A/N: This chapter brings us up over 20k words, meaning this is finally a story I might of given a look for myself! I'd like to thank everyone who's reviewed, followed, or favorited this story. It really means a lot to me. I hope you enjoy this chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own MHA, promise.
Chapter 4: House Rules
The return flight home to Nevada wasn't as bad as Chance had expected. Fortuna, being the crazed gambling addict she was, had for some reason thought to hold onto the pachinko game his grandmother had bought for them in the middle of nearly being murdered by Toxic Chainsaw.
"Aren't you glad i did though? This is so much fun!" The crazy pixie piped up from her spot on his shoulder.
It was hard for Chance to argue with that logic. "Yeah. It's nice to have something to pass the time, that's for sure." They played for several hours before he got tired of the game and decided to nap until the journey was over. When he woke up they had nearly arrived. Sleeping for a good portion of the flight made it feel like it went by much quicker than last time.
When they'd gotten home from the airport and his father said he wanted to go take a nap Chance had a strange thought. "Wait a second Dad, it's earlier than when we left Japan. Did our flight take a whole day or something?"
"Actually the opposite." His father yawned. "It's actually earlier the same day we left."
"Whoa that's so weird! We went backwards in time? How does that even work?" Chance said in awe.
"No, it's just because Japan is 17 hours ahead of our timezone." Katsuro explained. "We've done this every year son. Haven't you noticed before? You should pay more attention." He laughed and ruffled his son's hair.
Chance laughed sheepishly as well. "I guess I never really thought about it before."
Not wanting to be left out of the fun Fortuna flew up and started messing around with his hair as well. "Yeah pay attention you dummy!"
"As if you're one to talk you little gremlin!" Chance reached up and tried to swat her away but she zoomed out of his reach, giggling madly.
His dad rubbed his face sleepily. "Ugh. Quiet down you two. It's too early for so much noise. Or is it too late? These flights always mess with me. I'm gonna go rest for a while. Don't bother your mother too much alright?"
"We won't Dad." Chance assured. Now was the perfect time to get back to testing what he could do with his quirk. He had a lot of work to do if he wanted to reach his goal of becoming a hero.
Chance decided to go out into the backyard to begin his experiments, just to be safe. He didn't want to break anything else on accident. It was much larger than his grandmother's garden, but it was mostly an empty square of grass. The family didn't use it all that much and just had a gardener come occasionally to make sure it didn't get too overgrown. It would be the perfect place to test out Fortuna's powers.
"Finally it's play time!" Fortuna flew out into the yard eagerly. She'd already made some cards and was making a show of shuffling them. They flew around her in intricate patterns as she called out to him. "Come on Chance, hurry!"
"Cool your jets missy." He sat down on the grass. "We'll play in just a moment I promise, but first I need to talk to you for a bit. It's about some new games I want to try out. Okay?" Chance would have to be careful to make sure that Fortuna didn't lose interest. He'd have to be sure to explain things in a way her one track mind would be receptive to.
"I love new games!" She crossed her legs mid air mimicking his sitting position at around face level. "What do you want to play?"
"Remember how awesome it was when All Might showed up and saved us? You thought that was cool right?" Chance hoped Fortuna would have a bit of patience for discussion at least this once.
Thankfully she seemed to find All Might sufficiently exciting to talk about for a while. "Yeah he showed up with a Woosh! And hit that gross guy like, Boom! And then stuff was flying all over the place. It was crazy! Kinda like when you get a jackpot on a slot machine and the bells are ringing and the lights are flashing. Super exciting!" Fortuna flew around enthusiastically acting out all her descriptions.
Chance was glad that she had compared All Might's actions to something she loved. Hopefully that meant she'd be more open to his suggestions. "Yeah you enjoy stuff like that don't you Fortuna? I think it makes the games way more fun."
"Yeah! The flashiest slot machines are the best!" She confirmed.
"Right. So my idea is that we take all that energy you've always got and use it to save people like All Might does. What do you think of that Fortuna?" Chance asked.
