Chapter 3:
A Wild World
Izuku Midoriya exited the small patch of woods carrying the sheathed knife in front of him like a business card. seeing Isendra keeping watch over the horizon he approached her and offered it back to her, catching her attention with the motion.
"Oh no, you can keep it. You will need a means to defend yourself beyond a steel rod." She told him. "And a knife has many uses besides, all of which you shall learn in time."
He shrugged at her increasingly strange statements and pocketed the knife before standing up straight and looking at her expectantly. He was ready for the day of waking ahead of him. But instead of walking away from him and motioning for him to follow she stared at him confusedly.
"I did not see it in the dark last night nor in the shaded woods earlier, but there is a highly skilled painting of a man on your shirt." She stated.
Izuku looked down at himself and saw she was right, but was made confused by her being confused by it.
"Yeah?" He said slowly. "Its a photo print of All Might."
She hummed thoughtfully.
"And is it common where you're from to have photo prints of All Might on your fronts?" She asked.
"Oh yeah! He's the best!" Izuku gushed. "The number one hero! I want to be just like him, putting victims of villains and natural disasters at ease with a smile and a laugh and!"
She recoiled at his sudden enthusiasm but didn't seem displeased by it.
"I see. A hero? He certainly looks the part; He is quite handsome. I especially like the look of intensity around his eys." Isendra said. "Does he have one of those quirks you mentioned? Is that what it does? Put people at ease?"
Izuku shook his head vigorously.
"Nobody knows what his quirk is. But he's super strong, super fast and super tough. He can leap across entire cities in a split second and punch holes through mountains. He's never once lost a fight!" Izuku went on.
As he did so her mood seemed to brighten considerably, as did her good humor. Of course she liked all might too, just from hearing about him. Who couldn't?
"Our world could use a hero like that, would it be too much to ask for him to suffer the journey to our world too?" Isendra asked. "Or would the fates think it too kind to us to hand over a hero capable of solving all of our woes in a day?"
Izuku didn't have any idea how to answer that. Between still not believing her theory of him being a trans dimensional traveler to not knowing how bad wherever he was might be, he couldn't really comment on it all. But everybody deserved a hero like All Might.
"I'm just some kid who went missing due to a warp ability. I'm sure somebody will investigate my disappearance, but if they do and send somebody to this same spot I doubt it'll be all might. He tends to have more important things to be on about."
Isendra nodded in understanding and looked back to where the trash patch in thought.
She then put on her biggest smile and put her fists on either hip in an amateurish attempt at All Might imitation. It honestly wasn't bad, but she didn't have the face to pull off a smile that wide. Izuku, naturally, broke down in laughter at her attempt.
"Shouldn't we be going?" Izuku asked between snorts and giggles.
"Yes. We should. But first, you should turn your shirt inside out. People here are not accustomed to seeing photo prints." She instructed.
She spared him any more silliness and turned away from him. Together they began their walk to whatever place he would temporarily call home. but weirdly she took him back to the bog where all the trash sat in stagnant pools.
"We should look for anymore steel like the rods you are carrying. I was not joking when I said they would fetch a high price." Isendra instructed. "But first, where is this crazed man you said you killed?"
Izuku had completely forgotten about that until she reminded him. His mind must have been trying to forget as a coping mechanism. He hung his head low and guided Isendra to the spot where he had left the corpse and there it still lay, already decomposing in the hot, humid air.
For what must have been the eighth time in the same number of hours since they'd met, Izuku had confused Isendra. She glanced between the dead, red man and back at him several times. Lost for words.
"Child, this is a fallen. They come from the burning hells. They are not people and you are not a murderer." She said flatly.
Izuku stared at her. She stared back, still with the flat expression.
Not people? How could she even say that?! Those who can justify murder with a belief that their victims aren't even human are dangerous indeed, and in the early days of quirks there were many quirkless who did exactly that. Serial killers that targeted those with quirks for being mutants, or demons or just plain dangerous. They were obviously correct on two accounts there.
Could this kind, considerate and good-humored woman be a villain? She seemed to catch onto his distress and sitrust and distracted his mind with a question.
"Are there people where you're from who look like this?" She asked, indicating the corpse.
"Well, not exactly like this. But one of my classmates had wings just like his, and people have quirks that make them look like all manner of beasts." Izuku explained. "It's not beyond the realm of possibility for a quirk to make somebody look exactly like this man."
