Chapter 1: Setting the Stage
Monday, September 3rd
8:50 am
"If you look at the final page, it covers the grading policy for all the projects and assignments we will be covering this quarter." Papers shuffled throughout the room, too quiet to echo in the large auditorium. "Mr. Johnson - or, you know, Carl'' stood out on the whiteboard that hung beyond the lanky, brown haired instructor. Below the name, several announcements sat encased within a markered box, while an underlined joke of the day defended its solidarity from several feet away.
"I may throw in a couple more things near the end of the quarter if everything goes well, but we'll see. It depends on how far we get in the syllabus," Carl informed distractedly, and glanced at the clock hanging unassuming over the door. The man sighed and straightened, rearranging the papers in his hand until the top paper proclaimed "Fall 2015" at the head, and "PC Repair and Information Technology: Course Syllabus" at the foot.
"That'll be everything you need to know from today's class." Walking to the center of the stage, Carl haphazardly tossed his copy of the handout forward, the little stack of stapled papers splaying onto the podium as he passed. "I know it's the first day of school, and can seem a little overwhelming, but we'll get there." The man clapped, and addressed his audience with hands held in not-quite finger guns. "Besides, your early morning enthusiasm should float you straight through the rest of the day!" the teacher chuckled, looking out over terraces of seating filled with glazed gazes.
From the rows of students, a pair of bright blue eyes looked up through black shaggy bangs in mild amusement. A smile pulled at the corner of the twenty-year old's mouth as he cupped his face, forearm propping up his head.
The teacher went on, tone changing to one of embarrassment as he glanced at the clock yet again, "Honestly, I know that the class ends in ten minutes but I'm pretty done with today if you guys are."
Like a spell had been broken, the class' frozen state thawed. People of varying ages started to rise and gather their things. The blue eyed boy stretched, mouth opening in a jaw-popping yawn. Movements sluggish, he collected his pen into a small mesh pouch, zipped the case shut, and dropped it into an open pocket of his laptop bag. Next, he clicked open the metal rings on a plastic binder, and grabbed his syllabus. Sliding the handout's three holes over the curved protrusions, he went to snap it closed. His pointer finger, however, dipped down through the metal like it never existed. The second-in-line then smacked the steel rings hard at the lack of resistance, causing the holder to snap shut over thin skin. Indrawn air hissed through pursed lips. The young man looked down in bewilderment at a small bead of blood that formed at the base of his first finger.
"Ooof. That sucks. You good, Fam?" A brunet teen inspected the injury from two desks down.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a slip of the hand," the safety-challenged boy responded.
The other kid looked dubious, and shuffled around in his bag before holding out a stack of travel tissues.
"It's already stopped bleeding; thanks anyway."
After having the offering waved away good-naturedly, the concerned party nodded, and headed toward the classroom's exit.
"Nice going, Fenton. It's been years since you've done that." The admonishment did not carry. With a quick wipe of his hand on a pair of black jeans, the male stood and put the binder away. Most of his peers had already left, but a few stragglers remained. The stage was empty, the professor long since departed.
It always amazed him, being in college and seeing the normalcy of the instructors. His homeroom teacher in high school, Mr. Lancer, had been overbearing and a bit quirky, constantly breathing down his neck and pushing him to succeed while simultaneously swearing in book titles. As a byproduct, the young man expected community college to be incredibly uptight. Instead, the teachers were just slightly older people slogging through their day just as much as he was.
Hiking his laptop bag over a shoulder, he sidled down the aisle past pushed-in chairs. Filing in behind the last of the students, he followed the herd to the exit and kicked out the stopper from underneath the door. A last glance around the room confirmed nothing left behind as wood patterned veneer started to obstruct his view, moving slow from a soft-close mechanism. He turned, ready to leave.
Thump.
The black haired youth held his head, blue eyes closed, as a goose egg formed beneath his fingers and someone's hand reached out to steady him. The hissing door settled against his back, ushering the still-dazed clutz over the threshold. This time he was just aware enough to duck past the jam that had smoked him. The twice-injured male looked back toward the door, mildly affronted by its audacity. He blinked in confusion when the skinny, rectangular window recessed into it carried a luminescent green hue. Blinking his eyes a few more times, both the spots in his vision and the color disappeared.
"—anny...Danny...Danny!" A feminine hand waved in front of him, and he jerked back to the present. Replaying the incident in his head, Danny realized who the steadying arm had been attached to.
"Hey, Sam."
An amethyst-eyed goth cocked a hip, palm settling against her tartan mini-skirt as she gave him a once-over. "Be nice to the door jam, Clueless1. It can't win in a fight against your head; I've seen your thick skull break concrete." A short pause. "Seriously though, something up? Your eyes haven't glowed like that in a while."
"Yeah, just spacey this morning, I guess. It's the only class this year I've had that's started before ten. At least all we did was go over expectations and introductions. I expect Biochem to be way worse." Danny shook his head a bit to dispel the last of the grogginess.
"I mean, you do look like the dead." Blue eyes rolled in the face of the excessively overused joke as Sam smirked. Did he really look that bad?
Danny appraised Sam's outfit, getting ready to parry his close friend's comment.
"Well you look…" He paid more attention, and the jab died in his mouth, replaced by curiosity. "Even more black than normal. And is that...orange I see?" His brows knitted together and his gaze went to the ceiling for a second, before snapping back down. "Oh no."
Sam's smile turned vicious. "It's already September, and the most sacred of holidays is next month."
Danny cast a sidelong glance at Sam as he started to walk away. "You're getting worse, you know. You're almost as bad about Halloween as large corporations are about Christmas."
"Wow. That was below the belt. I might just have to start playing Spooky Scary Skeletons in July if you keep that up."
Danny cracked a smile and altered course, veering around someone on their way to class.
"The horror."
The two shuffled down the hallway, combat boots and sneakers just barely squeaking on polished linoleum. Occasionally they had to break stride to avoid people, but not often.
"So what'd you have in mind for lunch?" the goth asked.
A shrug. "Up to you. You know I'm not picky. I'm just excited we actually have classes that kind of overlap this quarter."
"If you call me having to come to class two hours early 'overlapping'," Sam air quoted, "I think we may have a difference of opinions. My Women's Lit doesn't even start 'til noon." Danny peeked down at her sheepishly as she continued, "You know I'm a night owl. I could be sleepingright now." A mildly grumpy look was shot at Danny as he rubbed the back of his neck.
A thought occurred to Sam as she craned her head back, "You know, it still gets me that we were basically the same height before summer and now you're a foot taller. I swear you grew faster than my chili pepper plants."
A reddish tint flushed Danny's normally pale cheeks, bringing a light dusting of freckles to visibility. "Quit it, Sam, you know I only grew five inches. I'm not that tall."
"Yeah, you are. But six foot one looks good on you," Sam answered with a shrug.
"The glowing white stretch marks up my back would disagree with you," the taller of the two refuted with a grimace.
"Pfft. You know your scars don't stick around. Besides, faded scars are often described as having a silvery sheen. Yours just happen to take things a bit more literally until they disappear." The two came to a door at the end of the hall, and Sam pulled it open. On the other side was an open-air stairwell, Amity Park's urban area peeking from beyond the roofline of one of the campus' other buildings. Sam waited for Danny to pass, then followed single-file through the door and down the steps.
"I'm surprised you haven't attracted any female attention around here to be honest." Sam slapped Danny's shoulder amiably as she came level with him just before the end of the stairs. The young man tensed, subconsciously bracing himself, but kept his steps steady. Behind him, three barely-visible, shoe shaped ice prints stayed flash-frozen on the cement. "Community college is a decent sized fishing pool, and most of the A-listers from Casper aren't here. It's practically a fresh start." Sunlight blinded the pair as they passed out from under the shadow of the building and onto one of the paved pathways.
Danny hummed non-committedly in response.
