Hey there! This was made for Something Witty's Fanfiction Friday stream! Soupcan Academy is hilarious, from the expansion to the My Hero world Izzy creates to the dumb things the players do. So as Soupcan's number one fanboy of all time, it was my responsibility to write the first Soupcan Academy fanfiction! Enjoy!
P.S., this doesn't take place in the fixed timeline. It's an alternate ending to the tournament arc, and takes place over a hypothetical weeks long timespan between parts 4 and 5. For short, this does not realistically fit into the Soupcan timeline.
P.S.S., this is not the original first chapter. After careful consideration, I looked back at the original post and thought "I can do better", and after months of procrastination, revisions, and losing a good chunk of it at first because my computer hates me, I posted it and then decided I still don't like it. So, here's the third version of the story. Enjoy!
It was late in the afternoon in Forgotten Falls. The sun was slowly setting over the horizon, with its rays shining on the waterfall that a town like this really didn't deserve to have. And just on the other side of the waterfall, inside Soupcan Academy, were the usual group of friends in their dorms. But while Guy and Ernis were preparing for dinner and Briny watched the adorable Gale as he was taking a literal cat nap, not all of the group were doing well.
As in the dorm room just down the hall, smoke was seeping through the door.
As Tor was walking through the halls of his school, he seemed like he didn't have a care in the world. The expression on his face was that of a newborn puppy, confused and just happy to be alive. He had decided earlier that day that since he didn't really know his way around the school, he would take his Saturday to explore the ins and outs of this former death fortress.
But after a long day of seeing the cool places this school had, including Dr. Jameson's lab of lights and screaming and the school store where a cat tried to sell him this delicious looking bag of sugar, he was just happy to go back to his room and relax before they went over to Guy and Ernis' room for dinner.
Tor did feel bad, however, for leaving Hansen alone for so long. The young man had been under the impression that his roommate deeply cared for him as a friend, which was technically true, though Tor never believed Hansen would say so out loud.
He's kind of like that guy from that animated documentary show, Dragon Ball Z, Tor thought as he continued traversing the halls. They're both strong, violent, and never give up. Like yesterday, when Hansen was fighting Ms. Springfield-
Suddenly, Tor's train of thought ended as he realized just how much smoke he was inhaling. Snapping back to reality, he saw nothing in front of him but a thick black smoke filling the hallway.
Okay, I don't think that was here before, Tor thought, stepping back to get out of the thick cloud.
After looking at the smoke for several minutes, he determined that it, in fact, wasn't there before, though he couldn't tell what caused it. It couldn't have been fire, because as his uncle Kaz had always told him, "Smoke leading to fire is a myth created by the liberal media, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a communist". Tor felt momentarily sad, thinking about how his uncle Kaz died in a house fire, before covering his mouth and running into the smoke. Using only his memory and the brief amount of vision he had, Tor was somehow able to manage his way back to his front door, the smoke hitting him harder as he got closer. He opened the door, stumbling through and shutting it as the smoke cleared from his vision.
After Tor was done coughing up all the smoke he had inhaled, he started to notice a couple of things. First off, there was still some smoke in the room, but it looked like it was going out through the cracks in the door, which meant it was coming from inside the room. The source of which became apparent with the sound of a faint, weak sounding voice.
"Tor…" Hansen faintly called out. Tor turned around to see Hansen laying face down on his bed with smoke emanating from the nape of his neck. He quickly ran over to his roommate's bedside. Hansen looked up at him, appearing to be completely drained.
"Didn't think you'd be back so soon." Hansen told him.
"Hansen, I've been gone for five hours." Tor responded. "What were you doing?"
Hansen looked around with a nervousness on his face even Tor could detect. He didn't want Hansen to keep secrets, because as Tor saw in the Avengers, that breaks up teams, so he didn't want secrets between the gang [also, the only way to bring them back together was to kill their version of Agent Coulson, and Tor liked Sherwin].
"Hansen, just be honest with me," Tor asked, "What were you doing?"
"I was… trying to burn down the school again." Hansen got up from his bed and began walking literally anywhere Tor wasn't to try to avoid talking about this.
However, despite the clear nervousness he was showing, it made sense to Tor. "Okay, but don't do it again, or I'm taking away your fireworks again."
Hansen looked back at his roommate. "Last time you did that, you left them in an open box next to my bed labeled 'Hansen's Fireworks'."
"Yes, it was a test to see if I could trust you to not steal them back." Tor told him. "You failed."
