Chapter 1
RING!
The school bell rang, letting the entire school know that the school day is over and that it's time to go home and spend the rest of the weekend relaxing. Or working your ass off, depending on the person. Once class was done, everyone was either going to their lockers to get their stuff, chatting away, talking with their friends before they went home, or both. Everyone, except Alex. Alex Reeve, to be exact. A 14 year old Canadian boy living in Toronto. As for why he was not out and about, chit chatting with the other kids, well, it's because he is what one would call a "loner". Shy, mild, quiet, dry. Alex feels those are some good words to describe him, and he would say most people would agree. He feels that he is so invisible, even bullies wouldn't notice him. While Alex would like to overcome his shyness and make some friends, he has some…. other reasons for his unsocialableness that make that idea unsavory to him.
Alex decided that he should probably go to his locker and get home. So he got out of his class(with not a single goodbye to anyone, of course) and headed to his locker, which was luckily on the same floor. He opened his locker and started getting his stuff when he overheard three boys nearby talking to each other. Due to his invisible nature, he overheard conversations like these all the time. Normally, he doesn't really care what they are talking about and continues on with his life. But this particular conversation ended up gaining his attention.
"So, what hero school are you going to apply to?", asked the first boy.
"Churnsley Academy. It just seems like the best chance I have at getting into a hero school", said the second boy. "My arm blower is nice and all, but it obviously doesn't pack enough of a punch for the big schools to be impressed by me".
The second boy demonstrated what he meant to his friends by firing off his quirk. A stream of air came out of his hands, like he was a human leaf blower. While it could be useful, as he said, it wasn't very powerful, with the stream seemingly having the power of a hair dryer.
"Hey, don't count yourself short. You could easily become a top tier hero with your ability to give villains shit hair days", joked the third friend.
All the friends laughed with each other at the joke and went off on their way, while Alex was left there, stuck in a somber mood.
"I wouldn't mind having a mediocre quirk", he said to himself.
Of course, he still wouldn't want to go to hero school, even if he wasn't quirkless. He felt would just fail at being a hero, even if he had a great quirk. He thought he didn't have anywhere near enough charisma for hero work. But he still wanted a quirk, just for fun or in cases of emergency, or even to help himself perform better at any future jobs.
After Alex finished at his locker and got out of his stump, he went down to the front entrance of the school and left the building, where crowds of other kids and teachers roamed around, doing their own thing. Some kids were hanging out together, some kids were talking to teachers, etc, which was probably a bad idea in an area with a higher than average crime rate like this one. Alex nonchalantly walked past all of this and started making his way home. A really shitty home, but a home nonetheless. While he walked home, looking at the sky because the neighborhood he was in was not exactly one worth looking at, Alex was startled by some honking on the other side of the road. It was a van with a middle aged man and woman driving, picking up a girl who went to my school to take her home.
"Mom! Dad! You're Late!", he heard her say in a harsh tone. "What if I had been mugged or worse?! Jeez."
As the family drove away, Alex sat there, once again in a mood, only this time it was much worse. This time, a nerve of his had been touched.
"At least you have a mom and dad to pick you up", he said in a resentful, quivery voice as he continued walking home.
You see, Alex has a complicated relationship with his parents, who are actually alive. This complicated relationship is honestly the main reason why he had never really tried to overcome his shyness and become closer to people, out of fear of people learning about his parents. For this, he always despised his parents. Why you may ask? Easy.
They're supervillains. The worst kind too. Codenamed Warpath and Witchcraft for his dad and mom respectively, they're some of the biggest pieces of shit around. If you wanted an extra evil deed done, such as assassinations of enemys, torturing people for info, war crimes against an opposing force in a war - you went to them. That is because thanks to their powerful quirks, high skills, great connections and utter brutality when it came to their work, they were some of the most dangerous nutcases around. Nothing showed this off better than the Fulham Massacre. It went something like this: my parents were doing a hit in London for some rich guy, with the help of some close allies of theirs. Despite their skills and power, things went poorly. The target was killed, but two of their buddies got killed by the SWAT team and my mom and dad almost got caught by London's top hero. They were fine with that, since they were going to get a big payout anyways, and some jobs don't go your way. The problem is that literally at the exact same time the hit was being done, the employer was arrested by the police for multiple counts of murder and bribery. Normally, a guy like this would just wave a lot of money around and walk. But the prosecutor on the case was some skilled, hot-shot prosecutor, who was apparently also unbribable since the employer ended up getting 25 to life in prison. After seeing the outcome of the case and realizing that they weren't getting paid, my parents were apparently furious. Being the nutcases they are, they decided the best course of action was to pay the prosecutor a visit and get some revenge. So they went to his home in Fulham and, after some lovely bouts of brutal torture, killed the prosecutor, his wife and their 1 year old baby. Where things got extra fucked up is when they realized the next door neighbour had seen the murders through the window, they went and killed him too. Two people saw that murder and my parents killed them too. Then they went and killed the people who witnessed that murder, and more witnesses to that murder. This cycle of murder continued until my parents were basically just killing anythng that moved in their immediate radius, which they later explained to the police that they did because "It was a good time and a good way to send a message to the world". My parents ended up escaping the incident after killing the police and heroes chasing them.
My parents worked as criminals for 15 years without being caught, until 2142, when they were caught by the pro hero Deku while attempting to assassinate a Japanese politician. After some political talks, they were sent back to Canada, where they were sentenced to life in prison without parole, much to everyone's pleasure.
One thing the police didn't expect to find while investigating the lives of these two very screwed-up individuals was a 6 years old Alex. After that, he was sent by the government to live with his aunt and her husband, which is where he has remained this whole time. To put it lightly, he now wanted nothing to do with his parents. Their actions have ruined the lives of countless people all over the world and Alex has always felt ashamed for being related to them. He just wants friends, but he can't risk anyone finding out about his parents, since he feels that would make people despise him and make his life worse.
Once he was done sulking over his shitty parents, Alex continued his way home. Eventually, he reached the Khan convenience store, which meant he was only a couple blocks away from home. Since it was a pretty gloomy day, he felt the need to survey my surroundings, just to make sure there wasn't anyone suspicious around. The area was a relatively poor neighborhood, with run down houses and businesses, and relatively few people walking around. This was probably because there had been some pretty big gang shootings over the last couple months on this block, leading to people staying indoors or at work, and not going out unless absolutely necessary. Of course, Alex still had to walk home because his aunt and uncle didn't have money to spare for bus tickets.
While he didn't like walking home or living in my crappy neighborhood, Alex couldn't bring himself to resent his aunt or uncle. They were always nice to him, and always asked him how his day was and listened to anything he wanted to talk to them about. They had fed and housed him for most of his life, despite it being a financial burden on them, so he has always appreciated them.
"At the very least, they stuck around for me, unlike my parents", Alex bitterly thought to himself.
He continued past the convenience store and down the street when he heard someone cry out in a semi-loud, but shaky voice. This startled Alex immensely, and he started to spin around wildly, looking for who had made that sound. Then he heard that same sound again, which he then realized had come from the alleyway beside him. Now that he was paying attention, he noticed that the voice was saying "help me". The voice continued on while Alex nervously stood there.
"What do I do?!", Alex thought to himself. "It sounds like someone's in trouble, but I don't want to go down some creepy alleyway!".
He had a phone on him, but it had run out of power and he didn't have a charging cord on him. He couldn't go to the convenience store because it was closed today. There was no one else around, which meant that the only person who could deal with the issue was Alex. He decided, against his better judgment, to walk down the alleyway and investigate the source of calls for help.
