Work Text:
H stands for hero.
“Just a normal Tuesday night, huh?” H shouted, skidding across the wet roof tiles, narrowly dodging a laser blast that sends ceramic shards into his path. He leaps to the next roof, abruptly rolling out of the way of a well aimed sword that embeds itself in the concrete, the owner stopping for mere seconds to retrieve it before following. Below him follows two more figures, one whose arms sparkle in the night sky, another with electricity coursing across his body.
The two on the ground continually fire at him, ensuring that he wouldn’t split off from their path and keeping him within easy sight of the third, the darkness of night preventing them from seeing clearly. One zap comes a bit too close for his liking and he swerves, foot slipping off the tiles. The starred figure stops to try and catch him, and he twists, spreading his arms wide. Void pours from his fingertips and blankets his fall, covering the first.
The shock comes before the sound, and he collapses, the void dissipating. The second figure grabs his hands and wrenches them behind his back, locking them with dampener cuffs. In the moment his hands are tied, lightning flashes across the sky, then fireworks erupt, sounds of gongs ringing and confetti exploding from nowhere, an audience cheer rising from around them.
In the next, the world changes into a smooth gray room, portions of the walls and floors shrinking or growing to simulate a blank cube. H, no longer restrained, clapped enthusiastically. “Wonderful job, you three! Makes me wonder why the higher ups refuse to let you go out when clearly you’re ready for anything!” He shoots a look towards an observation deck, Oli behind the window with a wide grin. “Though I do have to hope that you won’t just stop once you catch the person you’re chasing.”
Team ZIT, their own name, not his, high-fived each other, Zedaph immediately cradling his hand at Tango’s heat coming into contact with his bare skin. H dismisses them back to the cool down room and saunters out the main doorway himself, lightly knocking on the door to the observation. It opens with a gentle click and he follows the slowly blinking lights up the stairway, taking note to get around to fixing the 2nd from the bottom.
Inside sits Oli, who is currently flickering through several monitors worth of information that scrolls much too fast for H to read, and he even still is scribbling cramped words across an exploding notebook, mumbling words under his breath. “Hey H!” He calls, looking up for a moment before directing his attention back to the screens. “There’s a few improvements I need to make in the sim but other than that I think the suggestions you had actually improved it a little bit more.” Oli spins the notebook to him, allowing him to see about 2 seconds of a design he cannot make out, before grabbing it back and jotting down another note over the bulk.
H suppresses a laugh, instead leaning over his shoulder to glance at the one monitor he can understand, a simple recorder that played back the last session. Normally the technopath would berate him for touching all his “high-tech, fancy-schmancy” equipment, but Oli seemed distracted enough so he pushed play on the remote, carefully observing each teammate’s work. The trio seem to be working together on capturing just fine, but needed to improve their skills on tracking, given that half the time two of them would just goof around, all guilty of it.
His hands are brushed away then by Oli, who pulls out a slim pad from under the desk, tapping it twice and then handing it to H, who places his hand on the centre. It beeps once it’s finished recording his vitals and he plugs it back into the port under the desk, information quickly being transferred across to the main monitor, where Oli rapidly scans through his and other heroes' information before allowing it to settle in their databanks. A hand flaps at him to leave, and he pulls a juice box from the cafeteria, settling it on one of the few open spaces, before heading back down the stairs and out the door, which locks behind him.
The hallway, once pristine and cold when the building was first constructed, is now covered in dirt, mud, various shades of grass, mycelium and fungi hanging from the ceiling, and laces of crystals poking from the walls. Water occasionally drips upwards, the few hydropaths working here having constructed a much safer passageway for any with gills or the inability to breathe without water for long periods of time. Small buzzes can be heard from miniature bees, who spin and dive across the many flowers blooming through the cracks in the stone bricks.
Stepping into the lobby, he’s immediately greeted by the multitude of sounds that typically came from a mid-Monday morning, with heroes flitting about the waiting areas and secretaries chattering away to guests, vigilantes, or heroes-in-training. Snippets of conversation float by as he continues to the cafeteria, the endless talks filling the once quiet hum in his ears. There was Tubbo, a speed based hero, complaining about the last encounter he had with the villain named Ender, who could fly and create indestructible barriers that his speed couldn’t break. (H had always seemed to fail to mention that Grian, one of the older heroes, had the same power and would occasionally call in sick around the time he showed up.)
Then there was Fundy, a young hero with the ability to channel animal traits given focus, chatting with SeaPeeKay, a pyrokinetic who had kitsune tails. Both were often jokingly called furries, and eventually gave up on denying it and instead just enduring the taunts. More often than not, depending on who got ticked off, the person would get a lovely surprise in the morning, be it extensive fire or everything gone from the room. H was the only one immune to Fundy’s wrath due to an accidental void possession during the prank. Neither ever spoke of the incident ever again. (H actually did, many times, just never around Fundy.)
