The MLA held their rally in what might once have been an indie concert venue. Graffiti tags, old gum, and half-melted snow covered the concrete bleachers that passed for seating. This in turn kept the attendees upright and mobile; talking, pacing, and gesticulating to each other to keep themselves warm.

"Rat? Is that you?"

I turned to look at the source of the timid voice. I blinked. "Yep."

It was Toshiharu from my high school. All eight feet of him. I resisted a chuckle at the absurd sight of him carrying a protest-slogan-emblazoned banner. 'Quaero Libertatem Aut Mori' it said, in Latin characters- a belligerent counterpoint to his timid demeanor.

I'd always thought of Toshiharu as a scared little kid in the body of a Grecian monster. It was endearing to see his hidden depths.

His face lit up with cautious joy. "So you've-"

"-agreed to give a speech." I cut him off, forestalling the inevitable question. That being, "Have you accepted Re-Destro as your lord and savior?"

Well, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but not an unfounded one. I'd been a lukewarm member of the Church of Latter-day Saints in my past life, and these people spoke in the same fervent, joyous tone as the people I'd interacted with back at my local meetinghouse. The Meta Liberation Army was a secular organization, but its members had as much of a concern with exact adherence to ritual law and iconography as any religious zealot. Another reason I was a bad fit for it. Reincarnation had made me significantly more spiritual and significantly less religious- dying and then coming back to life had convinced me beyond a doubt that there were one or many gods, but left me a lot less sure about his, her, or their exact natures.

All of that was to say, the vibes I was getting from this crowd were making me really, really uncomfortable. I transferred my notes to my left hand, and wiped my right palm against my pants.

Toshiharu blinked all twelve of his eyes in apparent surprise.

"You're going to speak!? How long have you been with the organization?"

I winced.

To make a long story short, I'd dramatically underestimated the Meta Liberation Army's reach.

When Izuku had first passed on the protest organizer's offer for me to speak, I'd immediately shut him down. I had no particular urge to make a fool of myself in front of a crowd. But a week of Izuku's well-intentioned encouragement on top of my own desperate need for validation had eventually changed my mind.

I'd told myself it would be a chance to diversify. I had the vague notion that my blog's audience had swelled in size since Skeptic had assumed the role of my patron, though I hadn't checked the site statistics for fear of getting a swelled head. By the same token, however, I knew my audience was, by now, predominantly people from the MLA, and that was dangerous. Homogeneity bred radicalization, and from the increasingly strident tone of my comments sections, I got the impression that I was one MLA-critical article away from turning my adoring fans into a lynch mob. So I'd thought this protest would be a good chance to promote my blog among less criminally-inclined activists.

I'd thought wrong.

Between the Che Guevera-esque Destro t-shirts and constant use of the thumb-on-forehead 'L' hand sign, this was by far the most blatant display of MLA sympathies I'd ever seen. Was the leadership of the MLA losing their grip on membership? Or were they moving their plans into a new phase?

I turned my attention back to Toshiharu. "I just… know some people," I deflected.

Toshiharu nodded. "I get it."

He shifted his hands in and out of his pockets, seemingly unsure of where to put them. One of his nervous tics.

"I uh…" He bowed, suddenly. I jolted back in surprise. "I'm sorry, sempai!" he said. "I misjudged you because of your quirk. I swear to devote myself to more closely following the teachings of Destro!"

Shivers went down my spine. "That's… great. Apology accepted?"

He straightened back up. We stared awkwardly at each other for a few seconds before going our separate ways.

"Who was that?" asked Izuku.

I startled a little, having momentarily forgotten he was with me. "Classmate."

He shot a glance at Toshiharu's retreating figure. He opened his mouth to say something, probably an intrusive question about my school life, so I did an abrupt about-face and started heading into the crowd.

"Hey!" Izuku said. He caught up to me in a few steps.

"Let's get to the front- the event is starting soon."

In my peripheral vision, I saw him shoot another glance towards where Toshiharu had left, but he seemed to accept that the conversation, such as it was, was over.

Unlike most crowds I'd been in, this one parted to let me through. Which was pleasant, but not altogether a surprise-. Heteromorphic-rights protestors were more concerned about equity for different body shapes than the general population, and there was an informal culture of making space for abnormally short heteromorphics so we could participate equally in events.

Izuku and I made it to the front in short order, and he helped me climb on the fence that had been placed in front of the stage.

