In the laboratory, the room sat dark and silent as a coffin.

The creaking of the building settled with a harsh emergency light blinking on above the tile floor. It was a dim, flourescent light that shines over the group of students laying comatose on the ground. They lay splayed out in front of the main platform with the computer consoles and the plexiglass chamber that sat dormant.

Melanie scrunched her closed eyelids. The light was hot and disturbed her slumber. Her arms ached with her thighs shouting for reprieve from being battered through the barrage of colors and texture that she had never seen before. Her fingers weak, she clawed at the floor and felt the cool tile when she stretched her arm out.

Brush.

Her eyes opened. She turned to her left and saw a head of soft chestnut hair just brushed through by her fingers. His hair tawny and luscious, she groaned to a seated position and examined the crumpled body of the boy in a white lab coat and black pants.

It was that uptight, sardonic rich kid from the cafeteria. His mouth was agape with a stream of drool dried and crusted on his chin. His glasses crooked and hanging off only one ear, his coat was ripped with his shoes blown out to reveal the black socks covering his toes. His face pale, the boy lay with his head facing her.

"Excuse me," Melanie pecked at the boy's shoulder. "Excuse me, mister?"

His body moved none.

Melanie hesitated when her fingers hovered over his face. She felt a soft, shallow breath from the boys slightly upturns nose. So he was at least alive. She let out a quiet sigh and scooted closer to him. While he may not be a fan of being healed without permission, Melanie was sure that he could forgive her touching him in order to revive him.

She grabbed his shoulders and rested his head on her lap. His skin was cool, yet placid and languid to the touch. For just a moment, she gazed at the boy's head in her lap and brushed away a few strands of hair that covered his shut eyes. Then, she ran another hand through his hair. She traced a finger down over his chin, enjoying the slight scruff of his newly-shaven jaw.

Melanie closed her eyes and thought back to the happy moments of her childhood. The life she lived in Toronto in her old home. The soft, cozy warmth emanated off her body and transposed itself down to the boy. His body shined with a dull ivory outline with luminescent waves coating his frame.

The light faded away. Melanie opened her eyes just in time for the boy to stir in her wake. First, a twitch of his eyebrows. Then, a soft groan from his parched lips.

Gavin opened his eyes with the laziness of a fatigued sloth. The soft, small fingers played with his hair in a soothing fashion that made him shiver ever so slight. His neck bent over the fabric of a knee that he rested on. When his vision came into focus from the blurred light above, he peered upward at the girl who locked gazes with him. Her pink eyes bore into his, and the matching hue of her hair seemed to complement the slight blush that rolled over her face. In the moment between full consciousness and escaping his fantastical slumber, he was unsure if he was in reality or not. For a split second, based on the glow around the girl's head Gavin was unsure if this was a person or an angel.

"Mister," Melanie said. "Are you well?"

Gavin blinked. He recognized that voice. It was that annoying, talkative girl from the lunchroom. He craned his neck to look down at his splayed body. Before him lay the main platform of the laboratory which was splintered with glass strewn on the ground and scorch marks painted on the formerly white walls.

Yet, all of those concerns paled with the underclassmen practically groping him on the ground.

"Wah!" Gavin shot up and fell to the side. He banged his head on the steel pillar of a table, and red spots blurted over the lab when he yelped in pain.

Melanie, not predicting the reaction, cried out and fell flat onto her back. She scrambled backwards and rose to her feet just as Gavin gripped the side of the table.

"What are you doing here?" Gavin grunted. He lifted himself from the table back to his shaking feet. His face had regained color from its alabaster tiny, and now he hugged himself at the realization of his intimate position with the younger girl.

"I'm sorry, mister," Melanie folded her hands in front of her. "But I saw you lifeless on the floor, and I decided to take drastic measures to resurrect you from your comatose state!"

"Resurrect me?" Gavin pulled at his hair. "Did you try to breathe into me?"

"No," Melanie shook her head. "I used my quirk to eradicate your ailments in a non-invasive way!"

