"Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don't."
-Steve Maraboli,
Life, the Truth, and Being Free
I may be the only person in the world who uses nature shows as social integration and self-help road maps. Course not everyone has crippling social anxiety as the result of an animal based tri-quirk they got teased for causing them to have to be homeschooled all through middle school. That's, however, not the part that baffles people. The fact that before I got my quirk I was normal like every other kid, no more or less socially awkward, disgusted by kissing, and engrossed in my intelligence as I attended public school until middle school is the part no one can seem to comprehend.
That's also when everything changed, and not for the better. At around this time, most of my friends had already gotten their quirks. I say friends but what I mean is my migrant pack of miniature elitists who ostracized the weak when they became a threat and clung to a self-serving codependency of social suicide and self-destruction as they scraped and clawed their way over each other to the top; a fact I wouldn't fully comprehend until I watched a special on the African Safari and it's codependent killers many years later.
It would be that week before school was out for the summer, and the year before I became a middle schooler that my quirk appeared and I became Chimera. Though I hated the idea of getting a quirk because I knew it was something I couldn't control, I had always been amazed that they appeared suddenly like a montaged caterpillar turning into a butterfly. To me, it seems like a process that should appear little by little over time. Especially for those whose bodies changed utterly. Unfortunately, the truth of that reality would hit me like the medieval stoning of an invalid.
I can still remember the day it happened with perfect clarity. I woke up feeling super lazy, enjoying the warmth of the sun that poured through my bedroom window more than usual. Having not opened my eyes yet, I took a deep satisfying breath in and marveled at how I registered the scent of lavender and cotton fibers from the sheets so vividly after them having been washed yesterday. Groaning in pleasure as I stretched, my fingers clamped onto the pillow and dug in as I squished its plush density into my face.
That's when I heard the distinct puncture of fabric as if a dozen pins had been stuck into the pillow at the same time my fingers had gripped it. Leaning back sharply, I opened my eyes to not only a view that reflected the color spectrum of infrared detection, but also was seemed likenlong, slender, taloned fingers that slid from the pillows inanimate flesh like the dispassionate death givers they were always depicted as in horror films.
With my anxiety skyrocketing faster than my mind could keep up, I scrambled out of bed as a tangle of sheets and desperation overwhelmed me. While each limb fought for purchase or a break in the fabric my mind raced faster and faster trying to ascertain why the floor and most of my room was blue while the sheets covering my body went from yellow to red since I distinctly remember them being the color of lilacs in the spring.
Rolling and twisting, I fought to free myself but only succeeded in tangling myself further. Then with tears of frustration welling in my eyes, I thought how easy this would be to escape if I was only a snake. That's when my body temperature started to drop, and the sheets, that had clung to my skin like fibers of velcro latching together, slid like a greased cookie sheet over my flesh. Confused but relieved, I pulled myself out of my self made Chinese finger trap and scrambled up to a standing position.
Turning my head side to side, I took in the blue that was my room as I attempted to find the mirror. This is all a bad dream. This is all a bad dream. I told myself over and over, but glancing down again in an attempt to gauge my surroundings only rewarded me with the frightening sight of my taloned hands colored a solid blue-green.
Maybe if I poke myself with one, I'll wake up. My irrational mind whispered with seductive resolve as my eyes watched the fingers curl and flex with observational detachment.
Just one poke, and it will all be over. Just one poke...
That's when my mom called my name with concern, her footsteps vibrating through the floor in a similar way a heard of elephants descent on a watering hole. Suddenly terrified at what she might see that I couldn't, I scrambled to the door only to reach it at the same time she did.
Though all I could make out was her face, the raise of her hand as the bright red palm-covered what should be her mouth told me everything I needed to know. I was different in a way that surprised even her. A way that might not be able to change or even a way that would single me out the rest of my life and completely erase the person I was for a person no one would potentially bother to know outside of what they saw.
Tears welled in my eyes, and my shaky voice came out, barely a whisper. "I...is it b..bad?"
Mom just sighed, and I tasted the eggs and bacon she just had on the air as her breath wafted into my nose and onto a tongue, giving me a second-hand taste of breakfast Inhad missed.
"I wouldn't say it's bad, dear just...different. I hadn't expected to come up and find you taking on characteristics of the very creature I'm terrified of is all. I'm sure it'll just take some getting used to."
I could tell by her body language and what I was beginning to guess was her heat signature she was lying, though. Mom's phobia of snakes ran deep, and if that's what I had become, even partially, then there would be nothing I could do. Raising a hand to wipe my eyes, I heard a sharp gasp.
"Sweetheart, your hands!"
Wiping the tears, I lower them and opened my palms, which my mother seemed fascinated by.
"Are they deformed?" My voice wavers as her potential dismissal of yet another tier to my current situation isolated me from relating to her as the girl I once was.
