Chapter Text
Saparata lives a very average, miserable life. He has school, that's torture, and he also has a job, another horrible thing.
Not to mention, he lives in the darkest state of the country, the lower state of Yggdrasil. The place is a ruin, with buildings worn down and barely holding up, roads with cracks and potholes.
Alleys littered with trash and almost every wall sprayed with graffiti.
The state officials do nothing to fix the problems, maybe because they themselves are also in the slums. Last Saps heard, one of them was arrested for drug dealings. It couldn't possibly get any worse than that.
Except, villains have been frequenting the area for some reason. What could they possibly gain from the barren lands and crumbling buildings of Yggdrasil?
It also didn't help that more often than not, villain and hero fights would happen in Yggdrasil. Only adding more destruction to a place barely holding on by a thread.
Saparata is lucky he hasn't been caught up in the middle of those fights. He already has so much going on.
College is hell, the usual. But he's nearing finals, and he's been getting even less sleep due to having to take care of the flower shop that he works at. The second classes are over, he walks through sketchy streets and passes even sketchier people just to reach the flower shop faster. Then he takes his shift that lasts all the way to 10pm. Seriously, what flower shop opens till nearly midnight?! Theria Flower Shop, apparently.
Meagon, the owner of the flower shop, is a kind looking woman who could probably knock you into a headlock if you pissed her off. So Saps doesn't voice out his complaints.
He usually only did the early mornings and sometimes in the afternoon. Someone else used to handle nightshift. But now he's the only worker left. The only one coworker he had quit because of the risk of being caught in the crossfire of hero fights, with the building being set near the usual place of battle. Saps doesn't miss them, honestly. They've only ever really interacted once.
Saps is anxious every time he takes the shift, but he can't do anything about it. He doesn't have the time to find another job and he needs the money. Beggars can't be choosers after all. So Saps makes the arduous journey from his school to work everyday, since he doesn't even have time to go to his apartment anymore. Maybe that's a good thing.
His apartment's elevator is broken. So he has to climb up and down flights of stairs all the way to the tenth floor just to reach his apartment room that he's pretty sure has mold. Actually, the entire apartment building is growing mold.
Saps wonders if he'll die of mold poisoning first before he can even graduate.
Luckily, the pay is decent at least. All he really needs to do is man the front, bundle flowers into pretty bouquets, and then close the shop. Simple enough. It's also a little therapeutic. Saps loves flowers. He certainly doesn't mind constantly being around them at least.
At the moment, Saparata is wrapping a bouquet, arranging flowers to make them look presentable and pretty to the eyes. He hums quietly while doing so, thoughts trailing off to the lessons taught at school today.
He's also growing nervous for the upcoming finals. If he doesn't pass this, he might never get a chance to graduate. He can't afford the tuition after all. He's riding off school with a full scholarship which he cannot mess up.
Saps' dreams of getting into politics. He's seen horrible things in his time in Yggdrasil. He's seen all the difficulties the people have to go to just because the country has ignored them, deeming their state unfixable and thus, not deserving of their effort.
Choosing to ignore the people that still live in the lands they consider useless. He's seen too many die because of infections and sickness, not being able to treat themselves because of the lack of medical treatment and the ridiculous fees.
So when he does graduate, he'll work hard to be able to help the people of Yggdrasil. They're still humans, after all. It's stupid how the rich see them as just nothing but beggars. They treat them like nothing more than just a rock in their shoes, troublesome.
The people of Pandora are just too prideful and greedy with their money. Not to mention the heroes purposefully never patroll Yggdrasil.
They only ever really visit when there's a major villain sighting, like members of The conspiracy or other top villains. Even then, they still arrive late. And by then, the villains have already done their destruction.
He snaps out of his thoughts when a rose pricks his finger, hissing as a drop of blood seeps out of his finger. He must've missed a thorn. That's entirely his fault.
He sighs defeatedly and goes to the back room to get the first aid kit. He'd rather not have blood on his customers bouquet. While he's here, he might as well grab more wrapping paper and plastics.
He finds the first aid kit easily and takes out a band-aid and puts it on his finger that was pricked.
He stumbles over a few flower pots on the ground as he searches for some wrapping paper. He could've sworn he put some in the back.
The bell chimes at the front as he reaches for a plastic bag containing wrapping paper on a shelf that's too high for him to reach.
"Be there in a second!" He yells out as he trips over the pots again. He'll come back for the wrapping paper later with a stool.
He reaches the front register and looks around the shop, finding no one. He raises a brow, confused, looking around the shop as if a customer will show up if he just squints his eyes.
"Hello?" He slowly calls out. He feels a little stupid doing so, there's truly no one else in the shop. It must've been someone who got lost then. Or someone pranking him.
He shrugs and returns to wrapping the bouquet he was arranging minutes earlier.
It's silent for a moment. A comfortable one. Then Saps hears the rustle of leaves and flowers. He guesses it must've been just the wind.
Then he hears something like a flower pot roll on the floor. He looks up from his work, staring at the direction of the sound.
He thinks it's the wind again, so he slowly goes back to his work. Then another sound, something like someone breathing heavily follows.
Saparata stiffens, fully stopping his work to stare at the direction of the sound again. He thinks he might get robbed. But what kind of robber would hide?!
Maybe that was just the wind again... Then the wind makes a sound like a suppressed groan and Saps freezes like a deer in headlights.
His thoughts are running at lightning speed, voices in his head talking over each other much more than usual. He should check it out— but that's exactly how you die in a horror movie! A voice in his head says to pretend that it doesn't exist and it might disappear. He doesn't get paid enough to deal with this anyway.
But like the genius he is, he instead grabs the shears and holds it up like a weapon. He then slowly walks to where the sounds are coming from, each step wary. He holds the shears up to make it look threatening, but all it's doing is making him look like a terrified gardener.
For all he knows, it might just be a lost animal. But he's getting a horrible gut feeling about this. And he knows better than to doubt his instincts. But he's still doing it anyway.
Another groan comes from behind the table of flowers and this time it occurs to Saparata that the noise sounds pained.
He quickly rounds the table, shears now at his sides, and his jaw drops at the sight before him.
A person wearing a long black coat lined with gold and sharp at the edges, it stood like spikes, perhaps to make the wearer menacing. A high collared purple tunic with a large gash at the stomach and is slowly being stained by blood, purple turning into violet. The person wore a mask almost like a helmet, but the lower half of it was broken, exposing his jaw and mouth.
Saps knew this person. How could he not when he was almost always on TV. When he was in the daily news with reporters constantly warning the viewers to never engage if you had the unfortunate luck of encountering him.
The person who was currently bleeding out on Saparata's flower shop was non-other than The Architect.
The infamous number one villain. The leader of the conspiracy.
Destruction followed wherever The Architect was. Everywhere he appeared never ended in just a small battle or minimal collateral damage.
It always ended with the villain nearly leveling out an entire park, always leaving nothing but dust.
That same terrifying villain was now on his shop's floor, bleeding out and grunting as he clutched his injury in an effort to stop the bleeding. The flowers surrounding him slowly began to wilt into a depressing grey.
Saparata could only stare with his mouth wide. His life could turn even more miserable after all.