"Hey! Jackass! Get down from there!" One of the people working security stomped over, obviously used to dealing with provocateurs and hecklers trying to interfere with the event. I hopped down and flashed him Skeptic's business card. He leaned over to inspect it. Suddenly, he was all smiles.

"My apologies. Are you with the event staff?"

"I'm one of the speakers. Rat."

"Oh!" He bowed. "Right this way, sir."

We hustled around the side of the stage to where the event staff were congregated. The event organizer, a girl with a snake's head, was fretting. Her head jerked from side to side as she scanned the crowd, and her tongue periodically flickered out to taste the air.

"Is this the one you were looking for?" my escort asked.

She turned towards us and her face lit up.

"Rat! We've been waiting for you."

I winced. "Sorry about that. The train got delayed."

She smiled, wide. "Not a problem! I'm just glad you're here. And just in time, too! I'm getting on in-" she checked her watch "-thirty seconds. Wish me luck!"

I did. She walked the steps up to the stage, while I took my place among the other speakers. Neither seemed to notice my presence. One of them, a young man in a tailored suit, was frantically reviewing ink-stained notecards, while the other, a glamorous woman with blue skin and lilac hair, was typing on a laptop and having a hushed conversation on her cellphone.

The whine of a microphone drew my attention. A hush fell over the rally.

"Hey everyone! Thanks so much for coming!" Scattered cheering came from the crowd. The event organizer smiled, which was rather unnerving given her slitted, bulbous eyes. I shook my head, expelling the bigoted thoughts. And anyway, given my own features, I was really in no position to judge. "I love seeing all of this passion and excitement! It's great to see so many of us coming together to advocate for our rights and our freedoms, especially with all the demoralizing propaganda the media is putting out about heteromorphics." She turned to her right and nodded to one of the posters plastered behind her. It read, "Justice for Atsumori!" referring to one of the convicts slain by prison guards during the prison riots last month.

"First off I'd like to give a big thank you to our sponsors for helping me book this space-" she made the 'L' sign of the Meta Liberation Army against her forehead "-but I can't, because we're technically still not allowed to talk about them."

A swell of laughter came from the crowd, and the event organizer gave us an ironic grin.

"We've got three speakers for you today, each of them luminaries in their own right. Let's give a big round of applause for our first speaker, Higashi Takeshi!"

The anxious man jerked up, accidentally dropping several of his notecards. He froze up for a moment, frantically glancing between the cards on the ground and the cards in his hand.

I decided to take pity on him. "Hey!" I called out. He looked towards me. "You got this!"

A wide smile broke out on his face. Several of the protestors whistled or cheered, having witnessed our interaction, and he seemed to swell up with confidence. He tucked the cards remaining in his hands into his pockets and jogged onto the stage.

"Yo!" He shouted. "I'm here to talk about the bigots, about the government, and about the bullshit conspiracy they designed to keep us down!"

The crowd cheered, and he dove into his speech.

Despite my first impression, he turned out to be an excellent speaker. He had the rhetoric of a rabble-rouser, but the light, easy, and humorous patter of a political satirist. He made us laugh and he made us mad, often at the same time.

It was, I had to admit, an excellent strategy. He had a knack for turns of phrase. I just knew I'd be quoting him in my next article. Izuku looked like he was having similar thoughts. He'd retreated towards the middle of the crowd after dropping me off, but if I looked in his direction I could catch the occasional glimpse of his frantic note-taking.

Takeshi wrapped up with a call to action against abuse in the prison system before bowing out.

"Nice work," I complimented him as he came down the stairs. He flashed me a grin.

"Thank you!"

The third speaker gave him an approving nod.

The event organizer stepped back onto the stage. "Alright everyone, let's give one last big round of applause for Higashi Takeshi!" She beamed at the crowd as they clapped and cheered. "Now I'd like to introduce our second speaker. This is his first time speaking for us, so most of you won't recognize him by sight. But if you guys are reading the same literature I am, and I suspect you are, I think you'll recognize him by name. Let's welcome Rat!"

The volume of the crowd shocked me for a second. Were they seriously cheering for me? No, I told myself. They were just still hyped up after Takeshi's speech.

I stopped in front of the steps to the stage. I could tell they were just a little too tall for me, and if I tried navigating them slowly it would take and awkwardly long time to reach the stage. I took a quick glance at the crowd, held back a grimace, then ran up the stairs.

The event staff had brought out a podium for me, which was convenient. Both because it left me with somewhere to place my notes and because it had a series of raised steps behind it to make me appear taller than I was.

