Chapter Text
Life is odd.
In the days, (months? years?) since the smushing time has seemed to crawl.
At first it was kinda fun, no school, no work, etc. Then the lack of consumerism got old, and finally the monotony and boredom set it.
What is there to do?
I tie my hair up with a short black strip of fabric I cut off the pants of my uniform.
Simple. We all do the same thing after all.
I push open the door of my apartment, and stare three stories down at the conveyer belt.
Most of the buildings seemed to appear overnight. Probably someone’s quirk. The electricity probably is too.
Below me, the conveyor belt chugs on with its disturbingly infinite contents. They are also disturbing in appearance, not just numbers.
I mean, of all the quirks to take over the world. Wasn’t even that powerful. I bet he just found some enhancers or something.
Most of the place is made of concrete. Minus the electrical wiring that must be somewhere, in order to fuel the lights, and the godsdamned waste of space running through everything.
I spent a long time waiting for someone I knew to show up. I still kind of expect it. His forces have taken over every part of the world now, even if everyone in the world hasn’t been sorted.
A population of 5 billion. That’s how many people are in the world. Or were at least, from the last time I had science class. Maybe some babies have been born or elders have died, who knows.
A very small percent of the population doesn’t have a quirk. That’s approximately 7,500,000. And if you exclude the people who are too old to work, and who can’t work due to some type of injury, that brings it down to 4,500,000, since the majority of the population of quirkless is from older generations, when the percentage was higher.
4.5 million. That’s the number of people here.
It’s the size of a large city.
It’s sole purpose is to manage the other four-point-something billion people on this planet.
Impossible, right? That would mean every human being is responsible for 100.
Well there’s allota math, and some quirks involved, but I don’t really know or care about any of that.
My job here… is to form a revolution.
Now I don’t want you getting any silly ideas.
My revolution isn’t gonna be some big, BAM, WHOOSH, NEW ORDER. It’s gonna be more of a ‘I kidnap a few people and make a super cool hangout place in the middle of the ENTIRELY EMPTY REST OF THE WORLD’ and maybe kill the leader if he’s gross.
I spare a disdainful look at the conveyer belt.*
You see, as far as most people are concerned, my quirk is useful.
Now I know what you’re thinking. “Wait! But strange person, who we do not canonically know the name of, didn’t something happen to all of the quirky people?”
Well, you’re wrong. Hah.
For the most part it did I guess.
Anyone with a half decent quirk got uhhh… bye-d. And also some really random quirks. But mostly it was anyone with an offensive or defensive quirk.
So basically the ones like making lights flicker or make their eyes change colors are counted as quirkless.
‘Cause who’s gonna see someone as a threat that can only grow their hair?
Officially, my quirk is listed as being able to take away pain.
Now see kiddos, the important word there is officially.
Unofficially, I can cut off the input of any nerve in the body. This means beyond pain receptors (Nosisceptors), I can cut off any other sense.
Basically suspending someone in a void.
Now, I’m sure you’re thinking ‘well that sounds like it’d traumatize someone’.
If not, what's wrong with you. How desensitized are you? Ladidah, being stuck in a featureless void is relatively ok!
Anyways it has traumatized people before. But that’s a story for another time!
I’ve kinda just been walking this whole time, and I’ve arrived at my place in assembly.
What do we do in assembly? Simple! We stand in a 4.5 million people long line and watch the weirdest potatoes in existence drift by on a conveyer belt.
Sounds fun doesn’t it.
Of course there’s shifts, so it’s never 4.5 million at once, but you get the idea.
Oh. and we also don’t do anything.
Anything.
We just. Stare. At. Potatoes.
They aren’t really potatoes. But they are.
Some hours must pass or something. I dunno. I just spend time trying to guess people’s quirks.
FINE. I JUST GET THIS SENSE THAT MAYBE I SHOULD ACKNOWLEDGE WHAT’S ACTUALLY ON THE CONVEYOR BELT THAT’S CURRENTLY TRAUMATIZING A BUNCHA CHILDREN SOMEWHERE IN THIS LINE.
It’s people. Some weird quirk was used on ‘em, and now they’re just smushy lumps of flesh.
You know, this would’ve been slightly more tolerable if it was a decent quirk, like that one villain who trapped people in marbles. At least that wasn’t WEIRD ASF.
But here I am, the secretly overpowered conveyer belt watcher.
Yeah so. That thing I talked about is starting to set in. The crippling, cursed, godsawful, BOREDOM.
I AM SO BORED.
Ok, you know what?
None of these buggers will talk to me ‘cause they don’t want to get smushed. So I’ll just kidnap someone and go home early.
I mean save. I’ll save someone. Unwillingly.
I lean my head over the conveyer belt and stare down it.
I gotta pick someone with cool eyes. Like not traumatized eyes, but not crazy.
It’s kinda hard to tell, but eventually I spot a potato that looks decent.
No one really even looks at me for not being a depressed robot. Turns out the best way to enforce a weird dystopia isn’t surveillance, or fear, it’s literally not knowing anyone, being depressed, AND BORED OUT OF YOUR MIND.
Which is probably what these hopeless blokes are. Hah. I’m only like two of those. Or three. Or maybe one. But I sure am bored.
Booore duh
Oh hey, the eye potato is coming up.
WAIT HOW AM I GONNA GRAB IT. I don’t wanna touch ittttt. And how am I gonna smuggle it away?
I look at the blank faces all around me.
Yeah smuggling it, more like carrying it above my head while screaming it to the world would be just peachy.
WAIT I HAVE GLOVES. AAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAa.
When it comes I grab the surprisingly heavy potato like it’s a suitcase I’m pulling off the suitcase carousel thingy at an airport. The difference is I can’t then drop said suitcase on the ground, and it weighs the same.
Wait.
Yes I can.
I use my quirk so that the potato will not feel said ground, then set (drop) the potato on the floor and drag it the rest of the way to the steps.
You’re welcome potato.
But then I have to carry it up the steps and I swear it weighs more than me.
Probably because it does.
WHY DO I LIVE ON THE THIRD FLOOR.
Eventually I get there. Somehow. Maybe I also have a strength quirk.
My room doesn’t have a door, because none of them have doors.
It does have a bathroom, which is where I put the potato, I put it in the tub.
How to grow potatoes? Probably get some sorta person with an electric quirk to shock the elasticity back into the cells.
BUT THERE AREN’T ANY.
Have to admit, maybe the evil dictator had half a brain cell.
But what can I do?
I leave my home and begin walking up the stairs.
It’s time to go to the underground market.