Chapter Text
Quirks, a power possessed by 99% of the global population. Hundreds of years of evolution have resulted in a superhuman world, a society mixed with diverse individuals with powerful abilities. But with those quirks, some seek to satisfy their greed by sowing destruction, and some choose to uphold justice against those who seek harm. We call these people, villains and heroes. The battle between these two forces has become commonplace in society, and across the globe pillars of superhuman society have held strong for hundreds of years. One such pillar is The United States of America, the birthplace of old-world superhero comics. Tales of men in iron, invincible alien heroes, and twisted villains with a clownish smile. The rise of quirks has brought these stories to life, giving rise to many people who are forever written in our history books. This is the tale of one such hero. As a new, golden era of heroes rises in the bustling city of New York one question remains:
Whose names will be forever remembered, and who will change the world?
Bellevue Quirk Recovery Center New York City, 10:31pm
The boy woke in a white room, fresh cotton sheets pinning his body to the firm bed. He blinked as the sterile white room slowly came into sharper focus. On his right was a window, clear glass framing the thousands of lights shining throughout the cityscape under the pitch-black sky.
His head started to ache when he stared for too long, and when it became unbearable to look outside, he forced his head to turn away and scan his surroundings. By his bedside was a basket of red and yellow flowers, with a “get well soon!” card leaning against it, and across from him, a mounted TV was playing the evening news. Blaring theme music accompanied a blond reporter as she began to describe the crime scene of a gruesome kidnapping behind her. Her words were a jumbled mess, and the boy’s head was still spinning as he ran his bandaged hands through his messy black hair, soon pulling back with a hiss as a spike of pain shot through his arms.
A knocking sound snapped him from his stupor, and a gruff voice echoed throughout the room.
“Hey, kid. Are you awake?”
A man stood, leaning against the metal door frame with a concerned look on his face. He wore black pants, with a crisp blue uniform, and strapped to his belt were various tools and gadgets, though the boy’s vision was too blurry to make out what they were.
“You're Adam right?”
The boy’s eyes gradually focused as the stranger’s face became clearer.
“Look, I got a couple of questions regarding your incident Can you tell me anything about who did this to you-” The man’s words trailed off as he noticed the bloody bandages that ran up the boy’s arms and around his chest- “or what they did to you?”
Adam shook his head, his mouth clenched shut as he blearily stared at the officer.
The policeman sighed. “Alright then, how about this.”
He walked towards him, hastily holding his hands up when Adam flinched at his approach. “I’m just gonna use my quirk to look into your memories. It’ll be painless, and it should only last a second. I just need to know what happened to the kidnappers.”
Kidnappers? Adam thought. His face morphed from confusion to panic, and then dread. His blue eyes snapped to the TV and was horrified at what he saw.
The camera panned over the crowded dock filled with police cruisers, as drone shots of an abandoned, rusty warehouse on a shipping dock, began to flow across the screen. Then the camera switched over to the camera crew’s perspective, showing the inside of the warehouse. Masked men dressed in black clothes were scattered around the room. Their bodies were strewn in a bloody, chaotic mess, and the floor was marked with small gashes that dug inches into the solid concrete. The chatter of police radios blended with the urgency of first responders.
What truly shook the boy though, were the chains stained with blood, that wrapped around the kidnappers’ necks. Some of the chains brutally pierced their chests, while several other men had blood-red lashes around their arms and backs. Near the center of the room, they resembled an iron web, surrounding a shattered wooden chair.
Those are my chains , he slowly realized.
As the camera panned over to several police officers carefully inspecting the scene, Adam could see in the background a Hispanic man talking with two police officers in the background. His hands were clenched into tight fists, and his calm demeanor contrasted with the angry expressions of the other two officers. The man then turned and stomped away out of focus, but not before his green eyes glared at the camera. Red headlines scrolled underneath the footage, identifying him as the newly ranked number four hero, John Sven.
Suddenly, that same red flooded the boy’s vision as it filled the room, blinding him. As he moved to turn to the officer, he suddenly realized that he was tugging against straps of rough, black tape that suddenly bound him to a chair. The smell of blood and dead fish began to permeate the air, the sounds of the TV replaced by the echoes of footsteps and hushed whispers. The boy cried in pain as the tape dug into his skin, and he began to scream at the black silhouettes that suddenly surrounded him. He felt a rough hand hold his shoulder steady before the needle pierced his shoulder.
