May I ask a question?!” one of the other students stood and asked. “There appear to be four varieties of faux villain on this handout! Such a blatant error, if it is one, is highly unbecoming for U.A., Japan’s top academy! We’re all here today in the hopes of being molded into model heroes!

“And you, with the curly hair!” He pointed to Izuku. “You’ve been muttering this whole time. It’s distracting! If this is some sort of game to you, then please leave immediately!”

“Sorry!”

“Alright, alright, examinee 7111, nice catch. Thanks. But the fourth faux villain variety gets you zero points. He’s more of an obstacle! Have you all played Super Mario Bros, the old game? It’s kind of like a Thwomp! Only one at each site! A gimmick that’ll rampage around in close quarters!”

“Got it, so it’s like a stage gimmick to be avoided.” 7111 bowed. “Thank you, sir. I apologize for the interruption!”

“That’s all from me! I’ll leave my listeners with our school motto. The great hero Napoleon Bonaparte once said, ‘True heroism consists of being superior to the ills of life.’ Plus Ultra! Break a leg, everyone!”

 

 

 

I made my way to the testing location I was assigned. I looked around at some of the other students in the area. There was a guy with spiky red hair… one with a bird head… one boy with short blond hair… one guy with decently long black hair… a girl with long green hair that looked like vines… one girl with short blonde hair with a red accent… one with a black braid and turquoise framing strands…

“Oh gosh, this is a lot of people,” I gasped.

“Yeah, but I can’t wait to cut loose on these faux villains!” the red-haired kid said, punching his palm. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. That wasn’t very manly of me.”

“Don’t worry about it! I just wasn’t expecting anyone to respond,” I answered. “My name’s Akarui Kiseki. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Eijiro Kirishima! And the honor’s all mine!”

“I can already tell I’m gonna like you,” I smiled.

“If we both get in,” he sighed.

“Tell you what - how about we help each other? Make an alliance for the exam? We give each other a basic rundown of our quirks and do what we can to help each other pass!” I said.

“That’s not a half bad idea! My quirk is Hardening… that’s pretty much it. I can harden any part of my body.”

“I can fly, teleport, and make light pillars and small explosions, mostly. I can do a few other things too, but they aren’t much use in battle.”

“That’s a lot of quirks,” the black-haired kid said.

“Well, it’s an adaptative quirk. If I know someone and their quirk well enough, I gain an ability that’s at least similar to their quirk. Like, I’ve always been able to fly and teleport and make the pillars, but the explosions came from a childhood friend of mine.”

“Ah.” The black-haired kid lowered his voice. “And if you’re going to make an alliance for the test, at least try to be quiet about it, okay?”

I facepalmed. “Right. That’d probably be a pretty smart idea.” I sighed. “Did you hear my introduction, too?”

“Yes, I did. Name’s Hanta Sero. And my quirk’s Tape. I can shoot it from my elbows.” He pushes up his sleeve (which now that he mentioned it, I could see that the sleeves bulged at the elbows).

“Can you guys stop fraternizing?” the girl with black and turquoise hair groaned. “You’re so freaking loud…”

“Sorry…”

“Never mind. Jikan Yumiko.”

“Huh?”

“Since you seem to be so introductory today… I’m Jikan Yumiko. Quirk’s Remote. I can act like a TV remote and freeze, speed up, or slow down time, and with my record setting I can turn their memories into items..”

“You know, you can join the alliance if you wa-” Kirishima starts, but Yumiko interrupts him.

“I don’t. Now shut up and leave me be.” She stalks away.

“Well. Wasn’t she a ray of sunshine,” Sero jokes.

“Sunshine is overrated,” the bird head guy said.

“If she doesn’t join, can I?” the blond girl with red highlights asked. “I might need some help if my quirk is going to be much use…”

“I don’t see why not,” Kirishima answers. (She slightly blushed, and I could tell something was starting.)

“Um… I’m Nensho Trobashi. My quirk is Combustion - I can make fire, but I have to have enough body heat to do it, or my environment has to be hot. I also make fire when I’m angry. Humidity doesn’t help, though.”

“And I want this guy, too,” I said, wrapping my elbow around and pulling in the bird guy.

“Huh?” he responded, surprised that I’d pulled him over.

I released my wings. “You know what they say about birds of a feather! So, what’s your name and quirk?”

“His name’s Fumikage Tokoyami, and I’m his quirk!” a shadowy bird answered.

“Whoa!” Trobashi jumped back. “Wasn’t expecting that!”

“Control yourself, Dark Shadow,” Tokoyami ordered, and the bird went back inside his belly button. “That was my quirk. His name is Dark Shadow.”

“Oh, that’s why your head’s a bird!” Sero said.

“No, that’s a different thing.”

“Begin!” the intercom sounded.

“Let’s hurry!” I shouted as we started running. “I’ll get my faux villains last - I’ll go up into the air and scout out the area!” I started flying up high and scouting for robots.

“I see two three-pointers and five one-pointers to the north! Six two-pointers to the southwest! And the zero-pointer is to the east!” Below me, I could see the four others split into teams - Kirishima and Tokoyami, Sero and Trobashi. I stayed lookout for a little while. Once they all had at least thirty points, I went back down to the ground. As I went to rendezvous with the others, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. I caught a brief glimpse of the blond guy from before he ran away.

“That’s… weird.”

As I went to find the others, I took down quite a few robots and by the time I had found them, I was up to over thirty myself. We all fist bumped (well, Tokoyami was too “above it” so Dark Shadow ended up bumping us instead) when we heard screaming.

“I think that’s that Yumiko lady!” Trobashi said.

“We’ve gotta go help her!” I responded.

We all ran towards the screaming, and it turned out, she had encountered the zero-pointer and was trying to run away from it.

“Yumiko!” Kirishima yelled. “Keep running! We’ll get that off your back!”

“I don’t- need any- HEEEEELP!”

“Sero!” I yelled. “You ever seen that old movie Empire Strikes Back?”

“Yeah, a long time ago, why?”

“Wrap your tape around the zero-pointers legs like they did to that big walker on the ice planet! Tokoyami, I’m going to take you up to the roof. Use Dark Shadow to distract it! Trobashi, start doing jumping jacks! Once it falls over and you start flaming up, melt through to the circuit boards. Kirishima, once she melts through, I’ll take you up and you can smash up the internal wiring! Everyone understand your assignments?”

Everyone nodded.

“Alright, let’s go, Tokoyami!” I grabbed him under the elbows and flew up to a nearby rooftop. Once he was steady on the roof, he released Dark Shadow, who flew around in front of the zero-pointer.

“Nya, na na, na na, na!” Dark Shadow teased.

“Sero! Now!” I yelled down. Using one arm to swing around (kinda like the American comic book hero Spiderman), he used the other to wrap up the legs of the faux villain. Once the legs were completely wrapped up, he swung away. After a few seconds, the robot tried to move and fell over because of the tape.

“Trobashi! Go!”

She stopped doing jumping jacks and sprinted to the robot. I airlifted Tokoyami down to the ground, and as we approached the ground, I could see small flames escaping from her hands. Once we touched down, she started melting her way through.

“Get ready, Kiri!”

“Did you just call me Kiri?” he asks.

“I like using nicknames! Just get ready!”

“Done!” Trobashi says from the back of the robot. She’d melted a hole through the back. Kirishima ran up and jumped through the hole into the robot.

I ran around to the robot’s head and watched the “eyes”. Eventually, they went out. I flew up to the hole. “You need help getting out, man?”

“I got it,” he said, rock-climbing his way out of the hole.

I turned to Yumiko, who was lying on the ground propped on her elbows in shock. “You okay?”

“Y-yeah, yeah. I’m fine.” She shook her head and turned like she was going to leave. She turned her head back and muttered, “Thanks.” She ran away, and I lost sight of her.

“IT’S ALL OVER!” Mic’s voice said over the intercom. I sat on the ground in exasperation. For a while I took deep breaths.

“I’m going to die,” I muttered, laughing to myself. “I’m gonna get hypoxia and die.”

“Are you kidding? That was awesome!” Sero yelled.

“So manly- er, womanly!” Kirishima added.

I grinned. “Thanks, guys. Hope to see you again.”

 

 

 

A week had passed. Since my only “parent” worked at U.A., he was still working on grading the entrance exams. He left early in the morning and came home fairly late at night. I figured that mailing the letter to the (adoptive) daughter of a U.A. teacher didn’t make sense, and that he’d just bring the letter home with him. So every day, I waited for news when he got home.

But finally - finally! - he came back with a letter with results of my entrance exam.

“Here’re your results,” Shota said, handing me the envelope. He rubbed his face. “I’ve been pretty much sleep deprived this whole week. I’ll see you in the morning.”

I took the envelope. I hadn’t been nervous at all before, but now the nerves began to set in. I walked down the hall and to my room. As I went, I opened the envelope.

I grabbed the small holo-disk out of the envelope. “Well, moment of truth. Here goes nothing…”

I set the disk down on my desk and the hologram message activated.

“HELLO!” the hologram shouted, and I fell out of my chair. It was All Might speaking in the recording this year. He must be a new teacher.

“Oh, are you alright?!”

“Yeah, fine. Just startled.”

“Well, then, first of all, congratulations on your passing the written exam with flying colors, Young Kiseki! And then your score on the practical… 37 from defeating the faux villains!”

Is it enough? The 36 top scorers get in… maybe I didn’t get enough. What will I do then?”

“However, we were not only looking at scores from defeating the 1, 2, and 3 point villains.” All Might moved to reveal a screen behind him. A security tape began to play, and it showed Yumiko running from the zero-pointer. “I don’t- need any- HEEEEELP!”