Fortuna tilted her head at the question. "Wait you're really serious about all this hero stuff huh? I thought you were just having a laugh. I don't know Chance. All Might was cool, sure, but when are we going to get to play if we're always busy running around saving people?"
"We can do both at the same time." Chance explained. "If I become a hero we'll get to play your games all the time. All you have to do is use some of that energy you get when we play to help fight bad guys. Think of it like adding all the bells and whistles to the Jackpot. That stuff isn't really needed to play the game, but it makes it more fun right?"
Fortuna's face lit up with delight. "We'd get to play all the time? That would be awesome! Why didn't you just say that to start with? Let's get started right away!"
"Looks like I'm finally learning to speak your language." Chance laughed. "I'm glad you agree Fortuna. Just keep in mind that we're going to need to try a few things to figure out how to use your power. You're gonna need to have a bit of patience okay?"
"Yeah, I get it now." She smiled. "So what do we do to start? More blackjack?"
"Yes, let's test the cards some more. We didn't really try any more after the first time we used the chips. Hopefully it wasn't just a fluke or something." He agreed and they began to play.
Thankfully Fortuna's playing cards were as strong as he remembered. For the first few hands he tossed them at the ground and they exploded into light like before, but it was hard to tell how strong they were from that. Next he tried throwing one at the fence, which shook and rattled loudly from the impact. That convinced him that the cards could pack a punch. Hitting the fence had been loud though, so he decided it was best not to hit it too much or he might get in trouble again.
He'd been winning quite a bit and had increased his chips by 20 when Fortuna began to tire of him betting only one at a time. "Come on Chance. Let's do some real gambling. Bet higher!" Five of his white chips merged into a single red one marked with the number 5. "Fortune favors the bold ya know."
Of course Chance lost the first bet he made with his new red chip. "Right… Tell me again who fortune favors exactly?" He snipped at Fortuna sarcastically, as she laughed at him. He took his new cards and decided to see how much of an effect changing the size of the bet had. When he threw them at the ground they actually knocked out several chunks of dirt and tore up the grass.
"I guess bigger really is better." Chance whistled, eyes wide in surprise. "Let's try not to destroy the whole backyard on our first day though."
"You were right Chance, this is actually a lot of fun!" Fortuna said cheerfully. "Did you see the lights when those popped? They were way bigger than before."
Chance decided it was time to do some less destructive tests regarding Fortuna's game. He discovered that she didn't even need him to physically use her chips. He could just tell her how much he wanted to bet and it worked all the same. They played for a while without the chips physically present at all and he found that Fortuna had been true to her word about being able to keep track of everything in her head.
That meant that he didn't need to be sitting on the floor to play either. They were able to walk around the yard with Fortuna floating alongside him playing easily enough. He didn't even need his hand's free to hold the cards. As long as he told her what actions he wanted to take, even in his thoughts, she could run the game just as easily as their computer game had. Her boasts from before hadn't been exaggerated surprisingly enough.
"Of course they weren't. I'm Lady Luck after all. You think some stupid machine knows how to gamble better than me?" She exclaimed imperiously. "I am the Queen when it comes to games of chance. Bow before me peasant!" Fortuna posed regally and four Queen cards appeared around her to complete her grandiose display.
"I think you're getting a bit big for your boots there little queen." He plucked her out of the air and held her upside down. "Who's the peasant around here again?"
The silly exchange sent both of them into fits of laughter. "Seriously though, I'm really proud of all the cool stuff you can do Fortuna." Chance said once he caught his breath. "When I become a hero I just know everyone else will love you too."
"As long as I get to play with you Chance, I don't care what anyone else thinks of me." She replied with her most charming smile.
After that they returned to playing blackjack for a while. Chance was pleased with how things had gone so far. They could play the game on the move, which would be necessary with how mobile heroes needed to be. Fortuna's cards seemed like they could become quite powerful, especially if he could win enough chips to bet higher with each hand. So far the only real downside this game seemed to have was that he couldn't save up cards forever. On their own Fortuna seemed to be able to keep the cards around nearly indefinitely, but once they were charged by him betting on a hand they would only last 3 minutes before fizzling out of energy and vanishing.