"Well, mostly." A short ginger male holding a clarinet cut in front of them, and made his way into a nearby building. Sam threw a thumb toward the freckled kid with braces as he disappeared into the two-story lounge of the Arts Center. "Pretty much only the geeks know your reputation here." There was a pause, then a Cheshire grin lit Sam's face. "In fact, there is a really nice girl in my nonprofit class who likes the occult..." she trailed off suggestively.
"Ah yes. Sweet with a side of necrophilia. A match made in heaven."
Sam felt Danny's mood shift from bantering to bothered in a heartbeat, and didn't comment further. A silence descended, but it wasn't strained. Good friends knew when to back off and when to push.
They turned right at a T in the walkway, and a row of hedges on the building's side fenced them in, little waxy leaves showing the first sign of autumn red at the edges.
Taking advantage of one of the last sunny days of the year, the duo made their way into a courtyard with several brilliantly-colored sweetgums. Danny slung his bag onto the grass and plopped down next to it, sprawling out and making himself comfortable. A decent number of people shared the space, making the lawn appear to have a speckling of human weeds.
Squinting up at Sam from his place on the ground, Danny groaned, "We never decided what we wanted for lunch."
Monday September 3rd
4:25 pm
"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" A sixteen year old bowed out of a lounge room containing two blue-eyed blondes, each dip of his shoulders punctuated by another "thank you". The fanatic manners and mousey demeanor were typical to the green haired student, and warranted no additional reactions from either of his seniors.
The blondes stayed seated across from each other, one on a stool and the other on a green couch. They may have matched in both eye and hair color, but that is where the similarities ended. One was emaciated and middle aged, watching stoically from behind permanently blackened eyes. The other, at the peak of youth, had a disarmingly warm smile plastered on his rather plain face.
"No worries, Midoriya. Just try to relax. I'm sure Sir will love to meet someone All Might personally recommended," the upperclassman reassured. "Just don't be late Sunday." His easy smile stayed in place as he lifted a heavily-muscled arm for an overachieving thumbs-up.
"Y-yes! Thanks again, Togata-senpai!" Midoriya tried to return the confidence in kind, but faltered a bit at the thought of meeting his idol's one and only sidekick.
Believing himself dismissed, the teen turned and stepped into the expansive hallway just outside the lounge, only for a much deeper call to stop him dead, "Midoriya-shounen. Just because Nighteye and I had a falling out, doesn't mean I don't have complete trust in him." The hollow man studied the ground for a moment before looking back up with a sad smile. "I simply cannot face him myself."
Monday, September 3rd
5:16 pm
Ring, ring. Ring, ring.
A disheveled sleeping bag shifted slightly from its place on the floor next to several cubicles, but otherwise did not move.
Ring, ring. Ring, ring. Ring, ring.
"Aizawa-san, if you don't intend to answer, might I suggest putting your devices on silent during office hours," a calm, even voice gently admonished. The approximately human-shaped block of cement turned back to his computer, double clicking on an icon, before looking back down at the paperwork on his desk.
Ring, ring.
Another UA teacher sighed and rubbed her temples, the R-rated hero already well on her way to cultivating a migraine.
Ring, ring. Ring, ring
…..
The room held its breath as the small electronic demon quieted.
….
….
Ring, ring. Ring ring. Ring, ring.
"HEEEEEY! SHOOOTA! Answer your phooOONE!" a shrill voice screeched as several of the faculty flinched. The unholy cry had come from mere inches above the polyester cocoon's opening. But rather than respond, the yellow sleeping bag flipped over, hiding black tufts of hair from sight.
Ring, ring. Ring, ring.
Click.
"Hey there, LISTENER! THIS IS ERASURE HEAD'S PHONE, YAAAOOOW!"
"Yamada-san. Please," the grey-faced building material beseeched as both he and the sexy dominatrix next to him shot a pleading look across the room.
"Ok, ok," the concession was fast, with no hesitation, similar exchanges a common occurrence for the man.
Yamada listened to the person on the other end of the line while idly repositioning his directional speaker. The metal rubbed wrong if he let it stay hitched too high on his neck. Reaching down, the voice hero shook his exhausted friend surprisingly gently, then continued in a more subdued tone, "Shota, this support company has been trying to get ahold of you for over a week. It could be important."
With a groan, the ragged man rolled over, sticking a hand through the tiny opening of his buttercup encasement. Yamada passed the small flip phone into the erasure hero's waiting palm, and both arm and machine disappeared back inside like a startled tubeworm.
A voice barely carrying the will to live spoke up from within the bedding, "Moshi mosh. This is Aizawa speaking. Please be quick with whatever you have to say, as I only have thirteen minutes left to sleep." A pause, and something was relayed.
"Ahh. A job then." A sigh. "Yeah, I can make that time. I'll just have to switch my fourth period with someone else and skip my lunch. Thursday the 13th, at 12:30 pm. Is that all?" Another pause. "See you then." The call clicked off and Aizawa shoved the cell phone back at the boisterous, entirely-too-loud blonde with gravity defying hair. His tired voice spoke up once more, now with a bite, "Hizashi. Don't do that again." Then, as if he didn't just reprimand his friend, "And send me a reminder about that appointment later."
Monday, September 3rd
7:30pm
A large dorm building sat nestled into a stand of trees with architecture a blend of both Greek and modern. All the plants growing on the plot remained green despite the slight chill of the air. The sunset took on a golden-pink hue, making the front of the building appear darker as a teenager with floppy green hair approached. In fact, he could hardly see the white Doric columns above the front porch that accented the "1-A Alliance" label.
"It's definitely the end of the year," Midoriya commented to himself while looking around at the beautiful campus, still in awe of living in such a high-class place. Even if he got a part-time job and pooled the cash with his mother, they still wouldn't have been able to afford something near so nice. Two globe lights flicked on, illuminating the pathway from either side, as the lean kid carried white plastic bags on each arm.
"Oi, oi. Midoriya's here!" a guy by the entrance wearing a soft red shirt and navy blue pants announced over his shoulder to some hidden audience inside. Redirecting his voice back in front of himself, the spirited teen demanded, "What took you so long?!"
"Kirishima-kun! Sorry! I realized I might not have time to get groceries if I get a work study, so I went shopping early," Midoriya yelled back, his response not nearly as loud.
"Hey, no need to apologize, you just missed the cake is all."
"Sato-kun's trying to fatten us up!" another kid with a jagged black strip through his butterscotch hair called, poking his head out from behind his sturdy classmate.
Kirishima angled his red eyes down at his friend. "Hey, Man, a padded jacket is an acceptable gift, even in summer."
"But if I keep eating sweets all the time I'm gonna get a pudge, and then I won't get any ladies," the boy whined pathetically.
A slightly rough female voice cut in from beyond the two, "Yeah, because you have so many women falling head over heels for you now, Jamming-yay."
"Hey!"
"Don't worry, Kaminari-kun, we can work out to get rid of any extra fat. It'll be great!" Kirishima assured, pounding his fists together, the skin taking on a crackled, rocky texture.
Watching the banter eased some of Midoriya's stress as he made his way to the front door with a heartfelt smile. The grocery bags he carried stretched taut under their content's weight, but seemed to cause only mild inconvenience. Kirishima and Kaminari stepped back, the chivalrous redhead pulling the door open with him as he retreated. Midoriya entered and was soon flooded by the curiosity of several bored teenagers as he followed the other two left to the lounge.
"Oh wow! That's a lot of groceries. What'd you get?" a bubbly pink girl exclaimed, head dropping back to look upside down at Midoriya from her spot on one of the green couches. A punk-rock chick with earlobe protrusions reclined next to her, actually turning her body to the side to get a better view.
A hand reached out over the coffee table at their feet, silently grabbing a remote and turning the volume down on a massive flat screen TV. The limbs' two-toned owner observed the going-ons through mismatched eyes, content to stay quiet.
