April 14, 2310
Clara: Age 6
Clara couldn't hear. As she regained consciousness, that was the first thing she recognized. The singing of the birds, the honking of distant cars, even the wind blowing leaves across the yard, all of them had disappeared in the brief time of her world going dark. She couldn't even hear her own gasp of pain as she attempted to push herself up onto her elbows before falling back onto the frozen dirt. It was all she could do to turn her head to the side as a shadow encroached on her.
She very quickly wished she hadn't.
When he was angry, there was no monster in any of her books that could compare to how terrifying Richard Ramirez was. He towered over her with a vicious sneer before kneeling down and grabbing her by the hair. She felt, but did not hear, her anguished cry as she was lifted back onto her feet, only for them to give out from under her again, leaving her suspended only by her father's grip.
She saw him motion to someone out of her sight and felt a familiar pinch at her neck. She cringed as heat bubbled through her veins and shot Garrett the dirtiest look she could out of the corner of her eye. The man smiled mirthlessly at her as the flesh-colored needle protruding from his palm retracted back into his skin. "-rse than yesterday. Perhaps she simply can't live up to your standards, sir."
"She will." Clara shivered at her father's tone. This was no declaration of support. Through her bangs, she noticed the fury in his eyes and fought to get away, leaving a small clump of hair in his fist as she yanked herself free. Richard raised an eyebrow in challenge as Clara put some distance between them. "We will begin again. If you have not landed a hit by the time Garrett's timer goes off, you will be practicing defense again. If you cannot land a hit, you mustn't let yourself get hit either."
'He's setting me up. He knows I can't hit him, I haven't been able to all morning. Garrett's stupid timer always goes off and then I just end up out cold and hurting again.' Clara sniffled, trying her best to hold back her tears, both from the burning pain left in her body from Garrett's Quirk and from her own frustration. Despite her efforts, Richard's eyes narrowed at the sound and he took up his fighting position. Clara bit her cheek and took a deep breath.
"Howl Missile!" She roared, letting loose her most powerful ranged attack. As it had every other time she attempted it, the attack never even made it to her father, breaking up several yards in front of him. She cried out in anger and desperation and ran closer, using her scream to increase the power of her swing, though again, by the time her fist got even close to Richard, her arm was thrown back by some invisible force and the momentum sent her sprawling right on her rear. Clara tried every move in her limited repertoire, every combination, attacked from every angle and even, at one point, had thrown a handful of sand at her father as a distraction. Regardless, by the time the timer finally went off, she'd come no closer to landing a hit than she had since their training began two years previously. Clara fell to her knees and slammed her fist into the ground, her tears finally bubblin over as the staggered breaths of her father's dampener moved ever closer. "Quit your sniveling, you useless girl. Defensive position, now."
"I… I can't!" She cried, curling even more in on herself as she sobbed. In the books she'd read and the cartoons she'd watched whenever she had a moment off from training, crying children were often comforted by their parents or friends until they felt better. But not her. Instead of being given comfort, Clara was once again dragged back to her feet by her hair. She uselessly beat her fists against her father's arm and pried at his fingers, but to no avail.
"Your continued defiance is getting on my nerves, Clara. You have not improved because you refuse to improve." He released her hair and she stumbled back a few steps, glaring at him through her tears. The sight of her waterworks only further infuriated the man as he sunk into an offensive posture. "Stop that. What good are tears? In the end, all they lead to is an embarrassing death. The more you cry, the more I will adjust my dampener. If you hope to avoid losing your hearing entirely, you will quit it right now and get into a defensive position."
Clara wiped furiously at her eyes and got to her feet, recognizing the tone of his voice to mean that she'd truly angered him. She'd barely set herself when the first attack came and consequently, only just managed to leap out of the way as the earth beneath her tore apart from her father's exhale. Without a moment to spare, Clara scrambled to dodge his next few attacks before she swore under her breath. She was rapidly running out of space in their fairly modest backyard. His next attack would surely push her right up against the thick brick wall that separated their yard from the sidewalk and street behind it.
With no other option immediately apparent, Clara took a deep breath and let out a warcry right as her father's next attack came. She wasn't expecting to dissipate his complete like he had hers when she was on the offensive, but she'd hoped it would at least tone down the inevitable pain.
It did not.
Her attack was swallowed almost instantly and the last thing she felt was her body being lifted off the ground and flying at high speed towards the wall before her vision blacked out completely.
Purpose of a Hero
Present Day
'His eyes have gotten colder.'