However, after a long losing streak that brought him down underneath the 100 chips he started with, he remembered the primary weakness of his quirk. Fortuna's power was based around the concept of gambling. That meant you had to bet something, and you were far from guaranteed to get back what you risked. If luck wasn't on his side it was easily possible he would run out of chips, and his quirk would be done for the day. On top of that, he'd lose a portion of all the chips he'd managed to gain up to that point too. He'd have to be very mindful with how he spent his chips at all times otherwise he could easily hinder his own progress, or waste the energy he might need to save someone.
"Let's try a different game Chance." Fortuna suggested. "It's more fun when you mix things up. I wanna play some craps!"
"Yeah, we will need more than one technique if I want to make it as a hero." He agreed. "But how would that one work? What are you gonna do? Put a big craps table down in the middle of a fight?"
"Now you're just being silly." She giggled and a tiny pixie sized craps table appeared next to her. She also changed her outfit. Her new appearance was that of a casino dealer with black dress pants, a white button up shirt with a red tie, and red dealer's vest. She pulled her purple hair back into a loose ponytail and turned to him. "So are you ready to roll some dice?"
"But how am i going to see or place bets on that tiny table - Ohh" Chance interrupted his own question. "You probably don't even need that little table do you Fortuna? You can run the whole game without it? Still, I'm not sure how we are going to use your energy playing like this though."
"It looked like fun when you were throwing all the cards around so it gave me an idea of my own." Two huge red dice, around the size of bowling balls appeared next to her. "It's my turn to have some fun!" Fortuna cheered before she sent the dice rolling around the yard. Where the cards before had burst when they came into contact with another object, the dice continued to bounce around. They rebounded against the fence in the corner of the yard before coming to rest on the ground, sitting there for only a moment before they vanished and a new set appeared next to her. "What do you think Chance? It'll be fun!"
"That's not a bad idea Fortuna." Chance agreed. "Let's give it a try then. I bet 1 on the pass line." He started with the most basic bet. If the roll of the dice comes up a 2, 3, or 12 he'd win, getting two times return on his bet. If the roll was a 7 or 11 he would lose his chip instead.
Fortuna sent the dice out again. Now with his wager active each bounce on the ground made an audible thump from their impact, indicating that the dice had been powered up just like the cards from before. When they came to a stop they were too far away for Chance to see properly, but Fortuna apparently knew the result anyway without going to look. "Hard 8! The new point is 8!" She declared.
In the event that a 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10 was rolled then that number would become the "point". At this time the dice are rolled again. The goal now is to roll the same number as the point. In this case if Fortuna rolls another 8 Chance would win. However if a 7 comes up before an 8 then he would lose.
Chance realized one large benefit to this game. He could potentially keep rolling for quite a while based off of only 1 bet before the outcome was decided. That could potentially save him a lot of chips over the course of a battle. "I'll bet the odds." He added automatically. The "odds" were a follow up bet that he would roll the 8 before he "crapped out" and rolled a 7. Since this was such a safe bet to make, one of the few you could find in a casino that actually had no house advantage, he did so without giving it any real thought.
That meant he hadn't really considered the fact that he'd just added 5 more chips to his wager. Since the house had no advantage on odds bets it was standard for there to be a limit to how much you could bet on it. In this case it was 5 times his pass bet because the point was on 8.
"Now we're talking!" Fortuna grinned as a red chip spun next to her. The dice went flying again and with the total bet now up to 6. They bounced much higher and father than before, and crashed loudly into the wall of the house before finally coming to a stop."And it's another 8! The pass line wins. That's 30 chips." She cheered.
Chance winced at the noise and rushed over to check the wall, hoping he hadn't knocked a hole in that wasn't the case, but he still panicked when he heard his mother's voice calling out from inside. "Chance what was that noise? What's going on out there?"
Chance returned inside to answer her call. "Uhm... Nothing mom! Me and Fortuna were just playing is all. Nothing to worry about!" He chuckled sheepishly.
