Chapter Text
Zanka grunted and lifted himself up on his elbows, eyes blurry, the corners of his vision hazy as he processed what just happened.
What just happened?
All he remembered was fighting--who again? The raiders? He wasn't so sure at this point. His heart was pounding and his breathing was labored as he pulled himself up, grabbing lovely assistaff and sighing and relief as he held her tight.
He pushed himself up, using lovely as a crutch, as much as he didn't want to, he had to. Zanka stumbled towards Riyo, dropping onto his knees beside her and attempting to shake her awake. "Ri- Riyo.." He tried to call out, but it only came out as a weak whisper, broken and hoarse.
Zanka huffed, she barely stirred, but as he slowly started to get himself together, someone was starting to wake up.
"Fu," Zanka called out breathlessly.
The white-haired boy sat up, head spinning as he looked at Zanka. "Oh, mister, mister!!" He sat up properly and looked around. "Where- where are we-? I'm so scared.. I don't wanna be here." He whimpered, drawing his knees up and curling into himself.
Zanka sighed and crawled towards him, finally gaining some sort of mobility in his limbs and proper vision. "Yer good with orders." Zanka whispered to himself, making the other look up, tears and snot already streaming down his face. "Help me get these three to a safer place."
And like a switch, Fu had picked the three up--and for some reason, Zanka as well. "Wait, wait- wait-- I didn't say me!" Zanka huffed, but Fu had already jumped onto the rooftop of the nearest building, which was like, five stories tall.
"Holy shit.." Zanka huffed as Fu carefully dropped him onto his feet, and the three laying down, now facing awfully bright sun.. nevermind. No sun. Just smoke and fire and debris. "What the hell?"
The three started to stir awake, Fu, or Hii, as he called himself, also stared at the chaos.
"Damn.. what's happening?" Riyo asked as she sat up, alongside the two, rubbing the back of her head, hair now messy.
"No idea, but it doesn't look like we're on the ground." Zanka answered, just above them, something large, dismantled and disgusting flew. "Trash beasts?" Zanka concluded.
"No idea, but if they are, y'all know what we gotta do." Riyo sighed, standing up and patting herself down. Hii was quiet and looked back at them, waiting for the next move.
"Let's clean up." Zanka, Riyo, and Rudo said in unison.
Zanka stood up properly, all haziness from earlier replaced with the adrenaline of fighting. Lovely asisstaff transformed, Rudo already had a piece of trash in his 3R, and Riyo spun Ripper around her finger.
Zanka took a step back, spun lovely around and slammed her arch into the ground. It was quiet for a second.
"There's a crowd, Amo and Fu- Ahem, Hii will deal with that, aight?" Hii and Amo looked up at him, Amo nodding Lazily while Hii was already picking her up effortlessly, holding her on his shoulder while she yelled orders at him.
Rudo stood up, Transforming the broken mannequin arm in his hands into one large hand--inspiration from that one raider he didn't bother learning the name of. Cowboy bundah something.
The three stood back to back, facing two different trash beasts in front of them. "Let's clean these fucking beasts." Rudo said, the two nodded and they all lunged into the direction of their rightful opponents.
Zanka landed in front of a large beast, smaller than usual, but it seemed strong, almost human-like. It didn't look like a trash beast, but whatever. No time to question it. Zanka jumped up and slammed Lovely into it's side, plummeting it meters away and slamming the hilt into it's belly, giving it an open wound as he slammed it back into the ground, it's organs crumbling from the pressure.
Next was a buff one, like Delmon, but of course, uglier. Not that Delmon was ugly, no offense. Zanka ran at it, elbowing it in the ribs (?) and crashing lovely right into it's shoulder, her beautiful arc to it's neck as four spikes snapped out, weird, slimy blood coming out of it as Zanka twisted lovely, completely snapping the trash beast's head off.
He turned around, just to see a.. weird... deformed lady and her just as animalistic child trembling. What the fuck were these things? The two burst out crying and jumped into Zanka's arms, praising him and thanking him.
Well, if aliens were praising him, he didn't mind all too much. But he did mind being touched by a bunch of random people, so he took a step back, then another, and another, and another..
Riyo carefully observed the trash beast for a good two second before plummeting down with her ripper by her side. "Wow, so you all are just a bunch of.. what? Bald headed freaks?" She scoffed.
"So boring!" Riyo kicked the ripper high up in the air, jumping and catching them with her legs. She was quick and efficient, despite two beasts lunging at her. She opened ripper wide and cut the two right in half, and then coming back down to chop them up some more for good measure.
"Whew! Too easy." She sighed, holding the ripper to her back as they transformed back into her usual scissors, slipping them back into their rightful, safe, place. She placed her hands on her hips and looked around, watching as people poked their heads out, seeing her standing there over two dead beast bodies. She stared down.
Organs. Not trash. Actual organs. Like lungs, stomach, liver, brain and all that.
Did she just kill two people or was it her imagination?
The people around her cheering and praising her sounded like muffled compared to the buzz in her ears.
Rudo slammed the hand into one of the trash beasts, the mannequin arm growing in size. It completely engulfed the trash beast, squeezing it's brains out like a can of soda, but it was in a literal sense. Blood and brains quite literally popped out of the trash beast.
He didn't get the chance to think about it as the other one lunged at him. Rudo reacted quick, using the mannequin hand to punch the beast down into the ground, it's insides spread out once again. The people around him started to become less shy, surrounding him with praise as he.. killed someone?
He took a step back. "What? Uh," He was bombarded with questions.
"Who are you?"
"What's your hero name?"
"What's your quirk?"
"Are you a UA student?"