It was the first thing she noticed when her father looked up at her. It had been less a month since she'd last spoken with him, yet somehow his already dead eyes had become even more intense, filled with malice as he stared down his only child.
It wasn't very often that Clara felt like a scared little child, but for a brief moment, she wanted nothing more than to run out of the office and curl up in a ball in her room. Instead, she bit her cheek to focus her mind and opened her mouth. "You called me home. Why?"
"Is a father not allowed to want to see his daughter?" Richard replied, his deep voice dripping with sarcasm. Clara scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest, barely managing to hide her flinch as he stood from his chair and began walking over to her. Her father was a very tall, very muscular man, towering above most people she'd seen in her short lifetime, and it only served to make him more intimidating. Glaring down at her sent her mind right back to her childhood when he'd been even more imposing.
However, in a brief moment of nervous lunacy, Clara found her mouth threatening to split into a smile. 'He still looks big, but every time I grow he gets smaller. He's only that terrifying in my memories.' she realized. Richard observed her closely, then grabbed her arm and held it up, making Clara squawk in protest. Her father let out a grunt and shook his head.
"You've been slacking. Ever since you left and our sessions stopped, you've continually disappointed me." Clara set her jaw and glared up at him as he paused for breath. Richard met her gaze for a short time, then looked meaningfully at Garrett, still standing by the door. Out of the corner of her eye, Clara saw her father's croney grin and tap a button on the wall panel. The small television screen at the back of the office flickered to life.
Clara's breath caught in her throat at the sight of her on the screen. It was a recording of her practical exam, in which she saw herself take a deep breath and blow away a group of robotic mannequins. The screen then flipped to her battle against Lyon during one of their battle lessons. She felt her stomach turn at the thought of her father (and Garrett) seeing how she won that particular encounter.
Then came the tournament. Her wins were largely ignored, save for a few moments where her guard dropped and she took a few hits, before the video lingered on her near-misses against Narruk and Oliver then her loss against Payton. By the time she collapsed on screen, she was beginning to feel nauseous as her father practically vibrated with anger. "You are even further behind my expectations than I originally feared. We've precious little time before your patrol schedule begins, so until then we will start again from zero."
Clara's teeth began to hurt with how tightly she was clamping her jaw, trying to summon any of the bravado she had exhibited in their last meeting. However, that had been in a semi-public place and her behavior then had surely played a part in his decision to call her back. Now they were in his domain. Her prison, where he could surely make things much worse should he feel inclined. Though it killed her, she swallowed her pride and spoke. "When do we start?"
"Tomorrow. At daybreak. Take the rest of today off to prepare, I will not be going easy on you. Garrett will deliver meals at your request as always." It was a clear dismissal, though Clara didn't move at first, waiting until his back was turned as he walked back to his desk before spinning on her heel and marching past a smirking Garrett into the lonely halls of her childhood home.
'Fucker. This always fucking happens, Clara. You turn into a sniveling fucking child the moment he looks at you, then turn tail and run at the first opening. Absolutely pathetic. Imagine what MacAllister or Kazani would say if they saw you bowing your head like an obedient little fucking dog.' Clara's thoughts only made her self-loathing reach a fever pitch and by the time she made it back to her childhood room, it took every ounce of control she could muster not to either scream or punch a hole in the wall. In both cases, he would win.
In the end, Clara settled for punching her mattress a fair few times, an anger management practice she'd become quite accustomed to growing up. As soon as she cooled down a bit, she collapsed onto her bed, which creaked under her, and stared up at the ceiling. Just because her father had given her the night off, didn't mean there was much to actually do. With a sign, she turned over and examined her room.
To her surprise, it hadn't really changed much since she left. 'I thought he'd have emptied this place as soon as he could. Especially those,' Clara thought, grinning at the myriad of posters tacked onto the walls. Anything and everything her twelve year old self had thought would piss the old man off was represented in one way or another. Posters of Heroes she'd heard him discussing his distaste for, a few motorcycles because he always complained about them as they drove by, even bands he'd become disgusted listening to whenever they came on in public.
Her eyes landed on the very last set of posters she'd hung up, soon after both her thirteenth birthday and her father's first speech on "Quirk Purity" and grinned vindictively. The very concept had disgusted her so much that she'd snuck out that night and stolen a magazine from the nearby deli, cutting out and pasting the pages of scantily clad women onto her walls. The most brutal training session of her life had been worth the look on his face when he'd stepped into her room the following morning and saw them.