"Is that so?" His mother eyed him suspiciously. "Well it was about time you came back in anyways. I ordered pizza for dinner and it'll be here in a few minutes. I'm going to go wake up your dad."
A few minutes later, Chance and his family were enjoying their pizza together when his mother questioned him again. "Sweetheart, what were you and Fortuna doing outside earlier? You almost never go out in the yard. I thought for sure two were going to be glued to the computer the moment we got home."
"Oh, we don't really need the laptop anymore." He chuckled nervously. "I was just testing out what my quirk could really do is all. Fortuna's way more amazing than we thought. We were playing blackjack and craps outside."
"Yeah it was a whole lot of fun!" Fortuna created another set of cards and dice and displayed them proudly above the table. "Look at this Mom! Neat huh?"
His parents each reached out to get a better look at Fortuna's creations. "Oh my! These feel so real." Alice said after she'd shuffled the cards around a bit.
"I agree. Well, Fortuna has always been full of surprises I suppose." Katsuro said, looking thoroughly impressed by his son's quirk. "I'm glad you're learning so much about your quirk son, but I must ask. What brought this on? You never used to bother with these sorts of experiments."
Chance fidgeted nervously at the table for a moment, worried about what his parents would think of his motivations. "Well… you see… When All Might saved me and Grandma it made me think. Heroes change people's lives for the better every single day. The make the world a better place, and people remember them for it." He blurted out anxiously. " I realized that I want to do that too! Fortuna's way stronger than we ever gave her credit for and I… I want to try to be a hero!" He declared.
His mother was the first to recover from her surprise. "What? Son, I love Fortuna just as much as you do, and she can certainly do some impressive things. But now you're talking about hero work? I'm not sure she's exactly reliable for that sort of thing... You know how she can be."
"I know mom… Trust me I've thought of that too. But i'm starting to understand how Fortuna thinks a lot better. I'm sure together we can make it work!" Chance said with conviction.
"Chance, look at me." His father cut in. Katsuro stared at his son for several long moments, as if searching for something. Chance returned his dad's gaze with as much determination as he could muster. "Becoming a hero isn't something you do on a whim. There's a world of difference between messing around playing games with your quirk and fighting villains. Innocent lives will be at stake. Will you be able to handle that responsibility? Are you sure that this is what you want to do with your life?"
"Katsuro he's too young to know what he wants to do with his life." Alice snapped. "Heroism is one of the most dangerous professions someone could choose. It's way too risky!"
"I'm not too young! I know it's crazy, and I know it's dangerous. But I also know that I've never wanted anything more than this. Please Mom! At least let me try. That's all I want." Chance pleaded.
"No!. I'm sorry son, but I can't allow you to pursue something so dangerous!" His mother wouldn't budge.
"Now hold on Alice." His father interjected. "I know you're worried, and I know you're not going to like what I'm about to say, but i think we should let Chance give this hero thing a shot."
"What? Honey you can't be serious!" Alice gawked.
"Now just hear me out." Katsuro asked. "I remember when I first decided to follow my dream. I was a bit older than Chance, sure, but I can see that same passion and drive in my son that I felt back then. I still feel it today even."
He leaned back in his chair and sighed softly. "Gambling is almost completely outlawed in Japan you know. I could only play poker in private live games, and a lot of the people who were involved tended to be the shady sort. I didn't want to have to hide my passion any more, and I didn't want to get in trouble with the law. The only way I could truly pursue my dream was to leave Japan. When i was 17 I told my parents that I wanted to play poker professionally, and that I was going to move to America to do it."
"My dad didn't take it well." Chance's father frowned at the memory. "I didn't expect he would, but… Well let's just say that discussion went worse than I thought it would. He wanted to kick me out of the house then and there if I didn't 'Forget that gambling nonsense and get yourself a proper career!' as he put it. I was determined though, and nothing he said would change my mind. Thankfully my mom talked him down and didn't let him kick me out, but he would hardly speak to me for years."
