My Hero Academia
Tales of the Wanderers
Backrooms Level One
Habitable Zone
Upon exiting the portal, the duo scanned their surroundings. From what they could tell, it looked like they were inside some kind of warehouse given the concrete floors, walls, and other various objects lying around them. "What level is this?"
"Level one, habitable zone," Claudia said while looking through her notes. "Survival difficulty is level one, safe, secure, and with minimal entity count. This is pretty much a hub place for new wanderers to come to if they need to resupply on supplies or meet other wanderers."
"How do they resupply on items?" Rebecca said before looking around in the hallway they were in. "Because I don't see anything that would give me the notion of a stop station or something."
"That's because we're in a small crap area," Claudia said before motioning for Rebecca to follow her down the hallway. "The notes said that crates filled with supplies will appear and disappear randomly within this level. These crates are filled with food, almond water, batteries, traps, weapons, clothing, and other miscellaneous things."
"Seriously? Random crates like that appear out of thin air? I find that hard to believe."
"Need I remind you about that weird black tar-looking monster in level zero?"
"All I'm saying is that I would need proof if I'm going to believe that random crates would appear and disappear." She said before noticing Claudia opening the door after reaching the end of the hallway. Upon opening the door, they would soon find themselves in what appears to be a parking lot complex. The moment she took a step into the parking lot, a crate appeared a few feet in front of the pair which took them by surprise. "...This proves nothing."
"It proves that Murphy's law is a thing," Claudia said as she made her way over to the crate. "Let's see what's inside this one, shall we?" She asked as Rebecca walked over to where the crate was. Once there, Claudia opens the crate to reveal it was filled to the brim with socks….nothing but socks.
"...Huh…not going to lie, I was kind of expecting it to be filled with bombs or something," Rebecca said before noticing another crate appear off to the side of them. "Let's see if my luck is any better than yours."
"You're saying as if we don't need a whole crap ton of socks. Keep in mind that we didn't bring anything with us other than our school uniforms and hero costumes." Claudia said as she made the socks in the crate vanish into one of her pocket dimensions. "Depending on what's inside the crates, I'm bringing them with us."
"I figure that would be the case." She said before opening up the next crate. Upon opening, she blinks in surprise upon seeing a collection of weapons ranging from longswords, combat knives, handguns, assault rifles, katanas, axes, and shields. "...Okay, we're bringing this with us."
"Wow, this place is weird," Claudia said before making the crate vanish into her pocket dimension. "Do you even know how to use a firearm?"
"Do watching movies and playing video games help with knowing how to use handguns?" Rebecca asked as the fox girl deadpan. "What do you expect? Father never taught me much about how to use a gun. It was always yakuza-related paperwork and how to make a killing look like an accident."
"...You know, I can't blame you for that if we're being honest…We'll have a look at the firearms later. For now, let's see if we can find some more crates that I can take with us along the way." She said before noticing more crates appearing within the parking lot. For the past couple of minutes of being on level one, the duo continued to look through different crates to see if anything valuable could be taken with them. So far they came upon a crate filled with almond water, shaved hair, random articles of clothing, used car parts, gold-colored tape, and live frogs. Needless to say, it was a crap shoot for the most part.
While the duo were busy looking through different crates. A small group of people wearing heavy military-type gear, weapons that range from handguns, assault rifles, grenades, and combat knives were making their way from the upper floor to the first floor. The moment they saw Rebecca and Claudia, the group slowly but quickly crept behind nearby pillars. The moment they were hidden, Rebecca's ears twitched as she stopped herself from opening the crate and scanning the area they were in. The moment she didn't see anything, she returned her focus to the crate she was trying to open.
"This is team delta reporting. Do you read me?" said the leader of the group as he was communicating via walkie-talkie.
"This base Alpha. What's your status report, Captain Marko?"
"We finished doing a sweep of the upper floor, but we've encountered two unknown entities on the floor we're on."
"What do they look like?"
