"Hiru-san! Use your quirk quickly!"
"Yuzu-san, get behind me," he muttered, trying to sound confident. The attempt was lackluster at best.
The orange-haired girl, Yuzu, looks one second away from running straight away from me. The gray-haired boy, Hiru, straightens up as if this is his life's climax, even if his shaking knees betray him.
Still, he puts himself in front of her. Aw, how adorable of him.
He extends an arm toward me.
I feel something stir in the air. Not magic. Just an ordinary, mundane little ripple. Barely worth noticing.
Yet it's focused. Intentional. It has a direction and a command stitched into it.
A quirk.
"Repulse!"
The quirk acts instantly, not like a punch, not like wind, but like the world itself is forcing me to be set back. A suctionless yank.
My body moves backward, flung like someone grabbed my collar and hurled me back.
And then I'm airborne.
It wasn't even dramatic or flashy. No roar of me being sent back. No trees are being knocked over as I tumble across the forest.
I just slide backward across the forest floor, carving a clean trench with my heels and throwing up a lazy cloud of dust behind me.
"Hm." I stand, brushing leaves off my torso. "Interesting quirk. Repulsion?"
Zynch and the Father, of course, scream as if I've just been mutilated by the damn kid.
"My Lord!"
"Sir!"
"I'm fine," I call back, waving lazily. "I'm not hurt from that whimsy push."
They both sigh in visible relief.
But my attention is already elsewhere.
Because now I know which direction the children will run. And where they'll lead me. To others.
When I take to the air again, well above the treeline, I spot Hiru and Yuzu sprinting through the woods like terrified rabbits.
They crash through the forest at the clumsiness and grace of someone running like they're being chased by a predator.
They're scared. Scared shitless.
I know they're gonna tell the others. Good, let them. More fear energy for me.
The dirt below them transforms into a thin path before turning into a paved asphalt road.
They run towards a small cluster of buildings nestled at the foot of a low hill. A town.
Not a huge city. Not a hero hub. Just a quiet civilian settlement, maybe a few thousand people at best. A place the anime would never bother showing.
I take note of where they went as I go back to Zynch and the Father.
"Zynch, Father," I murmur as I glide down from above the trees, "Some more people are going to be coming; this time, they are going to be stronger than the kids we just came across."
"Who's coming, my Lord? I can fend them off if needed, even if I only have a damaged pistol," the Father whips out a fucking laser gun out of his sack. It looks like it belongs straight in Star Wars.
"No, no, no, you don't need to use that. But just in case, just have it at the ready," I hurriedly say.
I mean, at least we have some weaponry if I somehow get overwhelmed.
"Stay hidden. Silence. I'll handle what comes next."
The Father bows so deeply he practically folds in half. Zynch just nods once, looking ready for anything.
Good.
I take to the air again, going back to the edge of the forest where the kids ran.
They burst from the forest edge and collapse onto the road, panting, shaking, covered in dirt. Then they force their exhausted bodies to keep running for another ten minutes, until they reach the lights of the small town.
I perch atop the corner of a roof. My wings fold, hiding themselves. I wait to see what they are going to do.
They sprint to a squat, boxy building labeled:
BUSY SUIT HERO AGENCY
Two sidekicks stand outside, half-assedly scrolling on their phones.
Until the kids arrive screaming.
"V-VILLAIN IN THE FOREST!"
"MONSTER, RED LIGHTS, WINGS, HE LANDED FROM THE SKY!"
Instant panic.
The heroes snap alert.
"Where?!"
"What quirk did he use?"
"Did he attack you?"
A flurry of questions assaults the kids as they are helped inside. The students are a breathless mess.
"He didn't, he didn't attack!" Yuzu gasps. "He just appeared! And then Hiru used his quirk! And then we ran, we didn't look back until we got here!"
The heroes exchange looks.
A flying villain with unknown abilities? That's just trouble waiting to happen.
I see them scramble around in their office, getting other heroes to come help them capture me before I could escape.
Perfect.
More heroes gives me information to gauge my strength. But it could be a double-edged sword. They may overpower whatever I make and just capture me.
I slip back into the forest, going back to Zynch and the Father. They'll investigate where they last saw me. I know it.
The fear the students had brought... lingered.
The fear left by those two kids seeps into the forest like mist. A trembling, potent residue. I inhale slowly, letting it slide along my bones, spiraling into my chest. A power I've just gotten, slowly increasing with every breath.
Time for a gauge.
A baseline to measure My Hero Academia's heroes and my own strength by.
I extend a hand.
