Legends Yet Unwritten
Chapter Three: Preamp
One of the problems I have as an author is the reputation. I try to be grim, I try to make it hurts, and I hear "Daww... Raven only writes the fluffies. The fluffiest fluff. Da Waven iz soo fwuffy!"
Yeah... Fwuff that.
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Kyouka Jirou slowly became aware of the her breathing, like a quiet reed flute being played from the forest at the end of the valley. Slow, steady. Then she could hear a soft hum, like from an air return, a deep whispering from above the hills, the drone of a far off bagpipe. And a beep. Slow, in harmony with the four parts of each heart beat. Electronica and drums for rhythm. A deep basso rumble she could feel more than hear, hunger a adding it's track to the music. A steady vibration on the strings of her nerves, the note shifting as she twitched her fingers and curled her toes. She smiled as the song started to write itself in her head. The music was her life.
Well, the electronica was new. Then she remembered... her head hurt. A lot. Her brows furrowed as she tried to remember how she'd forgotten that. Like feedback... "owww".
"And thank you for tuning in, little listener. How are you feeling?"
Jirou didn't need to open her eyes to recognize Yamada-sensei. She cracked one eye open though, and flinched. "Yeah. Owww."
"Don't sit up. Shota would have my head if you broke yourself. Signal check, how do I read?"
Yeah, sitting up would be bad. Jirou forced her eye to stay open. Yamada-sensei looked different with his hair down. And he looked nervous. What ever happened hadn't made her forget that you read a signal for strength and clarity, with a low of one and a high of five. "I read you four by five. You're usually an 11 by 4. Where are we? What happened?"
Present Mic smirked at that- of course he'd go to 11. That she could remember the joke was a good sign. "Mustufa General, the neurology ward. Recovery Girl and the doctors here agree you should be good. Let me get get the doctors, they'll want to check on you." He reached for the call button, but he paused, turning his hand to make it a thumbs up. "Don't tell Aizawa I said this, but welcome to the big show, kid. This is your first Pro Hero Concussion- that means you're in the club, Earphone Jack."
"Thanks. I think."
-ua-
The doctors had shooed Present Mic out of the room so they could evaluate her condition. They checked her eyes, her ears, listened to her heart, asked her basic questions. They seemed happy with the results. But they didn't ask her what had happened, nor had they told her anything other than she was in excellent condition. They gave her the bedpan, unwilling to let her walk. Before the shame of that had passed, they gave her a shot, and told her that sleeping was a good thing.
When next she woke, Midnight was watching her. "Hey there, kid. How are you feeling?"
"I'm feeling better. Starving."
"I love a healthy appetite- it's a good sign. They serve breakfast in about two hours." Midnight paused for a moment, looking over the young woman. "Do you remember what happened?"
"I was on the train, coming back from my workstudy. I'd gotten delayed with paperwork, and told the others to go ahead because I'd fine on my own. I grabbed a meat roll at a konbini and caught the next train. We were about three minutes out when my headset picked up chatter- there was a villain on the loose, possibly headed for the train station..."
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"Lurkers, this is provisional hero Earphone Jack. I've been listening to your situation. I am ETA Mustafa station five minutes; can you send me a description? I can block him if he's gotten to the station.."
"This isn't your beat, kid." Jirou was pretty sure the unidentified voice was Mt Lady.
"Oh, she owns all the beats." Kaminari's voice was instantly recognizable, along with a couple cackles from her classmates. Jirou blushed- it was so unprofessional. Any other time, it would be cute, but it would be a cold day in hell before she would tell him that, or even admit it to Momo.
"Edgeshot here. Chargebolt, that sounds like you vouch for her ability? All right, send her the photos we've got of this guy. Consider him very dangerous, his quirk is density manipulation restricted to his own body. Calls himself the Onepunch Wonder, and he has a history of violence. Nice to have you there. Call out if you see him."