"Cradling me in your lap is not non-invasive!" Gavin huffed. He looked down at his torn clothes and tried to button his coat back up. However, the button fell off and rolled over to the side of the room.

It traverses over the tile and bumped into another heap of clothing. This time, a muscle shirt with dark tactical pants. The button sat next to Riley who was passed out. Next to him, Sigi's smaller body was crumpled by his feet over the steps leading to the main platform.

"Who the hell are these two?" Gavin said. "And why is that guy bleeding? Did someone stab him?"

"They're my classmates," Melanie said. "From Mister Deku's class. Here, I can heal him real fast."

"Oh, so you're all trying to sabotage me, aren't you?" Gavin said. "Who put you up to this? Deku? The Hero Association? My mom?"

"Nobody," Melanie took a step towards him and averted her gaze. "I just found you here, and I wanted to make sure you were okay. Otherwise, you would have been far more injured than your current state. I don't know why Riley and Sigi are here. All I remember is walking down here. And then…."

Gavin examined the girl. Melanie kept away from Gavin's wandering eyes. She neglected to tell him of the visions she saw in that classroom, nor did she want to say anything about what she was told about his goals. The whole situation was confusing to her, and she needed to collect her thoughts before taking any further action. What could Gavin have been planning here that could be so upsetting to that strange angel she met.

In fact, did she meet an angel to begin with?

"Mister," Melanie approached the boy. Despite being older, he was only a hair taller than her. She looked him straight in his mocha-colored eyes and twitched her nose at the scent of smoke that permeated from both of them. "What happened here?"

Gavin sighed. He looked over to the heap where Riley and Sigi lay collapsed. Then, he turned to the dead computer behind him. His shoulders slumped, and he bowed his head in defeat.

"Nothing," Gavin said. "Just my imagination running into another brick wall."

Gavin thunked his head on the back of the glass chamber. His mind raced with the incredible visions that he had just witnessed. Yet, he could not comprehend the entire journey that he had just embarked on. It was a strange dream that left him with a feeling of longing and deep melancholy. One of leaving an incredible place with no hope of returning for the foreseeable future. He knew this first-year girl would not understand, but he had to comb through his memory to find what had occurred. The last moment on this planet he could gather was turning sitting at the computer calibrating the receiving signal. The next moment, he awoke in this girl's lap.

But it was the moments between, the moments not of this Earth, that made Gavin go quiet with longing.

"Was that real?" Gavin mumbled to himself.

Beep.

A strange hum rang out.

Both Gavin and Melanie whipped around to the dormant computer. Next to it, a strange whirr emitted from a small, low-tech printer. The printer oscillated over a blank paper and emblazoned numbers onto the page. Then, it slid out the paper and pushed it into the receiving receptacle.

Gavin stepped up to the platform. Melanie followed a few feet behind him. He grabbed the paper and combed over the strange numbers and words on the paper. The first half of the page was a transcript of what appeared to be an instant message.

"This is strange," Gavin said. "This message…it was from me. And some other source. But the transmission address is undefined. And the second half of this page makes no sense."

Gavin ran a thumb over the bottom part of the paper. Rows of numbers scoured over the page. They were not messages, but a descriptor for some other information received by Gavin. At the bottom, a small box flashed in green letters the location of a "sender" code. This code was labeled as "undefined." However, the code next to it was a string of coordinates specific to the location of the lab that was titled "receiver."

Underneath the pairing coordinates, in bold green letters was the result: Received.

"This can't be right," Gavin said. "It says a second signal was received after this exchange of messages. But the information is just a bunch of numbers. Hexadecimals? Coordinates? It's not binary. Some coding language?"

As Gavin talked to himself, Melanie caught the odd glint that shines under the emergency light. She swished her gaze to the glass chamber and frowned at the odd object within its confines.

"Mister," Melanie said. "Did you out something in that glass tube?"

"Glass tube?" Gavin kept pouring over the numbers. "No, I didn't do anything concerning particle acceleration or transportation."

