A QUIET DAY AT THE MUSEUM

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Mandy and I are in the mob of people screaming and running toward the emergency exits. The man in the dusty coat who summoned the sand army stayed immobile as his constructs chase us down like nightmarish puppets.

"Where is security?" Mandy asks as we sprint.

The sandmen pulling people into their sand bodies and marching them away to the other side of the museum, like puppets against their will. They run past some people whilst diving on others and carrying them somewhere else. People run in all directions.

I look down at my phone, still no bars. No no can get a signal in here.

I watch as people are carried away, wondering if I should do something, but security should be here but then...

"Where the hell are they?" I ask.

We all run to one of the exits but they refuse to budge. Vertical bars shoot from the top of the doorway into the ground from the outside. Everyone sprints to another exit.

I look back I don't know how many people have been taken already but the authorities should be here soon.

Seriously, there should be guards under every shadow.

The crowd of people is slowing, panicked looks spread from the front back to us at the tail of the mob, before it moves again.

We pass by a hallway and I catch sight of a sandmen closing in on a woman, one of the kindergarten teachers we had seen earliest, a petite lady with a cute panda face.

"Mandy look!"

This is ridiculous, we have to do something, "Mandy, come on!"

I break off from the mob and turn down the hall into a room filled with modern art sculptures. I activate my Solar Aurora and leap into the air and fly fast in the direction of the woman being pulled away.

I hear Mandy yell, "Lucy, wait!"

I close in, there about five sandmen around, I fly headfirst into one and land a heavy punch on the other, one at a time I send them exploding into dust in the air.

There's only the one more that's has grabbed the teacher by the ankle and is now pulling her into its body.

"Help me." The teacher yells.

"Let her go!" I reach the woman and grab her by the arm and try to yank her out but the sandman's body pulls her in, sinking further and further in.

I'm aware of the other sandmen I had dispatched slowly reforming around us.

"I said let her go!" I direct my energy in my right arm throw a punch straight at the sandman's head.

My fist goes straight through the sand without any resistance tunneling straight to the other side. My eyes go wide when I watch as sand collects around my forearm and...

The shriek that comes out of my mouth barely sounds human when the sand condenses, and I feel my arm break.

"AAAAAHH!"

I pull away, flying backward fast and colliding hard against a wall. I collapse onto the floor.

I cradle my now broken arm. Sweat crawls down my head, my gold blonde hair sticking to my face. I groan as I am doubled over and all I feel is pain. Pain. Pain.

"Lucy!" Mandy is at my side, kneeling over my body, "are you- oh god."

Pain. Pain. Pain.

Tears begin to sting my eyes and I grit my teeth as I shake my head. The panda lady is carried away screaming.

"Lucy... I'm sorry but you have to get up." Mandy pleads, "we have to get out of here!"

Pain! Pain! Pain!

"Mandy..." my voice sounds hoarse and desperate.

Mandy turns and stands up in front of me shielding me with her body. I don't know what she plans to do. I don't think her quirk is going to work on these things, and if she tries I'll be getting the brunt of it from this close.

Mandy must be thinking the same thing because I see her body shake with either fear or anger or both.

"Where is everyone!" Mandy yells desperately.

We're surrounded.

"Lucy..." Mandy looks back nervously.

I'm sorry, Mandy. I'm sorry.

"DENSITY SHIFT!" A voice comes from above us, "Heaven's Descent!"

The incredibly large security guard from the entrance we met earlier comes crashing down on the sandmen from way up in the air. Landing crushingly hard and leaving a big crater beneath his huge rump.

How on earth did he get up that high?

The guard leaps forward effortlessly like he weighs absolutely nothing and grabs us as he leaps forward just before a cascade of sand lands from above us.

With us in his arms, he leaps high and fast into the air, when he lands he sprints way faster than I could believe into the next hall and carries us to a corner of the room to a door that says 'staff-only'. The guard places his palm on a reader and the door opens and we get inside.

