"Finally, the last team to surrender to our rule of the humans," Bao Bringer, leader of the Emperors, monologues. "But you seven refuse to surrender, don't you? Pity. All the others have understood they lost this war. As much as they value human life, at the end of the day they understand they're superior beings. We have abilities and they do not. We are stronger. It's a simple matter of biology. No matter. You won't be our problem any longer." He turns to a man with graying purple hair. "Get rid of them."

A zap of light flashes around us. I can't help but feel responsible for all that is happening. I'm the team Captain. I refused to surrender, leaving my teammates who I've grown to care about to die because of the choice I made.

I think of Sadie, my first roommate at the academy, who taught me it's good to actually show your feelings. Ace, the son of Bao, the person I've been raised with, who I've grown to love as a brother, replacing the brother who betrayed us. Ben Bringer. I detest the name.

I think of Hank, the kind hearted boy who tried to befriend Ben only to be betrayed by him as well. The boy who believed himself to be a monster, going as far as to carve it into his own skin. Of course I comforted him, earning his trust. Why did they all have to trust me so much?

I think of Mason, the boy who hated himself for torturing Hybrids at his uncle's commands. So much like me. I had to comfort him as well, making another dubious follower of him.

I think of foul-mouthed, hot-headed Zoe, who would never go down without a fight. I don't even remember earning her trust. Perhaps it was my raw power and strength, how I would never back down from a fight. She seemed to admire that.

And Dakota. I helped her through her abuse my Mason's uncle's hands. She didn't trust any of us initially, but she feels like an adopted sister know. If Ace is like my brother, then she's my sister.

All these people I have reluctantly grown to love. Now they would all die for me. "NOOOO!" I scream, fruitlessly trying to produce my flames due to the ability cancelling handcuffs attached to my wrist.

I wake up on top of a young girl about four or five, with blonde pigtails. It's when I notice the small scar behind her right ear when I realize it's Sadie. Sadie became a five year old. "Get off of me, Ember," she grunts.

She blinks up at me, a look of confusion flashing across her face. "You're a kid," she states, her voice shaking.

"So are you," I shrug.

"Ember! Sadie!" a boy shouts, rushing up to us. He has curly dirty blond hair and bright blue eyes.

"Ace?" I ask cautiously. "Is that you?"

Ace nods. "Mason and Zoe are coming right behind me. We just need to find Hank and Dakota."

"Do you have any idea why we're suddenly like five years old?" I ask, to which Ace shakes his head solemnly.

"No clue," he says. "It might have been someone's ability. It's not unheard of, after all."

Just then, a boy with curly pink hair runs up to us with a panicked expression on his face. "Guys, you're not going to believe this," he pants. "But I just saw a news report on TV. We're in the future."

"How do you know?" I ask him. I don't have to ask the boy's name to know it's Hank. No one else has hair like that.

"There was a date. April 17th, 2190," Hank clears his throat. "Almost all humans have abilities now. They call them 'quirks' I think. There was someone called a Pro Hero talking on TV. People can be heroes for a living, kind of what we do but without, like, a war going on or whatever. There are even special academies for hero training!"

"He's right," Mason's voice says behind me. Even high-pitched and child-like, there's a certain self-satisfied smugness that only Mason's voice has. "Humans have abilities now. I think they must all be Hybrids without knowing it. There's no explanation to how humans all of sudden are manifesting these so called "quirks" out of the blue."

"If you won't stop hurting him, then I...I'll stop you myself!" came a small, quavering voice from behind a nearby building.

"The fuck was that?" Zoe asks.

"Someone needs our help!" Sadie says. She tugs at my sleeve insistently. "Ember, please, he sounds like a kid. A kid can't protect someone, abilities or not. We have to help him!"

We have more important things to worry about than helping some poor human kid. But I can't say no Sadie when she's looking at me like that. It would be like kicking a puppy. Plus, if I said no I'd get my ass chewed out later.

"Fine," I say, rolling my eyes. "Just this once. Then we're back to business. We still need to figure this shit out."

I wrap my flames around my ankles, using it to propel me forward. I reach the kid just in time, taking the full brunt of an explosion, knocking me back a few feet. I look up to see a kid with spiky blond hair pounding his fists together with an arrogant smirk on his face. He has two weird looking kids flanking him on either side, but I pay them no mind. It's clear the blond is the main threat. His hands are still smoking, indicating he's the one who made the explosion.

"What the hell?" he asks, a confused scowl replacing the smirk he wore seconds before.

"I could be saying the same to you, blondie," I growl. "You ruined my shirt."

"I wasn't trying to hit you!" He shouts. "You got in my way so it's your damn fault your shirt got ruined."

"Who were you trying to hit?" I ask him, keeping my face expressionless.

"Deku."

"Is he the kid with the green hair?"

"What kind of question is that?" He shouts angrily. "Of course he's Deku! Who else would he be, you blind extra?"

"Why were you trying to blow Deku up?"

"Because he's a damn quirkless loser and he got in my way!" He growls.

"What's your quirk then?" I ask him calmly.

"I can make it explosions out of my sweat," he says proudly. "It's the best quirk there is. I'm going to surpass All Might with it!"

"That all?" I deadpan.

"What did you just say to me, extra?" He shouts. This kid shouts too much. It's getting on my nerves.

"You have one quirk," I say with a smirk. "I have three more than you do. By your logic, that makes me better than you. You're just a one-quirk loser. You got in my way. That means I have to blow you up, right?"