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"I waited at the station where I could see the the platform, ticket counter and two of the three entrances. This guy came running in, with a duffle bag in his hand. He fit the description, so I called him in. My plan was observe and wait for backup. I was only going to engage if tried to get on a train. He bought a ticket, don't know to where. Then he noticed me, and started to run. Clubbed an old man who didn't move fast enough, he went down. I continued to follow, using my quirk and support to tell people to get out of the way. He jumped down on the tracks and ran. We got out of the station, maybe a hundred yards before he threw the bag over the chainlink fence. Shouted for everyone to stay away from it, as he tried to climb the fence. I grabbed his leg and pulled him down, ordering him not to resist..." Jirou frowned, trying to remember.
"What happened then?"
She tried to rack her memory, and there was no answer. "I don't remember. I think he resisted."
Midnight nodded, pulling out a small tablet. "Do you want to see this? If you don't, I understand, no one wants to watch their ass get kicked. The masochist in me kinda likes it, but I'm not everyone." Nemuri blushed a little as she held the slab out.
"Sure. I guess." Jirou took the device. She didn't know the person who's social feed this was on, but they had a lot of likes. Recent likes- maybe people did enjoy seeing her getting knocked out. Stain's words had become popular- she'd ridden the train looking at a creep with that lunatic's face on his shirt. Despite that, she had become convinced that Kayami-sensei said outrageous things mostly just to see how people reacted to the openness. "Where is Aizawa-sensei? I'm surprised he isn't here yet."
"He's been here a couple times, but there has been paperwork and..." Kayami said, giving a twisted yet sad grin. "I was with him when he debriefed the Lurkers. He got all their comments, questioned them. Then he sent the workstudy kids in the other room, and started to dissect the Pros. You know how he does it."
"Yeah. That look, and then he doesn't scream or swear and you kind of wish he would." That was the worst thing about it. Aizawa-sensei never said he was disappointed any more. He would just give them a cold look, and they'd know. He knew they could do better. All Might was even worse, he'd just look sad.
Midnight nodded. "This time he was shouting. Mt Lady was trying to hide behind Kumai Woods."
Wow. That was one of the more shocking things she'd heard in weeks. Her home room teacher never raised his voice- he could project, he had masterful command of his voice, but she hadn't heard him really raise it, not even at the USJ. The one scream had been involuntary, from the pain. "He shouts?"
"When it is something really important, yeah. It's pretty epic." It really had been- she'd been afraid she was going to have to get in between him and the others. One student in the hospital with a surgical team on standby if she'd taken a sudden change, and a second in police custody pending a use of force investigation and unable to remember his actions due to the nature of his Quirk, that made it really important. If there hadn't been so many witnesses, including the footage of Jirou getting kicked in the head and ribs repeatedly, they wouldn't have been able to get Kaminari behind UA's walls. Jirou's x-rays and a License made the investigation a formality, but Shota wanted his kids back to the school. Now. Nedzu-sensei understood that until Shota was able to stay at the hospital himself, it had to be her or Hizashi. If they were at the school, anyone could sit with them, but outside it's walls, it had to be him or someone he trusted with much more than just his life or he'd be frantic.
Jirou sat there, looking at the tiny screen. The image was frozen, Oneshot turning to face her as she appeared at the edge. The picture of her looked scared but confident. The more she looked at it, the more she realized that no, she didn't really want to watch this. She knew that she could look forward to Aizawa showing the whole thing to the class and taking it apart. "Actually, I think I"ll watch this later. I'm going to sleep for a bit."
As Nemuri took the tablet back, she knew something that her student didn't. As much as Shota would go over the mistakes of the pros,he would not make his students autopsy their own failures. And not in public. In a few weeks, this one might be ready to ask one of the instructors what she did wrong.
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When she woke up, it was the same round of poke and prod and recording everything that she was pretty sure the machines were recording on their own. But Jirou also knew that she would never take someone else's word for it that an instrument was tuned without checking it herself. The good news was that they let her pee on her own. The bad news was that they wanted to take x-rays before breakfast.