Slightly distantly, you could hear my voice telling my plan to everyone. My eyes began to tear up when I saw myself in the camera for the first time. I had just landed with Tokoyami next to Kirishima. “Get ready, Kiri!”

“Did you just call me Kiri?”

“I like using nicknames! Go!”

Just from my body language, you could see that I took this seriously. My brow was furrowed, my stance was authoritative. After the robot was down and the situation was handled, I was still on camera talking to Yumiko.

“You okay?”

“Y-yeah, yeah. I’m fine…. Thanks.” The video cut off.

“37 points from the faux villains… plus 40 points for heading the rescue. “Congratulations, Kiseki… you’re in.”

The hologram cut. For a few seconds, I just stood there. I felt a tear run down my cheek and felt it plop onto my foot. I started to laugh quietly to myself. Then, it got louder… and louder. Finally, I went to the window and threw it open. I swung myself onto the roof and stood at the highest point of it. And I let out the roar that I had held inside of me since the video had ended.

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

 

@Clinically insane @Dabi

DUDE

SLAY 

THATS AWESOME LETS GOOOOOOOOOO

[Existential]

8 minutes ago, Spark of Hope said:

Prologue to my MHA fanfic (SFW)

Before U.A.

  Reveal hidden contents

My birth name is Dekui Takami. When my uncle adopted me, he changed that name and added his last name to the end of mine. That’s why I’m legally Akarui Aizawa.

My birth father was a serial thief and murderer, and I don’t even know his name. I know that my mom kept him from getting caught, so she never went to the police because she knew she would get in trouble. I was born shortly before he was caught by the pro hero Endeavor, so it was a stressful time for Mom. Her brother, my uncle, adopted me to take some stress off of her. I still got to see my big brother Keigo sometimes, but not long after my father was caught, he was training to be a pro himself, so it wasn’t often I got to see him.

With both Keigo and Uncle Shota working as pro heroes, I was sure what I wanted to do when I was older. Other people will tell you they wanted to be a hero after seeing All Might in action, like my two best childhood friends, Izuku and Katsuki. But not me. I wanted to be a hero after seeing Eraserhead and Hawks in action.

My quirk is called Omnipotent. It’s an adaptive quirk, with new aspects being added depending on which people I’m around. I have to be able to give a basic summary of them and their quirk. One of the few powers that it started with was my wings, which are lavender. I can fly with them and use them as extra limbs, among other things. A power that it adapted to was Katsuki’s Explosion, which my quirk developed into its Bombshell.

As kids, Katsuki was a jerk, I’m not going to lie, but especially to Izuku, who was quirkless. It seemed like with me around, he was able to hold himself back more, and was slightly nicer. I wasn’t quite sure why back then. My grades started dropping a bit during middle school because I put more effort into training myself to be a hero with Uncle Shota than I did studying for school work. I dropped from all A’s to mostly A’s with a few B’s sprinkled in. Okay, they didn’t drop a lot, but they still dropped.

My fingers drummed my desk as I gazed out the window at the sky. Lecture hadn’t started yet, and I really just wanted to go for a flight at that moment. That was one of the benefits of sitting in the back of class and by the windows - there was just something so calming to me about looking at the sky.

“You guys are all third years now,” the teacher said. I sighed and looked to the front of the classroom. My fingers still tapped, but near silently.

“It’s time to start thinking seriously about your futures. I would hand out these future career forms, but I assume you all want to be heroes.”

“YEAH!” Most of the class erupted in a cry of agreement. I didn’t yell with the others, but I did say yes. Almost everyone used their quirks. A shiver went up my wings- wait, I didn’t release those! I pushed them back into my back. Like always, there was a quick sting of pain. I had forced myself to learn how to do that to avoid the prevalent mutant stigma - a general distaste for anyone whose quirk permanently altered their physical appearance. Uncle Shota didn’t like that I hid a major part of my identity, but I had still done it.

“Yes, you all have wonderful quirks. But you know that it’s against the rules to use them in school.”

“Hey, don’t lump me in with these losers!” Katsuki yelled from the third row. “As if I had anything like their crappy quirks.”

“Get over yourself, Katsuki!”

“SHUT UP! Extras should act like extras!”

I laughed to myself. “Wow, he just pulverized the fourth wall!”

“Ah, Bakugo, of course. You must be aiming for U.A. high school.”

“That national school?! The cutoff score for this year is 79, right? I hear they barely accept anyone!”

That much was true. U.A. was one of the most prestigious schools in Japan- and maybe even the whole world. It was pretty much a must-have on the resume of anyone who wanted to be a hero. Uncle Shota had gone to U.A. - and he was still going there when he adopted me - or rather, when I was forced on him by my mom. Two of his friends, Oboro Shirakumo and Hizashi Yamada, had helped watch me sometimes. Yamada a bit more because… well, Shota tries to avoid talking about it, so I do too, but Shirakumo was killed in action.

“Stupid, chattering extras! I aced the mock exam! I’m the only one here with the stuff for U.A.!”

“Ahem,” I glared.

“Shut it, featherbrain! Anyways, I’m even going to surpass All Might and become the best hero out there! Not to mention, I’ll be one of the richest people in the world!”

The teacher continued, “You’re also going for U.A., aren’t you, Kiseki and Midoriya?”

As usual, everyone’s attention went to Izuku, the quirkless fanboy. Even though he didn’t have a quirk, he was still determined to be a hero. I admired it. Everyone else mocked it.

“Midoriya?! No way! Good grades alone can’t get you into the hero program!”

“Th-that’s not necessarily true!” Izuku said, now standing up. “Sure, there’s no precedent, but-”

“COME ON, DEKU!” Katsuki blew up Izuku’s desk. “Forget the crappy quirks- you’re totally quirkless! And you think you can rub shoulders with me?!”

“Wait, no, Kacchan! I wasn’t saying I could compete with you! Not at all! I mean it! It’s just… been my dream. Since I was little. And, well… there’s no harm in trying…”

“Try? Try what?! The entrance exam?! You’re taking the exam just to try?! What can you even do?!”

“Leave him alone, guys,” I scolded.

“Are you taking the side of this quirkless loser?!” one of my classmates said.

“Look, we’re still in school. Let’s get our work done before we do anything else. So sit. On your butts. Now. Because trust me… you don’t want to underestimate me, and if you don’t take this seriously, I will handle you myself.”

By this point, everyone knew about my quirk and what it was called. And someone with a quirk that is literally called “All Powerful” is not the type of person you wanted to tussle with. Especially when that person was the class rep. And they knew that. Everyone trudged back to their seats.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Thank you for getting the class back under control, Ms. Kiseki. The threat was a little much, though. Anyways, on to the lesson…”

 

 

 

Classes were done for the day. I put everything in my bag and started heading to the exit. I was about to stand up and leave when I realized I didn’t have my phone. I started looking around for my phone when I heard Katsuki say, “We ain’t done here, Deku.”

Just from that, I could tell something was up. By that point, I’d found my phone in my desk, but I pretended like I hadn’t and kept looking around.

“What’s that, Katsuki?” someone asked.

“‘For my future’,” another of the bullies read. “This guy…”

“Come on, give it back!” Izuku pleaded.

Katsuki blew up the notebook he had swiped from Izuku.

“Why?!”
“The best heroes out there, well, they showed signs of greatness, even as students. I’ll be the first and only hero from this crappy public school! The first to win the honor of becoming a student at U.A. Guess I’m just a perfectionist. In other words, don’t you dare get into U.A., nerd! You wanna be a hero so bad? I’ve got a time saving idea for you.”

I could tell where this was going, so I put my phone in my bag.

“If you think you’ll have a quirk in your next life, go take a swan dive off the roof.”

I grabbed the back of the neck of Katsuki’s jacket. “I think that’s enough out of you.” I started dragging him out of the door (despite being 18 centimeters shorter).

“Hey, paws off!”

“Have. You. Lost. Your. Marbles? ‘Take a swan dive off the roof’- That’s instigating a suicide! If the police - or worse, a hero caught wind of that, do you have any idea what would happen? Prison time - or worse. And you could say goodbye to any hopes you have of being a hero.”

“Let me go, shorty!”

“Well, that’s not happening. I am walking you home, pretty boy.” His eyes widened as I turned to the two others with him and pointed. “And you guys aren’t exempt from this either! I’m taking all of you home.”

I dragged Katsuki with one hand and the other two with the other. I might not be a ton to look at height-wise, but my physical strength was nothing to be laughed at. Once we were in an alley off campus, I released them. “I am still taking all of you home.”

Katsuki kicked a gunk-filled plastic bottle on the ground and the other two got out cigarettes and started smoking.

“Haven’t you known him since you were kids?” the dark-haired one asked.

“Yeah, you went too far today,” the lighter-haired one agreed.

“It’s his fault for messing with me. Seeing him so full of stupid dreams like when we were kids just pisses me off.” He made an explosion in his hand.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the plastic bottle cracked and the gunk began to seep out.

“Well, get used to it, Blasty. If you want to get into U.A., you’d better get used to being around people who see things through rose-colored lenses,” I scolded.

Katsuki turned back for the first time and saw the other two smoking. “I thought I told you to stop smoking! Get caught, and it’ll go on my record, too…”

“So you’re fine with getting caught initiating a suicide, but not your buddies smoking?” I asked sarcastically. I turned to the other two. “Still, it is illegal- What?” They were frozen in terror, and they pointed to the other side of Katsuki. I turned and gasped.

The gunk wasn’t just sludge - it was a villain. And it was attacking Katsuki. “A body with a good quirk…”

“LOOK OUT!”