Melanie looked over the tube. She placed a hand on the glass. On a small lever attached to a keypad that sat within a pillar jutting from the floor, a small release sign glowed. Melanie grabbed the lever and pulled the lever up.

With a hydraulic hiss, the tube rose up into the ceiling. The tube evaporated upward with small flume of steam washing over the tile and Melanie's shoes.

"Hey," Gavin dropped his paper and rushed to Melanie. "Don't touch random things."

"Look," Melanie pointed at the floor of the platform.

When the tube disappeared, a small copper circle flowed under the white light blaring above the spotlight column. Within the chamber, a small object sat in the very center of the copper circle.

It was a crystal.

A ruby crystal for that matter. In the shape of a refined diamond, the scarlet gem gleamed under the hot light with a golden chain latched onto it with a small latch that seemed to be pressed onto it like a magnet.

Gavin planted himself next to Melanie. The two gaped at the crystal. Neither betrayed any movement as if they would scare away the precious gem back to its home.

"Where," Gavin stared down at the crystal. "Where did that come from?"

Before either of them could ponder further, harsh footsteps bumbled down the staircase from the top of the lobby. Melanie gasped and reached for the crystal. She snagged the jewel from the ground and threw it into her pocket.

"What are you doing?" Gavin asked.

"Play dead," Melanie whispered to him.

She fell back onto the ground by the platform. For good measure, she stuck her tongue out and pretended to be incapacitated.

With more footsteps climbing down, Gavin looked at the sight of the lab. Despite the random bodies strewn in the room, the lab was mostly intact save for the broken fluorescent panels above and the scorch marks on the surfaces. Yes, he would have questions to answer, but there would be far less if he pretend to be knocked out when the authorities arrived.

Gavin sat down next to Melanie. He laid on his stomach and threw his arms out to each side. His head turned towards Melanie, and her eyes opened back up for just a moment to meet his. Melanie's breath hitched at the surprise eye contact, and they both stared at each other for a moment.

"By the way," Gavin said. "Thank you for healing me. What was your name?"

The girl smiled brighter than the flashlights blaring in the staircase heading towards them. "Melanie Wicker of Class 1-A," Melanie whispered.

"My name is Gavin."

"Gavin," Melanie said. "That's a nice name."

The boots landed at the doorstep of the laboratory. The lead foreman announced himself as a member of the fire department with heavy flashlights waving over the room. Gavin closed his eyes again, the last thing he spotted was this meddling first year's pink hair.

Excuse me, Gavin thought to himself. Melanie's pink hair.

"I'm fine!"

Izuku was not fine. Debris still dotted his green hair with various cuts and abrasions clogged with dried blood scratched over his arms and chest. His legs were pounded with bruises from hitting the collapsed dashboard, and one of his eyes had an angry lavender gash forming around it that would become a black eye very soon. A red ribbon ran over his chest where his seatbelt dug a thick welt into his body, and his pants were still drenched with that random boy's blood that spurted out at him when he crashed through the windshield.

Izuku threw off the blood pressure sleeve from his arm. He brushed past a paramedic and stumbled on his creaking knees over the concrete of the steel-cable bridge. He power walked over the bridge and seethed with each aching step towards the island his new school sat. The medics took extra time checking Izuku for any injuries. The other students by some miracle had no major trauma other than emotional. Ivan sauntered away from the ambulance chuckling to himself at how silly the whole situation had become. Ayumu was rolled back towards the school in a wheelchair by Ivan not because of injury but because she was tired as usual.

The others had been moved off the bridge since the paramedics didn't want to treat anybody on the road considering the earthquake just moments earlier. Both destroyed cars were hooked up to the bed of tow trucks. Izuku hobbled to the main entrance of the school past the cop cars and fire trucks that rolled past to put out the fire in the first year dormitory building.