The meal was omurice (with squid ink and both chicken and pork), miso with burdock root, and fruit, with a surprisingly weak tea. She's been told it was because caffeine was not recommended during recovery from a concussion. As when she'd had her appendix out, the food was good, but the miso wasn't as good as what she'd become accustomed to. They'd had to cook their evening meal for themselves after the first few weeks in the dorms, and on his nights Bakugo had reason to preen. His miso was amazing, to the point Yaoyorozu had tried to buy and even to beg the recipe from him for her family's chef. He'd refused- but he'd taught it to her on the condition that Creati never write it down. (Kyouka had had to leave the room to keep from laughing when Bakugo drafted Todoroki to be the taste tester.)
She'd asked Midnight if her phone had survived, but it hadn't. The good news was that she uploaded just about everything every day. She had lost a couple pictures and part of a song she'd been working on, but not much and the only picture she had needed for work she'd already sent where it needed to go.
Aizawa arrived mid morning with something other than hospital scrubs for her to wear and Recovery Girl. The Healing Hero checked her out, and gave her a kiss on the forehead. Sure, that was how it worked, but it was like a kiss from a grandmother, or a really distant aunt. She laughed as Jirou rubbed her forehead. "There... how do you feel, young lady?"
"Better. Still have a headache, it comes and goes."
"You will. Your last x-ray shows no permanent damage. You're lucky that young man showed up when he did- you had multiple skull fractures, a broken jaw, multiple broken ribs and a cracked sternum. I can't fix it if you're dead. A few more kicks to either your head or your chest would have done that." She looked the young woman in the eyes, holding them for several second. It was some of her finest work. "Well, I need to arrange for your exit paperwork..." With the soft thump of her cane and a jerk of her chin, Shuzenji-sensei beckoned Midnight from the room.
Jirou felt her insides twist a little. Aizawa was silent as he looked at her, not blinking. He was still, she could barely even see that he was breathing. And he just kept staring with a look she'd never seen before. "Sensei? Am I in trouble?
"No." He frowned. He would give anything to trade with this young woman. He'd surrender his license, give up teaching. He'd let his quirk be taken for ever, and then sent to prison. He even knew the charges- contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and child endangerment. But at the same time, he knew these things happened, and this was as good an outcome as he could hope for. She was alive, and wouldn't even have any physical scars. "I spoke with your parents. They will be visiting at the school later today, it was the earliest they could get back."
"They don't have to."
"Yes, they do. So they know you are ok." He looked down. He'd apologized profusely to the Jirous, as had Edgeshot. The Lurkers had been emphatically informed that when it came to his students, gods and devils bow to his judgement or answer to him. "I've been in and out, but you were always sleeping. And the police had no idea what do with Kaminari."
The rhythm section in her chest picked up, the beep chasing her heart. And making her head hurt. "The police? Is Kaminari under arrest?"
"No. He was in no shape to be wandering around on his own, someone had to come get him." " He'd been checked over at the scene. If it wasn't for the brain-fry being a known side effect of his quirk, the young man would probably be in the police ward down the hall. They'd stitched and bandaged him, though, and handed him over to the police before he'd recovered. Aizawa would rather they'd put him in the hospital, so he could deal with it all in one place. Running around like this was tiring, and Shota knew it made him difficult for those who cared about him. "He is under campus restriction while they investigate."
"What is there to investigate?"
"There are eye witnesses who say he went over the fence and tackled the villain. Told him to stay down, and the villain didn't... " He sighed. Teaching wasn't easy as it looked. Particularly these kids. His kids.
"Sensei?
Aizawa put on his go-to-court face before looking past her and focusing his eyes on a point inside the wall. "Multiple eyewitnesses describe the Provisional Hero Chargebolt pinning the perpetrator against a lamp post that was part of the safety fence to interrupt a homicide in progress, before discharging his electrical quirk at contact range. It grounded through the lamp post, resulting in a black out that lasted eighty-four minutes and effected most of central Musutafu including the train station and switch yard. A localized electromagnetic pulse effect destroyed most computing devices within fifty meters and temporarily disabled most that were not shielded by heavy walls for two hundred. When the first police officer arrived on seen less than two minutes later, they found Chargebolt in a dazed state at the side of victim, the Provisional Hero Earphone Jack."
