Chapter Text
The Sports Festival ended a little over a week ago, but Sero still felt gloomy about it.
He was scared at first, when the matches had been announced, but who wouldn’t be against the powerhouse that was Todoroki? Luckily, though, he had an actual strategy. He had an idea and he was following through and it was working. For less than a minute. Then it got crushed and he was turned into an ice cube. It sucked. He sucked. Being encased in the ice really sucked.
Since then he’s started dropping his stuff at home after school to immediately head back out. He read somewhere that walking helps brain functions. So he’s just trying to roll with it and brainstorm some more. He knows he’s fairly average in all regards, he won’t have Todoroki’s two-toned hair, or Bakugou’s flashy explosions, but there’s gotta be something he can work with.
Currently, he was meandering around the shopping district near his apartment, thinking over the festival for the umpteenth time trying to figure out new strategies. All he has is tape though. Tape elbows. It’s extremely straightforward. There’s really not much to it. Tape. Exits through the elbows. Secretes through the elbows?
Okay, kinda gross, don’t think about it like that. Make it work. You can make this work.
Maybe he should think about what he already knows he can do? That would probably help. He can wrap people up, he can grab objects, and he can somewhat fly. Half-fly. Air-hop. Whatever.
He takes a left at the next crosswalk and then halts at the red light. He pulls his phone out of the pocket of his cargo pants and sneaks an impatient glance at the stoplight to see if it’s turned green yet. He clicks the side button and the screen flashes to tell him it’s already 20:48. It’s time for his useless brainstorming session to end and to start his homewo—holy shit, he’s got a whole paper due in a couple of days! Sero groans and sticks the phone back into the pocket as the light changes green and the couple of people around him shuffle to cross the street.
He speedwalks forward, rushing past the other pedestrians and goes for a detour. Looking around for a quick way to get home, he ambles down the upcoming alley on his right. He was hoping for a shortcut home, but as he continues down the path a quick look over the dumpsters and brick walls makes him realize that he’s not sure if he’s been down this street before. A wave of nerves pass over him and those are bad vibes.
It’s about a meter wide and there’s graffiti lining the sides. The ground is a little muddy and has scattered trash along the walls. He catches a couple of pidgeons also feeding on something too, but he’s not sure what. The further he traverses the darker it gets, as the light coming from the shopping district stretches. A glimpse above him reveals broken windows, half of which are broken and looked to be yellowed, or chipped, and rusted fire escapes.
The alley rapidly widens and Sero takes careful steps to avoid the shattered glass. Man, he just wants to get home. Fuck going on a brain-stimulating walk, he hasn’t figured anything out and is stuck trekking through a sketchy sidestreet.
He pulls his hands out of his pockets and lets them sit in fists at his side. Just in case. Not that anything is gonna happen at all. A quick sniff tells him that woah that was a mistake, who died. He takes careful glances to his left and right, surveying the dumpsters and boxes and that guy is totally just sleeping, just sleeping, he definitely just had bad night and decided to tuck in early.
He walks faster, and how long is this street. He splashes in some puddles leftover from yesterday’s morning showers. The smell upgrades from rat poison to sweaty armpits the further he goes. He shivers and seriously, he doesn’t even need to be home specifically, just out of here. The alleyway begins to widen even more and starts to grow brighter.
There’s a few shoddy sidestores starting to appear, with flickering neon signs hovering above them. A bunch of doorways, some with and without their actual doors, start to line the alleyway too. He notes the small groups of adults milling about the doorways and shops too, looking to be sharing cigarettes and quiet conversations.
Another sensation of what he can only currently describe as bad vibes, shudders through him. Okay but seriously, this alleyway is not ending and he just wants be home and screw it.
He ducks into the next doorway (with a missing door) on the right, not bothering to glance at the tattered paper hung up on the left side of the entrance, or the spooky staircase at the end of the hallway. He leans up against the wall, brick, he thinks, and rubs his hands together. Maybe he’s just cold and that’s why. He slides down to a squat and tilts his head back. He inhales and starts to tug his long sleeves further down his forearms. He takes a long exhale and lets his arms rest on his thighs as his head drops forward.
Looking down, he notices there’s words spray painted on it. He tilts his head to the right, in line with the entrance and format of the words, and reads out loud, “The Green Lemur.” There’s even a little cartoon of one next to the text.
Then he notices the vibrations.
He feels his feet tremble. It wasn’t coming from the alley. Yeah, he was kind of in panic mode, but he knows there wasn’t any when he was walking. Then again. Smaller, but still there, just enough for the balls of his feet to twitch. Then some noise that he can’t discern. He looks into the dimly lit staircase on his right.
