Power Through The Limits
"Get up." The sheets were snatched out from underneath her, she fell to the ground slamming her head on the way down. "Hurry up and get your clothes on time for more practice." The hero checked his phone, twenty new messages, fifty emails to be read by him personally, and a reminder for an interview at nine. "Why are you just sitting there hurry up and get ready!"
She smiled, rubbing the back of her head, even though he was yelling she was just glad he had graced her with his presence. She checked over through her emails quickly before rushing over to her closet. One from Tatsumaki, another from Lightspeed and Metal Bat, Child Emperor, Stinger, Bang, Fubuki too, looks like she had a lot to compile for their pages later. "The sun looks really pretty today, I can tell it's going to be a great one!"
Cerci grabbed her clothes and glasses then rushed down the ladder from the attic. Their house was incredibly large but Amai wanted ninety-nine percent of the space for himself, who was she to deny him what he wanted, as long as he was happy. She caught up to her brother in seconds and hugged him, but as quickly as she had gotten her arms wrapped around him her pulled them off, huffing as he walked.
Down one floor, then three more, and then another, into the basement. The girl followed closely behind her brother, the metallic walls along their path were all cracked and muddy, something had been dragged down here against it's will kind of like her. "So what's down her?" She asked. The number one A-ranked hero glanced back but refused to answer her question, he didn't want to waste his breath. "Well whatever it is I bet it'll be great since it's coming from you Amai."
The hallway came to a close, the door read caution. He opened the door and looked back to his sister. "This is your last chance to prove that you're worth keeping around." With those words he pushed his last remaining family into the cage with the monster he found during one of his shoots at City Z, the dog like creature wasn't even enough to warrant tiger, maybe wolf was better.
Red lights illuminated the circular room, the dog sat in the middle, growling and snapping it's teeth. "You got me a doggy Amai? Wow thank you."The moment it was the blue hair it jumped at the girl aiming for her neck. The door closed behind her, the only thing that she could see were her brother's cold demanding eyes.
"Fight." The Mask ordered. The chain snapped, the dog smashed into the door. Cerci tumbled to ground, but quickly rose to her feet as her enemy bounded at her yet again. The drool dripped out of its mouth, its stomach rumbled, its eyes narrowed. "If you don't kill that thing it's going to kill you, stop running away and fight." She didn't have anything to fight with, no weapons only fer fist.
"Huh? Maybe this is it." She thought. "Maybe this is how I'll get my power!" She clenched her fist and smiled. "Thanks Amai, I'll definitely win." Cerci lunged at the beast only to be met with thin air as she attacked the, the monster locked it's jaw around her arm and slung her across the room. It chewed and swallowed the bits of her jacket it caught and howled.
The girl picked herself up and rubbed her back from the pain. "Bite definitely worse than it's bark." She chuckled, rushing at the monster again but try as she might, the dog was simply too fast and too strong. Its sprung from one side of to the other in milliseconds taking more and more bites out of her, with one more leap it propelled itself off of the hero's sister and nailed her into the wall.
She fell out moments later clutching her stomach, Cerci looked up to the creature a final time. "Looks like I messed up again, but Amai'll save me right." It growled more and more. "Right?" The beast reached down with ready to take a final munch out of the girl, it rocketed back sliding to the middle of the room, gates rose up puncturing the monster, skewering it. "Amai." She cried. "You saved me ag-" He sentence cut short, her brother's wiped of the blood from his boots on her face.
"You failed yet again, your worthless. You can't make the hard decisions it doesn't matter if it's a child its evil. You don't know how to dirty your hands. Again and again you've proved to be nothing more than a burden." The beast whimpered, splitting in half, something fell out of its stomach. Another little creature crawled it's way out. "Well maybe not. Kill it." He pointed. The gates dropped.
"What?" She asked holding her nose.
"Kill that thing's spawn and I'll let you keep living here. If you don't then you can leave."
Amai tossed his sister towards the creature. It stared at her, its eyes full of life, it nibbled on her fingers as she she reached towards it, sucking on it, but then released it realizing that whatever it was trying to drink from was a dry well. It then it rolled around on its stomach and yapped, even though it wasn't too loud. "You know I read books about animals, its said that the first being that they see they immediately assume that their its mother. Is that right little guy, do you think I'm your mommy?" It barked and wagged its tail. Cerci grinned. "Well I promise you that I'll be a good-"
Her brother reached to take the creature from her hands. Cerci jumped back in fear, protecting her new child that fit snugly into her hands. "Amai stop! I promise that I'll be a good mother to Rover."
"You already named that piece of garbage." He asked pulling back his hair. He shook his head in disbelief, always the disappointing child. "You know that little rat's parent killed who knows how many people and almost would have killed you to if I didn't intervene."
"But you did save me so-"
"Don't be mistaken." He silence her. "I didn't do it for you. I did it so that they're wouldn't be a mess to clean up later. Now hand it over."