Besides those and a few other trinkets, she was slightly off-put by how devoid of personal flair her room had. Even at the dorms, she had taken the time to at least put up a punching bag, calendar, and a poster of Teardrop (just to be extra spiteful). Meanwhile, in the room she'd spent most of her childhood locked up in, there was precious little to make it feel like hers. The bed sheets and comforter were dull gray, her desk was made of wood and had no personal effects, even her closet and dresser were full of nothing but same-y boring clothes.
Her eyes drifted to the far back corner of her closet, specifically the loose board she had pried up when she was eight. She contemplated for a brief second, then shook her head and got off the bed. She locked the door and firmly set the deadbolt (that she had installed herself after too many instances of Garrett unlocking it), sure she had more than enough time before her father's butler arrived with dinner.
With experienced hands, she reached down and pried the board from its foundation, pulling out a small shoebox. Taking a seat at her desk and turning on the lamp, she flicked off the cover and peered at the few items inside. They were some of her very, very few prized treasures she'd collected. The first was another sign of her early rebellion, a Hero Trading Card of the Hero Oddball, one of her father's most hated colleagues. Next was a small, handwritten note in loopy writing. There was no name, no date, no signature. She only knew who it was from by its contents.
Richard,
We're worried about you. Ever since graduation you've been distant. I heard you even snapped at Max! You two are so close, you've never had more than a friendly spat.
You aren't speaking to me, which I suppose is fair. I didn't want for any of this to happen, I promise. What you were saying… it scared me. I felt like I lost you and that's why I broke it off. Regardless, you are still very important to me.
Please. Tell me what's wrong. Maybe I can help you.
Clara'd been aware of her father's former lover for a long time, ever since he'd let it slip in a drunken tirade during a particularly hard training session when she was five. It hadn't been until years later that she finally saw a picture of Teardrop. Having a face to put to the wrinkled old letter had made it even more special to a younger her. Now that she'd met Teardrop's daughter, seen how her life could have been, she wanted nothing more than to rip it apart in anger.
She didn't, however, instead placing it carefully back in the box and brushed aside a few faded Hero figures she'd been given by a boy down the street. They were the only toys she'd had as a child.
Finally, her hands brushed against the rough cover of a half-burnt notebook. She picked it up with a reverence reserved for the single most important item in her life. Careful not to tear its brittle pages, she flipped to a point near the middle with faded writing and began to read.
Howl Hurricane is a very powerful technique, but as with most techniques of its type, it must be treated with caution. One wrong move could tear your esophagus into shreds. To begin, you must intake a large amount of air – see now? This is where those breathing exercises come into play – and then release it. If you are like me, and use the names of attack to invoke a muscle memory response, you really should practice releasing around the "urr" part of "Hurricane" as to allow the maximum amount of circulation in your attack.
She reached up and rubbed her throat, remembering her sorry state in the final rounds of the tournament. 'Should have taken this thing with me. It has all sorts of secret techniques that I could use to my advantage. One of them has to be able to counter MacAllister's fire. What I wouldn't give to get one up on him in a fair fight,' she thought with a devious smile. She flipped through a few more pages before shutting the book and running her hand along the scorched cover. She could just barely make out the first few letters of whatever was written on the bottom, but had never really thought much into it.
Vasi–
She was just returning the box to its hiding place when a booming knock at the door startled her. She swore quietly and slammed the floorboard back into place before jumping to her feet. The knocking had not stopped, in fact it only seemed to be getting louder the longer she took. Irritated, Clara took her time walking over. "Fuck off, Garrett. I'm getting dressed you old fuck, bet you'd love to see that wouldn't you? Perverted son of a cunt."
Clara was feeling quite proud of herself until she finally opened the door and found herself face to face with her father, dressed in his full Hero Costume. She'd always hated the design. Just about as un-Hero-like as it could possibly be. His dampener already made him look like a villain, so adding in a black trench coat over top heavy body armor ensured that no kids would approach asking for his autograph. Clara's mouth snapped shut and she clenched her hands into fists as her father scrutinized her. Behind him, standing with a tray of food and looking as if Christmas had come early, was Garrett.
"I'm going on patrol. You are not permitted to leave the property and be warned, I will know if you try. Don't let my absence get your guard down, I will not go any easier on you tomorrow if you decide to be an idiot and get little sleep." Clara nodded briskly, biting her tongue to prevent losing her temper over the expression on the butler's face. Richard glared at her for a minute more before turning down the hall, his heavy footsteps echoing in the empty manor until the sound of the front door closing broke her out of her daze.
"Wonderful speech, princess," Garrett said casually. Striding past her and placing the tray of food on her desk, then exiting again with a snide smile. "But no, aside from the fact I find you repulsive to be around, your father would kill me."