The villain clamped down over top of him.

“KATSUKI!”

The villain seemed to be trying to absorb Katsuki. I knew that despite the power of my quirk, in that moment I wouldn’t be able to do anything to help him. Even if I could, I legally couldn’t - you needed a license to attack a villian. But I could do a little without worrying about that. I could protect the other two without attacking.

I threw out my arm and yelled over my shoulder, “Stay back! We need to avoid anyone else being attacked!”

The sludge villain began moving away. “Go home! I have bigger problems now!” I yelled, and sprinting away, pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed 911.

“911, what’s your emergency?” the police officer on the other end answered.

“My- my friend is- being attacked- by a- a villain!” I answered, near breathless as I chased after the villain.

“Please describe the villain.”

“He’s- a greenish- sludge! I think- I think he’s trying to- absorb my friend!

“Tell me where you are so I can alert nearby heroes.”

“I’m- I’m just west of- Musutafu Public- Middle School! Please hurry!”

“The local heroes have been alerted. Thank you for your call.”

I hung up the phone and kept sprinting. I saw glittery spots dance along the ends of my vision and tried to steady my breathing. I couldn’t stop chasing the villain, and soon my lungs felt like they had been lit on fire. I released my wings and began to fly after them.

I did everything I could to keep the sludge villain in my line of sight. But eventually I did lose sight of him. I took a guess about where the villain was heading and took a detour to get there. I saw Mt. Lady, Kamui Woods, Death Arms, and a handful of other heroes soon after.

“Please hurry! That villain is attacking a friend of mine!” I yelled to Kamui Woods.

“We’ll do everything we can!” he responded. By that point, a crowd had gathered around me. The villain had used Katsuki’s quirk to set an entire block on fire.

“GAAAAAAAAH!” It was Katsuki’s voice, but… How could I even tell if his voice was still his?

“Woah, this is a hardcore villain!” someone in the crowd said.

“Go get him, heroes!” a woman called in support.

“A single lane street? I can’t get there!” Mt. Lady told the other heroes.

“Explosive fires are my weakness! Someone else has to take this one!” Kamui added.

“I’ve got my hands full, too!” a water-wielding hero yelled. “Where are the firefighters?!”

“He’s too slippery to get ahold of!” Death Arms said. “But his hostage with the explosive quirk is resisting! It’s like a minefield out here, but we can’t do anything against him!”

“It’s no good!” Kamui yelled. “We’ve just gotta wait for someone with the right quirk to show up!”

“Until then, keep the damage to a minimum. Someone’ll come! We need that kid to hold on just a bit longer!”

My adrenaline rush began to wear off and I started to feel the fear creeping in. There was nothing I could do but stand there. I knew I could blow the villain back with my wings, but that would blow Katsuki away with him… and besides, it was illegal. My eyes started tearing up.

“Wait, isn’t that the villain All Might was chasing?”

“All Might?! No way, he’s really here?!”

“Yeah, I saw him earlier.”

“Then what’s All Might doing now?!”

“Can you stop worrying about All Might! My friend is in big trouble!” I yelled at the crowd. I looked back at Katsuki and the villain, and I could see Katsuki’s eyes. There was a different look in his eyes, one I never saw in him…

Terror.

The seal holding my tears broke and they began to fall.

Suddenly, Izuku ran straight out of the crowd at the villain.

“Get back here, you idiot! Stop!” Death Arms yelled at him.

“It’s that kid,” the sludge villain said.

“Deku…” Katsuki groaned.

“You’re dead.”

Izuku threw his backpack at the villain as he kept running. He landed on the villain and began to claw away at the sludge. “KACCHAN!”
“You! Why?!” Katsuki yelled.

“My legs just started moving! I don’t know why! You- you looked like you needed saving!”

“Stop it!” the villain growled. “Just a bit longer… so stop getting in my way!”

“Does he have a death wish? He’ll die for nothing!” Death Arms yelled.

Out of nowhere, All Might suddenly appeared. I may not be a super huge fan of All Might, but I gotta say, he had quite the presence in person.

“The lesson I left you with… I should practice what I preach! A pro should always be ready to risk his life! Detroiiiiiit… SMAAAASH!”

The shockwave of the punch made the villain release Katsuki, and All Might grabbed both him and Izuku. The villain was blasted to puddles. It started to rain.

“He changed the weather with a single punch!” someone from the press called out.

All Might vanished. The heroes captured the sludge villain, Izuku got a scolding from them, and they fawned over Katsuki.

Once the heroes got their fill of asking him to sidekick with them when he goes pro, I walked over to him. I punched him in the shoulder. “Don’t scare me like that! Do you have any idea how worried I was?! Who knows how long you would have lasted if I didn’t call for help-”

“Shut up!” He went off in the direction of Izuku’s apartment.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?! I’m not done yelling at you yet!” I had to run after him to move at the same speed he was.

“Hey, Deku!” he yelled, stopping Izuku in his tracks. “I never asked you to save me! As if you could! I could’ve beaten him myself. I can’t believe a quirkless failure like you would pity me. Don’t mock me, stupid nerd!” He turned and started to stomp away.

“Sorry about him!” I said to Izuku. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow!” I turned and began to chase after my other friend. “Katsuki!”

“Stop following me!”

“After what just happened? Yeah, right after I become a villain. I’m still taking you home.” I started walking side by side with him. “Then you’re Mitsuki’s problem.”

“Tch.”

I took him home and, just like I expected, he got the scolding of a lifetime from his mom. I got out of there before she could yell at me for letting her son get into that much trouble.

A couple days later, Izuku started acting a bit weird. He became somewhat obsessed with working out, and was more mutter-y than usual. (That ended up continuing for ten months.)

“Hey, Midoriya, did you hit your head in that villain attack?” the teacher asked.

“Ridiculous how he still thinks he can get into U.A.,” someone said.

“Heroics is about more than quirks. It’s also about your attitude towards the people you’re assisting.” I looked up from the U.A. entrance requirements paper. “In that context, Izuku’s a lot closer to being a hero than any of you. Solely because all of you don’t have the best record with how you treat others.”

Surprisingly, Katsuki didn’t retort like I was expecting.

Not soon enough (ten months later), on February 26, was the U.A. entrance exam. U.A. wasn’t extremely far from home, so I decided to get there myself - by flying. As I arrived, I saw Katsuki walking past Izuku, who was freaking out when he saw Katsuki. It did surprise me that there was no extended torment, but it was a good surprise.

Then Izuku tripped on the ground (I’m not judging, I do the same thing sometimes) and a girl with a short brown bob who seemed to have some kind of flotation quirk stopped him from hitting the ground. His face turned beet red and he said no intelligible words to her. As I approached, I caught the tail end of the “conversation”.

“This sure is nerve wracking. Well, good luck to the both of us! See ya!” She waved as she walked up to the building.

“I talked to a girl!” he muttered to himself once she was out of earshot.

“Did you, though?” I asked, making him jump.

“A-Akarui! Hi!” He shook his head and got rid of the bright red blush.

“Now you talked to a girl,” I grinned.

“You don’t count.” I raised my eyebrows. “I mean- I knew you since we were little, so I’m not uncomfortable talking around you. Sometimes I even forget you’re a girl- uh!”

“Put down the shovel before you can’t get out of the hole.”

“Sorry!”

I laughed. “Don’t worry, I know what you mean. I’m just teasing you.” I pointed to the building with my head. “We should probably head inside. We don’t want to be late to one of the biggest days of our lives!”

“Right! And, uh, thanks for ten months ago. With Kacchan. And… well, staying my friend even after I was quirkless.”

“You shouldn’t be thanking me for any of that. Quirks aren’t everything that makes a person. And any decent person would’ve done the same with the bullying. Seriously, some people should be more worried about being decent human beings before they chase any dreams of heroics.” I smiled. “That’s what I meant when I said you were closer to being a hero to anyone else.”

He smiled back.

“Now come on. Let’s go in.”

I was sitting between Izuku and Katsuki. The teacher “hosting” the first part of the test was Hizashi Yamada - or, by his hero name, Present Mic. “Welcome to today’s live performance! Everybody say ‘Hey’!”

Silence.

“Well, that’s cool, my examinee listeners! I’m here to present the guidelines of your practical! Are you ready?! YEAAAAAAH!”

Silence again.

“It’s the voice hero, Present Mic! Wow…” Izuku whispered. “I listen to his radio show every week. It’s really inspiring! Guess all the U.A. teachers are pro heroes.”

“Shut up,” Katsuki ordered.

“Would both of you please focus? Thank you.”

“This is how the test will go, my listeners! You’ll be experiencing ten-minute- long ‘mock cityscape maneuvers’! Bring along whatever you want. After this presentation, you’ll each head to your assigned testing location.”

“That’s so kids from the same middle school can’t help each other out, yeah?” Katsuki asked.

“Yeah,” I responded.

“And why consecutive I.D. numbers are assigned to different locations,” Izuku added.

“I’ll crush ‘em all. But you get to live another day.”

“Each site is filled with three kinds of faux villains. Points are awarded for defeating each according to their respective difficulty levels. Use your quirks to disable these faux villains and earn points! That’s your goal, listeners! Of course, playing the antihero and attacking other examinees is prohibited!”

“May I ask a question?!” one of the other students stood and asked. “There appear to be four varieties of faux villain on this handout! Such a blatant error, if it is one, is highly unbecoming for U.A., Japan’s top academy! We’re all here today in the hopes of being molded into model heroes!

“And you, with the curly hair!” He pointed to Izuku. “You’ve been muttering this whole time. It’s distracting! If this is some sort of game to you, then please leave immediately!”