"I wouldn't say deformed. Can you not see them?" She asks with genuine interests as her fingers reach out and gently clasp them.
"No, I can't. All I see is yellowish-green and long fingers."
"I see. Well, you are partially right. Though these are claws and not fingers."
"Claws?" I try not to wail. "But I thought you alluded to me being a snake?"
"And you are. Your eyes are pink and slit while your cheeks, forehead, chin, and neck have patches of opalescent-pink scales that I imagine cover your whole body. Your hands, however, end in sharp claws as if your fingernails have thickened and solidified into natural weapons."
Looking at her baffled, she shrugs.
"I'm just telling you what I see." Then she takes my shoulder gently with one hand. "Shall we see just how extensive your quirk is?" Her voice is warm and calming, leaving me hesitant but willing to nod in response.
Turning me gently, she gasps yet again at the sight of two black wings that are tucked neatly behind my back. "Looks like you might have a third quirk active sweetheart. Otherwise, these wings wouldn't be here." Her voice sounds confused and sad.
Wings. Maybe that's why the sheets got so tangled. I hadn't even realized they were there. Turning back around, I look at her with absolute despair. If I had to have a quirk I had wanted a simple one. Something like magnetism or the ability to fold anything into origami figures that I could make fight for me (ok maybe that last one wasn't simple), or nature resistance. How could I possibly have a multi-assimilation quirk?
Placing my clawed hands on my head, I shrank down into a crouch. What the hell was this? What the hell had I become? What the hell was I supposed to do? I was a monster, an eyesore. Even my mother wanted to keep her distance, and if she couldn't stomach me, what would my friends think?
Breathing heavily in gasping sobs, my head started to feel like it was stuck in a vice. I didn't want this; I didn't ask for this. Why couldn't I be normal? With each destructive thought, the pressure inside my head increased like a vortex of negative energy coalescing before it tore me apart limb from limb. A maelstrom of negativity that had eaten me alive until triggered by the very thing I had agonized about as my friends and peers embraced the power they had been graced with while I, quirk-less until know, had stood on the sideline cheering their success.
"Why?" The anger rumbling as low-grade vibrations, invisible to the naked eye, rippling from my body riding the brain waves wafting from my anxious mind.
"Why!" I said louder, the waves lashing out stronger causing light objects on shelves and pictures on walls to shake and shudder.
"WHY!" I screamed and the pressure released as everything not bolted down slammed against the walls causing pictures to fall and their glass to break as they fell on dressers and nightstands; the shatter of mirrors as they crashed to the floor several rooms over resounding having fallen due to the residual brain waves shaking the room as they fanned out and the surrounding walls of the house I suddenly found myself trapped in tried to absorb both my anger and the life I could no longer control.
With the energy released, I suddenly grew lightheaded; the last thing I remember before blacking out was mom screaming my name as she tried to rush to my side while sidestepping shattered glass and the furniture blockade my untrained quirk had caused.
And that's how a Chimera capable of assimilating up to three animal attributes while dispersing their chaotic mutation as it fought to remain contained in one human body via Psionic powers was born, the rest is a story of how she survives.
Chapter Management
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Chapter 2: Toto, Kansas and Whatever the Fuck This In-between Shit Is
Chapter Text
It was gonna be a long hard road after that. By the time I woke up my mom had already called all the local hero high schools to see who could possibly take me prematurely and show me how to control not one but three quirks; as if my mediocre grades and the huge gaps in my education would be overlooked because I was now a novelty. When that didn't work, she tried calling different middle schools who had "fostered some of the best talent out there" as if each hero's quirk had been skillfully crafted by these schools instead of the innate talent of the person in question.
Needless to say, with a head that hurt like I had been dehydrated for a week I was not in the mood for her overbearing shenanigans. Sitting up I annoying yelled out into the hall as I clambered out of bed and towards the dresser; not a like a change of clothes was going to do anything except delude me into thinking I could still be somehow normal. "Jesus mom, have some chill. I'm a kid not a meal ticket on a petri dish. It's bad enough I have to go back to school and deal with being a freak…" It was then that I opened my eyes to realize the room carried the same plethora of colors it had taken on before. Blinking several times, I turned my head to look in the mirror.
What stared back was unrecognizable. Because I couldn't see what she was seeing, I had no concept of what my mother meant when she had described my appearance. At the time I thought she was only trying not to hurt my feelings, but as I took in the unfamiliar sight I realized that nothing about my life was going to be the same. My skin, which had never really held much color to begin with due to my lack of desire to do anything social, was now pale white with an opalescent sheen across my cheeks, brow, down the bridge of my nose and down the sides of my neck. The iris of my eyes was pink with a ring of black outlining it and my lips were a soft pink blush. When I lifted my hands to touch my cheek I saw the nails were now sharp little claws as hard as acrylic but short enough to pass as stylized fake nails. My hair was also now platinum white and as lush as a lions mane despite not being as unruly or the dull color it was before, though my skull did now sport two curled horns that tastefully formed a wave along the side of my head.