"They appear to be humans, but they have animal-like features," Marko whispered as he adjusted a small camera-like device on his shoulder so the people at the outpost on this level could see. "One appears to be dark skin with lavender hair, cat-like ears, and tail. The other is light skin with orange hair, fox-like ears, and tail."
"Hm, could be wanderers that ended up here while going to a costume party."
"You would think that, but that wouldn't be the case," Marko said as they noticed the fox girl opening up a portal next to her and placing the crate with snacks into the pocket dimension before vanishing. "I'm going to go out on a limb and say they could be new entities. They appear to be gathering supplies."
"For themselves or someone else?"
"Don't know. Should we talk to them?"
"Negative. Monitor their movements from a safe distance. If they prove to be hostile, then you can eliminate them. If not, then try to establish communication with them to gather information on the new entities." The voice said before ending communication with Marko. The young man would look at Rebecca and Claudia for a good few seconds before motioning for his squad to remain in the shadows. While the group watches the two U.A. students, Rebecca and Claudia continue to open crates upon crates filled with random items. It was only when they saw a male pale-brown-skinned person wearing a red worn-down T-shirt, blue jeans, and black boots that they paused and blinked in surprise to see a person in this place.
"Okay, so I'm not the only one who's seeing this, right?" Rebecca asked while looking over at Claudia who shook her head. "Okay, just wanted to be sure I wasn't seeing things. So it is true, there are other people in this place besides us."
"Seems like it…but something feels a bit off about that guy," Claudia said while eyeing the man up and down.
"What makes you say that?"
"Well…he's just standing there…like he's in a trance or something."
"You don't think he's a meth head or something?"
"Hard to tell from here. Let's walk over to him and see if he's okay, but stay cautious." Claudia said as she and Rebecca walked over to the man. Once they were close, they noticed that the man wasn't even cognisant of his surroundings. The two students stared at his completely white eyes before looking at each other.
"Hey mister, are you okay?" Rebecca asked as she waved a hand in front of the man's face, but couldn't get a reaction from him. "I think he might be a meth head."
"You would think that…but his eyes tell a different story," Claudia said as the cat girl looked at the man's clear white eyes. "It's like he's not even alive."
"It could be a side effect of his quirk or he could be a mutant-type like us." The cat girl said as she poked the man out to see if he would react. As this was going on, off in the distance near a set of large double doors. Marko and his squad members were staring in disbelief at the two students messing around with a skin-stealer.
"Sir, shouldn't we stop them from getting themselves killed!?" said a female soldier as Marko stared at the scene in front of him.
"Are you crazy? That's a skin-stealer. They'll attack anything, even other entities like them. I advise against helping them and just leave them to their fate." said a male soldier before hearing Marko speak up.
"You heard what the higher-up said. We can either eliminate them if they're hostile, or communicate with them if we can. I prefer not to deal with this kind of madness, but orders are orders." He said before looking at the two soldiers behind him. "Vanessa, Clark, provide backup if things go south."
"And what are you going to do?" Vanessa asked as she noticed Marko making his way over to Rebecca and Claudia.
"Making contact with the targets." He said before focusing his attention on the two U.A. Students…who were now drawing on the skin-stealer with markers. "Lord, please let them be friendly."
"Seriously? What's with this guy? Nothing we're doing is making him react or move." Rebecca said before noticing Claudia carefully examine the man. "You okay? Because you've been staring at him for the past three minutes or so."
"Yeah…just need to look over something." She said before reaching into a pocket dimension for her notes and started looking through them. Just as she was looking through them, her ears picked up the sounds of footsteps coming from behind them. She instantly paused what she was doing before making her notes disappear and quickly turned around with her weapon in hand as she pointed at the person behind her.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! I'm unarmed!" Marko defensively said with his hands up. "I'm not here to hurt you or anything. I just want to talk, that's all," he said which caused Rebecca to turn around and blink in surprise along with Claudia.