I stared blankly towards the crowd, momentarily blinded by the lights. "Hey everyone!" I said, dying a little on the inside. "I'm sure you all have some pretty outsized expectations for my speech, especially given Takeshi's performance, but those expectations are going to need to be cut down to a more Rat-friendly size."

I cringed internally. 'Everyone likes self-deprecating jokes' I'd thought, so I'd scattered a few size-related ones into my monologue. But now that I was in front of this crowd, I was worried that I'd tried too hard; that they'd see them as a transparent attempt to pretend like I wasn't bothered by my height despite being, in fact, very bothered by my height. I immediately resolved to cut the remainder out.

"So pull out your nightcaps and pillows, because I'm going to bore you all to death. That's right, people: I'm here to talk about math."

Despite the uninspiring introduction, the first part of my speech actually went pretty well. There was just something that spoke to me about demonstrating injustice with cold, hard numbers, and I think it got through to my audience as well. There were nods of approval when I talked about how support groups for those with socially unacceptable quirks reduced suicide rates; sympathetic jeers when I mentioned how few of the dramatically heteromorphic were ever elected to municipal office.

Naturally, I made sure to single out and thank Izuku for his contributions to the data we'd gathered. I could see his green mop of hair duck down in embarrassment before he got lost in the crush of the crowd again.

As my speech progressed, I found myself growing louder and louder, the clinical, academic tone I'd used at the beginning of my speech gradually dropped in favor of a staccato cadence of sordid statistics. The disproportionate rates of workplace injuries and frivolous lawsuits suffered by those whose quirks or appearances put them on the margins of society. The hate crimes, homelessness, and employment discrimination we were all too aware of.

I concluded the first part of my speech with a call for unity and a call for action. Generic claptrap, I had to admit, but generic claptrap that seemed to go over well with the protesters, judging by the cheering and clapping I was hearing.

The next part of my speech would be a little different. It began with, "Back in the second millennium, the 'L' sign meant 'Loser.'" I intended to follow it with a few hundred words of criticism for the original Meta Liberation Army's violent tactics, comparisons to more successful movements, and entreaties for nonviolent protest.

But then I looked out towards the crowd, my eyes having finally adjusted to the bright stage lights. Towards their eager faces. Towards the hundreds of images of Destro and Re-Destro plastered on posters, banners, shirts, and placards. And I chickened the fuck out.

"Back in the second millennium, the 'L' sign meant loser," I found myself saying. "But this isn't the 20th century." I paused, off-script, reaching for the perfect words. There was an electric feeling of anticipation, as thousands of people waited for me to speak.

This was what drove revolutionaries, I realized. What drove politicians and preachers. And in a moment of pure, unadulterated inspiration- or plagiarism, take your pick- I knew exactly what I had to say.

"This isn't the 20th century. This is a new age- a new dawn!" I breathed in, and with as much conviction as I could muster, continued to speak. "They can silence our freedom fighters, but they can't silence freedom. They can jail our revolutionaries, but they can't jail a revolution!"

The dull roar of the crowd grew in my ears.

They can murder our liberators, but they can't murder liberation!"

Cheers rang out, whistles and hooting.

There was a saying I'd heard: that a child not embraced by its village would burn it down to feel its warmth. I'd never thought I'd be capable of such a performative feat of rage, but there was an ember of hate within me. Righteous anger, at the injustice of the world. Petty anger, at the injustices in my life. And underlying both, a cold, calculating, undirected fury that terrified me in my more introspective moments.

And this rally- the previous speaker, the crowd- they had stoked and stoked and stoked that hate until it burned my throat with every word I spoke.

I looked out towards the audience. Was that Izuku's face, staring out at me, afraid?

I blinked, and he was gone. A trick of the light, maybe.

I'd unconsciously lowered the microphone down to my chest as I'd thought. I brought it back up to my lips and began to speak.

"Say it with me! I am-"

I waited for the crowd to respond. Only a few voices joined my own. That would change.

"A liberator."

More people joined in.

"I am!"

I shouted, and they shouted back.

"A liberator!"

More and more of them joined me, a growing crescendo.

"I am!"

Protestors thrust placards into the air. The railing in front of the makeshift stage creaked as the crush of people pushed against it.

"A liberator!"

Some kid in the front row started firing off his quirk, producing rapid-fire flashes of light like he was lighting up a string of firecrackers.

I made the L sign with my fingers and placed it against my forehead.

"I am-"

And that was how I started a riot.