“Sorry!”

“Alright, alright, examinee 7111, nice catch. Thanks. But the fourth faux villain variety gets you zero points. He’s more of an obstacle! Have you all played Super Mario Bros, the old game? It’s kind of like a Thwomp! Only one at each site! A gimmick that’ll rampage around in close quarters!”

“Got it, so it’s like a stage gimmick to be avoided.” 7111 bowed. “Thank you, sir. I apologize for the interruption!”

“That’s all from me! I’ll leave my listeners with our school motto. The great hero Napoleon Bonaparte once said, ‘True heroism consists of being superior to the ills of life.’ Plus Ultra! Break a leg, everyone!”

 

 

 

I made my way to the testing location I was assigned. I looked around at some of the other students in the area. There was a guy with spiky red hair… one with a bird head… one boy with short blond hair… one guy with decently long black hair… a girl with long green hair that looked like vines… one girl with short blonde hair with a red accent… one with a black braid and turquoise framing strands…

“Oh gosh, this is a lot of people,” I gasped.

“Yeah, but I can’t wait to cut loose on these faux villains!” the red-haired kid said, punching his palm. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. That wasn’t very manly of me.”

“Don’t worry about it! I just wasn’t expecting anyone to respond,” I answered. “My name’s Akarui Kiseki. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Eijiro Kirishima! And the honor’s all mine!”

“I can already tell I’m gonna like you,” I smiled.

“If we both get in,” he sighed.

“Tell you what - how about we help each other? Make an alliance for the exam? We give each other a basic rundown of our quirks and do what we can to help each other pass!” I said.

“That’s not a half bad idea! My quirk is Hardening… that’s pretty much it. I can harden any part of my body.”

“I can fly, teleport, and make light pillars and small explosions, mostly. I can do a few other things too, but they aren’t much use in battle.”

“That’s a lot of quirks,” the black-haired kid said.

“Well, it’s an adaptative quirk. If I know someone and their quirk well enough, I gain an ability that’s at least similar to their quirk. Like, I’ve always been able to fly and teleport and make the pillars, but the explosions came from a childhood friend of mine.”

“Ah.” The black-haired kid lowered his voice. “And if you’re going to make an alliance for the test, at least try to be quiet about it, okay?”

I facepalmed. “Right. That’d probably be a pretty smart idea.” I sighed. “Did you hear my introduction, too?”

“Yes, I did. Name’s Hanta Sero. And my quirk’s Tape. I can shoot it from my elbows.” He pushes up his sleeve (which now that he mentioned it, I could see that the sleeves bulged at the elbows).

“Can you guys stop fraternizing?” the girl with black and turquoise hair groaned. “You’re so freaking loud…”

“Sorry…”

“Never mind. Jikan Yumiko.”

“Huh?”

“Since you seem to be so introductory today… I’m Jikan Yumiko. Quirk’s Remote. I can act like a TV remote and freeze, speed up, or slow down time, and with my record setting I can turn their memories into items..”

“You know, you can join the alliance if you wa-” Kirishima starts, but Yumiko interrupts him.

“I don’t. Now shut up and leave me be.” She stalks away.

“Well. Wasn’t she a ray of sunshine,” Sero jokes.

“Sunshine is overrated,” the bird head guy said.

“If she doesn’t join, can I?” the blond girl with red highlights asked. “I might need some help if my quirk is going to be much use…”

“I don’t see why not,” Kirishima answers. (She slightly blushed, and I could tell something was starting.)

“Um… I’m Nensho Trobashi. My quirk is Combustion - I can make fire, but I have to have enough body heat to do it, or my environment has to be hot. I also make fire when I’m angry. Humidity doesn’t help, though.”

“And I want this guy, too,” I said, wrapping my elbow around and pulling in the bird guy.

“Huh?” he responded, surprised that I’d pulled him over.

I released my wings. “You know what they say about birds of a feather! So, what’s your name and quirk?”

“His name’s Fumikage Tokoyami, and I’m his quirk!” a shadowy bird answered.

“Whoa!” Trobashi jumped back. “Wasn’t expecting that!”

“Control yourself, Dark Shadow,” Tokoyami ordered, and the bird went back inside his belly button. “That was my quirk. His name is Dark Shadow.”

“Oh, that’s why your head’s a bird!” Sero said.

“No, that’s a different thing.”

“Begin!” the intercom sounded.

“Let’s hurry!” I shouted as we started running. “I’ll get my faux villains last - I’ll go up into the air and scout out the area!” I started flying up high and scouting for robots.

“I see two three-pointers and five one-pointers to the north! Six two-pointers to the southwest! And the zero-pointer is to the east!” Below me, I could see the four others split into teams - Kirishima and Tokoyami, Sero and Trobashi. I stayed lookout for a little while. Once they all had at least thirty points, I went back down to the ground. As I went to rendezvous with the others, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. I caught a brief glimpse of the blond guy from before he ran away.

“That’s… weird.”

As I went to find the others, I took down quite a few robots and by the time I had found them, I was up to over thirty myself. We all fist bumped (well, Tokoyami was too “above it” so Dark Shadow ended up bumping us instead) when we heard screaming.

“I think that’s that Yumiko lady!” Trobashi said.

“We’ve gotta go help her!” I responded.

We all ran towards the screaming, and it turned out, she had encountered the zero-pointer and was trying to run away from it.

“Yumiko!” Kirishima yelled. “Keep running! We’ll get that off your back!”

“I don’t- need any- HEEEEELP!”

“Sero!” I yelled. “You ever seen that old movie Empire Strikes Back?”

“Yeah, a long time ago, why?”

“Wrap your tape around the zero-pointers legs like they did to that big walker on the ice planet! Tokoyami, I’m going to take you up to the roof. Use Dark Shadow to distract it! Trobashi, start doing jumping jacks! Once it falls over and you start flaming up, melt through to the circuit boards. Kirishima, once she melts through, I’ll take you up and you can smash up the internal wiring! Everyone understand your assignments?”

Everyone nodded.

“Alright, let’s go, Tokoyami!” I grabbed him under the elbows and flew up to a nearby rooftop. Once he was steady on the roof, he released Dark Shadow, who flew around in front of the zero-pointer.

“Nya, na na, na na, na!” Dark Shadow teased.

“Sero! Now!” I yelled down. Using one arm to swing around (kinda like the American comic book hero Spiderman), he used the other to wrap up the legs of the faux villain. Once the legs were completely wrapped up, he swung away. After a few seconds, the robot tried to move and fell over because of the tape.

“Trobashi! Go!”

She stopped doing jumping jacks and sprinted to the robot. I airlifted Tokoyami down to the ground, and as we approached the ground, I could see small flames escaping from her hands. Once we touched down, she started melting her way through.

“Get ready, Kiri!”

“Did you just call me Kiri?” he asks.

“I like using nicknames! Just get ready!”

“Done!” Trobashi says from the back of the robot. She’d melted a hole through the back. Kirishima ran up and jumped through the hole into the robot.

I ran around to the robot’s head and watched the “eyes”. Eventually, they went out. I flew up to the hole. “You need help getting out, man?”

“I got it,” he said, rock-climbing his way out of the hole.

I turned to Yumiko, who was lying on the ground propped on her elbows in shock. “You okay?”

“Y-yeah, yeah. I’m fine.” She shook her head and turned like she was going to leave. She turned her head back and muttered, “Thanks.” She ran away, and I lost sight of her.

“IT’S ALL OVER!” Mic’s voice said over the intercom. I sat on the ground in exasperation. For a while I took deep breaths.

“I’m going to die,” I muttered, laughing to myself. “I’m gonna get hypoxia and die.”

“Are you kidding? That was awesome!” Sero yelled.

“So manly- er, womanly!” Kirishima added.

I grinned. “Thanks, guys. Hope to see you again.”

 

 

 

A week had passed. Since my only “parent” worked at U.A., he was still working on grading the entrance exams. He left early in the morning and came home fairly late at night. I figured that mailing the letter to the (adoptive) daughter of a U.A. teacher didn’t make sense, and that he’d just bring the letter home with him. So every day, I waited for news when he got home.

But finally - finally! - he came back with a letter with results of my entrance exam.

“Here’re your results,” Shota said, handing me the envelope. He rubbed his face. “I’ve been pretty much sleep deprived this whole week. I’ll see you in the morning.”

I took the envelope. I hadn’t been nervous at all before, but now the nerves began to set in. I walked down the hall and to my room. As I went, I opened the envelope.

I grabbed the small holo-disk out of the envelope. “Well, moment of truth. Here goes nothing…”

I set the disk down on my desk and the hologram message activated.

“HELLO!” the hologram shouted, and I fell out of my chair. It was All Might speaking in the recording this year. He must be a new teacher.

“Oh, are you alright?!”

“Yeah, fine. Just startled.”

“Well, then, first of all, congratulations on your passing the written exam with flying colors, Young Kiseki! And then your score on the practical… 37 from defeating the faux villains!”

Is it enough? The 36 top scorers get in… maybe I didn’t get enough. What will I do then?”

“However, we were not only looking at scores from defeating the 1, 2, and 3 point villains.” All Might moved to reveal a screen behind him. A security tape began to play, and it showed Yumiko running from the zero-pointer. “I don’t- need any- HEEEEELP!”

Slightly distantly, you could hear my voice telling my plan to everyone. My eyes began to tear up when I saw myself in the camera for the first time. I had just landed with Tokoyami next to Kirishima. “Get ready, Kiri!”

“Did you just call me Kiri?”

“I like using nicknames! Go!”