Midoriya walked past the couches where his friends, Ashido, Kyouka, and Todoroki chilled. It was kind of surprising that more of class 1A wasn't hanging out, as per usual.
"Where is everyone? It's too early for bed," the boy inquired as he passed only three more students with worksheets scattered around them on his way to the kitchen—a cute brunette, a reserved frog-human hybrid, and a well-groomed male with nary a hair out of place. With the addition of the trio sitting at the centralized tables, the number of occupants in the space only totalled nine, Midoriya included. More than half the students were missing.
Reaching the kitchen counter, the hero-in-training set down his groceries, the answer coming from behind him, "Sato-kun went back to his room to make more sweets for training tomorrow. Koda-kun and Sero-kun went with him. I think Aoyama-kun had an appointment with the support department for his belt. Tokoyami-kun is training with Dark Shadow, but I don't really know where anyone else is." The bubblegum-skinned girl shrugged.
"I know Momo-chan is up in her room calling people. She was really determined to find an agency that would take her on for her work study," Uraraka Ochako supplied, not looking up from her homework. The brunette distractedly twirled a weightless pencil and stared hard at a sheet of paper riddled with English letters.
"Everybody is trying their best to get a work study, but most of the agencies aren't qualified, or don't want to take on the responsibility for our safety," the straight-laced Iida Tenya explained from next to Ochako. "But that is why we need to get better! It is our duty to become stronger so that we may not burden those around us!" The exclamation was accompanied by a chopping hand motion that quickly gave way to a clenched fist at chest height.
"I am already a burden. I need to catch up as soon as possible." The words were calm and even, carrying with them the single-minded determination of the half-hot-half-cold Todoroki.
A number of laments soon echoed around the room. "The school said Gunhead-san hasn't had enough interns, so I can't go there." "Same here, I wanted to go to Selkie-san's, but…" "Fourth Kind doesn't even take work studies."
The mood gained a heaviness as Midoriya listened, continuing to stow groceries. His head disappeared behind the fridge door as he leaned forward, holding a bundle of leeks. The teen's semi-muffled voice floated out to the room as he did so, "I might have found a place to do my work study, but I won't know until after my interview on Sunday."
A chorus of gasps sounded around the room, and several of the students launched themselves toward Midoriya. The unsuspecting male got yanked out of the fridge by two strong arms.
"You're already ahead of us, dude?! That's so manly!" Kirishima shook his meek friend forward and back in excitement, teeth bared in a shark-like grin. Ashido, Ochako and Kaminari pushed in close, invading Midoriya's personal space in an instant.
"No fair, Deku-kun!" Ochako pouted, perma-blushed cheeks puffed up in envy.
"Who's it with!?" the class' personal charging station asked. Kaminari's hands had lit up with sparks to match his enthusiasm.
Midoriya went white, frozen under the attention even as he was wrenched back and forth. "N-N-Nighteye!"
"Nighteye. As in All Might's sidekick, Sir Nighteye? Holy crap, Man, that's awesome!" Kirishima encouraged, ending his classmate's captivity with a slap to the back.
Midoriya blushed, and looked at the floor, hand sliding through his green locks in embarrassment.
Tuesday, September 4th
1:47 pm
Zzzzt. A neon pink ray of light shot across a forested area, just barely missing a black and white blur dodging between branches.
"Nice try, Val, but you'll have to be faster than that! I clocked in at 241 miles an hour last wee—!" the echoing taunt was cut off as the gloating entity slammed face first into the dirt. An emerald vapor formed between the leaves of a nearby bush, camouflaged and blending with the colors of the foliage to give the plant a hazy look. Neither party noticed, eyes drawn instead to the pink mist that rose off the ghost's back, the location of the impact covered with a stinking magenta ooze. Danny's opponent smirked behind a red-tinted visor.
"Speed doesn't mean anything if you aren't paying close attention," Valerie teased; then repositioned her feet for better balance and preemptively swerved right. A green glob splattered against the ground, some feet beyond where she had just been.
"Dang it! I thought I had you! Your gear's automatic spatial awareness is too OP." The ghost lifted into the air again, the pink goo on his back falling through his body and dropping to the pine needles below. "Ugh. Jeez Val, did you have to make your shots stink? I'm gonna have rotten onions and banana peels stuck in my nose for days." Danny scrunched his face in disgust and pulled his white Kevlar collar away from his neckline, shaking it to create a breeze. Dodging yet another blast of the smelly goop, the boy held out a hand. The spread fingers lit up in a shimmer of refracted blue light before several rays shot out and froze all of the stinking piles. Abruptly the air smelled once again of fresh cedar and pine.
"How are you gonna learn if there's no consequences to the hits?" the woman asked as she angled her hoverboard lower, zipping to another position with more space, of which there was little. "You know, Phantom, you sure are whining a lot. You were the one who asked for help with 'Evasive Maneuvers in Tight Quarters'. If you remembered to use intangibility half as often as you could, you'd probably be flying circles around me by now." Valerie chuckled to herself as she shot several more attacks at Danny. Sure enough, the ghost boy zipped to the side to evade, just as she'd intended. The red and black-clad girl pressed a button on the inside of her wrist as the attacks went wide, causing the goo to explode in a shower.
This time, though, Danny was ready for it, and slid through a tree trunk, using it as a shield. Since all his usual opponents had attacks that could hit him whether he was incorporeal or not, springing out of the way, or tossing up an ecto shield was often the safest bet.
"Hey! I'm pretty good at improvising! I just haven't been in nearly as many fights lately." In the last few years, as Danny had become stronger, he had noticed a drastic drop in ghost attacks, and an even greater drop in genuinely malicious ones. "It's a lot harder to keep myself sharp when I only get to let loose a couple times a month. It's not like you've been around enough lately to keep my sorry butt in shape."
"Sounds like we need to kick this training up a notch, then." Speed increasing, the Red Huntress streaked all around the area, flitting from spot to spot sporadically and driving the training further into the woods. Danny chased hot on her heels, ecto-charged fists glowing. Suddenly, she turned a 180 on her board, the machine still moving forward, and amended, "For the sake of your backside." Valerie punctuated the remark with a blitz. A barrage of pink energy exploded outward, but a tree branch nearly clotheslined her in the process. The agile woman did a quick turn about, zipping away as she heard her opponent wheeze.
Two of the attacks that had ignored hastily-conjured intangibility slammed Danny hard in the chest, causing the air to whoosh out of him. Trying to recover his breath, he laughed internally at Valerie's mistake as he watched her shrinking backside. A swirling mass of energy formed several feet behind him; but, the distortion dissipated just before he reached it and he passed backward through harmless, nearly invisible wisps of ectoplasm. The same could not be said for the underbrush he smacked into shortly after, the tree boughs breaking against his back sure to leave painful, if temporary, bruises.
Before he could take out more than a couple feets worth of the natural flora, the superhero phased through the remaining bushes and saplings. In an attempt to arrest his momentum, Danny dropped down into the earth. Correcting his flightpath and still underground, he shot forward. The maneuver twisted his body into a V that would pop most human's spines, but his middle took on an almost liquid state, and the ghost incurred no damage. A tug at his psyche left him a little unsteady, but he continued flying in the direction he had last seen his foe. Subconsciously, all color and light faded from his body as he popped up behind Valerie, who was fastidiously surveying the area. Powering up his hand, and making sure to change the state of the ectoplasm to goo, Danny lobbed a ball at his frenemy.
Who instantly countered with a blob of her own. This caused the two to splat together in the air, turning the mass a different color as the ectoplasm mixed pink and green together with unnatural speed.
Brown slime covered the Red Huntress as she exploded through the attacks, using the distraction to land a cheap shot with her fists. Danny took the uppercut before poofing out of existence.