Past the main guard shack, Skylar cried his eyeballs out in front of a gaggle of reporters spinning some yarn about the trauma he was facing due to the events of the night. Leon sat on a bench and stared at the fire burning in the distance at the dorms. By another ambulance, that boy that catapulted into the taxi cab lay on a stretcher and spoke to two cops who took notes down along with an older couple that Izuku assumed were his grandparents. Beyond an ambulance, Hawks hovered over the mob of students and calmed them down with a few members of the faculty counting students. A crew of firefighters ran past Izuku towards the main school building. The rainbow of siren lights painted scarlet and cerulean flashes over Izuku's face while he trudged over the damp grass.

Eventually, he came to the furthest ambulance just feet away from the outer band of students. Lynn saw with gauze over the left side of her forehead. Hooked up to an IV, she frowned seated on the bumper of the vehicle and stared off into the distance of the Detroit River.

Izuku stopped just a few feet in front of her. She avoided his gaze, and Izuku grit his teeth and clenched his fists.

"Lynn," Izuku said. "Tell me everything."

"I'm not talking to you without a lawyer," Lynn said while staring away.

"You crashed into a car at head on," Izuku felt anger boiling in his body. "You broke curfew. You did who knows what to that friend of yours. And you roped Leon and Skylar into it."

"They were willing participants," Lynn crossed her arms and spat at Deku. "And Jason deserved it after what he tried to do to me."

"Lynn," Izuku bit his lip. "If you have a problem with someone, you don't throw them out a window!"

"He forced himself on me," Lynn shouted at Izuku. "Then he tried to make me choose between him and this school! And your shitty security just let him in! You're just going to let some fucking villain come in here next, aren't you?"

"That's not true," Izuku raised his voice at her.

"You lost half of your students today," Lynn screamed. "And most of us ended up in the hospital for like three hours! And when I needed someone, you know who was there? Not you! I never had a hero come and save me! Not in Detroit! So why would I even think for a moment that an old, washed-up stalk of broccoli would ever come and save me? You weren't even a hero for like five years, and you got kidnapped for just as long and couldn't even save yourself! So why should I even trust you or care about what you think? You're not even a hero anymore!"

Silence.

Izuku felt a stab to his heart. His body slumped with his eyes lowering in sadness. The words echoed through his mind like a pendulum counting down his demise. He snuck a quick look from his red shoes to Lynn. Seeing his despondent expression, her frown melted away to a look of concern. She swallowed and unfolded her arms while planting her hands onto the cold bumper. Radio chatter pierced through the night air with the lights dancing over the still water of the river to her left.

He thought back to the long day and night he had endured. How nervous he felt talking to his former classmate. How angry he felt shouting at the guard at the landfill. How helpless he felt in that car as it spun around and bullets flew past with his students in the back seat. How he could not save anyone else, let alone himself if a person truly decided to snap and kill him in an instant. After all, one of those gangsters escaped from the vicinity of the crime scene. It was possible they would be coming for him any moment. His heart murmured, and he felt his breathing grow faster with the sirens around him blaring loud. Louder.

Just as he felt he could take it no longer-.

Clink.

Izuku placed his hand in his pocket. When he did, his fingers touched the cold steel of the revolver underneath his set of keys. He thumbed the hard divets of the barrel. Suddenly, a strange chill rushed over his spine. It was not one of nerves nor of fear. Instead, his back straightened into the terse gait of resolve. He narrowed his eyes and loomed over Lynn with a strange shadow resting over half of his face.

"You may be right."

Lynn peered up at Izuku. His green eyes, now dull and tired as if they had seen a dozen lifetimes, lifted up to meet Lynn's curious gaze.

"I haven't been there when needed," Izuku said. "And I haven't done what I've needed to. So I can be a hero for yourself and the people around me. I haven't been strong enough to look up to. And I haven't been for quite some time. But I now know there is work to be done, and I'm going to make myself known as a hero again. One way or another."

Lynn sat up and brushed away some of her hair that blew into her face. "Mister Deku, are you talking about coming out of retirement?"

"No," Izuku said. "I'm talking about making sure y'all are prepared for the real world. And I promise I'll be the teacher and hero you can count on. Period."

The girl frowned at the odd words. Since when did Deku use words like "y'all" in his vernacular?