"I'd like to see you try, extra," he smirks, his hands sparking.

I effortlessly lift him up in the air with my telekinesis, shoving his hands together so he can't make an explosion. Then, I light myself up with fire, covering my entire body so he can't see me through the flames. I clone myself, sending my clone steathfully behind the blond loser, who lobs a fireball at his back, knocking him unconscious.

"Whoa!" the green haired kid who the loser called 'Deku' exclaims excitedly. "That was so cool! You have four quirks? And you beat Kacchan like it was nothing! Wow! You're so cool!"

"Calm down, Deku," I say with a bored expression. "I only saved you because he was getting on my nerves. I just had to put him in his place, below me."

"Well, thanks anyway," he mumbles.

"Ember, don't be rude," Sadie reprimands me. She offers Deku a bright smile. "I'm Veloce Sadie. Nice to meet you!"

"Yeah, um, don't mind her," Ace chuckles, jabbing his thumb in my direction as he walks over to the kid. "I'm Bringer Ace. She's Falem Ember. She's really nice when you get to know her."

"If you get to know her," Sadie giggles. "You're lucky if she gives you the time of day."

"Oh, shut up," Zoe snaps as she appears out of a shadow. "You guys are painting her to be some sort of villain or something. She just doesn't wanting to be fucking besties with every random person she meets on the street." She puts her elbow up on my shoulder and smirks at me. "We're a lot alike that way."

"Get your arm off of me before I send you to the hospital burn unit," I say monotonously. Zoe doesn't remove her arm, so I burst into flames, sending her flying a few feet in the air, landing gracefully on her feet.

"You're all bark and no bite," Zoe laughs. "I'm Hunter." She says to Deku. Unlike the others, she doesn't volunteer her first name.

"Zoe, there you are!" came Hank's worried voice as he ran down the alleyway. "You just disappeared and I didn't know where to find you and I….:

"Can it, Pinky," Zoe says with a smile, pounding his head into the ground when he came too close to her. "You worry too much for your own good, you know that?"

"Sorry," Hank says, scratching the back of his neck. He then notices Deku for the first time. "Oh, sorry, kid! I didn't see you there. I'm Killman Hank. What's your name?"

"His name is Deku," I say for the kid, who seems to be at a loss for words, except for the inaudible mutterings under his breath.

This seems to break the kid out of his incessant mumbling. "Oh, uh, actually Deku isn't my real name. It's what Kacchan calls me to make fun of me. I-my name is Midoriya Izuku."

"Then why didn't you say so earlier?" I growl at him. "You made me look like an idiot!"

"Lay off him, Ember," Sadie says. She smiles brightly at him. "It was really brave of you to try to protect someone even though you were obviously scared! That was really cool!"

"He's quirkless, Sadie," I scoff. "He can't do anything to protect anyone. He'd just get himself killed."

"So? I don't find using my abil...quirk." Hank countered.

"You've had the training to do just fine without using i," I argue. "Besides, you can use your quirk to escape if you need to. Midoriya can't."

"Fuck that Ember," Zoe shouts. "I trained Pinky how to use a sword so I can teach Greenie the same thing. The kid has guts. I like him."

"I must admit, Ember," Mason says as he appears between me and Midoriya. "The kid has potential. And isn't it our job to protect people who can't protect themselves?"

"Not anymore," I growl. I switch to Spanish from Japanese so Midoriya won't be able to understand us. "La guerra esta terminado. El chico no esta nos problema."

"We don't know that," Mason says, shaking his head. "For all we know, the Emperors could have followed us." He says in English.

"And accomplish what, exactly?" I ask in German. "The rest of them are back in our time. We'd wipe the floor with them."

"If you haven't noticed, we're kids now," Ace cuts in, speaking in French. "Any adult with even a moderately strong ability could wipe the floor with us. Haven't you noticed our abilities aren't nearly as powerful from when we were sixteen?"

Come to think of it, I could have killed the blond haired kid that Midoriya called "Kacchan." But he was only unconscious. I was still cable of attacking almost anyone and winning, but I know from experience that I will get my ass handed to me if I try to fight a full grown Ben, not to mention his father.

"You're right," I grumble in Chinese. "We can't defend ourselves from them properly. We don't know why we're here or who else came with us. We have to remain vigilant. We could be attacked at any moment. But I don't understand why we have to help the damn kid."

In Japanese, Zoe says, "I'm training him whether you like it or not." Zoe shrugs.

"The hell you are," I growl. "I'm training the kid. I can do it better than you anyway."

"Are...are you going to train me to become a hero like All Might?" Midoriya asks excitedly, jumping up and down in excitement.

"Who's All Might?" I ask. "Some hero or something?"

"You….you don't know who All Might is?" Midoriya asks, his mouth flying open in disbelief. He then proceeds to rant for a full five minutes about the greatness of All Might, while I can't help but thinking this is the dumbest field name I ever heard of. All Might? Seriously? It's sounds like a five year old came up with it.

"Training starts at dawn tomorrow," I sigh once he finished his rambling. "If you're late then I recede my offer."

"You could have used a word that was a bit easier for him to understand," Hank says as we walk away. "What kind of five year old knows what recede means?"

"Context clues," I smirk. "If he's smart enough for me to bother training him, then he should figure out what it means."

"I hate to be the bringer of bad news," Mason interjects. "But where are we going to stay? It's not like we have parents."

Shit. I did not think about this part, until a looming figure stood over me. Bao Bringer. The leader of the Emperor. He was here.

"Ace, Ember, time to come home."