"Crud!" Valerie turned too late, took a giant neon glob to the back, and was tossed to the floor. With a shlurp, she stuck fast to the ground. "Ugh. You complained about bananas and onions. But they don't hold a candle to the natural stuff. Antiseptics and chemotherapy chemicals is not a scent I'd buy at the store. It smells like hospital."
"I wouldn't know, I tend to avoid them," the original Danny gloated from above Valerie, a triumphant smirk on his face. He reached down, touching the glob with a single glowing finger. A catalytic reaction occurred, spreading outward. Valerie soon ceased her struggle as the prison became a solid. Then, Phantom rapped it with his knuckles. The knock that resounded was much louder than the casual flex of muscles, betraying the strength behind the blow. The shell cracked, the lines spiderwebbing out until the trap flaked away. Danny held his hand out, offering Valerie assistance which she promptly ignored, lunging to her feet and dusting herself off.
The curvy ghost hunter raised an eyebrow. "You're becoming quite the show off in your old age, you know that? We both know you could have just phased me out of there."
"But I just learned that trick, and it was the first chance I've had to use it." The young ghost looked away. He was notpouting.
"When'd you make the duplicate?"
"When I was underground. Figured it was as good a time as any," the admission was coupled with a semi-proud expression.
"At least you're finally thinking ahead in fights. You used to suck at that," Val commented, yanking the cemented-in tip of her board out of the crumbling pile.
"Hey!"
"I think we need to set more rules for training, though. This was supposed to be practice for evasive maneuvers, not counters. And you were talking over the phone how you needed help with dodging, right?"
"I don't like where this is going," Danny's tone was uneasy, watching his friend as she took on a serious expression. Which, ironically, when it came to her brutal style of training, was infinitely more concerning than her sadistic smile.
"The best way to avoid getting hit is to not have to think about it. And you always seem to be fighting enemies that cancel the advantages of nearly all of your powers. I think we should spend the next hour with you limited to flight only. Then spend an hour where I shoot at your—you powered down."
"You literally just got done telling me to use my powers creatively, and how it was good I was thinking ahead. Now you're just gonna nerf me when I do well? Rude." Danny crossed his arms and lifted a few feet into the air in indignation.
The female sparring partner examined Danny's defensive body language. "Don't worry. I'll put on the training wheels for the second half." Val's cocky attitude was back in full force.
Danny just barely caught the end of her sentence with his enhanced hearing, already creating as much distance between his ghostly tail and his friend as possible. And with good reason, as a discharge just narrowly missed his thigh. Heart thumping wildly, Danny swerved right, just barely ducking around a tree. He had correctly anticipated Valerie's eagerness to cream him in battle, what he had not expected was the centimeter wide branch at neck level. It failed to stop him, but at such a high speed it smacked across his Adam's apple with the force of a whip. Blinking through watery eyes at the stinging sensation, Danny didn't falter, more worried about what Valerie would do if she caught him.
Left behind and overlooked at the offending tree, a viridescent hue increased in size. The energy coalesced and centered on a single point, a three foot wide atmospheric eddy trapping the lazy spiral current.
An unconcerned voice yelled out to the fleeing superhero, already nearly three hundred feet away from the spot, "So are you excited to have Jazz home for the whole year?"
Danny shot a look of disbelief over his shoulder. Keeping up his speed, he zagged away from a still fully-leafed Hackberry. After several more minutes of erratic maneuvering, he groaned when Valerie followed up with "Well?" Another pause in which the ghost did not answer, focused fully on the forest around him. His flight path would have given a two-year old's drawing a run for its money. "Danny, you are as obnoxious as Technus in a fight because you never. stop. talking. If this training is gonna be realistic, you're gonna have to keep up your signature word vomit."
Narrowly avoiding yet another branch to the chest, Danny turned his face partway to the side, resigned to answer.
Only for his powers to pull back into his core. His hair lost its ethereal float, flattening to his head and darkening into a light grey. Internally, his sensation of weightlessness fled, the slippery eel of buoyancy sliding out of his reach. He chased the tendrils of his power in panic as he dropped several feet, before doubling down and dragging them back in. Breathing hard from nearly hitting the ground at top speeds, Danny stopped dead. The world swirled around him for a second before settling.
Splat.
The sensation of viscous fluid sliding down the back of his neck and under his jumpsuit's collar brought him back to his senses faster than anything else would have. "Ugh, again?!" A quick bout of intangibility had the ooze falling through him and onto the floor as a shudder ran up his spine.
"You stopped. An enemy would have pegged you in a real fight, I'm just keeping up the authenticity. Besides, I could have made that shot knock you over." Unfaithful to the harshness of her words, however, no further shots landed. Phantom stayed hunched over, holding his knees to increase oxygen and blood flow.
"For real, though. You good?" Valerie asked, raising an eyebrow at Danny's posture.
"Just a bit of vertigo. I've felt a bit odd lately, but nothing too bad. Maybe I'm catching a ghost cold or something. I got one last year that was brutal." Danny laughed, glossing over the worry with a little white lie.
"You should have your parents take a look."
"Maybe, but it's not a big deal. I don't want to bother them over something that might not even happen again," the super insisted.
Valerie gave the hard-headed man a once-over, before sighing as she saw his expression settle into a "the-world-will-end-before-I-change-my-opinion" Fenton Face™.
"You'd know your limits better than me, I'd hope," she finished lamely, giving him one last chance to back out.
"Yep, I'm good!" Being winded had been more rooted in shock than exertion. Danny plastered on a cheesy grin, straightening with exaggerated spring. He also floated up several feet to emphasize his point when a skyblue-and-white colored bomb fell from the canopy. The projectile solidified into a feminine shape just before impact and drove Danny to the earth, his head thudding resoundly against a gnarled root.
"Less good," he coughed, ghost sense rasping from his lips a moment late.
Valerie was too busy cracking up to respond. After a moment, she forced a big breath into her lungs, and strided over to pull the newcomer off Danny and into a familial hug. "Hey Dani."
"Hey Sis!"
"What pulled you out of the Ghost Zone long enough to visit the elderly?" Valerie joshed, glad to see her entirely too busy pseudo-sister after several months absence.
Danny, without an "i", waited for his vision to clear, not particularly worried about a concussion with his advanced healing and supernatural durability. Sitting up, he watched the exchange from his position atop fallen leaves, air whistling through his nose as he controlled his breathing.
"I'm actually here to see my Grandpa for once." The faux seventeen-year-old smirked, and Val indulged her with a high-five before the girl continued, "I need help in the GZ. Something's wrong with my kids." Her brows furrowed subconsciously. "They're powers aren't stabilizing correctly. I'm worried." Danny and Valerie both noticed the teen's nearly imperceptible flinch, forcing them to mentally revisit their own near-loss of Danielle.
"I think we were pretty much done here anyways. Let's grab something from the Nasty Burger, then head back to my place to brainstorm," Danny suggested, missing the way Valerie grimaced at the mention of her workplace on the one day off she had this week. Being a manager sucked. "I haven't been there in forever."
"Really? I thought you lived there?" Dani joked, quick to pretend her obsession wasn't eating her alive. Danny and her had more in common than just DNA.
"I haven't been in a couple months. My parents put their foot down and said I couldn't go back to college on their dime unless I ate better. Something about the grease being bad for my soul," Danny lamented, swooning back into the leaves dramatically, careful to avoid the violent root.
"Oh quit your belly-aching. I heard enough of it when they put down the ultimatum," Val griped. "Your parents made the right choice. The extremely high levels of saturated fats were binding to some of your mitochondrial DNA when you changed forms. Who knows how long it would have taken you to 'go ghost' permanently." Danny had the grace to look sheepish.
"I'm glad you're doing better." The clone looked to Valerie, who nodded in affirmation. Shoulders untensing, she smiled up at Danny, "...but when did you get so tall? You've shot up like a weed since the last time I saw you."
"Oh, summer. Actually, right around the time that I…switched…" Danny's eyes got big as he failed to finish the thought.