Just from my body language, you could see that I took this seriously. My brow was furrowed, my stance was authoritative. After the robot was down and the situation was handled, I was still on camera talking to Yumiko.

“You okay?”

“Y-yeah, yeah. I’m fine…. Thanks.” The video cut off.

“37 points from the faux villains… plus 40 points for heading the rescue. “Congratulations, Kiseki… you’re in.”

The hologram cut. For a few seconds, I just stood there. I felt a tear run down my cheek and felt it plop onto my foot. I started to laugh quietly to myself. Then, it got louder… and louder. Finally, I went to the window and threw it open. I swung myself onto the roof and stood at the highest point of it. And I let out the roar that I had held inside of me since the video had ended.

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

 

@Clinically insane @Dabi

That's amazing, Spark!

[Through the Living Hope]

1 minute ago, Clinically insane said:

DUDE

SLAY 

THATS AWESOME LETS GOOOOOOOOOO

Just now, Dabi said:

That's amazing, Spark!

Thank you guys!

Spoiler

Spoiler

I have it written until partway through the final battle and a little bit after because I got tired of waiting for new chapters lol

 

 

[Keke They/he]

1 minute ago, Spark of Hope said:

Thank you guys!

  Hide contents

  Hide contents

I have it written until partway through the final battle and a little bit after because I got tired of waiting for new chapters lol

 

 

OHE1!!! THATS ALOT

[Through the Living Hope]

Just now, Clinically insane said:

OHE1!!! THATS ALOT

Well I did start it like 3 years ago... so..

Although I haven't really worked on it for a year and a half...

[Keke They/he]

1 minute ago, Spark of Hope said:

Well I did start it like 3 years ago... so..

Although I haven't really worked on it for a year and a half...

Dayunmg

[Through the Living Hope]

@Dabi @Hawks

Light Hero: Illumea, Chapter One: The Journey Begins

Spoiler

The last part of my uniform was on. The gray jacket made my goldenrod- blonde hair stand out even more, and the red tie complimented my red sunglasses really well (I based them on Keigo’s because his have a really cool design - I changed the color to one I liked more). Principal Nezu had made it clear that I was in no way to even hint on my personal relationship with Uncle Shota - I was to call him Mr. Aizawa (which I would have done anyway), and I was told to “change” my name (I had picked Akarui Kiseki as a kid so no one found my connection with Uncle Shota or my father).

I’d seen my class roster already, so I knew who all my classmates were. Izuku’s reaction when he saw that Katsuki is in our class as well would be golden!

I made sure my wings were tucked away. I would fly to U.A., but on the first day I thought it would probably be better to not fly and get to know people before school starts.

“I’m leaving for school, Uncle Shota!” I shouted. He liked to know where I was as often as possible in case something happened so he knew where to find me.

“Don’t call me that for the rest of the day, Rui,” he muttered. He was still half asleep (even though he’s always at least an eighth asleep). “At least not out loud.”

“I know, Mr. Aizawa,” I said mockingly.

I left the house we live in and got on my bike. Uncle Shota said there was a bike rack at U.A., so I figured I should be okay getting there like that. 

I was so excited for the first day of school! Not only were Izuku and Katsuki in my class, it was at U.A., the best heroics high school in Japan!

The one thing I was apprehensive about was homeroom. Yeah, Uncle Shota was my homeroom teacher, but that’s actually why I was on guard. Among the U.A. staff, he was infamous for his high expulsion rate. I thought I was probably safe, but it would be hard to tell.

I got to the building about ten minutes before the school day started. There were only two other people there at the time, and I recognized them both from my class’s roster. 

“We didn’t get here too early, did we?” Momo Yaoyorozu asked.

“U.A. is held to a high standard, all of the students should be at least ten minutes early!” Tenya Iida responded. He was also the one who had called out Izuku’s muttering before the practical exam.

“You’re not just saying that because of your name, are you?” I joked.

Iida and Yaoyorozu turned, surprised to see someone else here this early that had heard their discussion.

I shrugged a bit. “Sorry. Akarui Kiseki, at your service.” I took a little bow.

“... how did you know my name?” Iida asked.

Don’t give any hints that you’re related to a teacher, my mind reminded me. “They accidentally sent me a copy of my class’s roster. I have no idea why or how it happened, but it did.”

I didn’t like lying - I still don’t - but it was the only way I could save mine and Uncle Shota’s skins at this point. “Just so you guys know, the U.A. doors open five minutes before the bell on the first day, so it’ll be a bit before we can go inside.”

“And you know this how?” Iida was really suspicious of me at this point.

Luckily, I didn’t have to lie this time. “I’ve been wanting to come to U.A. since I was in elementary school, so I’ve done a lot of research on the building and bell schedule. On the first day, the doors only open five minutes before the bell, but after that, they always open 15 minutes early unless the teachers need more time before the school day starts.”

“You really have done your research!” Yaoyorozu remarked.

I put my hand on the door and looked at my watch. “3… 2… 1…” I opened the door and as I did, a whole rush of people came running up the mountain to the U.A. main building was on and crammed themselves through the door. Somewhere among the crowd, I saw Katsuki. As the herd thinned out, it was just me holding the door and Iida and Yaoyourozu in pure shock.

“That’s normal too,” I assured them as I walked inside. Still shocked, they glanced at each other and followed me inside. 

I had known the size of the building for years, but Iida and Yaoyorozu clearly didn’t from the way they were looking around. It’s not surprising to me, though. U.A.’s main building is huge.

“Right here,” I said, opening the door to the 1A classroom for them. Almost everyone else except for Izuku was there. Again, that didn’t surprise me. Not much does phase me.

Iida started yelling at Katsuki for having his feet on his desk, and Katsuki started yelling back. I grinned. I’d expected something like this to happen at some point. 

“Hey, Kiseki!” I turned and saw Kirishima and Sero.

“Guys! Good to see you!” I ran over and high-fived Kirishima. “So we’re even in the same class? That’s awesome!”

“So I don’t exist anymore?” Tokoyami said from behind me, making me jump. 

“Sorry, Tokoyami, we just didn’t see you!” Sero said. “Well, how awesome is this? We’ve got the dream team from our exam right here!”

“Yeah! Well, all except Trobashi. But maybe she’s in the other class?” I answered.

“I sure hope so. I could already tell I liked her,” Kirishima agreed. 

“Maybe even Yumiko, too!” I said. Everyone stood around chatting until a voice said, “If you’re here to socialize, then get out.”

Everyone sat in their seats when Uncle Shota walked in and emerged from his sleeping bag. “Hm, it took eight seconds for you to quiet down. Time is a precious resource. You guys really aren’t the brightest, are you?”

“So he must be a pro hero too, huh…” Izuku muttered.

“I’m your homeroom teacher, Shota Aizawa,” Uncle Shota said. “Pleased to meet you.” He pulled out the primarily blue gym uniform and held it up as he sat down his sleeping bag. “Put these on and head out to the training grounds.”

I expected this from Uncle Shota. Probably a quirk apprehension test of some kind, I thought as I changed into the gym uniform. And I’ve got a guess for the motivation… 

Once I got to the field, everyone else seemed really surprised. I wasn’t surprised at what Uncle Shota was doing or anyone’s reaction. He’s not the most conventional teacher.

The girl who had helped Izuku before the entrance exam, who I recognized as Ochako Uraraka from the class roster, protested, “What about the entrance ceremony?! And the guidance counselor meeting?!”

I already knew Uncle Shota’s response before he said anything. “If you want to be heroes, we don’t have time for that kind of stuff.” Uraraka was too shocked to respond.

“You all understand the school’s reputation for freedom on campus,” Uncle Shota continued. “Well, that ‘freedom’ goes for us teachers, too.” Everyone (but me) got very nervous. “Softball pitch. Standing long jump. 50 meter dash. Endurance training. Grip strength test. Sustained sideways jumps. Upper body exercises. Seated toe touch. These are all activities you know from middle school. Physical tests where you were banned from using your quirks. The country still hasn’t gotten around to standardizing those sorts of records or keeping track of average performance levels. Well, that’s the negligence part of MEXT. Bakugo. How far could you pitch a softball in middle school?”

Ah, he’s getting a feel for how far you would throw the ball quirkless so he can monitor how your quirk helps with this. “67 meters,” Katsuki answered. I glanced at Izuku out of the corner of my eye. He was going to have a hard time beating that.

“Try using your quirk this time around,” Uncle Shota instructed. “As long as you don’t exit the circle,” he indicated the painted white circle in which Katsuki stood, “anything you do is fine. Don’t hold back.”

Katsuki’s infamous smirk lit across his face. “Awesome.” His arm was wound back so far I was concerned it was about to snap off. Then, his arm rocketed forward and the ball was released with a powerful explosion and a “DIIIIEE!”

I smiled and shook my head. Typical Katsuki.

Uncle Shota’s phone started beeping. “Before anything else, one must know what they’re capable of.” He lifted up his phone, which had “705.2 m” plastered across the screen. “That’s the first rational step to figuring out what kinds of heroes you’ll be.’”

“Awesome! That looks so fun!” I yelled. I heard two other people say “705 meters?! Unreal!” and “We can really use our quirks now?! That’s the department of heroics for you!” I know that Izuku didn’t say either of those because he was just looking around, shaking.

“It looks fun, you say?” Uncle Shota echoed. “So you were planning to spend your three years here having a good time? What happened to becoming heroes?” Oops. “All right then. In that case, new rule: the student with the lowest score across all eight events will be judged ‘hopeless’ and instantly expelled.”