"I noticed." Hansen continued walking away from Tor. "Give me five minutes, and we can go to Guy and Ernis' place." Tor nodded at him as he noticed the smoke was dissipating from his roommate's neck.
Wait a minute, Tor pondered for a moment as he connected the dots before coming to a shocking realization.
Smoke does lead to fire?!
Meanwhile, in a dorm room just a few hallways down, in a way too well equipped kitchen for a student at this school, Guy was checking on the grilled salmon. He decided to give it another minute or two before beginning to fillet another salmon, under the impression that Gale would want seconds so that they didn't have another barracuda incident. Guy smiled to himself, now glad that they got that padlock for their fridge. However, the calm, salmon-smelling atmosphere of the kitchen was interrupted by a panicked Ernis running in.
"Did you burn it?" Ernis asked with panic in his voice. Guy looked over to him, confused.
"What?"
"Did you burn it?" Ernis repeated. "Yes or no?"
"No, I didn't burn it." Guy calmly told him. Ernis wasn't any less frenzied.
"Oh, really? Then why do I smell something burning?" Ernis quickly ran to check the trash for anything smoking. Guy just stood there, confused and a little bit scared. He knew that Ernis was stressed, as the company that supplies him with his exotic animal meats have been under heavy fire from the FDA recently, but this took the cake [not unlike the barracuda incident, where a beautiful cake lost its life to Gale's fish-fueled frenzy].
"Dude, nothing's burning." Guy asked. "The whole room smells like salmon, how would you even smell it?"
"A few years ago, there was an incident where I ate the meat of something that had a really good nose." Ernis explained, still searching through the trash. "I don't remember what it was, but it hasn't completely passed yet."
Guy asked the first question that came to his mind. "Was it dog?" Ernis stopped mid-trash search and looked at him.
"No, it wasn't dog." Ernis answered, sounding offended at the mere idea. "What the fuck?"
"I'm just saying, dogs have strong noses, so…" Guy trailed off as Ernis walked over to him, looking very angry.
"Dude, why the fuck would I eat dog meat?" Ernis stared at him, waiting for an answer.
"I don't know, maybe you ate dog and didn't know it." Guy answered, trying and failing to salvage any shred of logic in his words. "Actually, I think that in some countries-"
"You know what? Screw it." Ernis said, tired and defeated for every reason. "Hansen's probably just trying to burn down the school again." He walked over to the fridge and began to unlock it. "I need another Red Bull."
"That's your fifth one today!" Guy worryingly told him. Ernis closed the fridge and started to walk away with the Red Bull.
"And it's still not enough!" Ernis exclaimed before beginning to down the beverage. Guy went back to check on the salmon.
Guy decided that he was not going to get involved with any of his roommate's crazy bullshit tonight. Instead, he returned to filleting a fish as he heard Ernis go back to yelling at his suppliers.
Meanwhile that other meanwhile, in another dorm room just around the corner of Tor and Hansen's hallway, Briny sat on her bed, waiting for Gale to get done changing. She thought about yesterday's rescue training, and what a harrowing yet ultimately terrifying experience it was. She was happy that she got to do it, despite breaking her arms. And possibly scarring a girl for life. And putting the living rescue dummy in more danger than he was originally in. And the general fear everyone was experiencing not just for themselves, but for those around them.
After it was all said and done, it was nice, Briny thought. It was fun to jack the other student's training with Hansen.
After the training was over, Briny was thinking a lot about how nice Hansen was to her. Usually, he seemed like an agent of chaos who wanted nothing more to win fights and burn things. But since the first day, she had felt that Hansen had shown her a certain level of kindness, as least compared to the other students. He was nice enough to fly her over to the school, and just yesterday, he asked her to join him in hijacking the rescue training.
Why me, specifically? Briny thought. Is it the cuteness? It might be the cuteness.
Briny's train of thought came to a halt as Gale stepped out of the bathroom wearing what was technically a tuxedo. It was actually Halloween costume, the kind made for cats that lonely people force their pets to wear. It was more akin to a onesie, a black one with a tuxedo pattern on the front, like those T-shirts that your friends wear to formal events to be funny when they're really just lazy.
"Wow, Gale." Briny said, trying not to laugh. "You look… paw-fect." As she began cracking up, unable to control herself anymore, Gale looked up at her disappointedly.
"Briny, I had to go to PetSmart to get this, so I'm not in the mood." She immediately stopped, looking ashamed at what she'd done.
"Sorry, Gale. What's wrong with PetSmart?"
Gale sighed. "It's kind of embarrassing for a bipedal cat person to enter a pet store. Also, there's the fact that my father would sometimes sell cat clients that had crossed him to PetSmart."