Valerie tilted her head, and stared up at her clueless friend, a bird observing a worm. Then, changing her tone to guttural and scratchy, she declared, "Looks like meat's back off the menu, Boys." Teeth bared viciously, she added, "I heard the HeartBeet cafe has excellent smoothies."
Chapter 2: The Real Villain: English
Tuesday, September 4th
2:03 pm
A loose patch of leaves exploded into the air, disrupted by an unseen force. A depression stayed in the pine needles and acorns beneath the oak's molt, clearly still affected by some invisible presence.
The air above the tree litter grunted, as if winded by an impact; then the needles and acorns sprang back up, and two much-smaller divots formed shoulder-width apart.
The forest held its breath, the wildlife silent as the grave.
Nearly a dozen feet above the disturbance, a paranormal force receded into itself. The viridescent haze that had caught in its eddy faded back out of existence and disappeared without a sound.
A tense minute passed, only the worms and insects daring to continue about their daily lives, especially with the sounds of breaking branches and indistinct yelling in the distance.
Tuesday, September 4th
2:35 pm
Dani had searched for her life's purpose for several years after her creation. No matter how welcome she was at the Fenton's, nor how close she had become to Val while training under the woman's Red Huntress pseudonym, a monster with great gaping teeth and gangly clawed limbs had gnawed at her.
Loneliness.
She'd craved a sense of belonging brought on by those in similar circumstances.
Over a year ago, Kitty suggested the halfa visit the Lost Holm, a place the full ghost had been in and out of before she met Johnny. Dani had been dismissive of the idea at first.
Despite her origins, the clone was very well adjusted. So suggesting she needed some kind of support group that seemed entirely too much like Alcoholics Anonymous was kind of insulting. Okay, yeah. So maybe it wasn't all that much like AA, from what she'd heard. But it was the principle of the matter.
The look of melancholy understanding Kitty had given her, coupled with a complete change of subject, had the young teen rethinking her options.
One visit was all it had taken. Her heart was caught as surely as a shade in a patch of Undergrowth's Devil's Snare. Now she played mom to a bunch of misfit, newly-formed ghosts struggling to come to terms with their existence.
It was taxing; and interacting with her "kids" could give her a headache or chip at her patience on the best of days. She also had to give up most of her free time on Earth. But she wouldn't trade it for the world.
Then, five days ago, when her newest charge—no, family member—had started appearing a little fuzzy around the edges, she had been more of a hen mother than a den mother. Flustered and overbearing, the teen had done everything in her power to make sure Luke got better.
But then the much older Jessica had started acting strange. And Caleb. Even the Gardener (who only ever seemed to come to meetings to fawn over some Zone-native variety of flower) was having issues with his flight.
She'd checked for all the signs of a ghost cold. No abnormal temperatures—hot or cold; no bags under the eyes or discolored skin tone. Not even a sniffle in anyone's...okay, so not everyone had a nose. But no sniffles.
What she did notice, however, set her core into overdrive, practically freezing the ectoplasm in the girl's veins and frosting her ice-themed costume for good measure.
Several of her kids had begun to leave smudges of themselves behind, their chosen forms lacking a substantiality normally present. A few of them even had their feet start to...to have an almost liquid quality on occasion.
Dani needed help.
Which was why she was currently forcing herself to sit still through Danny Fenton and Valerie Gray's idle chatter.
She sipped on an admittedly excellent smoothie, the frosty beverage soothing a slowly-tightening throat as she kept her impatience in check.
"—Psychology is a tough major. I'm not surprised she wanted a year off," Valerie responded to something the ghost girl had tuned out.
Danny's concerned blue eyes pierced the younger halfa from across the cafe's table. He must have caught her glazed look. Or maybe had noticed the bags under her eyes.
Dani avoided his stare, zeroing back in on Valerie as the ghost hunter spoke again, "So is taking over Fenton Works still the plan for you?"
That caught Dani's attention; she was more removed from the living world than she thought if her biological father's(?)—er twin's(?) major life choices were surprising. She knew he had been going to the local community college, but the "why" had just kind of slipped away.
"Yep. It made a lot of sense after I saw the family finances. Fenton Works is way more lucrative than I gave it credit for. Once I get infrastructure in place for marketing the patents, I'll have a nice passive income with plenty of time to account for my ghostly duties," Danny answered offhandedly, still watching his family member closely.
Valerie took a bite of ham and cheese panini in the interim, noticed Danny's gaze, and turned sharp, calculating eyes on her old mentee. Dani shifted self-consciously, chair creaking slightly at the movement.
Swallowing, Valerie angled her head towards the older halfa without breaking eye contact with the younger one. "It's a shame you had to give up being an astronaut. I know what a space nerd you are."
Dani was pretty sure the conversation was just an excuse for the two to kill time as they waited for her to admit to obsession-related neurosis.
The other two had listened to the teen's concerns already, making a plan of action on the stroll to the cafe. But even though Danny was set to come to the Lost Holm on Thursday—which, to be fair, made sense since he had the entire day off from class—Dani couldn't shake her growing anxiety.
There was no reason to rush, it wasn't like any of her kids were dying.
But she couldn't stop brooding. What if something happened while she was gone? Yeah, none of the symptoms were all that bad now, but that didn't mean they couldn't get—.
Danny's voice piped up much louder than before, jolting her out of her spiral, "Yeah, it would have been too hard to pass the rigorous medical testing they require at NASA. Besides, I can basically go to space whenever I want now with the Nebula Navigator suit."
Dani took another big sip of pineapple papaya, trying to avoid looking up when nothing further was said.
Knowing the trap to be set, the huntress resumed eating her sandwich. The toasted bread crunched loudly as the youngest at the table fiddled with a ponytail.
The quiet stretched, and Dani risked a glance upward. Not at Danny, who picked away at a salad, but at a minimalist-style carrot painted on the wine-red wall behind him. Gathering her thoughts, Dani's eyes flitted from customer to customer, then to nearly every cheesy vegetable pun stenciled around the room.
If weekly meetings with her kids had taught Dani anything, it was that ignoring spectral tendencies just because they were disquieting was a big no-no.
She took one last survey of the cafe to check for errant ears, then collapsed against the table, arms pillowing her face as a mass of silky black hair spread around her. Taking a fortifying breath from within the self-made shield, she caved all at once, "You win, okay? My obsession is flaring up. I can't hardly sleep or relax because I'm so worried about my kids. I know, logically, that their symptoms aren't all that severe. But every time I close my eyes I picture one of them melting. Jessica sneezed yesterday and I nearly jumped out of my skin."
Danny and Valerie shared a knowing glance that Dani failed to see from inside the circle of her protective limbs. She did, however, feel when the Fenton patted her hair soothingly from his seat adjacent.
"Dani. You know we will find out how to help you," Valerie assured, the steel-spined woman's conviction bleeding into her words.
"I'm sure we'll get your kids better in no time. Not only will we have my parents on board, but we also know a ton of ghosts who I'm sure would love to help," Danny vouched, strengthening the argument.
A seed of worry stayed rooted deep in the clone's heart, ready to grow in the quiet hours of night where only thoughts were company. The presence of the two's confidence provided a temporary comfort, but it would not stay.
"Dani. Look at me." The quiet tone held an almost unnatural air of authority, and Dani lifted her head. "Obsessions are a ghost's greatest weakness. They bind us to desire, and can drive us to do counterintuitive and single-minded things sometimes."
Blue eyes mirrored each other, a reflection of spirit as much as genetics, and the world beyond their table seemed to dull.
"But they are also our greatest strength and are a testament to our passion. Ghosts are beings of energy, of the mind. We are at our best when we focus on what drives us. Right now, you are only looking at one facet of yourself. Your need to protect the people you are closest to, to keep them safe and not lose them." The young man's voice gentled, "But the strong ties you hold mean that you can trust in those you cherish. The support goes both ways. When things get hard, remind yourself that we are here, we love you, and we will be your pillars when you can't stand alone."