She nodded with another hum.
"I see you cannot get the idea out of your mind that he is a person, very well. I shall give him a funeral pyre as you scavenge. But know that in time you will come to see the new reality you are in, I hope you are able to accept it before it becomes too much to bear." Isendra said before turning to the corpse.
She then held her hands out at about a foot widths apart and hurled a great ball of fire at the dead man, incinerating it to ash in a matter of moments.
"You have a quirk?!" He demanded at the sight. "Why were you pretending not to understand all this time?"
"We really need to work on your manners." Isendra said sternly. "And on your ability to keep a respectful tone to your elders. No, I do not have a quirk. I am a sorceress. That was magic, not whatever abilities you have come to know. It is gained through studious practice and training, not accident of birth."
She then held her hand out in similar manner to before and flash froze the now charred skeleton and half the bog beyond into solid ice.
Izuku was silent after that. He had seen people capable of doing either of the things she just did, and honestly putting the feats to shame, but both at once? He could scarcely imagine somebody with a quirk capable of commanding both fire AND ice. Such a person would be ridiculously powerful even at a young age. This woman was powerful. Very powerful. And he doubted that was the most she could do with either fire or ice.
"You told me quirks are specialized, that they can only do one thing, yes?" Isendra clarified, clearly on a similar train of thought.
"Well, some can seem to do more than one thing if the thing it does can be adapted to multiple purposes." Izuku said honestly. "But you have made your point. I need to think."
"Think as you collect anything valuable. You will need to support yourself soon. And we really must be going." Isendra ordered.
Izuku did as ordered and poured out all of the trash from the already torn open bags. He lucked out with an old kitchen knife set and naturally grabbed the other two desk legs. Isendra had said how much the steel could be worth, after all. Aside from that there wasn't much in the trash. A few broken electronics ,but those were worthless everywhere.
When he returned to her she put his finds in her bag and together they began their walk away from the trash bog, hopefully for good.
And what a long walk it turned out to be. The Blood Moors were immense, and barely changing. Rock formations, bogs and small wooded areas were all that broke the monotony of the landscape. Although, occasionally they would pass a burnt down shack or cabin, but after Izuku spotted the scorched remains of human skeletons in one he stopped rubber necking at them.
Isendra hadn't been kidding when she said this country needed a hero like all might. Those people certainly had.
The only other thing interesting during the first half of their journey was what looked like a human with a porcupine and reptilian quirk. It had screeched and charged at them, claws bared.
Isendra erased it from existence with a bolt of lightning from between her hands. It had been so fast and loud that all Izuku could register was his need to hit the dirt, which he did. This seemed to impress Isendra.
"Good instincts. You may survive yet." She had told him.
Fire, ice AND lightning? He was starting to believe her claims. Not just that these creatures weren't actually people, but that she was a full-blown sorceress. It took a great deal of self control not to start asking her all manner of questions on what many other spells she could do. It seemed impertinent.
Not long after that they came across another ruined shack, this one thankfully not broken down. There, they had a small lunch of cured meats and stale bread before resting in comfortable silence. Izuku took this time to stretch, earning some odd glances from Isendra as he tried to contort his body in the ways he was taught.
They were back to their hike shortly and didn't speak for the remainder of the day.
That was, until they saw two giant gorilla's duking it out next to a wooded area in their path. Gorilla was the closest term he could use to describe them, but they looked more like the American superhero Bogfoot-Woman... if she'd made a children with a silverback gorilla.
Much like the porcupine-lizard-man from before they could be explained as being people with quirks, but the bestial roars, grunts and moans as they pummeled each-other into pulps dissuaded him of that notion. It was a short time before one actually killed the other, outright ripping its arm off from the socket. If that hadn't killed the other one it certainly put it into shock.
The victor didn't wait to check, already eating the stolen limp from where the flesh was torn.
"Are there people who look like that where you're from?" She asked pointedly.
"Well yeah." Izuku said, a little freaked out by the bestial noises. "But those aren't people."
She nodded.
"No. They are not." She confirmed.