My senses slowly return to me, and I activate my quirk and begin to feel the pain from my broken arm ease a little and I can begin to pull myself to my feet.

"Okay, I think we'll be safe in here for a little while."

The huge guard breathes before turning his attention and walking our way.
"You kids okay?" The security guard asks.

He has a bleeding head, the blood trickling down his face into his big bushy beard that ends at the top of his chest, his grey security uniform is disheveled and stained with sweat.

I take deep breath after deep breath, "My arm is broken, but other than that—"

"Where the hell have you been!" Mandy erupts, "where are all the other guards and—"

The massive guard says, before ripping off the sleeve of his large grey shirt uniform. He twists it a few times in different directions and the next thing I know he is gently putting my arm in a sling.

I hold my arm gently, it feels a little better. "Thank you,"

"The initial shock is might have made it feel a lot worse," the guard says, "It'll still hurt but not as bad."

He's right, and I should know all of that. This is what we train for after all, but the real thing is... well, real.
"Sir, where is the rest of the museum's security?"

"Yeah!" Mandy asks, "And why aren't you getting us out of here. Can't you just blast a hole through the walls and lead everyone out?"

"Because I can't," The guard replies, "I doubt anyone can."

Mandy's head scrunches with rage. "And why is that?"

"I know why." I answer her. I remember clearly what was on the news not that long ago.
"Not very long ago the museum was about to close permanently due to the many attacks and robberies by villains with powerful quirks, the State couldn't keep affording the rebuilding which is why it was privatized to the Sekai Family."

The guard nods his bearded head. "The renovated infrastructure of the museum was done by Cape Industries and was designed to theoretically withstand a kilotonne of force." He finishes by shaking his head subtly, I assume at the irony.

The museum was has been made too strong to get in, but now it's too strong to get out. That's why phone signal can't get through. The walls are just too dense.

"Well isn't that just great." Mandy yells, "but the museum has alarms and whatever other security measures, so why the hell aren't the heroes or the police here already!"

The guard takes in a deep breath, "For one, the museum has been put in complete lock down, we're trapped in here. And two," the big security guard looks away, hanging his head sadly, "there's no easy way to say this, but it seems a number of my staff are traitors. They all received a message at the same time and turned on me and some others. Men I've worked with my whole career..." The huge security guard clenches painfully, feeling the weight of what must have been a heavy betrayal.
"A Sleeper Cell."

"Sleeper Cell?" Mandy sounds as confused as I am, "do you mean accomplices?"

The guard shakes his head, "No, believe me. I'm not one for dramatizations."

Mandy and I share a look.

"Okay... but then, from where exactly?" I ask him.

"The easiest answer I can give you is that they're from our past. A place we've all tried to forget."

Mandy groans with annoyance, "As cryptic and vague as that is, it doesn't explain why you wouldn't have a contingency for getting a message out of these stupid thick wall to the heroes and the police."

"There are, silent alarms scattered all over the museum that can be triggered by a push of a button that communicates to inscriptions distinct to emergency lines."

Oh, thank goodness. I sigh with palpable relief, "So all we need to do is trigger them and wait till the authorities arrive?"

The guard's face remains hard and I feel uneasy. "It's not that simple."

Mandy grinds her teeth, "Why."

The guard points to his watch that has two straps to fit around his large wrist, the face of it flashing on and off, pulsating for what must be the whole time we've been here.
"The alarms have already been triggered."

What? "But then where—"

"I don't know," the guard says, "it appears that everything is functioning normally but I'm not receiving any response. And it requires my bio ID to be disabled. It should have been impossible for them to bypass it but..."

"So what, are you saying no one outside this building knows we're in danger?" Mandy asks.

The guard nods. "That's what we have to assume, but right now our current priority is keeping the people in this museum safe and getting them out alive."

Mandy's eyes go wide, "'Our'!?"