The ambient sound sharpened, once again comprehensible as the rest of the room came back into focus.
The seed of nagging unease Dani contained burned up, seared out by a much stronger force.
Faith.
Tuesday September 4th
2:05 pm
Earlier...
Toru Hagakure inspected the forest.
The first thought in the UA student's head had been "villain attack" when the ground beneath her feet had taken on an emerald, toxic hue and dropped her through. It had felt similar to when Kurogiri had transported the whole class during the USJ incident, but was different in that it caused a kind of dull static to cling to the skin.
Toru's back had jarred when she'd hit the ground, but the hero-in-training had still sprung to agile feet, risking a glance several yards above her head. The gateway that imitated a shy maiden sensed the attention and promptly disappeared.
Squelching dismay, she focused on a plethora of crashes and exclamations audible in the distance. A few minutes passed and the sounds dampened as if traveling across a snow-covered landscape. Ears strained for the tiniest sounds, Hagakure waited on high alert.
Eventually when silence descended and the awkward posture cramped a calf, the teen began to question whether or not there was immediate danger.
Birdsong resumed and her stance loosened incrementally; then dropped completely when nothing sprang from the underbrush with extreme speed or warped, horrific anatomy.
Toru took a calming breath to still the panic that had set her brain alight and flushed her muscles with adrenaline. The inhale brought with it a wave of exhaustion, pulling at weary bones and making her body leaden.
Taking stock of the situation with newfound levelheadedness, the invisible girl was surprised to find herself shaking faintly in the dappled sun that filtered from above.
It should have been a couple more weeks before any true cold snap. But this forest was already starting to take on the beautiful colors indicative of Autumn and the temperature had to be close to 15 degrees Celsius.
Judging the position of the sun through ruby and gold tinged leaves, the displaced girl came to another unsettling conclusion. It was the hottest part of the day.
A new dread pooled into Toru's stomach as she peered down at a body she could not see. One that was as naked as the day it was born.
Tuesday September 4th,
2:16 pm
"Everyone, that's it. Class is over. Head back to the locker rooms to change," a timeworn voice called out into a cavernous structure filled with pillars and formations of cement.
A strand of what looked like ribbon flew out and stuck to a space some twelve feet above the ragged man's tired posture. Erasure Head didn't flinch as a student in a black, white and yellow skin-tight suit came flying toward him, one enlarged elbow dragging the kid forward with immense force.
Concurrently, an individual in mechanized armor skidded to a stop on the racetrack boarding the room. The fairly tall teen waved his arms wildly and directed toward the door as he yelled "Come on, everyone. We must hurry, or we'll be late for our next class! Punctuality is also a sign of heroism!"
"Yeah, yeah. We get it, Emergency Exit," the first kid teased and landed with a rip of the tape.
The class' signature ice user came next, sliding in from the back of the room on a ramp made of frozen water. Midoriya was soon to follow, small bolts of electricity dancing along the fabric of his costume.
"Oi, Bakugo! C'mon!" a buff, topless redhead in gear-like sleeves shouted upward at a cliff where several booms still echoed.
"Shut it, crap-hair!" came back at him, vague in its location from around an outcropping of cement. A spot soon turned red, and a four foot hole burned through the fake mountainside. Katsuki Bakugo shot out of the newly made cavity, exploding down to the makeshift gathering with rather more emotion than was warranted.
The rest of the class made their way to the front entrance, much less flashy in nature. Except for a single boy, who had literal sparkles adorning the air around his knight's armor and blue cape.
Two teens brought up the rear from a ways away. Having to walk from the farthest corner of the training center had made them lag behind.
With eyes set in a face that seemed to be an amalgamation of a dinosaur, an axolotl and a cliff side, Koji Koda looked around Gym Gamma.
The petting hero's throat hurt from screaming at pigeons for the past hour. Swallowing instinctively, he tried to wet his parched tongue, then turned to address the tall boy with six wing-like arms walking next to him, "Sh-Shoji-kun?"
"Hm?" The reply that should have come from beneath a blue face mask instead came from a small mouth at the tip of one of the quiet teen's arms.
"Did you happen to hear if Hagakure-chan came back yet?" The fully-in-costume invisible girl had left a little over ten minutes ago. She was supposed to be grabbing drinks for the three of them, but had yet to return.
Koda's throat scratched again, but he ignored it in favor of concern. The vending machines were just outside the door, their position a midway point between the PE field (where they had first tested the boundaries of their quirks) and Gym Gamma.
"I am unsure. I heard something a moment ago that may have been her footsteps, but I was busy focusing on duplicating my eyes today. I apologize for not being more help," Shoji confessed, calm but sincere as he glanced at his friend before refixating back on the pair's destination.
"Oh. Okay. Thanks anyway," Koji responded.
The rest of the class came into view, and he noticed a large bag at Aizawa's feet. Next to the practical teacher, Ken Ishiyama, better known as Cementoss, was pulling water bottles from it and passing them to everyone in 1A.
Seeing the drinks being handed around, Koda's furrowed brow relaxed.
Tuesday September 4th,
2:20 pm
A locker room door opened and a flood of girls strolled in. Two of the teens headed left while the other three diverged right, mimicking a forked river. They split again as each magnetized to their own metal cubby, idle chatter a near constant.
"—I just can't seem to get my body to keep bright colors, kero." Tsuyu Asui, or Tsu, as she was always insisting her friends call her, ended the comment with a signature croak.
"Uuhm. You could try practicing back at the dorms with just your hands or something. Maybe smaller body parts would be easier to keep bright. At least until you got the hang of it!" Ochako encouraged, happy to help her friend brainstorm.
The mostly pink-outfitted girl pulled off her visor. A strip of chestnut hair under where the headband had fallen and the strands over her ears remained indented, even with the plexiglass face covering removed.
Everyone else was making short work of switching to their gym uniforms. Kyoka had already even changed into the school's mandatory tracksuit, the letters "U" and "A" hiding in the white lines across the blue cloth.
First Aid Training was starting soon, and it was rare that Recovery Girl led a class, so everyone was in a rush.
"What about you, Momo-chan? How's making two different kinds of items at the same time coming along?" Ashido asked curiously, interested in all of her classmates' lives despite the minor hurry.
"With dedication and practice, I believe it's possible. Currently, it is proving troublesome to split my attention between the molecular differences of two items simultaneously. But I did manage to make a red and a blue ball at nearly the same time today. Color was the only difference, but it's a start." Yaoyarozu aligned the two sides of her dark navy jacket and zipped the metal tab up, covering her white undershirt beneath cotton-nylon blended fabric.
"I'm just impressed you can do it at all, kero," the amphibian girl complimented from across the aisle and raised a finger to the corner of her lips. The everything hero blushed in response, then turned away from the praise.
Ochako slid on a pair of the same fancy sweatpants everyone else was wearing and pivoted toward the door, fully dressed and ready to go.
Ashido followed the gravity-altering girl's motion and mused aloud, "Toru-chan sure is late. I wonder what's keeping her? I wanted to ask if she managed to up the brightness on Warp Refraction."
"Are you sure she's late? She might have just got here before us and is already at sixth period," Kyoka hypothesized.
"Yeah, maybe," Ashido acquiesced, but couldn't quite shake a feeling of unease.
Tuesday September 4th,
2:23 pm
1A converged on their next location. A large space nearly identical to their homeroom class with one major difference. There were no desks lined up in rows. No tight aisles to circumvent or navigate when crossing the classroom. Only a big open space ringed by standardized blue computer chairs, a single seat missing to give access to the circle.
Waiting patiently like a sun ready to pull planets to orbit, a vertically challenged grandma stood leaning on a giant syringe-shaped cane. Her doctor's outfit draped far past her feet, indicating an extreme loss of height in recent years.