Before she could question Izuku, a cop sauntered over and slid in between the two.

"Okay, so that Jason guy fessed up to everything," the cop stated. "Breaking and entering, attempted assault, and probably a count of reckless endangerment for what he did."

Izuku blinked and faced the officer. "What did he say?"

"Told us about how he broke in and attacked Miss Taylor," the cop pointed at Lynn. "Tried to get her to jump out the window. Lost his balance and crashed onto the roof of that vehicle. That's when you and your classmates tried to drive them to the hospital, and he tried to wreck you guys in a fit of rage. That is what happened, correct?"

Lynn glanced beyond the cop's rotund body towards the ambulance surrounded by cops. On the stretcher, Jason gave a quick look over the grounds towards Lynn. Despite one of his eyes being covered in gauze, and most of his body wrapped up with restraints and tape, the beaten boy raised his head and flashed a moody, sorrowful glance at Lynn.

She turned back to the cop and nodded. "If that's what he said."

"Very well," The cop clapped his hands together. "His grandparents wanted to talk to you a little later. Apparently, he didn't actually have permission to take their Gran Torino, so it's considered stolen."

"What's that got to do with me?" Lynn asked.

"After they get it back from impound," the cop pointed at the heap of metal being towed away. "They wanted to know if you'd want it."

Lynn blinked. She gave a quick glance to Izuku who shrugged back at her. Why would Jason's grandparents want her to take the vehicle? After all, it was almost destroyed in entirety.

"They're gonna pay to fix it up," The cop said. "And Jason's not gonna use it anytime soon. So, consider it a token of their apology. I wouldn't hold my breath, though. It's gonna take a while to restore it."

"Gee, I guess I'll have to thank them," Lynn said. "I didn't expect that."

"It's Detroit," The cop shrugged. "Nothing that happens here is expected.

The cop left with Lynn giving another peek to Jason. A paramedic pushed him into the back of the ambulance. She watched the doors slam shut over his figure in the stretcher. The vehicle rolled away and drove over the grass onto the pavement before skying across the bridge to the city. She had a small twinge of guilt over the whole situation. She spotted the crumpled mass that was the old Gran Torino and pictured herself in it with Jason. Maybe in some other universe, she could be in that car driving down the riverfront off to anywhere at that moment. Away from the pressures of the school and everyday life. The wind rattling through her hair. A soft rock song on the radio. Jason's arm around her shoulder.

Then, Izuku kicked his shoe onto the dirt. With his hand in his pockets, he patted Lynn on the shoulder.

"I'm going to check on the rest of the class," Izuku said. "I think I'm going to ask Hawks to give us tomorrow off. We could all use it."

Lynn nodded. "Let me know."

Izuku smiled at her. He bopped his hand on the top of her head and trudged away to the rest of the students. Lynn looked around at the school grounds. The calamity of the police and firemen trying to calm the disaster around them. The students shouting out questions to Deku as he approached them and the press. Then, he looked towards the bridge. Skylar seemed less upset with the cameras flashing his image to be uploaded into their reporters stories later. Leon swung his legs seated on the back of a cop car completely oblivious to the reporters and stuck in his own little world.

That's when Skylar's golden eyes scanned the horizon and latched onto hers. The boy smiled and waved her over to the gaggle of press. Clearly, he wanted her to be a part of this big story that was occurring. A few reporters turned towards her, and they started to take a few pictures and ask questions as well.

Lynn smiled and shook her head. She got up and walked over to Leon and Skylar with people barking questions at her from all angles. For as crazy as the day had been, perhaps she was exactly where she needed to be.

Meanwhile, behind them, a few firefighters escorted a group of students outside of the school. Melanie and Gavin were helped by some of them, but walked under their own power onto the school grounds. Riley was carted away on a stretcher. He was lucid with his eyes focusing and witnessing the busy school grounds before him. A helicopter hovered past with rays of water hosing down the facade of one of the dormitory buildings. The firefighters had asked him what had occurred, yet he could not give a proper answer. His mind was blank from the beeping noise he heard in his dorm room with the phone call to his home base being the last thing he remembered.