A few moments of baited breath, before agony erupted throughout his body. Iron chains erupted from his back, writhing and lashing at whoever was nearby. They were familiar, and yet not at the same time. The once polished gray had become dark black, and some of the links now bore rough edges that shredded his skin.
He commanded the chains to retract, to stand still, to listen to him at all. But the iron lines refused to bend to him, acting as if they had a mind of their own.
What’s happening to my quirk!! Stop Stop STOP! He clawed at the chains, trying to tear them from his back. He tugged and jerked at the iron links, but the chains stayed, and his palms were stained with red from several shallow cuts.
As Adam began to lose consciousness, he saw the warped face of a man dressed in an ornate lab coat, gripping a suitcase full of needles. The mad scientist’s mumblings were too quiet for him to hear, before the man suddenly walked out of the warehouse, seemingly unaffected by the sounds of the bloody massacre occurring around him. The cries for help fell on deaf ears, and many of the fallen men tried to reach out to him. The man continued to mumble to himself, brutally kicking their outstretched hands away as he now sprinted away. Adam lunged towards the coward who did this to him, straining the last bit of energy he had to reach him.
“Woah, woah. Calm down, kid. It's ok, it's ok.” A hand jerked his shoulders, forcing him to look at the officer, his face replacing the mad scientist. “Look at me. Look at your surroundings. You’re okay now.”
The boy gripped the cotton sheets and forced himself to look back at the window. His breathing became steady. He was back in the hospital; he wasn’t in the warehouse. The chains were gone.
“Maybe it would be better if we didn’t use my quirk.” The officer sighed, slowly pulling up a chair next to the bed. He pulled out a notepad, and softly asked, “Then can you tell me anything you remember about that night?”
(~)
Across the city, in a rundown apartment, another boy shook his eyes open, his blond hair splaying out against the rock-hard pillows, while his hazel eyes scanned the room before finally settling on his dad next to him.
Dressed in a black suit with gray stripes, he was staring intently at the cards carefully arranged on the table beside him. As the boy struggled to get up, he finally turned away from the cards to the bed.
“Never was good at solitaire.” He grumbled under his breath. The man glanced at the boy in bed, the cheap bandages starting to fall off as he struggled to move his legs. “Easy now, the drug should be kicking in. It’ll take a couple of days for it to finish according to the doctor.” The father heaved himself from his rickety seat, approaching the boy. “Well Tom, did it work?”
The boy answered by reaching over and lightly tapping his father’s hand, Tom’s discolored and scarred skin contrasting against his father’s wrinkled palm. Tom then waved that same hand, and much like a magician doing a card trick, a card suddenly appeared in the other hand. He began to reach out, his hands drawing cards from an invisible deck out of thin air, until he held three. Each card glowed a different color, seeming to emanate a tangible energy into the air. Tom grinned. “No burning, I can hold them just fine now.”
He then pinched the cards between his fingers and tore them into two. The cards dissolved into light, flowing up and down the boy’s arms before seeping into his skin. As the light began to fade, Tom closed his eyes. He clenched his fists, as the light pulsed underneath his skin, snaking towards the scars. Slowly, but surely, his wounds began to heal. The skin began to flake and layer over each other to cover up the various wounds, and scabs fell away into nothing.
He punched his fist out as fire shot from his knuckles. Then he shook this arm, and suddenly the skin became as hard as iron, a gray sheen replacing his pale skin up to his elbow.
The father's face calmly observed Tom, and as Tom shifted through the various quirks, his face slowly morphed into a grin. “Boys get in here!” he shouted, his voice echoing throughout the shabby apartment.
Two men in suits rushed into the room with an enthusiastic, “YES BOSS.” They stopped in their tracks as they saw Tom.
The two of them had doubts about the man who approached them a week ago, with one of them even wondering if the boss was going senile, (though he would deny ever saying that when Tom talked to him later). However, those same fears were laid to rest as they saw Tom, hand outstretched, using both of their quirks at the same time. All his scars were gone as if they were never there at all. His arm was now covered in iron plates, the tips of his fingers glowing red hot.
A few seconds of silence before one of them, Alex, complained “Ah, what the hell. That’s not fa- mph!”
The other one, Peter, quickly put his hand over his co-worker’s mouth. “Ignore this dumbass boss. He’s just scared that ol Tommy there'll outshine his firepower ”
“I’ll show you firepower you little shit,” Alex raised his hand to take a swing, flames engulfing his fist, before a loud cough from the boss interrupted him.
“That's enough you two. I want you guys to report to the doctor, and give him the thumb drive. They held up their end of the deal, so we’ll hold up our end as soon as Tom’s good to go.”