"Oh my god, really?" Briny said, thinking in horror about her aunt's pet cat Scratches and whether or not all those times he knocked things over were actually cries for help.
"No, not really! Oh my god, your reaction was priceless!" Gale said, laughing quite a bit. "No, I don't actually know what he does with his clients."
Gale started walking towards the door as Briny followed him, grabbing a water bottle on her way out in case she needed to spray Gale if there was another barracuda incident. It also might of had to do with a slight unnerving feeling as she was reminded that her adorable roommate is of mafia blood.
"Hey Briny," Gale called out to her from the hallway, "does one of the students at this school have a Quirk that makes them look like a large cloud of smoke?"
"No, I don't think so." Briny said. She walked out the door, turning the corner to see Gale facing a hallway of thick black smoke.
"Okay, just checking." Gale then stomped his foot, creating a powerful blast of wind that pushed away all the smoke. The two made their way down the now cleared hallway, stopping at Tor and Hansen's door.
Where's the janitor when you need him? Gale thought, immediately feeling like something dark and ancient was whispering to him that he didn't want to know. Briny knocked on the door, with a smiling Tor greeting her.
"Hello, friends!" Tor exclaimed as he stepped out the doorway, Hansen behind him. As he exited his room, it became clear that Hansen wasn't doing great. His skin was flushed and red, and his eyes looked heavy and tired. Hansen seemed to be aware of this, seeing his two friend's faces as they reacted to his unwell appearance and turning away from them.
"Let's go." Hansen started walking in the direction of Guy and Ernis' room, the other three following close behind. Briny, worried about her friend, started walking faster to catch up to Hansen. Gale was also worried, though he did not approach the boy, under the impression that asking would probably lead to the small cat being punted like a football.
"Hansen, are you okay?" Briny asked him.
"I'm fine." Hansen responded within a second, not even turning around to face her. "I was just trying to burn down the school again."
"Oh… okay." Briny ended the conversation there, hearing a bit of nervousness in his voice. Hansen wouldn't be acting this weird if he was trying to burn down the school again [quite frankly, he'd probably put out a banner to celebrate], but she knew that trying to get a true answer out of him wouldn't bring any results.
However, Briny still knew that something was wrong. She extended her hand with the water bottle to Hansen. "Here, I don't think I'll be needing it."
"Oh, thank you." Hansen told her, grabbing the bottle out of her hand. And to confirm Briny's suspicions that he might have some sort of fever, not only did his hand feel unnaturally warm, he then proceeded to chug down the entire thing in a few seconds flat.
An hour or so later, the group were sat around the table at Guy and Ernis' place, having finished their meals and discussing yesterday's escapades.
"So, I saw Chip earlier today when I was walking around the school." Tor told the group. "He looked like he was doing better."
"Oh, that's good. Can't believe he'd still be willing to talk to one of us." Gale said.
"Well… he really didn't. I saw him for a second before he noticed me and ran away through the air vents." Tor explained, a somber look in his eyes. "Poor squirrel boy."
"I mean, if it makes you feel better, Ernis has probably done worse." Guy said, smirking as he waited for Ernis' reaction. "I get the feeling he probably must have eaten chipmunk before."
"I can hear you, motherfucker!" Ernis yelled, sitting on his bed with his phone in one hand and a can of Red Bull in the other.
"Well then, maybe you should come join us for dinner!" Guy yelled back. "You know, the dinner that I made while you were too busy to help!"
Ernis downed the last of his Red Bull and glared at his roommate. "Guy, I am on an important call right now, and I would appreciate if you respected that!"
"You never make time for us anymore! It's always all about your important phone calls and your illegally imported animal meats and your possible caffeine addiction!" Guy slammed his fist on the table and stood up. "You should at least be here to defend yourself while I tell our guests that you've eaten dog meat before!"
"He did what?!" Briny exclaimed. Gale also put on a shocked face, though he was secretly thinking about how proud he was of Ernis for eating his natural enemy.
"Oh my god." Ernis muttered as he stood up and started walking towards the door. "I'm going outside to take this call. The crooks and car alarms are less distracting!" Ernis promptly walked out the door, slamming it behind him in a passive-aggressive rage.
Guy turned back to the table, nervously smiling as his guests all looked at him with faces broadcasting their confusion. "So… who wants seconds?" He nervously asked.
"Me!" Gale excitedly said, raising his little kitty paw. Guy nodded and went back into the kitchen.