Marveling with a tinge of mild anxiety, I remembered I should also have wings. Hesitantly I turned, looking at myself in the mirror with a mixture of surprise and mild disappointment when there were no wings to be found. Strange, course my eyes are also no longer slit and my vision is back to normal so maybe it's a temporary side attribute of my quirk and not a permanent fixture. I thought to myself, slightly glad I wouldn't have to cut slits in my wardrobe just to accommodate for a set of new appendages.
"I guess it could be worse." I softly said to the mirror before realizing I should look down. Though my pajama's, which I didn't remember putting on, covered all of my legs I didn't need to see what was underneath to know the rest of me would be similarly affected. Breathing a slight sigh of relief that the only accommodation I would have to make was longer shoes since my toes sported the same small claw nails my hands did, I quickly rummaged through my dresser to find anything suitable for my debut. From this moment on I would no longer be the wallflower that just let life pass her by as she sat on the sidelines as the butt of everyone's perfect reality. I would take life by the neck and ring it until every ounce of my past self was dead. Today was a new day in a new life and even if turned out I had only one quirk instead of several, something was better than nothing right?
Turns out life is a more fickle mistress than fate. No sooner had I stepped foot inside my third period history class and sat down then a whole new torment began.
"What the fuck happened to her? Does she think body painting herself as Gorgon will make her powers magically appear?" A girl able to manifest prisms and control the reflected light murmured to the girl next to her, completely missing the fact that Gorgon was a human snake hybrid with snakes for hair not horns on her head.
"Either that or she was fucked by some hybrid incubus and now she is tainted with a devil." The girl addressed replies nastily.
Taken aback by both the nature of the insult and how much it hurt, I duck my head as my eyes start to burn with tears and my face blushes. I had never even kissed a boy let alone let one touch me. Why would the only reason my quirk manifested be because a demon took advantage of me especially at my age and what did any of them know about intimacy anyway? Demon's didn't exist from a textbook definition stand point. Did she just say that because she wanted to infer that the only way I would ever have any intimacy was if a fictional creature took advantage of me? I didn't think I was that ugly now. Suddenly my head started hurting; a dull pain that started in my temples and radiated over the crown of my head to root behind my eyes.
"I bet its just cosplay and she is doing it to look cooler. Quick, someone grab her horns after class. I bet she used some cheap ass glue since her mom is too poor to afford nice things." A female voice behind her snarked.
Stop it. I said in my head as I covered my hands with my eyes.
"Yeah, I bet her mom just did it to cash in on her finally getting it. Thought maybe if it was odd enough someone would take pity on her."
STOP it. Now the pressure was getting more intense and I could feel the light in the room stab my eyes through my lids making it even worse.
"I hope she doesn't think we actually care. She's worthless with or without her quirk so suddenly getting one wont change that."
STOP. The pain was now becoming unbearable. Gripping the desk with one hand I tried to press my thumb into my temple to sooth the tortuous ache, knowing one more insult would probably break my ability to hold back my tears.
"Yeah. No one is gonna like her with or without it. She's just a waste of space."
"STOP IT!" I yelled before my wings tore through my shirt and a gale of wind whipped around the room in a cyclone that shattered all the windows, broke all the lights causing them to spark, and flung everyone and everything around me to the edges of the room.
It lasted only a few minutes, but once the pressure had subsided I collapsed to the empty floor much like I had that morning. When I awoke I would be back at home in bed in pajamas, my mom seated next to me as she stroked my head.
"Mom? Why am I…?"
"It's okay hunny, I'm here. You are gonna be okay. Just rest. When you are better we will talk about what happens next, but until then just rest. Are you hungry? I'll go make dinner."
Turning to look at the window from my prone position on my bed, wondering how in the world we would be having dinner when I just woke up, I saw a pitch black sky.
"You were out a while. Much longer than this morning. Whatever that quirk of yours is it looks to be pretty strong. Don't worry though we will get it under control. Now, why don't we have some dinner? Pull yourself up and come downstairs. I'll make your favorite."
That would be the last time I ever questioned my mother's motives, thought she didn't love me for the person I was, or went to a public school again. Though she never told me what had happened after I had passed out, I knew that what had transpired had changed a lot of people's perceptions of me. From that moment on I would be looked at with slight fear and anxiety. Though I assumed it was for my looks, I would never realize until High School that my looks were the least of everyone's worries or that it would take one very over the top wind user to tame the chaos that roiled inside my body so unnaturally divided by a quirk I had no hopes of understanding alone.
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