Tom nodded at all of this, then slumped back into bed. His hands no longer burned, as the iron plating dissipated into light that soaked into his skin. As he sat there, quietly listening to his father barking his next orders, his thoughts began to swirl. Goals and ideas that he could finally achieve, half-baked plans he could finally fulfill.
From now on he could finally contribute to the business, side-by-side with his father.
It’s finally a quirk I can use, he thought.
The background banter faded away, as he drifted off to a peaceful sleep.
(~)
NYPD: Quirk Investigations Office
New York City, 11:49 pm
“So, if you’re worried about your family’s safety, then tell us who is behind this, and we can protect you.”
The kidnapper, only shook his head, defiantly glaring at his interrogator. He was the fifth one to be dragged into the interrogation room, and the fifth to stay silent.
The detective sighed, frustrated by the lack of progress. No matter what he promised, or who he threatened, he still couldn’t get them to cooperate. Some of them even recoiled at the detective’s promises, fearing what would happen to them if they dared to speak up. Others only glared at him, struggling against the cold cuffs on their wrists.
After a few minutes of silence, the detective gave up. “Fine, maybe some time alone will get you talking.” He swiftly turned around, nodding towards the two guards as he left. Behind him, he heard a loud SLAM as the metal door was forced shut. He marched up the stairs and passed by the many busy departments, before finally reaching his destination.
He slumped at his desk, before taking out his laptop to sift through the new reports about the assault. As he worked, he quietly eavesdropped on the many conversations throughout the office, though most of it was gossip about the hero who arrived at the scene.
Some of the police officers shivered when they remembered Mr. Sven’s cold tone, and others were intimidated after learning John’s quirk. Many wondered where he came from, or what his hero name was. One of them even suggested that he was a new vigilante or a foreign hero.
However, one person wasn’t as shocked when he walked inside his private office, spotting that same rumored hero sitting across from his desk. He had an air of arrogance as he looked back at him, his dull gray eyes observing the chief of police.
“About time you got here sir.”
The police chief sat down, holding back a snarl from the hero across from him.
“If it isn’t John Sven. Last I heard, you went on hiatus after your entire squad got wiped out.”
For a second John’s smile wavered at the remark
“That’s right sir.”
John’s smirk began to turn slightly malicious as the police chief continued to press on. He laid out a couple of documents on his desk, most of them detailing John’s recent “heroic” exploits.
“Then-” he pointed at the top page, “-two months ago, you showed up out of nowhere, without warning, and walked straight into the headquarters of a notorious gang of villains. You demolished almost all of them in under an hour, but you did so without calling for backup, evacuating the citizens, or following any of the normal procedures..”
The police chief slammed his fists on his desk, before continuing, his voice growing louder and louder.
“And that’s not all. You also ran several other raids on prominent underworld groups. The Barons, the Neon Society, and even the infamous Red Roaders. We’ve been tracking the villains for a while now, trying to find a way to safely stop them. All were shipped to the prison in a month, by you John. You of all people. When not even a year ago you couldn’t even save your own team!”
As soon as those words left his mouth, a chill permeated throughout the small room. John’s face became fierce, his hands clenched into a fist. Police Chief Sanchez didn’t fear many people, but even he knew that Mr. Sven could cripple the entire Police Force if he felt like it. He took a deep breath, before continuing.
“So-” the police chief crossed his arms, glaring at John, “-what the hell are you up to? How are you somehow able to accomplish all of this, when just last year you were a rookie hero with an adrenaline quirk.”
John sighed, his fingers idly spinning a pen he stole from his interrogator’s desk. “First off, no one was hurt when I did those raids, and not a single one of your men could do anything about those villains for months despite knowing their whereabouts.”
He leaned closer to the warden, his face inches away from him. “And second, I’m sure the Association already notified you about the nature of my quirk. There’s no point in questioning me. I get the job done.”
John leaned back against his chair. “How about you send your men to investigate the rising rampage incidents instead of sitting on your ass asking pointless questions?” The warden snorted, before moving to grab his coffee mug.
“Fine, I’ll notify my men and have them contact the Association for any new information. If you won’t give me answers, maybe you’ll like it if I ask them.”
As the conversation began to fade, blending into the background noise of the office, the detective leaned back in his chair. His ears were beginning to turn red and irritated, as he tried to strain his quirk to listen more, before giving up with a sigh. Discreetly, he tucked away his small notebook filled with scribbled notes, before turning back to review a new report that had just arrived at his desk.