I knew that he wasn’t really going to expel anyone because I’d lived with him for 15 years. Anyone else would think he was being dead serious. Izuku was shaking even more than before now. He gripped his right wrist and started to sweat.

“Our ‘freedom’ means we dispense with students as we please!” Uncle Shota informed us. “Welcome, to this… the department of heroics!”

Uraraka spoke up again. “The kid who ranks last… gets expelled?! This is our first day here! But even if it weren’t… that’s totally unfair!” I probably wasn’t one to talk, but she should learn when to keep her mouth shut.

“Natural disasters… highway pileups… rampaging villains…” Uncle Shota began. “All kinds of calamities can happen when we least expect them. Japan’s now positively drenched in unfair. And it’s our job as heroes to reverse it all, and restore reason. If you were hoping to spend your evenings hanging out at McDonalds… I’m sorry to tell you that from now on, for the next three years, all you can expect from your life at U.A…. is one hardship after the next. This is ‘Plus Ultra.’ I expect you to overcome these trials and climb to the top.”

He calmed down and continued, “Now then, that was the demonstration. Time to step up to the plate.”

 

[Through the Living Hope]

@Dabi @Hawks

Light Hero: Illumea, Chapter Two: Meet the Competition

Spoiler

I didn’t really pay attention to the tests until the ball pitch. It was so easy, and I had no intention of being intimidated by my classmates. What I did know was that Izuku wasn’t doing well in any of them. I started paying attention again at Uraraka’s ball throw, when the ball flew up into the sky. There would be no point in retrieving the ball, so I looked at Uncle Shota’s phone.

“INFINITY?!” I shouted. There was no point in trying to contain myself. “HOLY COW! SHE GOT AN INFINITY! Like, the symbol actually popped up!” I don’t know why I was so surprised - after all, the class roster listed everyone’s quirks beside their names. Izuku was freaking out even more than before now.

“Midoriya’s not doing too well, is he?” Iida remarked.

“OF COURSE NOT!” Katsuki screeched. “HE’S A QUIRKLESS RUNT!”

“Quirkless?! Didn’t you see what he did at the entrance exam?!” Iida asked.

“HAHH?!”

This confused me more than I could explain. Izuku was quirkless. What could he have done during the exam that would make it seem he wasn’t?

I payed close attention to Izuku’s ball throw. Suddenly, my attention was drawn to his right arm, his throwing arm. It had glowing red veins on the surface of his skin. WHAT?! Just as the ball left his arm, though, the pulsing stopped. Erasure, but why would Uncle Sho do that? I wondered.

“46 meters,” Uncle Shota said.

“Wha… huh? I tried using it for sure just now…” Izuku mumbled.

“I ‘erased’ your quirk,” Uncle Shota responded. “It defies reason. How did somebody like you manage to enter this school?”

“You erased it?” Izuku asked. “And those goggles! Oh my gosh… You must be the hero who can cancel the quirk of whoever he’s looking at! The Erasing Hero, Eraserhead!”

“Who’s that?” Kirishima wondered.

“He’s a really underground hero,” I answered. “Not many people know about him because he avoids the media.”

“From what I observed,” Uncle Shota said to Izuku, “you can’t rein in your quirk’s full power, meaning you can’t use it efficiently at all. Did you believe someone would come save you after you crippled yourself again?”

“N-no, I didn’t, I just-”

Uncle Shota wrapped Izuku up in his binding cloth. “Whatever hopes you may have nursed of your imminent rescue, as you can see, nobody is in a position to come to your aid. There’s a certain insufferable hero-” All Might. He can barely stand All Might. “-who made a name for himself rescuing over a thousand innocents from a disaster all by himself and made himself a legend. You have his reckless streak, but all you’ll manage to do is run around like a blockhead who needs saving himself. Face it: your ‘power’ won’t help you to become a hero, Izuku Midoriya.”

He blinked and continued, “I gave you back your quirk… try the ball pitch a second time. Let’s get this over with.” You just want to take a nap, don’t you, Uncle Sho?

Uraraka shivered a bit, and Yuga Aoyama put his hand on her shoulder. “Are you worried for him? I, for one… don’t care.”

“Who are you…?” Uraraka asked.

“Looks like he’s had some coaching before, but…” Iida analyzed.

“Yeah, the instruction to leave this school,” Katsuki muttered. I kicked him in the leg. “Hey, what the [heck], featherbrain?!”

Izuku riled himself up and prepared to pitch the ball.

“You have no chance,” Uncle Shota said. Then, he and I both noticed something different with the glowing veins. They were concentrated in…

“His finger…” I realized.

“Now…” Izuku responded, “... I’ll show you what I can do!”

Katsuki and I were speechless. Uncle Shota’s phone beeped. “This pain is nothing like before!” Izuku muttered.

The same thought went through mine and Uncle Shota’s heads: He didn’t just pitch at full power… he concentrated his power into the tip of his finger!

“M-mr. Aizawa,” Izuku said as he turned around and held his right hand in a fist in front of his chest, “... I can still move!”

“This kid…”

Uraraka cheered, “You finally got a record suitable for a hero!” Iida commented, “Your finger’s swollen. Reminds me of the entrance exam incident… what a strange quirk…” Aoyama added, “Stylishly done.”

Katsuki didn’t have to say anything for me to know he wanted to commit murder. “WHAT THE [HECK]? EXPLAIN YOURSELF, DEKU!”

Uncle Shota held him back with the binding cloth. Katsuki grunted, “This cloth’s- I can’t-”

“It’s my special ‘capturing weapon,’ a steel wire alloy woven with carbon nanofibers. Jeez, don’t make me use my quirk so much… I’m getting dry eye over here!”

He released his quirk. “We’re wasting time. Prepare for the next event.”

 

 

 

Eventually, the eight trials stopped. Thanks to my quirk, I knew I wouldn’t be the lowest, and even if I was the lowest, I know that Uncle Sh- I should probably start calling him Mr. Aizawa, shouldn’t I? - had just tried to motivate us. It had worked for the others, but I didn’t need it.

“Time to present the results,” Mr. Aizawa said. Izuku was really nervous now. His eyes were closed and his head was tilted down. “The total is simply the aggregate sum of all your scores. If I recited all your scores, it would take a million years, so I’ll disclose them all at once.” His expression changed - almost unnoticeably, unless you knew him - and I knew he was going to tell everyone that “Oh yeah, that whole expulsion thing was a lie.”

Everyone just stared. “It was a rational deception to bring out the best in all of you.”

Iida was a little mad, Uraraka was surprised, and Izuku looked like he’d seen a ghost. Yaoyorozu and I commented, “C’mon, guys, use your brains! Of course it was just a ruse!” I looked at her, surprised that someone who barely knew Mr. Aizawa would pick up on it.

“Aaand… right,” Mr. Aizawa concluded. “Yep, we’re done here. Your curriculum sheets are back in the classroom, so give them a once-over. And Midoriya. Go to Recovery Girl and get yourself patched up. Since your eyeballs will doubtless pop out of their sockets at tomorrow’s absurd ordeal.”

Ummmm…

The rankings were put up. I wasn’t surprised at my ranking, given the different grounds my quirk expanded into.

 

 

1. Akarui Kiseki

2. Momo Yaoyorozu

3. Shoto Todoroki

4. Katsuki Bakugo

5. Tenya Iida

6. Fumikage Tokoyami

7. Mezo Shoji

8. Mashirao Ojiro

9. Eijiro Kirishima

10. Mina Ashido

11. Ochako Uraraka

12. Koji Koda

13. Rikido Sato

14. Tsuyu Asui 

15. Yuga Aoyama

16. Hanta Sero

17. Denki Kaminari

18. Kyoka Jiro

19. Toru Hagakure

20. Minoru Mineta

21. Izuku Midoriya

 

 

“I didn’t realize this class had 21 people in it!” Ashido said.

“That typically doesn’t happen,” Jiro responded. “Maybe it’s a special case of some sort…?”

“That would make sense,” I muttered.

The rest of the school day passed while my mind couldn’t get off the events of the morning. Izuku was quirkless, right? I mean, Katsuki started calling him “Deku” because he thought he was useless without a quirk, if I recall correctly. So how did Izuku get a quirk?

 

***

 

 

 

The school day ended faster than I expected. As I walked out, I saw Izuku, who was extremely tired from the day’s events. Iida walked up to him and put his hand on his shoulder, and Izuku jumped. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Eventually, I heard Uraraka say “Hey, Tenya Iida, and… Deku Midoriya, right?”

Now I could hear what they were saying. Izuku was explaining how “Deku” was an insult meant to demean him. I walked over.

“Yeah, ‘deku’ definitely isn’t the nicest thing to call someone,” I say.

“A-Akarui?!” Izuku asked. “I didn’t see you earlier, where were you?”

I shrugged. “I did my best to blend into the background. I don’t like a lot of attention, I thought you knew that.”

“Oh, right, guess I forgot. It’s been a while since we hung out! I mean, we sat with each other in the entrance exam and chatted a bit before but… outside of school.”

“True.”

“You two know each other?” Iida asked.

“We live in the same neighborhood,” I answered. “We went to elementary and middle school together. I stopped hanging out with people in middle school to focus on training myself, though, so it’s been a while.”

“Where’d you two meet?” Izuku muttered.

“We met outside the building this morning,” I responded. “We were both early.”

“Oh. I met Iida at the entrance exam. Uraraka, too,” Izuku said.

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Uraraka!” I turned to her and bowed.

“Your name was… Kiseki, right?” she asked.

“Yes, but I’d prefer if you call me Akarui. All my friends - well, most of my friends, anyway-” I eyed Katsuki, “-call me Akarui. Or just Rui.”