"We're just kids, sir. We don't have licenses or qualification to—"

"To hell with that nonsense! You're a Bruden, that's as good a qualification as any," he pauses, looking a little forlorn into both our faces "and right now your generation is the only one that can be trusted."

Mandy throws her arms out with even more frustration, "And what the hell does that mean?"

I put a hand on her shoulder to try calming her down.
"Sir, it's against the law for us to use—"

"The museum and everything it sits on was acquired by the Sekai family. We're on private land," the guard digs thoroughly in his back pocket, speaking quickly and officially all of a sudden.
"As chief custodian of security of said land, I hereby temporarily employ you under the statute of extreme circumstances, allowing you the freedom to use whatever Activated Force necessary to protect both the museum's artifacts and all its occupants."

With surprising quickness, the huge guy strips the visitor's badges off our clothes and clips on new ones with the word 'security' on them.

"Welcome to the team. My name's Robert but you can call me Bud."

Mandy and I share silent looks. I can tell we're thinking the same thing.

We're not heroes. Hell, we're not even close to being sidekicks... but we can't do nothing if no one else is coming.

"So much for a nice day at the museum." Mandy says.

We shake hands, "I'm Lucy." / "Mandy."

"Alright, Lucy and Mandy, let's go to work."

I fire a blast through a pair of sandmen who have cornered a pair of civilians, underneath a massive dinosaur model.

I hover in front of them, "Please make your way to-"

"Hey, you're a Bruden!" One of the civilians yells.

Seriously, right now. "Yes, I'm a Bruden, now please make your way to the east wing of the museum."

This is the plan, we have to try and get all the people on one side of the museum and hold the sand villain away until Mandy and Bud can get a signal to the authorities. From what we could tell the sandmen were carrying people off towards the west wing, Bud's instructions are to divide the civilians on one side of the museum and the villain on the other side then the other security guards who didn't turncoat can form a line of defense and stall until help arrives.

Bud's quirk is Density Shift, which means despite the fact that he probably weighs about as much as a truck, in the blink of an eye he can make his body as light as a feather, or as dense as a massive cannonball. Which is how he is able to jump so high and move so nimbly, by leaping at his natural weight then making himself significantly lighter just when he's about to leave the ground.

It shouldn't be hard, Mandy is a genius she'll figure out how to use the now obsolete equipment in the museum's basement level. We just need to follow Bud's orders.

'No matter what,' Bud said, 'hold the line.'

I just have to distract and lead the Sandmen away from the people and retrieve as many people as I can. Meaning quick attack and evade maneuvers.

"Hey, hero, over here!" It's one of the security guards, "we need your help!"

He has his back to me and I just catch sight of him going into the next hall. I don't think anything of it and fly to go help.

When I speed into the room my eyes go wide, the sand villain still in his long dirty coat and long muddy boots with dirt brown hair. His face is sooty and he looks really old, with wrinkles on his face, like someone's grandpa. He's flanked by a line of security guards in black full face masks above their typical grey shirts and black pants uniform.

I come to a complete stop in the air when I take in the scene in front of me. One of the masked guards in particular, is down on one knee and canon on his shoulder pointed right at me.

Oh on.

The cannon fires and a weighted net hits me.

"AH!" I fall hard onto the marbled floor on my arm and the world goes hazy. The net is wrapped tight around my body.

Stupid! How could I forget that Bud said that some of his guards were working with the enemy.

"Vasagona," one of the masked security guards with the cannon says, "what should we do with her?"

"We don't need her." The sand villain answers.

I watch his face carefully.

Villain Name: Vasagona. Quirk: The Sandman Puppeteer.

I try to shift up and point my palm out but the security guard pushing a button on his gun and-

"AAHH!" I scream when the net gives me an electric shock and collapse back down.

"Don't worry," another security guard leans down opening a vial with yellow smoke coming out of it, "you won't be harmed, just don't resist."

I don't know what it is but I know it's bad. "Please, don't!"

The yellow vapor is almost at me, it smells sweet and I begin... to... feel...