The crowning moment of Izuku's disillusion with the idea that was still somehow on planet earth came near evening when the spotted an entire group of the red skinned people fighting one of those gargantuan beasts. Each as inhuman as the beast itself, though one carried a staff and was hurling balls of fire similar to what Isendra had earlier that day. They took a more circuitous route around some large rocky outcroppings to avoid the violence, and once they were clear Isendra continued her assault on his ideals.
"Are there entire platoons of people with the exact same quirk where you're from?" She asked.
"Well, some families do that." He said. "People with very similar quirks, like say both having the same animal quirk, will get married and start families. But that's not what those are."
Even he heard the doubt in his own voice. After those two beasts it now seemed completely plausible for those people to be wild beasts too.
He looked her dead in the eye before asking his next question.
"Actual demons from hell?" He asked.
"Actual demons from hell." She nodded.
Demons still seemed like a bit of a stretch for him to believe, but he was now at least open to the idea.
It was nearly sundown when they reached what Izuku hoped was their destination. A wide river with a stone bridge stretching across it, leading to a wooden fort of sorts. Its entire outer wall was nothing but spiked, wooden palisades. Women with bows stood guard at the entrance and every corner of the complex. Scratch that, beautiful and shockingly in-shape women stood guard at the entrance and every corner.
The bows were certainly strange, and he was now wondering what technological level the people of this world - assuming he believed that yet - were capable of. Were they Medeival?
Isendra stopped him and took her pack off. She dug inside it for a few moments and promptly retrieved a bar of soap. She haded it to him and he accepted it gratefully, as if being gifted the elixir of life by the gods themselves.
"Go. Wash yourself in the river. I will return shortly with clothes and new shoes for you, along with a hot meal. I will be taking your old shoes with me." She instructed.
Izuku gladly took the bar of soap and did away with his shoes. Even though he thought it was weird to be bathing in a river, he assumed she was going to go explain things to whoever was in charge of this fort. Hopefully they had actual bathtubs and running water, but he was starting to suspect he really wasn't in Kanses anymore and a hot shower was out of the question.
Fortunately, with it being such a warm day, he suspected the cold water wouldn't be too bad.
She took his shoes with a notable look of disgust as he disrobed into his boxers and approached the river.
"And again, I cannot stress enough." Isendra stopped him before he took the plunge, catching his full attention. "You must NOT tell anybody of your origins. If anybody asks, your caravan was eradicated but fallen and you managed to kill one as you got away. That I found you last night and brought you here. Do you understand?"
Izuku nodded hesitantly. If this was her camp then it was likely that everyone else was as crazed as her, even now he couldn't completely believe her story himself.
The cold water was a shock to his system, but he was more than willing to suffer it after the day of hiking while sweating trash water. He dunked himself into the water completely and repeatedly, then came the soap. He must have lathered and rinsed four whole times before he was done, not getting out of the water until he was well and truly shivering. Even then, he wasn't finished.
Sitting on the bed of the river he lathered, scrubbed and rinsed his feet and calves more times than he had the rest of his body. His toes were numb by the time he was satisfied and laying on the grass for the last of the sunlight to dry him off and warm him up.
He was almost dozing off by the time the sun was over the horizon and lighting the sky those pretty reds and oranges when Isendra returned. She actually startled him by dropping a pair of red boots and a bag just like hers beside his head.
"They are not much, and certainly are not armor. But they are yours." She told him as she sat on the railing of the stone bridge. "Kashya has also agreed to let you stay with them and will put you to work tomorrow. You are to sleep in the stables for tonight and tomorrow you will be interrogated given a tent. I told them your story, the one I made up. Stick to it."
Izuku nodded as he rifled through his bag full of clean clothes. He wasted no time in donning one of the four pairs of pants and a matching shirt. The wool socks felt like heaven over his numb toes, and the red boots fit snugly.
"Wait, you mean those stables?" Izuku asked, pointing to the thatched roof building that stood outside of the encampment.
"Indeed." Isendra said.
"Is that safe?" He asked.
"So long as we rotate and keep watch, yes." Isendra told him. "And seeing as I kept watch over you all last night, I think you should take first watch. Wake me if anything dangerous comes to harass us. Or at midnight, whichever comes first."
This story was ghostwritten by NonsensicalRants as commissioned by MagikUser. You can hire NonsensicalRants to write your stories as well, all you have to do is provide him with a rough outline and contact him on his patron or FF profile. UserID: 10036896
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