I need something I can test the heroes with. Humanoid enough to maneuver without difficulty. Monstrous enough to terrify them on sight.
Fear gathers, condensing, pulling from the air around me and from the memory of the children's terror earlier. The energy I take in pools in the middle of my chest, then surges outwards in a hot rush.
The energy detaches from me, peeling away like a second skin, and coalesces into a mass of writhing red-black liquid. It expands, contracts, and shifts like an alien anomaly never seen before in the world.
A new being is being formed.
Its surface ripples like a raindrop in a puddle before suddenly dropping to the ground in front of me.
This is new.
The mass slowly forms a dark red puddle that seems serene compared to the movement it displayed before.
Suddenly.
A long arm extends from out of the puddle. Its color an unhealthy complexion.
Its hand, with long dark nails at the end of them, lands on the ground beside it, pulling itself out of the puddle.
A hood of shadow emerges first. Draped over a face distinctly not human.
A maw splits open beneath it. Teeth jagged and uneven like the fangs of a creature meant to tear apart prey. Two red points peer through the hood, not like eyes, more like condensed hunger looking for its next meal.
Next, a torso appears, lean but powerful. Its skin stretched tight across the bone but yet holding so much power.
When it fully emerges, I finally see pale, white wisps trailing down where legs should be.
The puddle where it emerged slowly rises again, shifting to change its shape into a weapon.
A scythe, massive, crooked, forged from the same energy yet looking ancient. The blade shines with a dark, wet gleam as though showing blood it never spilled.
[Image here]
I whistle inside my head. This thing looks badass.
I imagined a creature that was like a grim reaper, though I guess I wasn't specific enough, as some parts were filled with things I don't remember asking for.
"Hmmmm," I hum with approval. Not bad at all.
The creature twists its neck, if the connection between head and torso can even be called that, turned to look at me.
It knelt, even with the absence of legs. It bowed respectfully to me and awaited my orders.
"Your purpose is simple," I instruct softly. "Test them. Do not kill. Push them until they reveal their maximum output. I want you to bring out everything they've got."
The creature's chest rumbles with a low, thrumming growl as it melted into the shadows.
Perfect.
Because the heroes have arrived.
Branches snap. Voices murmur. The rushed approach of heroes is not far away.
I ascend a tree silently, wrapping my wings tightly around myself, hiding my glow deep behind my wings.
My presence dissolves, matching the nature around me.
Four heroes step into the clearing, two pro, two sidekicks.
The pros moves with the deliberate caution of someone who's seen enough to understand the danger of what they were doing. The sidekicks mimicking their every move.
One of them was tall. Long black hair tied up in a ponytail at the back of his head. Reinforced jacket. A belt lined with what looks like tools, capturing tape, and pockets filled with unknown things.
Excellent.
The hero lifts a hand, signaling everyone on the team to stop.
"Stay sharp, the villain was last seen here," he orders. "The kids described him as massive. Winged. Armored. Unknown quirk. We don't engage recklessly."
He scans the trees with the focus of a man who is already preparing to jump into action.
"Where is he?"
The forest answers for me.
A guttural, resonant growl shakes the leaves from the branches. Deep. Hungry.
My creature bursts from the treeline, snapping branches the size of small trees as it charges. Fast, powerful, but not lethal.
The sidekicks tense up.
The other hero reacts immediately, slamming both palms into the earth.
His quirk triggers.
A wave of compressed force rolls across the dirt before exploding right in front of the reaper.
It pauses, but only briefly.
It recovers quickly, claws clenching on the sythe.
It surges forward again.
The ponytail hero's eyes widen. "What?! Ashetown, Brick, SUPPORT!"
The sidekicks respond instantly.
One of the sidekicks, Ashetown, spews dark clouds of smoke from his mouth, trying to conceal the presence of the heroes.
The other, Brick, using his strength to throw pellets he had at the ready towards the reaper, the power behind them was nothing to scoff at.
The rocks hit the reaper's skin, rippling with force before sliding down harmlessly off it.
This whole interaction was great for getting data. I needed to know what their quirks were, how powerful they were, and how they fought together.
The reaper let out an ear-piercing, shrill cry and swung its weapon into the smoke, trying to get rid of it.
"NOW!"
A shadow erupted from the side of the reaper and hit him. It staggered back before recovering, hovering back, and waiting for the smoke to clear.
By the time the smoke vanished into the surroundings, the hero team had already set up positions around the reaper.
"What the hell are you?" the ponytail hero asked, now seeing the reaper in all its glory.
All the heroes and sidekicks stared at it, its form something they had never seen before.
Now the test begins...
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[Word Count: 1801]
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