“Okay!” She turned back to Izuku. “But, you know, I kinda like the name ‘Deku’ for you. It gives me a sort of ‘never give up’ vibe, you know?”

“DEKU’S FINE!”

I laughed. “Izuku, there’s no need to get so excited! Unless…” I got closer to his already red face and whispered, “unless you like her?”

I didn’t know it was possible to blush a deeper shade than what he already was, but apparently there isn’t a depth restriction on blushing. “A-Akarui!”

I giggled to myself. “Relax. I’m just joking.” He sighed with relief. “Unless…”

“Akarui!”

I smiled. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow. I’ve gotta get home pretty early.”

“Bye!”

I walked toward the bike rack and, once I’d gotten my bike, rode away. Uraraka’s really nice, and Izuku really seems to like her. Like, like her like her. I grinned. I totally ship it.

 

[Keke They/he]

On 3/21/2025 at 10:11 AM, Spark of Hope said:

@Dabi @Hawks

Light Hero: Illumea, Chapter One: The Journey Begins

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The last part of my uniform was on. The gray jacket made my goldenrod- blonde hair stand out even more, and the red tie complimented my red sunglasses really well (I based them on Keigo’s because his have a really cool design - I changed the color to one I liked more). Principal Nezu had made it clear that I was in no way to even hint on my personal relationship with Uncle Shota - I was to call him Mr. Aizawa (which I would have done anyway), and I was told to “change” my name (I had picked Akarui Kiseki as a kid so no one found my connection with Uncle Shota or my father).

I’d seen my class roster already, so I knew who all my classmates were. Izuku’s reaction when he saw that Katsuki is in our class as well would be golden!

I made sure my wings were tucked away. I would fly to U.A., but on the first day I thought it would probably be better to not fly and get to know people before school starts.

“I’m leaving for school, Uncle Shota!” I shouted. He liked to know where I was as often as possible in case something happened so he knew where to find me.

“Don’t call me that for the rest of the day, Rui,” he muttered. He was still half asleep (even though he’s always at least an eighth asleep). “At least not out loud.”

“I know, Mr. Aizawa,” I said mockingly.

I left the house we live in and got on my bike. Uncle Shota said there was a bike rack at U.A., so I figured I should be okay getting there like that. 

I was so excited for the first day of school! Not only were Izuku and Katsuki in my class, it was at U.A., the best heroics high school in Japan!

The one thing I was apprehensive about was homeroom. Yeah, Uncle Shota was my homeroom teacher, but that’s actually why I was on guard. Among the U.A. staff, he was infamous for his high expulsion rate. I thought I was probably safe, but it would be hard to tell.

I got to the building about ten minutes before the school day started. There were only two other people there at the time, and I recognized them both from my class’s roster. 

“We didn’t get here too early, did we?” Momo Yaoyorozu asked.

“U.A. is held to a high standard, all of the students should be at least ten minutes early!” Tenya Iida responded. He was also the one who had called out Izuku’s muttering before the practical exam.

“You’re not just saying that because of your name, are you?” I joked.

Iida and Yaoyorozu turned, surprised to see someone else here this early that had heard their discussion.

I shrugged a bit. “Sorry. Akarui Kiseki, at your service.” I took a little bow.

“... how did you know my name?” Iida asked.

Don’t give any hints that you’re related to a teacher, my mind reminded me. “They accidentally sent me a copy of my class’s roster. I have no idea why or how it happened, but it did.”

I didn’t like lying - I still don’t - but it was the only way I could save mine and Uncle Shota’s skins at this point. “Just so you guys know, the U.A. doors open five minutes before the bell on the first day, so it’ll be a bit before we can go inside.”

“And you know this how?” Iida was really suspicious of me at this point.

Luckily, I didn’t have to lie this time. “I’ve been wanting to come to U.A. since I was in elementary school, so I’ve done a lot of research on the building and bell schedule. On the first day, the doors only open five minutes before the bell, but after that, they always open 15 minutes early unless the teachers need more time before the school day starts.”

“You really have done your research!” Yaoyorozu remarked.

I put my hand on the door and looked at my watch. “3… 2… 1…” I opened the door and as I did, a whole rush of people came running up the mountain to the U.A. main building was on and crammed themselves through the door. Somewhere among the crowd, I saw Katsuki. As the herd thinned out, it was just me holding the door and Iida and Yaoyourozu in pure shock.

“That’s normal too,” I assured them as I walked inside. Still shocked, they glanced at each other and followed me inside. 

I had known the size of the building for years, but Iida and Yaoyorozu clearly didn’t from the way they were looking around. It’s not surprising to me, though. U.A.’s main building is huge.

“Right here,” I said, opening the door to the 1A classroom for them. Almost everyone else except for Izuku was there. Again, that didn’t surprise me. Not much does phase me.

Iida started yelling at Katsuki for having his feet on his desk, and Katsuki started yelling back. I grinned. I’d expected something like this to happen at some point. 

“Hey, Kiseki!” I turned and saw Kirishima and Sero.

“Guys! Good to see you!” I ran over and high-fived Kirishima. “So we’re even in the same class? That’s awesome!”

“So I don’t exist anymore?” Tokoyami said from behind me, making me jump. 

“Sorry, Tokoyami, we just didn’t see you!” Sero said. “Well, how awesome is this? We’ve got the dream team from our exam right here!”

“Yeah! Well, all except Trobashi. But maybe she’s in the other class?” I answered.

“I sure hope so. I could already tell I liked her,” Kirishima agreed. 

“Maybe even Yumiko, too!” I said. Everyone stood around chatting until a voice said, “If you’re here to socialize, then get out.”

Everyone sat in their seats when Uncle Shota walked in and emerged from his sleeping bag. “Hm, it took eight seconds for you to quiet down. Time is a precious resource. You guys really aren’t the brightest, are you?”

“So he must be a pro hero too, huh…” Izuku muttered.

“I’m your homeroom teacher, Shota Aizawa,” Uncle Shota said. “Pleased to meet you.” He pulled out the primarily blue gym uniform and held it up as he sat down his sleeping bag. “Put these on and head out to the training grounds.”

I expected this from Uncle Shota. Probably a quirk apprehension test of some kind, I thought as I changed into the gym uniform. And I’ve got a guess for the motivation… 

Once I got to the field, everyone else seemed really surprised. I wasn’t surprised at what Uncle Shota was doing or anyone’s reaction. He’s not the most conventional teacher.

The girl who had helped Izuku before the entrance exam, who I recognized as Ochako Uraraka from the class roster, protested, “What about the entrance ceremony?! And the guidance counselor meeting?!”

I already knew Uncle Shota’s response before he said anything. “If you want to be heroes, we don’t have time for that kind of stuff.” Uraraka was too shocked to respond.

“You all understand the school’s reputation for freedom on campus,” Uncle Shota continued. “Well, that ‘freedom’ goes for us teachers, too.” Everyone (but me) got very nervous. “Softball pitch. Standing long jump. 50 meter dash. Endurance training. Grip strength test. Sustained sideways jumps. Upper body exercises. Seated toe touch. These are all activities you know from middle school. Physical tests where you were banned from using your quirks. The country still hasn’t gotten around to standardizing those sorts of records or keeping track of average performance levels. Well, that’s the negligence part of MEXT. Bakugo. How far could you pitch a softball in middle school?”

Ah, he’s getting a feel for how far you would throw the ball quirkless so he can monitor how your quirk helps with this. “67 meters,” Katsuki answered. I glanced at Izuku out of the corner of my eye. He was going to have a hard time beating that.

“Try using your quirk this time around,” Uncle Shota instructed. “As long as you don’t exit the circle,” he indicated the painted white circle in which Katsuki stood, “anything you do is fine. Don’t hold back.”

Katsuki’s infamous smirk lit across his face. “Awesome.” His arm was wound back so far I was concerned it was about to snap off. Then, his arm rocketed forward and the ball was released with a powerful explosion and a “DIIIIEE!”

I smiled and shook my head. Typical Katsuki.

Uncle Shota’s phone started beeping. “Before anything else, one must know what they’re capable of.” He lifted up his phone, which had “705.2 m” plastered across the screen. “That’s the first rational step to figuring out what kinds of heroes you’ll be.’”

“Awesome! That looks so fun!” I yelled. I heard two other people say “705 meters?! Unreal!” and “We can really use our quirks now?! That’s the department of heroics for you!” I know that Izuku didn’t say either of those because he was just looking around, shaking.

“It looks fun, you say?” Uncle Shota echoed. “So you were planning to spend your three years here having a good time? What happened to becoming heroes?” Oops. “All right then. In that case, new rule: the student with the lowest score across all eight events will be judged ‘hopeless’ and instantly expelled.”

I knew that he wasn’t really going to expel anyone because I’d lived with him for 15 years. Anyone else would think he was being dead serious. Izuku was shaking even more than before now. He gripped his right wrist and started to sweat.

“Our ‘freedom’ means we dispense with students as we please!” Uncle Shota informed us. “Welcome, to this… the department of heroics!”

Uraraka spoke up again. “The kid who ranks last… gets expelled?! This is our first day here! But even if it weren’t… that’s totally unfair!” I probably wasn’t one to talk, but she should learn when to keep her mouth shut.

“Natural disasters… highway pileups… rampaging villains…” Uncle Shota began. “All kinds of calamities can happen when we least expect them. Japan’s now positively drenched in unfair. And it’s our job as heroes to reverse it all, and restore reason. If you were hoping to spend your evenings hanging out at McDonalds… I’m sorry to tell you that from now on, for the next three years, all you can expect from your life at U.A…. is one hardship after the next. This is ‘Plus Ultra.’ I expect you to overcome these trials and climb to the top.”