"And I won't?" She challenged. Garrett just kept on smiling, looking so much like Lyon that her urge to sock him in the jaw rose astronomically high. As soon as he left, Clara flashed a very rude hand gesture at the closed door, then collapsed back onto her bed. 'Just a few days. That's all I have to survive, then I can go back and beat the shit out of Flame Idiot for some stress relief. Plus we have our patrols. Please, let a Villain pick a fight so I can really kick some ass and not worry about being kicked out of school.'
Her food untouched, Clara rolled over on her side and stared at the wall, envisioning herself beating up faceless Villains, who eventually morphed into Garrett, her father, Lyon, and even Crybaby, until she drifted into an uneasy sleep.
Purpose of a Hero
April 17, 2310
Clara: Age 7
Clara opened her eyes in the early morning hours of her own accord, for once her father's impressively loud voice not acting as her alarm clock. It took a moment for her drowsiness to fade away, but after a short while a smile slipped onto her face. 'No training today!' she thought brightly, leaping out of bed and throwing open her curtains.
The sun was still low in the sky, obscured by the distant skyscrapers dotting the coast of the East River. Clara leaned over the windowsill to get a better look at the sky, nodding happily when she didn't see so much as a single gray cloud. As she went through her morning routine, her mind was focused on one single thought. 'He remembered.'
Those words played like a mantra in her head as she got dressed then padded down the hall to brush her teeth. She didn't bother with her hair too much, only making sure it would stay out of her face as she normally did. She passed by her father's bedroom on her way to the dining hall and was surprised to see his door flung wide open. With a mischievous smile, she peeked her head inside the room she was never allowed in, but frowned at its disarray. Clothing lied everywhere, along with stacks of papers teetering dangerously. The stand she knew (because this wasn't the first time she'd snooped on her father's room) usually held her father's Hero Costume was empty.
After making sure the coast was clear, Clara slipped into the room.
Being inside instead of just peering in made the bedroom so much worse than she'd first thought. It was clear many of the clothes had been there for a long while (most likely since her father had fired the housekeeper months before), but there were also several cartons of old food lying around. Clara took great care to plot her path around those.
Other than the mess, there was very little personal flair added to the room. Not that hers was much better, but she'd expected at least a photo or two hung up on the wall. Instead, the gray walls were bare. Not for the first time, she wondered how the outside of their house could be so fancy, while the inside was so drab and boring. She squinted at a particular section of wall that looked as if something liquid had splattered against it and not been cleaned.
Tip-toeing closer, she also noticed a small tack in the wall, right in the middle of the stain. Curiously, she got a few more steps before something sharp poked her foot as it descended and only her reflexes stopped her from fully stepping on the large shard of glass. It looked like a broken beer bottle, which would explain the stain. Clara was just about to leave, content with her snooping and weary of her father catching her, but then she saw something else cluttered with the bottle's broken glass. Something colorful.
He did have a picture. Clara's eyes widened as she picked it up and studied it. She barely recognized her father with how skinny he was and how happy he looked, but there was no mistaking those blood-red eyes. He had his arm thrown around a black-haired woman who looked just as happy as he did. Clara's heart stopped for a moment and she held the picture just inches away from her nose as she studied the woman.
She tried her best to remember her own reflection she'd seen in the mirror not five minutes prior, but, in the end, she found no resemblance in the mysterious woman. 'Dad's never mentioned her, but… he's never said anything about mom. This lady doesn't look like she could be her either.'
Clara's frown deepened and she pocketed the picture, intending to ask her father about the mysterious woman later. While she was curious about the others in the photo, none of them held as much weight in her mind. Her mother was never mentioned and asking about her only made her dad furious.
Despite the questions forming in her mind, she retreated quickly and continued down the hallway. She reached the dining room and frowned when she found it abandoned as well. At this point in the morning Garrett would have prepared the three of them some form of breakfast – assuming she finished her training on time, which she never did – and her father would insist they eat together. It was just about the only meal he spent with her and usually just spent the time going over her failures from that morning's training.
At this point, fear was beginning to settle in her gut, and she pressed on through the house toward her father's office. The hallway in which it was located was almost always darker than the rest of the house, which had made Clara hesitant to visit it in the past, but she gathered her courage and focused on putting one foot in front of the other.
It was when she was halfway down the hall that she saw the thin stream of light emanating from the half-closed door. Then she heard a sharp gasp of pain and a curse, which sent any remaining bit of fear out of her system as panic took its place. She raced down the remainder of the hall and threw open the door.