"When turned 18 I set out across the world, chasing my dream. At the time I had no idea if I was making the right decision. I was risking everything. Everyone thought I was crazy, and that i was throwing my life away." Katsuro continued. "But i took that chance all the same, and i'm glad I did. It was thanks to me taking that risk that I achieved my dream, and met you Alice." he smiled warmly at his wife. "When you gave me a wonderful, healthy son I knew for sure that taking that chance was the best decision I'd ever made. That's how I picked your name, my son."
"Chance, the way you talk about wanting to become a hero reminds me so much of myself when I was younger. There's no way that I could tell you not to follow your dream. I would never put a strain on our relationship like that. Even to this day, after everything worked out for the best, there's still tension between me and my father over my decision to leave. I won't let that happen between us son. I hope you understand Alice." Katsuro finally concluded.
"Oh honey. I'm sorry... I didn't mean to… I wasn't think-... " Alice seemed at a loss for words for a moment. "You're right. Of course I'll support Chance as well. How could I do anything less."
"Do you really mean it Dad?" Chance could hardly believe what he was hearing. Moments ago he'd been been dejected by his mother's disapproval, but now he was quickly filling with hope and excitement again. "Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!" He got up and rushed around the table to hug each of his parents in turn. "I promise you won't regret this!"
Fortuna, not one to be left out of any excitement, had decided it would be helpful to make a party blower and was making a racket in celebration.
"Whoa there you two. Turn it down a notch or three" Chance's father laughed and ruffled his hair. "You should save some of that energy of yours. You're going to need it if you are serious about becoming a hero you know. You're going to need to put in a lot of hard work. I don't want to see you slacking off."
"I won't!" Chance assured fervently. "I'll work extra hard every day and make both of you proud! I'll work hard enough to get into the best hero school in the world, UA, like All Might. Then I'll become a pro hero!" His eyes sparkled with excitement.
"UA? Sweetie that's on the other side of the world!" His mother began to fret again. "Why can't you learn somewhere closer to home?"
"But mom, they don't start hero training till after high school here in America! If I want to become the best hero I can then I have to go to the best school." Chance insisted.
"Haha, you really are a chip off the old block aren't you son?" His father laughed fondly. "You don't do anything halfway do you? That's good. You'll need that sort of confidence if you're going to make it as a hero." Katsuro turned to his wife. "He does have a point though Alice, UA is one of the most highly acclaimed hero schools in the world. They get quite a few foreign students who go there to study. He'd definitely get a good education there. I had to move across the world to follow my dream too. At least he'll be near by his grandparents if he gets in."
"Oh fine, but I swear you two will have me going gray from worry before I turn 40!" Alice gave in. "He'll have to keep up with his school work though on top of practicing with his quirk or i'm going to put my foot down! We'll also need to increase his Japanese studies if he wants to go to school over there."
"Of course dear. He'll also need to focus on his fitness as well." Chance's dad assured her before turning to him. "You won't make much of a hero if all you do is sit around all day gambling with Fortuna after all. You think you can handle all of that son?"
Chance smirked confidently. "I know I can!"
"That's the spirit." His father squeezed his shoulder encouragingly. "I'll also get you some equipment to practice with in the backyard. Maybe a punching bag for you to knock around and some targets for accuracy. I don't want you destroying the house practicing with your quirk after all."
"Thank you both so much. You're the best parents ever!. I promise I won't let you down." Chance found himself wrapped up in a warm hug from both of his parents. He buried his head in his dad's shoulder, overwhelmed by the show of support.
"I know you won't son." Katsuro said warmly.
Chance knew the goal he'd set for himself meant a long and harsh path ahead of him, but despite the difficulty - or perhaps because of it? - he could hardly wait to get started.
A/N: Well there you have it. That's the origin arc complete. It only took me 20,000 words to do it haha. This will be a long story though, were really just getting started here. We also learned about another game in Chance's arsenal, and they've got another 6 years or so till UA. Who know's what they'll come up with in all that time. Any guesses?
Next Chapter: We'll be heading back to Japan to see if Chance can make it into UA.