"Um..." Briny trailed off, desperately trying to think of anything to change the topic from their friends' relationship issues. "So Hansen, what did you do today? Y'know, besides trying to burn down the school again." The young man didn't respond, staring down at his empty plate with a vacant look in his eyes.
"Hansen?" She repeated after a couple seconds, still not getting a response. "Tor, has he been like this before?"
"No, I don't think so. Let me try." Tor leaned his head down to his friend's ear, breathing in deeply before loudly shouting "HANSEN!", causing everyone in the room to jolt back in shock, including Hansen.
"Jesus Christ, Tor!" Hansen exclaimed. "What? What is it?"
"Are you okay, buddy?" Tor asked. "You've been acting weird all day."
"Yeah, you were staring at that plate like you were just served your mother's severed head." Gale added, followed by everyone in the room staring at him in a way that communicated the phrase "What the fuck"?
"I'm fine, I swear. I've just been kind of out of it today." Hansen explained.
"Yeah, I've been meaning to ask." Guy said, sitting back down at the table with a properly Gale-sized plate of salmon. "You don't look like you're doing great. Have you been feeling okay?"
"I'm fine." Hansen replied. "I'm just a little warm… okay, a lot warm. And also there's the throbbing headache, but I've dealt with worse."
"That doesn't sound okay to me." Tor told him.
"I'm fine, Tor. I can handle a little bit of-" Hansen stopped mid-sentence, staring off at nothing like he was spacing out. "A little bit of… of…"
"Dude, spit it out!" Gale yelled out while taking bites out of a piece of salmon.
Hansen jolted back in response, seeming to have come back to reality. "Sorry. Like I said, I've been kind of out of it."
"You should probably go back to your dorm and get some rest." Guy suggested.
"I'll go with him." Tor said, putting an arm on Hansen's shoulder. "C'mon buddy, let's go back."
"Tor, I told you I'm fine." Hansen insisted.
"Alright then, I guess I'll just have to use the mobile hug!"
"The fuck is the mobile-?" Before Hansen could finish his thought, Tor had wrapped his impressively strong arms around the lad like a very caring python, picking him up and carrying him as he started heading towards the door. "Tor, put me down!"
"If I put you down, can I trust you to go back on your own?" Tor asked.
"Of course not!"
"Okay then." The young man tightened his grip on his friend. "Gale, you can finish my plate." Tor said, walking out the door as Hansen screamed about how his legs were in kicking distance to Tor's crotch.
Guy turned back to the rest of the table. "Well, at least now we can have some peace and quiet-"
Suddenly, the door slammed opened again, as Ernis entered with his phone still in hand. "I got shot at a couple times outside, so I'm back." Guy, in response, tightened his grip around his fork and stabbed it into the table.
"Leave. Please.", he told his guests through gritted teeth. The two then immediately walked out the door as fast as possible.
A few hours later, Briny and Gale were back in their room, laying on their beds. While Gale was fast asleep already, Briny was still awake, thinking about everything that had just transpired over dinner.
I wonder what's wrong with Hansen, she thought. Maybe his Quirk has some weird effect on his body, but wouldn't he just explain that instead of insisting he's fine? Briny started thinking back to anything that happened to Hansen over the last few days.
Let's see, there was the entrance exam, the giant blob monster, the… rescue training.
The rescue training. Where Hansen had his wings brutally ripped out by Ms. Springfield.
Before Briny could continue with this train of thought, she heard a very frenzied knock on the door. She got out of bed and opened the door to see a very panicked looking Tor.
"Briny, I can't find Hansen." Tor told her.
"What? What do you mean, you can't find Hansen?" Briny asked. "Didn't you two go back together?"
"I was keeping my eye on him at the dorm, and then I went to the bathroom, and I came back out and he was gone." Tor explained, his hands noticeably shaking. "Where do you think he could've gone?"
"Relax, Tor. It's Hansen, so he's either getting some late night Tim Horton's, or burning down an abandoned building." Briny told him, knowing in the back of her mind that the building would most likely not be abandoned. "Or some other third thing, I'm not sure-"
At that moment, Briny was interrupted by the sound of a very loud scream. A scream that was definitely coming from above the two of them, and sounded very, very familiar.
"Hansen!" Tor exclaimed. "I'm coming for you, best friend!" The screaming continued, as the lad began sprinting down the hallway, Briny close behind. The two turned the corner as they rushed up a flight of stairs. And then another. And another. As they made their way up through the stairway, the screaming still sounded very distant until they reached the top floor, where it still sounded like he was directly above them.