He calmed down and continued, “Now then, that was the demonstration. Time to step up to the plate.”

 

 

18 minutes ago, Spark of Hope said:

@Dabi @Hawks

Light Hero: Illumea, Chapter Two: Meet the Competition

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I didn’t really pay attention to the tests until the ball pitch. It was so easy, and I had no intention of being intimidated by my classmates. What I did know was that Izuku wasn’t doing well in any of them. I started paying attention again at Uraraka’s ball throw, when the ball flew up into the sky. There would be no point in retrieving the ball, so I looked at Uncle Shota’s phone.

“INFINITY?!” I shouted. There was no point in trying to contain myself. “HOLY COW! SHE GOT AN INFINITY! Like, the symbol actually popped up!” I don’t know why I was so surprised - after all, the class roster listed everyone’s quirks beside their names. Izuku was freaking out even more than before now.

“Midoriya’s not doing too well, is he?” Iida remarked.

“OF COURSE NOT!” Katsuki screeched. “HE’S A QUIRKLESS RUNT!”

“Quirkless?! Didn’t you see what he did at the entrance exam?!” Iida asked.

“HAHH?!”

This confused me more than I could explain. Izuku was quirkless. What could he have done during the exam that would make it seem he wasn’t?

I payed close attention to Izuku’s ball throw. Suddenly, my attention was drawn to his right arm, his throwing arm. It had glowing red veins on the surface of his skin. WHAT?! Just as the ball left his arm, though, the pulsing stopped. Erasure, but why would Uncle Sho do that? I wondered.

“46 meters,” Uncle Shota said.

“Wha… huh? I tried using it for sure just now…” Izuku mumbled.

“I ‘erased’ your quirk,” Uncle Shota responded. “It defies reason. How did somebody like you manage to enter this school?”

“You erased it?” Izuku asked. “And those goggles! Oh my gosh… You must be the hero who can cancel the quirk of whoever he’s looking at! The Erasing Hero, Eraserhead!”

“Who’s that?” Kirishima wondered.

“He’s a really underground hero,” I answered. “Not many people know about him because he avoids the media.”

“From what I observed,” Uncle Shota said to Izuku, “you can’t rein in your quirk’s full power, meaning you can’t use it efficiently at all. Did you believe someone would come save you after you crippled yourself again?”

“N-no, I didn’t, I just-”

Uncle Shota wrapped Izuku up in his binding cloth. “Whatever hopes you may have nursed of your imminent rescue, as you can see, nobody is in a position to come to your aid. There’s a certain insufferable hero-” All Might. He can barely stand All Might. “-who made a name for himself rescuing over a thousand innocents from a disaster all by himself and made himself a legend. You have his reckless streak, but all you’ll manage to do is run around like a blockhead who needs saving himself. Face it: your ‘power’ won’t help you to become a hero, Izuku Midoriya.”

He blinked and continued, “I gave you back your quirk… try the ball pitch a second time. Let’s get this over with.” You just want to take a nap, don’t you, Uncle Sho?

Uraraka shivered a bit, and Yuga Aoyama put his hand on her shoulder. “Are you worried for him? I, for one… don’t care.”

“Who are you…?” Uraraka asked.

“Looks like he’s had some coaching before, but…” Iida analyzed.

“Yeah, the instruction to leave this school,” Katsuki muttered. I kicked him in the leg. “Hey, what the [heck], featherbrain?!”

Izuku riled himself up and prepared to pitch the ball.

“You have no chance,” Uncle Shota said. Then, he and I both noticed something different with the glowing veins. They were concentrated in…

“His finger…” I realized.

“Now…” Izuku responded, “... I’ll show you what I can do!”

Katsuki and I were speechless. Uncle Shota’s phone beeped. “This pain is nothing like before!” Izuku muttered.

The same thought went through mine and Uncle Shota’s heads: He didn’t just pitch at full power… he concentrated his power into the tip of his finger!

“M-mr. Aizawa,” Izuku said as he turned around and held his right hand in a fist in front of his chest, “... I can still move!”

“This kid…”

Uraraka cheered, “You finally got a record suitable for a hero!” Iida commented, “Your finger’s swollen. Reminds me of the entrance exam incident… what a strange quirk…” Aoyama added, “Stylishly done.”

Katsuki didn’t have to say anything for me to know he wanted to commit murder. “WHAT THE [HECK]? EXPLAIN YOURSELF, DEKU!”

Uncle Shota held him back with the binding cloth. Katsuki grunted, “This cloth’s- I can’t-”

“It’s my special ‘capturing weapon,’ a steel wire alloy woven with carbon nanofibers. Jeez, don’t make me use my quirk so much… I’m getting dry eye over here!”

He released his quirk. “We’re wasting time. Prepare for the next event.”

 

 

 

Eventually, the eight trials stopped. Thanks to my quirk, I knew I wouldn’t be the lowest, and even if I was the lowest, I know that Uncle Sh- I should probably start calling him Mr. Aizawa, shouldn’t I? - had just tried to motivate us. It had worked for the others, but I didn’t need it.

“Time to present the results,” Mr. Aizawa said. Izuku was really nervous now. His eyes were closed and his head was tilted down. “The total is simply the aggregate sum of all your scores. If I recited all your scores, it would take a million years, so I’ll disclose them all at once.” His expression changed - almost unnoticeably, unless you knew him - and I knew he was going to tell everyone that “Oh yeah, that whole expulsion thing was a lie.”

Everyone just stared. “It was a rational deception to bring out the best in all of you.”

Iida was a little mad, Uraraka was surprised, and Izuku looked like he’d seen a ghost. Yaoyorozu and I commented, “C’mon, guys, use your brains! Of course it was just a ruse!” I looked at her, surprised that someone who barely knew Mr. Aizawa would pick up on it.

“Aaand… right,” Mr. Aizawa concluded. “Yep, we’re done here. Your curriculum sheets are back in the classroom, so give them a once-over. And Midoriya. Go to Recovery Girl and get yourself patched up. Since your eyeballs will doubtless pop out of their sockets at tomorrow’s absurd ordeal.”

Ummmm…

The rankings were put up. I wasn’t surprised at my ranking, given the different grounds my quirk expanded into.

 

 

1. Akarui Kiseki

2. Momo Yaoyorozu

3. Shoto Todoroki

4. Katsuki Bakugo

5. Tenya Iida

6. Fumikage Tokoyami

7. Mezo Shoji

8. Mashirao Ojiro

9. Eijiro Kirishima

10. Mina Ashido

11. Ochako Uraraka

12. Koji Koda

13. Rikido Sato

14. Tsuyu Asui 

15. Yuga Aoyama

16. Hanta Sero

17. Denki Kaminari

18. Kyoka Jiro

19. Toru Hagakure

20. Minoru Mineta

21. Izuku Midoriya

 

 

“I didn’t realize this class had 21 people in it!” Ashido said.

“That typically doesn’t happen,” Jiro responded. “Maybe it’s a special case of some sort…?”

“That would make sense,” I muttered.

The rest of the school day passed while my mind couldn’t get off the events of the morning. Izuku was quirkless, right? I mean, Katsuki started calling him “Deku” because he thought he was useless without a quirk, if I recall correctly. So how did Izuku get a quirk?

 

***

 

 

 

The school day ended faster than I expected. As I walked out, I saw Izuku, who was extremely tired from the day’s events. Iida walked up to him and put his hand on his shoulder, and Izuku jumped. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Eventually, I heard Uraraka say “Hey, Tenya Iida, and… Deku Midoriya, right?”

Now I could hear what they were saying. Izuku was explaining how “Deku” was an insult meant to demean him. I walked over.

“Yeah, ‘deku’ definitely isn’t the nicest thing to call someone,” I say.

“A-Akarui?!” Izuku asked. “I didn’t see you earlier, where were you?”

I shrugged. “I did my best to blend into the background. I don’t like a lot of attention, I thought you knew that.”

“Oh, right, guess I forgot. It’s been a while since we hung out! I mean, we sat with each other in the entrance exam and chatted a bit before but… outside of school.”

“True.”

“You two know each other?” Iida asked.

“We live in the same neighborhood,” I answered. “We went to elementary and middle school together. I stopped hanging out with people in middle school to focus on training myself, though, so it’s been a while.”

“Where’d you two meet?” Izuku muttered.

“We met outside the building this morning,” I responded. “We were both early.”

“Oh. I met Iida at the entrance exam. Uraraka, too,” Izuku said.

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Uraraka!” I turned to her and bowed.

“Your name was… Kiseki, right?” she asked.

“Yes, but I’d prefer if you call me Akarui. All my friends - well, most of my friends, anyway-” I eyed Katsuki, “-call me Akarui. Or just Rui.”

“Okay!” She turned back to Izuku. “But, you know, I kinda like the name ‘Deku’ for you. It gives me a sort of ‘never give up’ vibe, you know?”

“DEKU’S FINE!”

I laughed. “Izuku, there’s no need to get so excited! Unless…” I got closer to his already red face and whispered, “unless you like her?”

I didn’t know it was possible to blush a deeper shade than what he already was, but apparently there isn’t a depth restriction on blushing. “A-Akarui!”

I giggled to myself. “Relax. I’m just joking.” He sighed with relief. “Unless…”

“Akarui!”

I smiled. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow. I’ve gotta get home pretty early.”

“Bye!”

I walked toward the bike rack and, once I’d gotten my bike, rode away. Uraraka’s really nice, and Izuku really seems to like her. Like, like her like her. I grinned. I totally ship it.

 

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