Rudo didn't know what half of these people were talking about. He took a step back, and then several as the horde of people chased him and he eventually bumped into Riyo, who seemed just as startled as him, and then Zanka, who seemed nearly overwhelmed with the press. Hii and Amo jumped behind them, seemed like people noticed their heroism too, considering how they were also bombarded with similar questions.
Zanka was getting fed up with this. But before he could say anything, two men separated the crowd. One looked like a fire kind of guy, like the fire on him was realistic, no idea what that was about and, the other had red wings for some reason. Was everyone in cosplay today? Didn't realize the doll festival started so early.
"Alright everyone," The blonde's smooth voice came in, sweeping over the crowd. "Please relax, let us pro heroes take care of this." He said, the two 'pro-heroes' guided them away from the crowd, a whole lot of girls screaming 'hawks'.
Who the hell were these guys?
Zanka felt a tap on his shoulder and looked down to see Amo, looking up at him, definitely frightened. "Amo has never been around this many people before. Amo is overwhelmed." She whispered.
Zanka put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, soon as we get outta here, we'll find a way back to the cleaners. M'kay?" Amo nodded and took a step closer to him.
Rudo looked back, he and Zanka sharing a skeptical glance as the.. what did they call their selves again? Pro heroes or something. The pro heroes led them into a building. The guy with wings sat down on a piece of debris, the other guy just stood there with his arms crossed.
Zanka put lovely in her holster and stood at the back, the other four faced the.. pro heroes.
"So. You kids are aware using your quirks in public is illegal, right?" The bird said, a forced smile on his lips.
The kids collectively turned to look at Zanka of all people, causing the adult's gaze to fall in him.
"What? I didn't know that, don't look at me fer an answer." He frowned. He had half a mind to smack these guys upside the head.
"You're the oldest." Riyo pointed out.
"Wow. That's great." Zanka rolled his eyes.
"Geez, this guy always sassy?" Hawks chuckled, aiming the joke towards red-head, who did not give him the same response. "Okay, okay." Hawks backed up and looked at the kids again.
"So what I'm getting from this—none of you kids know that you're not allowed to use quirks?"
"Yeah, genius!" Rudo snapped, stomping his foot on the ground. "This is some fucking bullshit!! Where are we anyways? You tell or we're gonna rock your shi--mhh!!!" Zanka clamped a hand over Rudo's mouth.
"He's lying."
"I'm not!!!" Rudo yelled, voice still muffled while he tried to pry Zanka's hand off.
"Ignore him." Riyo cut him off. "Look, we're teens. We've no idea what's happening and we really gotta get home soon." She said with a serious face, stepping in front of Rudo.
The fire-man's phone rang, he picked it up.
The birdman raised a brow. "Alright, then you might not be familiar with us." He pointed to himself. "I go by Hawks, number two pro hero," his finger moved to the large man beside him. "This is Endeavor. Our current number one pro hero."
"What does any of that mean?" Rudo huffed as soon as Zanka took his hand off his mouth.
"Means it's a bunch of bullshit. Let's go." Zanka turned on heel and used lovely to pull Amo and Rudo along.
"We'll offer you free housing until you find your way home." Endeavor called out. Zanka froze and turned around.
...
"What's the catch?"
"You and your little.. friend group stay at UA."
Zanka tilted his head. "UA." he parroted, a pause between the two letters.
"What's a UA?" Amo asked curiously. Riyo rolled her eyes, a lazy grin spreading on her face at the adult's surprised look.
"The school? For heroes?" Hawks answered, as if trying trigger a memory in their head. The teens looked at eachother in complete confusion.
Endeavor pursed his lips. "It's a school where students train to become pro-heroes like us."
That earned a collective 'ooohhhh' from the group.
"Amo still doesn't get it." She mumbled.
"So yer sayin'.. we get free housin' if we.. train at yer little school?" Zanka asked, not bothering to hide his accent.
"It's not little." From the birdman.
"Yes." Endeavor answered. "No payment needed, the principal is interested in your abilities and quirks."
They still didn't know what a quirk was and what these pro heroes did, but whatever worked. Besides, these guys seemed beloved in a weird society where everyone was some sort of mutant.
"Sure." Zanka mumbled, Rudo stared at him like he was some sort of maniac. "How does da principal know bout us?"
"You're on the news." Hawks held his phone up, pointing at the reporter, the news headline being something about kids and heroes coming to save the day.
"Is that a good thing?" Fu whispered.
"I guess. Does that make us famous or something?" Riyo quipped, placing her hands on her hips.
"Yeah, something like that.." Hawks answered, pulling his phone away and pocketing it once again. "So, ready to go to school, or?"
"I've never been to a school." Rudo answered.
"Amo hasn't either."
"I think I was only in for like, primary."
"Me too." Fu answered.
Those murmurs had the two heroes raise a brow. Hawks tilted his head and chuckled nervously. "Right. Uhm, how about you, Blondie?"
Zanka raised a brow. "I've been to school."
"How long?"
"Long enough." He answered vaguely, frowning at the question. Hawks nodded.
"Okay, okay."
"We'll need you kids to fill out a few papers." Endeavor said, already turning on his heel to walk out of the building. Zanka frowned, He gestured for the others to walk ahead of him, once again at the back of the group.
And of course, he didn't trust birdman, or Hawks, being behind him, so he held lovely in his hands as they walked out of the building. The sun was setting and civilians were being saved, fires put out, and the buildings already being inspected by engineers with whatever insane tech they had here.
Other heroes, or maybe supporters surrounded the group, stopping the people and news reporters from crowding them and luckily protecting their reputation and privacy.
Hawks sped his pace up and used his wings to cover the boy beside him. "So, about that stick.."
"She's not just a stick." Zanka retorted.
"Right, right. You do anything else you can do than just swing her around?" Zanka gave hawks a nasty glare and sped his pace up just to walk away from Hawks. The hero sighed. "Sensitive." He commented.