Jirou blinked. She knew a lighting bolt could be destructive, but that was more that he was capable of. He was up to five million volts, but not the amps for that kind of damage. 'Volts hurt, amps kill' was something her father told her when she first started learning how to set up electrical for a show. And that meant Kaminari had... "He fried the guy?"
Aizawa just looked at her, before digging his phone out. "Yes." He had to enter several passwords, before he got to where he wanted. "Watch. This is the body camera footage of the first officer on screen. There are a couple of videos of the assault on you that were streamed in real time and saved as they went up, but most of what we'd expect was destroyed." He turned the device around, his thumb sliding up the volume.
What had been an aluminum lamp post was a puddle of metal and half of a toppled lamp post. The villain was... not in any condition to fight. Or do much of anything, other than twitch. Chargebolt was kneeling, holding her hand in his both of his, babbling as his blood ran down his arm from cuts and mixed with hers. She'd heard him overload himself before, many, many times. Depending on the situation, it could be funny or annoying. It was like that.
No.
It wasn't.
It wasn't like that at all.
It wasn't the strutting, proud and stupid at the same time Jamming-whey. It wasn't her Chargedolt.
It was the sound of something breaking, wailing the same three words over and over again between sobs. "Kyouka no go... Kyouka no go...
Her breath caught in her chest. It wasn't the blood from where she'd been kicked in the head, or where it soaked into her shirt. She was unconscious, she didn't remember how much it had to have hurt. He'd never used her given name But the more he said it, the more frantic it got."He thought I was dying?"
"You need to decide what to say, and then talk to him. He doesn't remember what he did, and he hasn't asked once if he's in trouble. He asked if you were safe, and I told him you were. Then he told me it was worth it. I-" Aizawa stopped, as if testing his next words. After a moment, he found ones that worked. "One of the hardest conversation I've ever had was after... a friend. A lady friend... She got hurt on patrol."
He'd been the one who'd gotten the call of a hero down in a fight, a knife in her back. He had seen the perp with bloody hands, wiping them on a wall, and hit the man. The man went down, hard, still wanting to fight. It was only after the police came had he been told it was Midnight. He'd been very close to opening the back of the cruiser and breaking the filth's neck. He didn't know who it was who took him to the hospital. She spent eight hours in surgery. A shopping list of damage, of organs removed, she'd nearly been disemboweled when a 40cm knife had been stabbed through her a dozen times and nearly severed a kidney. They said it took thirty units of blood, and she died twice on the table. Nine days she was unconscious, and four follow up surgeries. Yamada had been told to remove him from the facility on hygiene reasons on day five- Mic took him home, and once the door was closed, Aizawa started bawling. He felt like he'd failed, failed this beautiful friend. Failed to realize he loved her, and when he said it out loud he felt guilty, like he'd failed and cheated on another friend who he'd also been afraid to admit his true feelings for. Yamada told him that it was ok, there was nothing wrong with loving more than one person- it wasn't because he was greedy, but because he could love. That love is why he was a hero.
Doing this job, only love could blind you enough that you wouldn't think it was a bad idea. Love made it so it couldn't be 'someone else's problem'. There was so much he wasn't teaching this kids, that he needed to. Teach them so they didn't have to learn the hard way.
"Sensei?"
"Just tell him. Whatever the truth is, tell him. So he knows."
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Alone in her dorm room, her headache left. Her parents had wanted to know she'd be ok- Recovery Girl had been called over from her dispensary when her father still needed reassurance. Jirou talked him into not cancelling the Hong Kong, Seoul and Daegu shows- sure, Deep Dope was the warm up act, but was still an international tour and they had second billing. Unlike her father, who hadn't wanted to stop hugging her and making sure she was ok, her mother had taken it in stride. It worse than having the electrical system burst into flames in the middle of a show, but not quite bad as when they had gone to the States and learned that the instruments had failed to make the connection at some point. Bad, but not the end of the world. Which is how Jirou felt about it.