"Hansen…" Briny said, panting heavily from non-stop running up God-knows-how-many flights of stairs. "Where… the fuck… are you…"
"Um, Briny? I think I might know.", Tor said. Briny looked over at her friend, standing by a door that said "EMERGENCY EVACUATION EXIT". She walked over to see what Tor was talking about, quickly discovering that the door handle was broken off and the door itself was open by an inch. She pushed the door open, leading to a room with nothing but a staircase leading up to a metal hatch in the ceiling.
"This must lead to the top of the mountain." Briny explained. "It's the only place higher up than here."
"What's Hansen doing at the top of the school?" Tor asked as the two started walking up the staircase. With each step, the screams were getting clearer. Tor pulled down the metal hatch, and as the duo climbed up to the top, he saw something that definitely fell under the category of "some other third thing".
Hansen was at the edge of the mountain, on his hands and knees with smoke billowing out of the back of his neck. And under the thick cloud of smoke, the two could almost make out a flame rising and going out with each scream.
Tor wasted no time, leaping out of the hatch and sprinting towards his friend. "Hansen!" he called out. The young man looked behind him, struggling to stand up as his expression turned from pained to angered. Briny followed Tor's example, sprinting towards the two with what little stamina she had left.
"Tor, what the hell are you doing here?" Hansen yelled back, his voice raspy and weak. The flames immediately stopped as he stood up and the smoke began to drift away. Tor stopped in his tracks, only a couple feet away from him as Briny caught up to them.
"Us? What are you doing here?" Briny questioned him. "You were screaming so loud we could hear it from the dorms!"
"Look, you don't need to get into this!" Hansen claimed. "Just go back! This is the farthest I've ever gotten!"
Tor started walking closer to him, his hands noticeably shaking again.
"Just go back!" Hansen repeated, yelling louder. Tor didn't stop, though.
"Hansen, just be honest with me." Tor told him. He was trying to seem confident, though his nervousness was coming through. "What were you doing?"
Hansen didn't respond for a few seconds. He nervously looked around, seeing only Tor wanting answers, Briny wanting answers, and the sixty-foot drop behind him. He knew he couldn't fight them, he could barely stand on his own two feet right now. He nervously swallowed before opening his mouth to make another excuse… and was cut off.
"It's the wings, isn't it?" Briny asked.
"What?" Tor exclaimed. "What about his wings?"
"In rescue training yesterday, Ms. Springfield ripped off Hansen's wings." Briny explained. "Since then, he's been feeling sick and acting suspicious."
"I- I don't know what you're talking about!" Hansen claimed, stammering a little.
"Hansen, there was smoke filling the hallway this morning." Briny said, pointing up at the large smoke cloud Hansen had created. "Were you doing this earlier today?"
"No, I wasn't!" Hansen was getting more tense. He knew he had no way out of this, but he had some desperate hope he could. "Look, let's just go back to the dorms and forget about this, okay?"
"You said you were trying to burn down the school earlier." Tor said. "Is this what you were doing?"
"For the last fucking time, nothing's wrong!" Hansen yelled. Using what little energy he had, he then began sprinting past the two, trying to make it back to the hatch. However, the moment he got past his friends, Hansen's legs gave out and he fell to the ground. As he tried to stand up again, he was greeted by a hand on his shoulder, turning around to see Briny standing over him.
"Hansen, please just tell us what's wrong with your wings." Briny asked him. "I just want to know if you're okay."
Hansen jerked his head away from the two of them and sighed deeply. "It's not just the wings".
"What? What do you mean it's not just the wings?" Briny asked.
"I mean, it's not just the goddamn wings!" Hansen yelled. "Ever since I woke up in the nurse's office yesterday, I haven't been able to use my Quirk at all!" Hansen forced himself to stand up, looking at the two with genuine fear in his eyes. "I can tell it's still there, the damn thing just won't work, and I'm kind of freaking out!"
Briny honestly didn't know what to say. She'd never heard of someone's Quirk refusing to cooperate before, and quite frankly, Hansen didn't have much else that could keep him at a hero school besides his powerful Quirk. She wished there was something she could do to help him right now, but she just stood there as Hansen was spiraling. And it seemed that Hansen was aware of how screwed he was too.
"What the hell am I going to do?" he asked.
HOLY CRAPSHIT IT'S FINALLY DONE. The third goddamn version, and I'm finally somewhat satisfied with it.
Super big thanks to my partner in crime Dantai, and to the Soupcan players [especially Carrie, you amazing human] for reading my garbage! You bois mean the world to me, and I can't wait for Sakura-Con! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play VA-11 Hall-A for a week straight.