"No!" She covered her mouth. "I-I didn't mean that Amai, I-I just...that Rover shouldn't be held accountable for what his mother did. He can be good, I bet he could even help you fight other monsters too if we love him enough!" The hero's eye twitched, annoyance and now she was disobeying him. He thought he had conditioned that out of her but apparently not. She really was irredeemable. A worthless and sadly not forgettable stain on the name of their family's history.
"It would be better if I just kill her now." He considered. "What's this we business, I told you that if you didn't kill that thing that you're not worth keeping around anymore. You burden. If you want to you can keep that abomination, when it grows older it'll probably end up killing you anyway so have fun playing house until then." He walked out of the room leaving his sister. "A cab'll be here for you within the hour get your shit and get out."
An hour later Amai's her brother's words held true. Luckily enough she had found a cheap place in an old town that she could live in. With her one bag, few clothes, laptop, and new friend Cerci stood outside her family's, no, it her brother's home now there was no room for her anymore. She was just a burden to her brother. "No room for burdens, big brother's got too many people to save to be worrying about someone like me."
"Alright Amai that's all of my stuff." She opened up wide for a hug but it would never be returned. She dropped her arms and smiled nonetheless. "I promise that I'll be strong someday, I know I'm a burden now but the next time you see me I won't be!" She jumped into the cab, the engine revved to life and started moving. "I love you brother! See you soon!"
"Hm." He scoffed. "Be dead before then will you?"
~City- Z Outskirts~
The blue haired girl pet her sleeping dog. "Almost there." She looked out the window to the city she's probably have to walk a far way to get to the shopping district or anything but it would be good exercise. The cab halted. "Huh? Excuse me sir but my new address is still a few miles from here."
"The meter's out lady. Your friend only payed for me to go this far and that's only as far as I'm going."
"Don't you think you could at least take me into the city, please?"
"What do you think this is a charity? Get out!" Cerci collected her things and tucked Rover into her jacket poking his head out of the hold his parent created for him. She sighed and waved to the cab driver thanking him for bringing her a far as he did even though he only did it because he had to. She started walking, thankfully the sun wasn't beating down too hard.
"Looks like I'll have to find a new way to train now that Amai's too busy. Maybe I can join one of the local dojos and start training. I mean I'm fairly athletic but probably not enough to warrant any honors." She groaned. "But I can't let that keep me down, I promised Amai that I'd be really strong so no matter what I need to do I've got to do I'll do it!"
Dark clouds were gathered around the city, lightning strikes were going off all around. There was something in the air, a bird or plane maybe. "City Z doesn't have am airport does it?" She wondered. "Pretty sure it doesn't, but maybe I can ask some heroes who live around here. " Her phone rang, she checked the caller ID, the picture of Tatsumaki showed on the screen with her cheeks puffed out, she hated that picture, but the taker didn't. The picture had all the heroine's best features highlighted but kept her childish nature about her all the same keeping Tornado cute. "Aw man almost out of battery." Cerci picked up the pace finally making it into the city after an hour's worth of walking.
She stepped into the nearest dollar store and purchased some dog food, two bowls, and a leash, after taking her money the clerk dashed out of the store. Next she went into a coffee store but there was no one there, she plugged her phone into the wall and called her friend back. Nothing but the answering solemn tone of the answering machine. "Oh looks like she left a voice message."
"Cerci I wanted to let you know that I'm com-" Boom! Boom! The thunder was really kicking in drowning out Tornado's voice message, maybe it was a monster storm. She didn't put this idea aside with all the raise in attacks recently that very well could be the answer.
Her phone buzzed with the Jaws ringtone she had set. "Looks like Tatsumaki's calling back." She pressed the button, answering the phone. The ceiling caved in, everything went quiet for a moment. "Ow! Ow! Ow!" Cerci forced the rubble off of herself, searching for her bags in the remains of the destroyed building. "Where the heck are my glasses at?"
"What kind of half assed backstory is that!?" Someone yelled. Cerci's head snapped back to see two shadowy figures not too far away from her. She couldn't make out much but for sure there was one thing, whoever was fighting was a chrome dome. "I am Vaccine Man! I was birthed from pollution of you filthy humans and so mother Earth, in all her power, gave life to me! I am her apostle and you say you do this for fun! For fun!? You humans really are a disgusting bunch, I will take great pleasure in-" Crack!
Whoever was yelling had their speech cut short. "All it took was one punch again! Damn it!" Who else was there? A hero maybe. "Got dang it," They sighed. "Guess I'll head home now."
"Ah here they are! Hello?" She asked looking all around. They only things left that weren't destroyed were the bodies of Vaccine Man and of some little girl. She looked left then right again, their really was no one here. "Whoever it was sure did get out of there it a hurry, could it have been Blast? It does fit all of their credentials at least, no one's around, they weren't inhibited by the organization like they ask...hm. That sucks, might've been my only chance to meet them." She sighed. "Can't believe you actually slept through all of that, Rover." She said patting her monster's head.