Oh my, he’s so stupid. He stepped into a random doorway on the side of a shady ass alleyway without checking it out first. He slowly starts to get up, sliding his back up along the wall behind him, and tries to peer down the staircase, only for it to be too far away. He straightens up and begins walking further into the hallway, taking note of the dim, lime green, lantern-like, lights lining the walls. Taking slow steps, he also notes carvings in the brick. Like someone took a knife and etched words, or something, into it.
He reaches the start of the staircase. It’s in the shape a downward spiral, with wooden floorboards that just look like that they’d collapse if he so much as glared at them. He tries to lean out and look around the corner, to see if he can see the end, only to realize that it goes further down.
Pushing his palms flat against the brick walls, because of course there was no railing in the creepy staircase, Sero briefly wonders what the fuck he is doing. It’s a fucking Tuesday. He has homework. And he really should be at home by now.
Instead, he’s venturing into some suspicious ass bunker that could have fucking green lemurs cooking meth for all he knows. He cautiously lifts his foot and lets his toe hit the top stair.
So far there’s no devastating crashes, so Sero gently, gently, lets the rest of his foot follow. Letting off some of the weight from his palms, he pushes further off his back foot onto the front. Deciding to trust the possible death trap, he lifts his back foot off the ground to place next to the one below. Letting out a sigh of relief, Sero decides to try and take another look around before continuing his descent.
The same lanterns as before continue on, being held up by hooks, illuminating what seems to be the rest of the staircase. Another step and peer down and around tells Sero that the staircase continues on for at least another meter. He takes his third step and — Creak! The stairs are still wooden. And loud as fuck apparently, holy crap, he puts his hand over his chest and takes a deep breath. He slowly continues down, keeping both hands lightly skimming the walls because there’s no fucking railing and if this shit collapses underneath him…
Then he feels it again, the shaking, except the stair starts to rattle underneath him and he keeps moving forwards because maybe he can reach the bottom safely instead of waiting for it break underneath him. As he descends the vibrations grow more consistent, and what the fuck is he doing. He turns sideways to lean against the wall, as it looks like he was just about to reach the final turn and breach the bottom. Seriously, he went down a fucking staircase through a shady ass doorway in a shady ass alley that fucking reeked into a weird dungeon looking place that’s vibrating what the—
“Yo!” The deep, bellowing voice around the corner snaps him out of his head. What the fuck. There’s someone there. He’s dead, he’s so dead. A fucking lemur on drugs is gonna kill him and wow his friends are gonna be so disappointed in him.
Sero freezes and now the blood’s rushing in his ears and his hands are starting to shake and he’s a hero-in-training. He’s got this. He can handle this. He takes a few seconds to register his next move.
Voice was deep, definitely male, definitely human, and definitely bigger than him if he’s waiting at the bottom of an ominous staircase. Also, this place is sus as hell, so definitely dangerous. You don’t willingly take a trip down rat poison alley unless you can handle it. Sero can most certainly not handle this though, so maybe the dude’s scrawny and just had a really weird puberty experience.
He takes the last couple of creaking steps down the stairs and turns the corner. Dude definitely got fucking wrecked by puberty.
There’s tattoos lining his arms and neck, curling up onto his shaved head. His ears also have a number of piercings and are fitted with gauges. He’s also wearing a black tank top and some black jeans with a unicorn patch?
His biceps are also the size of Sero’s head and he’s easily got at least half a foot of height on him.
Sero is going to die.
He faintly notices the maroon door behind him, coated in stickers and rust.
He snakes his hand onto his neck and gives a nervous smile. He can play this off. He can so play this off. He has a reason to be here. The absolute fucking best reason, that will not get his face crushed by this guy’s monster arms.
Monster Arms glares down at him.
“Explain why you’re here.” Direct. Very direct. He could use his quirk to get out of this. Tie the guy up and bolt. He risks a quick glance over at the guy’s physique to try and estimate how long that would take. Or, Sero can take that direct response and lie his fucking ass off like he needs to. Come up with that real elaborate shit.
“Shit man, just looking for the bathroom, my bad.” He chuckles a little. Stupid. Double stupid. Triple stupid. Quadruple stupid. Quintuple fucking stupid. The fucking bathroom? Yeah. He just wandered down the dimly lit, creepy fucking stairwell, looking for a bathroom. He literally could’ve just pissed in the goddamn alleyway instead of spending the time to go down the spooky wooden spiral staircase of death.
He chuckles again because Monster Arms isn’t saying anything. The sound of Sero scratching his neck is audible. There’s a slow blink, and then a response.
“Bathroom?” It’s questioning and the dude doesn’t look like he’s about to kill Sero. Holy shit, now is the time to lie. Be smart this time, for real.