As he slips through the swinging doors, he narrowly avoids Mumbo, a tall man with both telekinesis and technopathy, who spends his time building machines and devices to aid the other heroes. While a lot of them tended to blow up in the testing process, his friend Iskall, a teleporter with a keen eye for when he was about to do something stupid, could almost always keep him out of harm’s reach. The other was holding a thick clock in his hand, time seemingly slowing down around him as the ticks of the second hand grew louder and louder. Keralis most likely had the smart idea to steal Nightmare’s tech and then give it to Mumbo, knowing that the man would be invested in finding out what made it tick.
He grabs an apple from the fresh produce bin by the ever flowing tree, snagging a small water bottle from Pete’s potion stand when he isn’t looking. A bell rings out overhead, and all the heroes stand up, half grumbling, and exit out the cafeteria in an extremely disorderly fashion. Oli’s voice comes over the speaker, in a rush and clearly excited, “ We’ve got a live one, just south of here! Twitts saying it’s a biggie, so make sure you’re fully prepped! ” A second tone follows that, Mumbo’s voice soon following, “ Those in training who have passed the regulated course will be able to take a centre position in today’s fight. Safe travels. ”
A small ripple in the void he shares causes him to pause, instantly alert and searching for the source, before realising that Pete dipped into it to steal back the soon to be potion bottle from his hand. H fishes through the multitude of frozen sea creatures and pulls out an icy cold water bottle, tossing away the cork and downing it in a single gulp. The chill spreads throughout his body before dissolving into the void, Pete almost instantly sending him back a mental image of a middle finger, and he giggles, closing his eyes and imagining his room.
Popping into his small space, he grabs a pair of dark gloves and tugs them on, tucking a pair of flight goggles around his neck. In the next moment, he drops into the void, spreading 2 sets of large golden wings and shooting off into the distance. H can vaguely feel Pete and Iskall dropping, several of the others sending greetings through the clamp of the void. Strapping on the goggles, he takes a deep breath, and merges, allowing the void to run rampant for a moment, before emerging on a small island made of bedrock in the End. Ren and Stress both wave hi, while Martyn and Phil seem engrossed in a debate over which of them could theoretically last the longest in the void.
Iskall lands first beside him, dragonfly wings retracting in a quick buzz. Unlike H, the void rests in his hair, making it sparkle, giving him the ability to form shields of void. Pete, landing next, shows off with a few fancy flips as he dives in, the void in his feet creating small landings for an easier touch. While not all of the void-touched were considered heroes within society, most specifically the Captain, Xisuma, and Phil (and depending on the day or the week, Grian), H would still consider them heroes.
“Well, now that most of us are here, should we begin?” Xisuma says, practically melting from the void onto the island, Grian excitedly bouncing from behind him over to Stress. A small murmur of agreement from those present draws Phil and Martyn’s attention, and the twins turn to face X. “Wonderful. First order of business is to address the monsters that keep spilling from the ocean. None of the people I know have any idea who has been endlessly creating them, and frankly, it’s getting annoying to not be able to destroy the city because something else already has.”
Iskall winces. “That… may have been one of my old experiments. Been trying to shut it down but it just doesn’t stop.” Eight different glares are thrown his way, and he sighs, eye flickering. “Okay okay, I’ll get it tomorrow, geez.”
Clearing his throat, Xisuma continues. “Alright. The second order of business is why you two,” this was directed towards Phil and Martyn, the former looking away and feigning innocence, “have suddenly become all buddy-buddy whenever we have a fight. The heroes are starting to catch on, and we both know that means they’re going to start sending mail.”
“To be fair, I haven’t said anything on the matter,” Martyn says quickly, a flick of his ear betraying his nervousness, “and also, even if I did say I was, they wouldn’t believe me.” Phil elbows him, a grin on his face, and all he can do is roll his eyes, shoving the other back.
“I don’t think they’d do anything worse than sending you mail, X. I’ve been working with the heroes for years and all they’ve ever sent me was a birthday card two weeks late.” H says, void spiraling from his fingertips. Distantly he can hear a single beep through the throb of his heartbeat. “Speaking of which, I think Oli’s paging me. Gotta go.”
“We’ll continue on without you, H. Glad you could at least make today’s meeting,” Ren calls, sunglasses gleaming in the darkness. Void spills from his canines just slightly, making his grin look even deadlier in the small light. He tips a two-fingered salute and hops off the island, submerging and emerging back in his room, hastily pulling off his gloves and goggles, letting the wings dissolve.
Just as they disappear, Oli busts open his door, clutching a phone, his excitement having overloaded it to a blue screen. “It’s tech!” He yells, waving the broken phone around. “I was right all along they’re not just monsters!” He grabs H’s hand and tugs him along the corridor, spewing tech jargon and various other half-finished sentences before stopping and letting his hand go. “Oh sorry, totally forgot, the head of Major Creates for You Tomorrow wanted to see you! Perks of being a hero, I guess!” With that, he sprints through the corridor and disappears into his own room, still excitedly yelling.
H shakes his head in disbelief, before turning back and heading towards the front. While he may not have considered himself a hero, it felt nice to be seen as one, even amongst all those who had passed through their ranks. There’s nothing better to him than helping anyone who wanted to be a hero, because then he can help show them a future where they didn’t need to worry.
Maybe he is a hero.