At least, all he remembered that occurred in this reality.

He was even unsure about the stab wound in his midsection. The medics had bandaged it up, but they pumped blood into his body regardless with them parking Riley's stretcher behind another ambulance. They left him for just a moment to acquire more equipment to treat him. Fortunately, his phone was still in his back pocket which the medics neglected to take away from him.

He sighed and placed a hand on his heart. He slowed his breathing, but the frustration of not knowing what exactly happened boiled within him. All he knew was that his mission was not a success. He did not have the tangible materials needed by home base.

However, he thought back to where he had just been. He could not prove that he really arrived there, but if he did…then that could be evidence that what he was searching for was real.

There was also a strange euphoria within him. He could not express it, but he had witnessed a place far beyond his greatest expectations. It was a realm of beauty and of peace and of plentiful joy. He was not a man of many words, but all he could use to describe what he had just witnessed was pure bliss.

It was…Paradise.

"Hey, Soldier Boy."

Riley groaned. He stretched his aching neck to his right. Of course, that nosy girl in his class seemed to teleport to his side. She frowned at him with her large eyes looming down at the weak young man.

"Look, can we do this tomorrow," Riley said. "Everything hurts right now."

"What happened in there," Sigi demanded.

"I don't know," Riley said. "I just found myself in there and woke up with everyone else."

"They're gonna pull up cameras and everything," Sigi said. "Do they not have cameras when you're from?"

"Enough," Riley said. "Please let me rest."

Sigi took another step towards him. She leaned close to his ear. Her breath tickled the edges of his earlobe as she gripped the side of the stretcher.

"I don't know what trick you were trying to pull in there," Sigi said. "I don't know what I just saw, or who I just spoke to. But whatever your mission is…I have a mission, too. And it's to stop you. So whatever you're going to do, I'll be right there to make sure it doesn't happen. Got it?"

Riley faced Sigi. Suddenly, He glared at her. His muscles tensed, and he locked eyes with Sigi who was taken aback at the sudden ferocity of the boy's expression.

"I have a mission," Riley said. "And I'm going to accomplish it. This is what I was made for. Whether it takes me another day, or the rest of this school year. And you aren't going to stop me. Girlie."

Riley tapped the tip of Sigi's nose. She blinked and moved back just an inch. She was surprised at how bold Riley had suddenly become. The boy had seemed quiet and shy, yet when his "mission" was brought up, he had a hint of resolve that sparkled in his spectacular green eyes.

She remembered that strange angel's words. Or at least, she thought it was an angel. She was still unsure of where exactly she traveled to. However, she knew that her goal remained the same. She would get to the truth, and she would make sure her new home was safe.

"The truth always wins, Riley," Sigi said. "I hope you know that."

Riley's expression softened. He gazed down at his body laying on the stretcher. He sighed and laid his head on the pillow. He licked his dry lips and realized he was quite thirsty.

Bop! A plastic water bottle hit the top of his head. Riley twitched and grabbed the bottle. The cold outside crinkled in his hands. He stared down at the water, and then gazed up at the source of the gift.

Sigi, with the hint of a blush, pushed back her hair and turned away from the boy.

"If you're gonna die, I wanna be the one to cause it," Sigi said. "Not dehydration."

Sigi ran off just as fast as she arrived.

Riley furrowed his brow when he cracked open the bottle. It was entirely possible that she had poisoned this water. However, Riley shunted the idea to the back of his head. She wanted the truth first, so killing him would seal that away from her grasp. She was certainly a unique girl, and perhaps the future just made women more suspicious of men than in his time.

Riley gulped down the bottle. He shivered at the cold water soothing his lungs. She may be a worthy opponent on an intellectual level. However, if she truly threatened his goal, he would have to finish her.

He hated to admit it, as he finished his water, but even knowing her just one day, he felt that he would regret that action of it needed to pass.

One more chapter in this arc!

Please review!