“Yeah man, I got lost on the way to work,” because he’s an adult now with a legitimate job apparently, who gets lost on his way to work, “and then all of a sudden I just really had to use the bathroom. You get me, right man?” He gives the guy a grin and waves his hand out. He guesses that he came across friendly enough because Monster Arms gives a slow nod and becomes a little less tense.
Sero knows he’s ordinary looking, he knows that he’s unassuming and doesn’t give off a particularly dangerous vibe. This means that if he just continue to play this off casually, there’s a huge shot he’ll get out unscathed and Monster Arms won’t even remember what he looks like.
“Then I saw the sign hangin’ outside and got it mistaken for the bathroom icon,” he doesn’t even fucking know if there was a sign, but he really, really, hopes there was, “and took my chances that there would be an empty stall.” He waves his hand and gives him the finale, “anyways, my bad, I’ll head out and find an actual bathroom so I’m not late for work.” He starts to step backwards and gives Monster Arms a big smile, and even throws him a thumbs up for good measure. Just as he turns around to make his exit, Monster Arms speaks again.
“Wait… are you one of the contenders?” The man questions Sero. Contender? Uhhh. He turns his head back to glance at the imposing man.
He knows it’s not a bright idea to agree to something he doesn’t understand. Especially when he doesn’t know what that entails afterwards. But the other option is saying no. And saying no could mean danger. And Sero really doesn’t want to test what danger could mean in this scenario.
With his mind made up, Sero tilts his body back towards the larger man and shoves his hands back into his pockets,
“Absolutely.”
Monster Arms relaxes to a slouch and lets out a sigh.
“Thank fuck, the next round is almost up and nothin’ is lined up afterwards. All you other fuckers were late as hell,” Monster Arms says as he walks over to Sero. Shit, shit, shit! What did he agree to?
“Sorry again, my bad, I lost track of time and,” Monster Arms gets behind him and claps a huge palm over Sero’s shoulder, “t-there was this cat stuck in a box, and then, then, this other cat in a different box,” Sero starts to tremble as the man pushes him towards the door and the vibrations—cheering, those sounds were people yelling—“and then this dog, a-a-and…” Sweat starts to generate in his palms as Sero grows more and more panicked.
“Whatever, just get your ass in there.” The man bellows with finality. He swings the maroon door open, slaps a sticker that he pulled out of nowhere, onto Sero’s chest, and shoves him into the crowd of people.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Where the fuck is he? People. There’s so many people around him and they’re all yelling at something that looks to be going on in the center of the room. The ground is shaking underneath him and his ears are starting to pick up a faint ringing. It’s so loud and he can’t calm himself down quick enough to pay attention to what they’re saying because he just went down a scary staircase, encountered a door guarded by a man who could crush him with probably little to no effort (who was also wearing a unicorn patch that completely juxtaposed his entire image but whatever, unicorns are sick), and agreed to who knows what.
Maybe he can just sneak back out, come up with some bullshit to Monster Arms and claim that he’ll hurry back afterwards. Maybe bring up something about the cats stuck in boxes and how they were probably freezing or something. Yeah, he can do that. He just needs to get the fuck out of here, because the longer he stands here the more that he can pick up that there is definitely some illegal type shit going down that he should most certainly not be a part of.
He turns around, ready to exit through the door he was just shoved through, only to feel a whoosh and then a drowned out slam!
Don’t panic. Just don’t. It doesn’t help you or anyon—or you. Because this is on you Hanta, come on. You got this. Just look around, there’s gotta be another way out.
A nervous smile tugs at his mouth as he slowly spins back around to face whatever all the other people are yelling at.
It’s a little hard to see with all the people in the same area elbowing each other around, but he tries to make do. He notices the huge ass lighting system hanging from the ceiling in the center of the space, he estimates it’s about eight meters up. He also catches glances of the same lantern-like fixtures lining the walls. He tries to make use of his height and glance over the heads of the others, but can only barely make out what’s happening. The room seems to be relatively medium-sized, with a few doors lining the sides. One of them could be an exit.
He also catches glimpses of people? Dancing? It’s in the center of the room, and appears to be what’s captured everyone’s attention.
Sero can’t keep a clear line of sight though, and has resorted to hopping up and down. He thought he’d never have to do that again after his growth spurt, but desperate times call for desperate measures. He keeps catching only random snippets of the moving people, and the shaking ground and hollering on top of the elbows makes it hard to foc—
Was that blood? That was blood and holy shit, that dude just got fucking rocked.
They’re fighting. They’re not dancing, and Sero is an absolute idiot because this is obviously not a ballet performance.
It’s a fighting ring.
Holy shit.