My eyes are close when I hear the sound of someone barging in, fast and quick footsteps, then of people groaning, yelping in pain, and bodies crashing to the ground.

I feel the net being pulled off my body, and a gentle hand tapping my face.

"Hi, you okay?" the voice sounds friendly and familiar his Lower accent distinct.

My eyes open slowly.

"There you are," My mind is slow in coming but I remember him, from class.
"I don't think we've formally met," he says offering me a hand.

He has a soft and boyish human face, and the shredded body of an elite athlete, two small horn protruding from his the top of his head. Shrike's friend with the antelope quirk.

"I'm Elan. We got your message."

Message? ...Mandy! She came through!

I look around and my eyes widen with shock. All the guards are on the floor with pained expressions on their faces, even Vasagona.

I take his hand and rise to my feet aided mostly by his strength, "Thanks, Elan. Does this mean Mr Conrad and the heroes are here too?"

"Uh, not really." Elan says hesitantly, "we were all exploring the city when Mago got Mandy's text, all it said was 's.o.s museum', we didn't think it was this serious though. We called the police before we came inside, they were taking forever so we just came inside ourselves, we thought they'd be here already."

I'm worried about everything he just said, but I'm more concerned that Mandy stalked Mago enough to have memorized his phone number.

"Plus there's a runaway bus causing havoc downtown. That's kinda preoccupied everyone's attention." Elan answers.

"Holy crap." Okay, this is starting to get really scary.

Whoever is behind this thought everything through to the last detail. This is a fully orchestrated and planned out attack on a massive scale.

"We're gathering everyone in the east wing, they're still people who need help back there though," I start to move but Elan puts a hand on my shoulder.

"I think you better rest, I'll run around and find anyone who needs help." Elan says, "you look a little worse for wear." Referring to my broken arm.

"Are you sure?"

"Mago and the other Lower kids from the class are in here too," he points behind himself, "you make sure these guys don't get up." Elan point to the guards and Vasagona who are still laying on the floor.

He gives me a warm confident smile. I almost forgot, but instead, make a mental note that Elan took them all out by himself?

"Okay... good idea." I reply, help should be here soon, except, "wait, how were you able to get in?"

"Kul." Elan answers, "from class."

Kul? What was his quirk again?

"You wouldn't know him, he's a Lower kid. He's quirk is-"

"...ha...ha hahhaha. " The laugh is coming from Vasagona gingerly rising to his feet. "children, talk too much"

"Get behind me," Elan shift his body to stand in front of mine.

Vasagona is up to his feet, raising his hands. I look at Elan, he turns his head to the side and I see his tall ears twitch, once then twice... and...

Faster than I can blink Elan picks me up off my feet right somehow avoid touching my injured arm right at the second an avalanche of sand comes crashing into the room toward us from the other side.

Elan sprints with me on his shoulder, the sand crashes around the Vasagon's body swirling and forming into massive arms and head, like a giant sand monster, crashing around the room coming to bury us.

Elan is close to the doors on the other side.
"Fly!" Elan yells right when he reaches the doorway and I feel his body lurch and he tosses me off him.

I'm thrown into the air and just like he said I activate my quirk—panic shoots through my head when my quirk doesn't activate. What the hell, I try again and again and my aurora lights turn on when I'm inches from crashing from to the ground.

That was weird, really weird.

"Run!" Elan says holding the doors shut against the sand with his back against the door.

"But—"

"We can't help anyone if we're both trapped in the sand," Elan is budged but regains his footing and pushes the doors back, "don't worry, I got this." He gives me that same boyish smile almost as if everything is completely fine.
His voice strains from the effort, "Could you hurry maybe!"

I wince in frustration. I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry.

I turn and fly away.

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| Lucy Bruden. Quirk: Solar Aurora. Affiliation: K.I Academy |

| Elan Tamanga. Quirk: Antelope. Affiliation: K.I Academy |