She'd chased them out half an hour ago. The band had gone on ahead from the last of the Malaysia shows and was already in Hong Kong, and her parents had to meet them there. And she was tired, she'd been told to keep it quiet. But there were other reasons she had tried to push them out the door, even if she didn't want to. It was almost the end of class, and she wanted to talk to someone before Yaomomo and Mina and the others charged in. Aizawa had been right- and she knew the beat and the notes of what she wanted to say. But she hadn't found the words. She was sitting in the middle of her bed, knees up to her chin as she tried to come up with the right ones.
The soft knock at the door made her jump. "Jirou?"
She thought she was ready for this, but she still gasped at the sound of his voice as she forgot her lines. Her heart beat changed at the sound of him. His range was lower, and it was rougher than usual, almost gravelly. Like he'd been crying or screaming. "Come in."
She could hear the deep breath through the door, and there was still a pause before he opened the door, sticking his head in. He had his trade mark grin in place, but it wasn't quite reaching his eye. "Hey!"
"What do you need?" Her eyes slipped down from his face, taking in the cuts on the back of his hand and on his chin, the bandage wrapped around his arm. He'd gotten hurt to.
He sighed, the grin slipping. "Is there anything I can get you? Something to drink? I..." The grin fell. "You're going to be ok, right?"
"Yeah. I'm taking the rest of the day off, then go easy on the training and music for a week. I should be back to normal by then."
"Jirou, I... I"m sorry I wasn't there sooner." His voice broke. "I tried..."
The words reverbed in her hearing. "Kaminari... Sit." She patted the bed next to him. He tensed, looking away. Before she knew it, her hand was patting the mattress next to her. "Seriously, sit down. Sit."
Leaving the door wide open as per the rules, Kaminari crossed to the bed, sitting on it's edge as she scooted forward. She could see the tension in his shoulders and back, in his neck. She set her hand on his. He sighed. "I'm sorry."
She gripped his hand. "Stop it." She squeezed his hand hard when his jaw started to move. "No, don't apologize. You got there in time. Plenty of time."
"But I took too long. If I had been faster..."
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"I'm coming, Jack! Hold on!" There was one thing about his quirk that most people didn't think about. They thought the headset was decorative, or just a communications rig that he was powering himself. And in a way, it was- it converted his quirk into a radio signal. It had taken a lot of work to be able to make it understandable. With it, he could 'talk' and run at the same time. And was glad for all the times he hadn't quit when running.
"Chargebolt! Wait for backup."
Kaminari's annoyance expressed itself in a blast of static as his boots pounded on the sidewalk. Jirou normally didn't leave her comm on vox, but push-to-talk, so she could talk. Everyone did. Every pounding beat of his boots seemed like an eternity of silence. She wasn't talking. Jirou was quiet. Quiet was bad. It was dead air. Don't die, Jirou!
The crowd at the crosswalk was too thick, they couldn't part. Without thinking, his boot came down on the fire hydrant, the next step landing on the hood of a stopped car. Step, jump, step, step, jump, step, step, then down on the pavement. He stumbled, but he fell loose rather than trying to catch himself, taking it on his shoulder and coming up on his feet. Any other time, he'd be excited- he never made that roll work in training, mostly because he'd second guess himself because falling on your face hurt. But this time it worked, he did it, because he had to. "Jirou!"
A tiny sliver of his mind was still contemplative. Plus Ultra, go beyond. It wasn't the first time he'd had to push himself past his limits. But this time, it felt different.
He ignored the orders to stop as he rounded the corner of the station. He could see their suspect, Onehit Wonder. The work boot going up, then stomping down at the black and pink and red object on the track. Connecting with her chest.
Denki jumped for the fence, grabbing the pipe at the top. The suspect's boot came back as he pulled himself up and rolled over the razor wire. Even as the wire shredded his jacket, everything moved in slow motion. He shouted an instinctive command. "Stop!"
As he landed, the cocked foot snapped forward, connecting with Kyouka's ear. Skin tore, blood sprayed, painting her face with her life as he heard the crack of bone. It wasn't like a drum stick cracking or a chicken bone, it was deeper. Sharper. Fear filled him. Then the lightening. He was filled with light, blue-white and so hot it was cold. He became the light. No more Denki Kaminari, no more Chargebolt, just the lightening.