Night descended quickly after that. All the street signs were bent and wiped of their paint making them almost unreadable, very few of the streetlights still worked keep her path very dark, debris was scattered all over the ground one false step could lead to a trip to the hospital. Cerci rubbed her nose, broken, definitely broken. "Amai can be really tough when he's trying to teach me a lesson." In her haste to get out of her brother's hair she had forgotten to take any care of herself she'd need to go to the sotre later, speaking of the store she hadn't eaten all day.
She stopped checking the directions to her new apartment a final time. "Finally." She stepped into the building excepting for a receptionist to be there, however there was no one to greet her, the counter caked in dust could cause her to hack and cough but the only thing on her mind was where was the receptionist. It was late maybe they decided to take off. She checked behind the desk, thankfully all the key boxes were there and a name tag plates as well, she could decorate it to her heart's content later.
Lugging her baggage up to her floor, the lights were on in the apartment right next to her's, a neighbor in this seemingly abandoned apartment building. She knocked on but no one came to answer. "Looks like they're out for now, I'll visit them later." Cerci opened the door to an empty room. "Wow!" She yelled, earning a few whimpers from her pet. "Wow!" She said again much quieter. "This is so much bigger than the attic, aw man I have so much space for everything now!"
The girl unloaded all of her items onto the vacant floor, she put out some food and water from her dog then wrapped it up in some spare clothing she had. She laid a out a blanket to sleep on later and a second one to actually keep her warm then her pillow, next her laptop, she'd probably have a lot of pages to update, and then finally her camera. "Hopefully I haven't missed to much." Her stomach growled. "Crap I forgot I haven't eaten again, I'll check things out really quickly then find a grocery store."
The Hero Association's website lit up with an array of news she had not seen, good thing the association had backups for when she wasn't around. The first things to pop up was the news about the creature in Z City and another dragon level threat in B City. "A giant was defeated in City B by the S-Ranker King today, from the looks of it the monster could only withstand one punch from the mighty King he has since been moved to spot six for top hero. Wow, looks like King got promoted again, good for him he's been working hard from the looks of it." More grumbles. "Ok. Ok, stupid body. I'll be back soon boy."
~The Next Morning~
The next morning Cerci woke up to her little friend lapping at her face. The sunlight creepped into her room. "Another great day!" She grabbed the leash and her workout gear then headed out, remembering what happened last night. Aside from getting the the gauze and splints for her nose some car monster had been completely obliterated on, whoever had done it had to be at least and A rank hero, but she doubted that Stinger or Max had been by. "Hm, maybe it was the same person who killed Vaccination Man, but I think I would have heard about a hero with suck destructive power or at the least someone would have reported it...good think I sent in those picture maybe someone will claim the work."
Her phone was ringing on the return trip to their house, another successful kilometer for the day."Thankfully the grocery store's only five miles away. It only took six hours and now it was only midnight when I got back, yeah I had enough money to pay for bacon and eggs as well as instant noodles for a few days. Hm, yeah I told everyone at the office that I moved last night. Mhm just tell them to send the pictures to my new address. No I already told you I don't need to be paid, I'm doing this for my friends that's enough for me. Yep, yep, ok. Talk to you later Mr. Shicchi. " It was still early why was no one on the streets,where was everyone? "Maybe that's why this place was so cheap to rent, it's near nothing and no one lives here."
"Something was shining last night too right? Maybe it was that creature's headlights...but I swear that that wasn't the only thing, there was like a flash of yellow and white too. What hero wears that formation of colors...why am I drawing a blank all of a sudden. Whoa!" The ground cracked open, Cerci tripped over as brown monsters clawed their way out of the earth.
"Haha! We have finally done it! We, the subterraneans, will now claim the earth for our own!" The creature wielding the blades yelled as their little minions cheered them on. "Now my men let us first conquer this land and- gah!"
A flash descended from the rooftops stamping its foot onto the head of the leader, their muscles all tensed, primed, and ready to for action the person raised their fist in excitement at the prospect of a challenge. "Come on then! I'm ready to fight!" A flag with the words 'sorry about that' took the place of the creatures. The man lowered his fist "I've become way too strong." He turned left, ready to head back into his apartment but stopped upon seeing the only other person in this section of the city. "Oh hi."
"That bald head. The way he talks, you couldn't be that person could you?"
"Um...did you get a nose job or something?"
A/N: I wouldn't exactly say I struck oil last night but I got a really, well what I consider, a fantastic idea for this story the other night. I've decided to reboot my story, take out a few silly elements, and redo my OC to make her hopefully better. I can't promise perfection but I think that things are going to get better.