The children finished populating the seats, and a single chair stood empty. Wizened eyes peered about the room, crows feet pulling at their edges as Chiyo Shuzenji took in her students.
Her attention passed over several perturbed faces, but her own facade kept a pleasant and professionally-disarming passivity.
Several of the kids were obviously anxious. Like Kyoka, whose tense muscles and deep frown were a dead giveaway. It didn't help that the rocker kept glancing at the barren seat, whispering to a purse-lipped Tsuyu; and, even though Chiyo's older ears heard only indistinct mumbles, the "youthful" heroine could guess the conversation's topic.
The concern of a few other, more restrained students, would have been difficult to see if she hadn't served years in the medical field. Patients that insisted everyone else with minor injuries be treated first while they bled out internally taught her to look for the little things. Like the two clenched fists in their hiding spot beneath multiple appendages and flaps of bat-like skin.
Mezo Shoji's expression stayed reserved even as he made direct eye contact with the instructor, then pointedly looked at the missing person's spot.
Next to him, the equally quiet boy, Koda, appeared quite pale and twiddled furiously with his thumbs. His mouth even opened and closed slightly like he wanted to say something.
Recovery Girl angled her body around to take in more of her audience. Keeping her eyes occupied by watching the class rep's openly aghast expression, she ran through a list of students in her head. Ah yes, the invisible one. That was why it had been hard to immediately place the face of the missing child. Besides, the girl hardly ever got hurt, so Chiyo had spent little time with her.
By the time Tenya Iida had started yelling for her attention, robotic arms swinging, she already knew who the grievance would be about.
"Yes, Iida-kun?" the grandma acknowledged, willing to let him explain the predicament himself.
"Sensei, Hagakure-san is late for class!" the boy belted, standing ramrod straight with arms to his sides, hands flattened like they were about to cover a rock in a game of Janken.
Multiple exclamations came from the girls at once.
"We didn't see her in the locker room and thought she went on ahead, kero."
"What if she got hurt during training and nobody noticed?!"
"What if she was kidnapped..." Pops like a firecracker punctuated the words from a place opposite the last speaker, and the very air suddenly felt strained.
From within the noise, a deep voice came from the beak of an Asian Koel, unique in its pacific nature, "We should not jump to conclusions just because something is amiss. Recovery Girl is staying calm, as should we all. We are heroes in training and should act as such." Sheepish expressions crossed some of Fumikage Tokoyami's more distressed classmates, but Bakugo stayed rigid, teeth grit and jaw muscle twitching. "It would be best to respond logically, by contacting the other faculty and determining if there is not some mundane reason for her absence."
"Excellent suggestion, Tokoyami-kun," Chiyo praised, voice just as steady and unhurried as ever as she fished in her oversized pocket for her cell. She drew it out, and ten key-clicks later the phone was ringing.
[Moshi-mosh.]
Glancing at Shoji and Kyoka to make sure she didn't spot any extra ears or plugged in jacks, the healer responded, "Hello, Shota-kun? I was wondering if I could expect Miss Hagakure-chan for today's class, or has she been pulled away on an errand?"
The next part came through the line in a hushed tone,[Hagakure is missing. The other faculty are already combing inside Gym Gamma, in case she has been rendered unconscious in an accident. Do not inform the other students until we find out more.] Aizawa was as to-the-point as ever.
Chiyo wanted to ask questions. To demand answers and insist on standing by if the girl really was injured. Instead, she let her features stay kind, lifting up her mouth in a practiced smile as if hearing reassuring news. "Thank you, Shota-kun. Then I will continue class as normal," she answered, looking the epitome of unbothered.
Ending the call, she addressed her students, "Aizawa-sensei has informed me that Hagakure-chan will not be joining us for today's lesson for personal reasons, but to go ahead and start."
The atmosphere around the class shifted, a general feeling of placation blanketing those present. But as Recovery Girl turned in a full circle, ready to start the lesson, she noticed a few who remained suspicious.
Midoriya, Yaororozu, and Bakugo's unease went unnoticed by virtually everyone else, but Chiyo picked up on subtle differences of posture and negative micro-expressions.
Only a single person besides herself noticed anything out of place. The bubbly brunette that always hung around Midoriya paid close attention to the boy's face as if trying to unlock his mind while he typed a quick text.
Chiyo pretended not to see the phone held close to his thigh.
Yaoyorozu kept her typical composure, but the reassuring smile she turned to a classmate seemed a little tight around the edges.
Unlike the other two, Bakugo showed major emotion. The boy's fuming, however, was so typical of his nature no one thought twice about what it masked.
"Today we are going to learn about the difference between treating a compound fracture and a regular one. I want you to be able to assess and secure both kinds safely. Can anyone tell me what you absolutely should not do when faced with a fracture?"
Several hands shot up around the room.
Tuesday September 4th,
2:43 pm
Toru couldn't believe her luck. Climbing no less than two trees hadn't given the lostling any new information about her surroundings; but wandering around the woods for, like, a half hour, max, had allowed her to miraculously find a paved running trail.
It was a good thing, too, because walking through ferns, brambles and bushes had been savage on her bare skin and feet. One stinging line (which the girl was sure would have been red were it visible) stretched from a hip to the lower edge of her scapula.
Not to mention that she didn't have any form of GPS.
Quirk Training was often bad for an electronic's health and all devices were forbidden in class; but it had been horrible to remember her phone was safely tucked away in her gym locker. She might not have been able to use it if there wasn't service here (she was somewhere in nature, after all), but she could have at least tried to send a text. Or even just checked the time.
Sighing, she squared goosefleshed shoulders and kept walking, the pavement under her feet sapping the tiny amount of warmth the exercise created. Hugging arms around her waist tightly didn't stop the shivering, but did allow for a modicum of heat to be retained. The air was cold.
She thought about the circumstances that surrounded her kidnapping as she plodded along. Coming here had been terrifying at first, so some arrival details were lost to the initial panic that had swamped her mind; but the teen did know three things for certain. One, that she had fallen through some kind of green portal; two, someone had been fighting nearby; and three, she had to get clothes.
Having a very pressing survival goal had allowed her to push down any anxiety. She needed to get out of this forest and to do that she had to keep moving. So the invisible girl had picked a direction away from where she'd last heard the battle, and started a manageable, but muscle-warming, hike.
If all the villain attacks on the student's school had taught her anything, it was that freezing up was the worst thing you could do. In a bad situation, it was easier to take things one step at a time. Focus on what could be done now to better the situation.
She had briefly considered going toward the crashing sounds, but had chucked the idea like a hot potato. She didn't know anything about the scuffle she'd heard, nor whether the participants were villains. Even if they weren't, who knows if they would have helped her. Hagakure could have revealed herself only to lose her one real advantage in dealing with this situation. Stealth.
Ten more minutes of miserably ambling down the paved foot path had Toru spotting a wooden stake set into the ground. Two arrow-shaped boards adorned the top, rusted nails affixing them in place. One side pointed in the direction she had come, the other, where she was going.
Dread crept up the teen's spine as she spied something truly unnerving.
English letters.
A visceral reaction set her to sweating as the sign swam in her vision. Then, a mundanely inappropriate memory surfaced, warding the feeling off.
"Honey! Look! Toru-chan tied her shoes!" an empty business suit called across a small apartment from the living room. Next to the unseen man sat a miniature Toru, decked out in tiny clothes. A single shoe had a floppy knot of strings on top that somewhat resembled a bow. The other had yet to be defiled by tiny, invisible hands.
Equally bland clothes leaned out from behind the kitchen wall at the prompting, hugging the curves of a middle aged body. "You bet she did! She's named Toru for a reason!" The tan blouse fist pumped, the motion a dichotomy to the reserved nature of the outfit. "Nothing can stop my girl; she'll never be a quitter!"
The businessman leaned closer to his daughter, pulled the child into a goofy hug, and swung her around. "Hear that, Tora? Mommy thinks you're a fighter; go show her your claws!"