Then everything was black.
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"...you wouldn't have been hurt."
She ran her fingers along his arm, tracing the bandages. "I could say its part of the job. Or that you saved me."
"If it wasn't for Recovery Girl-"
"Kaminari, stop. You can't what-if yourself to death. Remember what Hound-sensei told us."
Before he could reply, they heard the thump of the front door opening echoing up the stairs. It was too far to make out the words, but they could hear Iida- probably telling everyone not to mob her. Kaminari started to stand up. He wanted to hide from every one right now. Now that he'd seen she was ok, he could hide from her. "Thats the others. I should..."
"Denki no go..."
Chargebolt froze in mid step towards the hall. She'd never called him by his given name. "So you heard about that. I don't remember it, but they showed me the video." It wasn't a lie. He didn't remember saying that. But normally when he fried himself, the last thought that went through his brain was something like 'you can do this, you're a hero'. This time, he was screaming, with the only thought, the only feeling, coursing through him being 'you killed her'...
"I saw some of it. You caused a black out and melted the lamp post- thats pretty metal." She held her hand out to him.
"Apparently." He shrugged, but hung his head. He'd... he'd take whatever punishment came. Just so long as he didn't have to admit why he'd lost control like that. He felt guilty and ashamed and if he told her, it would be embarrassing.
"Thank you, Denki. You're my friend. Not for this, you already were. My friend, I mean." That could have smoother. "Still-"
"Really?"
"Of course. And when I think my head is ready, maybe we should go to a movie or something. When you can leave the dorm." She fingered one of her earjacks nervously. That had come out, but she meant it.
"It would be a good celebration, I think everyone would-"
She shook her head. She'd made up her mind, but she hadn't been able to think of the right way to say it. To play it. It had to be improve. Jamming with Jammingway. "Not everyone, Kaminari. Just the two of us."
"You mean... like... a. A, uhm..."
She stopped playing with her earjack and stood up from her bed. Two steps, and she could rest her hand on his elbow. She knew she was blushing "Yeah... like... uhm.. one of those."
"Really?" He was blushing to.
'Whatever the truth is, tell him.' The advice from Aizawa-sensei. Other advice mixed with it. 'Show, don't tell.'
"Really." She kissed his cheek lightly, the blush was warm. He smelt... good. Then she could smell ozone. She jumped back as her hair started to stand. She saw the electricity arc from his foot and hand to the outlet by the door, mostly grounding itself. But not completely. The over head lights in her room flared for a split second, then every breaker in the building flipped at that moment, plunging them into darkness.
And through all of the screams and the random swearing that filtered up from the common rooms and from down the hall, all she heard was "wayyyyyy".
Author's Notes: I'll leave it to you decide if the Onepunch Wonder still had a functional nervous system after Kaminari found his inner Thor. A static shock is like 20-25 thousand volts at amps that are irrelevant and it hurts; household current in the US format is 120 (mean) amps and 12 amps, and so long as your skin is dry that is highly survivable but really hurts. A "typical" lightening strike is around 30 million volts at 100 thousand amps. I think Kaminari was atypically annoyed, stepping up from stun gun to bug zapper.
And since I forget what most people don't know. Electricity can be thought of as a really weird, water unfriendly fluid. If we do so, volts are equivalent to pressure, while amperage (current) is the flow rate. Sorta. The analogy is super suspect, but it works for conversational purposes. And since watts is your voltages times your amps, typical lightening bolts are 3,000 Gigawatts.
And I guess I'm fwuffy. This was suppose to be bloody grim. And instead, I shipped the Pro Hero Duo Amp. At least that's what I call them- he can be measured in amperage, and her power with her gear makes her an amplifier. And there is a lot of amps in an amp. As for a "pre amp", it cleans the noise out of the signal and boosts a weak one, allows an amplifier actually boost the signal so others can hear. These two write their own puns.