"Holy crap…the notes were right. There are other people here besides us." Rebecca said as she carefully walked over to Marko and began to examine him. "Given the attire and the logo M.E.G. plastered on your shoulder, I take it you're with them correct?"
"You've heard of us?" Marko asked as Claudia lowered her weapon and nodded.
"You can thank the notes left behind in the Manila Room back on level zero," Claudia said before making the notes she had appeared in her hand. "At first we didn't believe this place was the backrooms, but someplace that was part of U.A. High. But given how we were almost killed by some weird stick-figure-looking monster in level zero, it pretty much cemented the fact that we're not back in our world."
"So if he's part of M.E.G., then that must mean there's an outpost nearby that we can go to get some answers?" Rebecca added as she walked over to Claudia's side. "Plus we can get our new friend here some medical help."
"I'm afraid we can't do much for him…Because he's a skin stealer." Marko said as Rebecca and Claudia looked at each other for a moment, then back at the pale-skinned man, then back at Marko.
"A skin stealer?" Rebecca asked before hearing Claudia look through some notes before presenting him with said paper with skin stealer information on it. "Skin Stealers, humanoid entities that are commonly known to wear the skin of their victims as a disguise." She said which caused her skin to turn slightly pale upon reading it as they quickly rushed over to Marko and hit behind him.
"What the, why are you hiding behind me!?"
"What? We're kids. You can't expect us not to hide behind an authority figure." Rebecca said before looking at the skin stealer.
"Well, hiding behind me isn't going to save us seeing how it can rip right through me given its unnatural strength. Though given how you two kept poking and drawing on it, I'm surprised it didn't try and attack you both." Marko said as Claudia examined the skin stealer for a moment before looking over her notes.
"Well given the notes I'm looking over. It's currently in its docile state. The only time it'll move is when it's hungry or if attacked by someone. And so far we haven't done anything that would make it do that."
"So it's not a human, but an entity?" Rebecca asked as Marko nodded. "Oh okay, then I can just do this."
"What do you mean by-?" Before Marko could finish, he noticed the cat girl aiming a finger at the entity as a pale-blue glow appeared on the tip of her finger. Within a matter of seconds, a small beam shot out of her finger and shot right through the skin stealer's head. The sound of rocks cracking echoed through the area they were in as Marko noticed the entity's body cracking up before crumbling to dust. The older man stared in disbelief at what he had just seen before looking over at Rebecca with a fearful expression on his face. "The fuck did you just do…"
"I just use my quirk on it like I did with that weird monster back on level zero. Doesn't work on humans, but it's useful on objects and animals…which I can assume these entities fall under the animal category in a sense."
"...By quirk…you mean superpower?" He asked as Rebecca nodded. "I-I see…and it doesn't work on people?"
"Yep, tested it out on Claudia once. The only thing it did was corrode her clothes into dust."
"And pain, don't forget that," Claudia added as the cat girl nodded.
"Right, right, almost forgot about that part." She said before noticing Marko staring at them with the same fearful expression as before. "So…You got a name, mister?"
"M-Marko…Marko Gustov." He answered. "Who might you two be?"
"Rebecca Spring," Rebecca said before jerking a thumb over at Claudia. "Her name is Claudia."
"It's a pleasure to me you, sir," Claudia said before bowing to the man.
"P-Pleasure to meet you both," He said before regaining some of his composure. "You mentioned you were looking for the outpost on this level, right?"
"That's the plan, yes. You wouldn't happen to know where it is, do you?"
"I do…but I need to talk with the leader before taking you there." He said before walking off to where Vanessa and Clark were. "Wait here if you don't mind."
"Not like we have much of a choice. We don't know much about this place anyway." Claudia said as she and Rebecca watched the man walk off behind the double doors in the distance. "You think this M.E.G. group be trusted?"
"Not by a long shot, but they know more about the backrooms than we do. So we might as well get their help in learning how to maneuver through this place. They might even have clues about finding an exit to this place so we can head home."