"Raaaaaawwwwr," the knee-high t-shirt and shorts roared, racing toward the kitchen. Up until the untied shoe reminded the girl of its existence as a tripping hazard. Down she went.
But not for long.
The smile on Toru's face as she jerked back to the present was unbidden.
The memory had reminded the hero-in-training of something very important.
She was a Toru. Persistent was her very name. The first challenge of finding a possible way out of the woods had already been cleared. She could read a sign. Even if it required remembering things from one of the girl's worst subjects.
Brow drawn in concentration, she stared hard at the arrow pointing behind her. Suu. Puu. Kiii. Tsu. Re. Ii. Ru. It meant nothing. She tried again, this time sounding the words out aloud. "Su-pu-ki tsu-re-i-ru." Not fast enough. "Spu-ki tu-re-iru." She concentrated on changing the "R" to an "L" at the end. Spooky Trail.
The first word was foreign, but a nagging at the back of the mind made her concentrate on the second. Trail….trail…..trail….was it…..shippo? No….that didn't feel quite right. Unless the path was talking about squirrels.
Wait!
That was it!
It wasn't tureiru. It was TO-reiru, the synonym for michi!
"Trail" was the English word for path!
A sense of accomplishment filled her as she tried to read the second sign. "A-mi-ti Pa-ru-ku".
Toru puzzled over the first word's meaning for a minute more, before the chill got the better of her and she had to give up. At least the second word, park, gave some reassurance. If there was a car lot in that direction, she could find a real road, and maybe a town!
Either way, the teen had to start moving again before she froze.
Semi-confident in her previous heading, she started to jog, back warming slightly. The cleared path was a boon, keeping the trees at bay enough to let rays of sun through. After a few minutes Toru began to breathe hard. After twelve, she used blurry eyes to make sure numb and scratched feet were still there and moving.
Lost in focus, she startled when the trees just...ended, the path curving out into a field.
In front of the girl stood a massive billboard that proudly proclaimed "Amity Park: A nice place to live", its feet obscured and encroached on by overgrown grass. The only thing immediately recognizable for Toru was the phrase "Amity Park" from the trail.
Beyond, a glorious road led straight into a city.
Tuesday September 4th,
2:43 pm
A bipedal mouse crossed a large lot, eyes drawn to the white lines of chalk marking the compacted dirt. The professionally clothed mammal took a breath, line of sight raising as he appraised several teachers stationed in the field outside Gym Gamma.
The gaunt face of Yagi Toshinori was not among them. The man had wanted to be here, but was in charge of 1A's final class of the day, forcing the instructor to get ready. Still, a decent number of UA's faculty made up the huddle.
One of which was a dino helmeted man, the mecha headwear covering much of his facial features. In his red-tipped fingers was a massive metal detector-esque device. The main difference between the support item and something normally reserved for finding lost jewelry or coins was a giant display screen stationed near the handle. As Power Loader walked forward to meet the principal, the read-out's numbers jumped erratically.
"Kocho-sensei!"
Nezu Kocho locked gazes with the head of the support department, acknowledging the man to continue. Before Higari Maijima could, though, he was cut off by a massive man next to him who jumped forward, landing on hands and feet in front of the mouse.
Black striped arms splaying wide in something halfway between a bow and a push up, the bestial teacher yelled "Nezu-san! I lost—rrawrr—scent! Got—aaarraahraa—the dooorrrr—arrrraaghraaa aahhhhh raaa roooaaaoooooo!" the passionate man ended the report in a soul-torn howl, saliva spilling from a mouth no longer capable of human speech.
The scar over Nezu's right eye tugged at a white-furred cheek as his lips drew down in a grimace. Tucking small arms behind his back, he subconsciously reverted to submissive posture. "Thank you, Inui-san. I understand how upset you must be. Failing my students to such a degree is making me question my own competence as a principal."
"Kocho-san! Don't say that! No school is equipped to handle such extreme situations," a voice whose origin could have been a meat grinder sounded from the side. The lean but excessively tall hero dropped to a trenchcoat-covered knee, bringing his own height much closer to that of the rodent's. His head, which was so dark blue it bordered black, bowed. Sharp yellow accent lines caught the light as he went on "If anything, we have failed you."
Not impressed with the pity party, a new person spoke up from the back, "We have uncovered very little. But we do know for a fact that Hagakure-san is nowhere inside Training Dining Land. We are hoping your quirk will offer more insight." The man who could have starred in an apocalyptic wild west film gestured for everyone to follow. Without waiting to see if they did, he immediately started trekking toward the large building with its rounded top.
The group filed in behind, the final party member picking up the principal. Vlad King positioned the small creature on his shoulder before striding after.
"Even if I am unable to determine anything, Tsukauchi-san and Tamakawa-san are on their way. They should also be bringing two heroes with them that may be able to help." Nezu sounded somewhat hopeful. The police department had been integral in rescuing young Bakugo.
"If only Ragdoll hadn't lost her quirk…." Power Loader's tone was the opposite of his boss', and the silence hit like a side hook.
Trying to pull the topic away from the reminder of the Wild Wild Pussycat, Vlad reported the faculty's findings in a steady voice, "As Ryo was saying, he lost Hagakure-san's scent just outside the gym. He's incredibly frustrated." The male built just as massively as his close friend raised a red-clad arm, patting the hunting hero apologetically with a silver-backed hand. "Apparently it just vanished. But there was a new smell there—"
"Hospitaaaaaarrrrrrooo!"
The blood hero just nodded, unconcerned by Hound Dog's interruption. "I myself was unable to find anything useful, but Higari-kun took readings at the site where she vanished." The group was almost across the field, only fifteen feet away from the aforementioned location.
"There are trace amounts of energy, but I'm having a hard time pinning down what kind. The radiation is decaying at a rapid rate and interfering with my equipment. Its half life seems to be about every eighteen minutes, so if Hagakure-san has been missing an hour we only have about thirteen percent of the radioactive isotopes left to test at this very moment. Unfortunately, the data I'm collecting is unreliable, so without incredibly specialized equipment arriving here in the next thirty hours, we have hit a wall on my front," Power Loader supplied, then rubbed the bridge of his nose in exasperation, tilting his headgear back for better access. "My guess is that a quirk rather than a support item generated it. Probably a portal user."
"Just because we have been faced with two portal generating quirks recently does not mean we should rule out other possibilities preemptively. A multitude of quirks could be responsible, and are statistically more likely. Teleportation, flight, and permeation to name a few," Nezu admonished gently, small black eyes watching as the petite mechanic stopped in front of two vending machines.
Ectoplasm hicc-urped as he closed the gap between himself and the support department head, an indistinct mist escaping his mouth. Ignoring the minor indigestion he'd been experiencing lately, the clone-generator watched Nezu and Vlad advance toward him.
Then outright stared when the principal started shaking in a way he hadn't seen since their first introduction.
"Are you okay, Kocho-san?" Vlad asked, instinctively putting a supportive hand on the small male's side, worried the mammal might fall off his perch.
"Y-yes. I-I'm f-f-fine. D-d-don't wor-r-ry," Nezu assured through chattering teeth.
Snipe raised an eyebrow skeptically from where he casually leaned against one of the drink dispensers. With crossed arms partially covered by a rusty red fabric, the gunslinger examined his boss.
"J-just s-some in-s-stincts," the principal responded, already slowing his heartbeat with mental exercises. "I-I'll b-be fine in a s-second."
The rodent shook his head as if to clear it, then took a steadying breath before hopping to the floor. Hound Dog and Vlad shared a furtive glance as Nezu circled and inspected a very specific spot on the ground without being told.
Ignoring his staff, the head of UA continued gravely, "W-we need to proceed very c-carefully. Whatever or whoever took Hagakure-san activated my fight or flight response with nothing more than residual power."