It was rare to see her father without his dampener. It was even more rare to see him with a surprised expression, or for that matter, any expression other than anger or disappointment. However, Clara had never seen her father covered in blood and his Hero Costume in tatters. "Dad?"
"What have I told you about barging into my office, Clara?" He demanded, the pain in his eyes swiftly transforming into irritation. Clara immediately shrank back, but worry propelled her body closer. Garrett shot her a dirty look from his place next to her father, currently trying to stitch up a gash in his arm.
"Stand back, you stupid thing. Don't get in the way."
"W-What happened?" She asked timidly, coming to a stop not far away from the pair. Neither answered her, instead Garrett focused on his first aid, while her father studied her. In that time, she studied his injuries more closely. Other than the gash on his arm, he had another on his forehead that looked as if it had already been stitched up, a large burn on his exposed chest, and a telltale trail of blood running from the corner of his mouth.
The sight was enough to make Clara shake. She'd never even imagined her father getting injured before. He was always so powerful when they spared, it was incomprehensible that anyone could defeat him. 'The other guy must look a lot worse. No way would Dad get hurt this bad and hurt him more,' she assured herself.
As she relaxed, she put her hands into her pajama pockets, her fingers brushing against the picture. All it took was the brief noise of crinkling paper to make her father's calculating gaze turn suspicious and her fear to come back tenfold. "What do you have there, Clara?"
She'd been planning to wait to show him the picture and ask her questions until he was in a rare good mood, but that seemed impossible now. Heart in her throat, Clara pulled the photograph out of her pocket and smoothed its creases against her chest before holding it out towards him. As soon as he saw it, his expression went blank, even more emotionless than Clara had ever seen him. Without his dampener, his face looked more normal, but in that moment, she almost wished he'd have put it back on before she'd arrived.
As the silence dragged on, Clara felt compelled to speak, "I… found it in your room. You never told me about any of these people before…" she smiled and looked down at her feet. "For a minute I thought that woman with you was my mom, but—"
"Get out." Clara's heart leaped into her throat at the dark tone of his voice and she slowly looked up at his now thunderous expression. In the back of her mind, she noticed that even Garrett had moved to the other side of the room with a wide-eyed look of horror. Clara took a step back as her father glared down at the image. "GET OUT!"
The roar without his dampener was immense, shattering the windows and cracking the floor beneath him. Clara stumbled as the noise instantly blanked out her hearing and turned around to flee as Richard's rage built. Deciding to leave Garrett to his fate, she slammed the door behind her and sprinted back through the halls, feeling the very house shake with her father's labored, furious breaths.
When she finally made it back to her room, Clara slammed the door shut behind her. As her heart rate slowed and her hearing returned, she felt tears running down her cheeks. In a brief moment of anger, she wound back her leg and kicked her bedframe as hard as she could, which she instantly regretted as pain radiated from her toes. With a frustrated sigh, she let her back rest against the wall and slid down into a seated position, roughly wiping away her tears with the back of her hand.
As she sat, listening to the distant sound of her father's anger as the day progressed, she curled in on herself. By nightfall, she still hadn't moved and was doing her best to ignore the stabbing pain in her stomach from hunger. Resigned, she glared up at the moon shining through her window. "He didn't remember after all."
Purpose of a Hero
Excerpt from the Diary of Vasily Ramirez
November 18, 2286
Richard got into another fight at school today. It's the third one this month.
As usual, his father is nowhere to be found and it's left to me to comfort as well as punish the boy. I do hope extra chores will suffice, but discipline was always your area of expertise, Rowena my love. The children never did listen to me because of how soft I was. I guess I very much still am.
Sergio... he has begun disappearing more. I fear that it is causing Richard to act out more. My son isn't even trying to uphold the pretense of work anymore, he hasn't for a while now.
If this continues, I plan to follow him one night. I must discover where it is he's running off to. His ignorance is hurting more than just me.
In an effort to add some levity to these pages, I will mention a positive event. Richard has made a friend. I was so overjoyed when he told me that I nearly broke down in tears. He's much happier whenever the Holl boy is around. I think he might be just what my grandson needs.
Purpose of a Hero
Two chapters not separated by six months!? What wizardry is this?
I won't keep y'all long, very lazy and all that. Let me know what you think of this chapter, bit of a different view of Clara than what we've seen before, eh?
This arc is so fun for me to write because Clara is a fun character to write. It's too spoilery to say, but her motivations and convictions are super interesting to me.
Anyway, next chapter will be fun.
Next time, on The Purpose of a Hero:
Chapter 62: Cruelty