Huh... Been a while, eh? Sorry about the near month between chapters guys but with my work moving into a new warehouse, things have been a bit hectic. Long hours, little sleep, health issues, the list goes on and on. Anyway, I won't bore you guys with the details of my life. Instead, have some details about these next 2 or 3 chapters.

First off, last week I decided that if I ever wanted to get this chapter done, I'd have to take up the offer of someone on the discord and so, thank ThalioTP for writing this chapter and the following ones. I gave him the premise of what I wanted in the chapter and he went above and beyond, writing 4 times as much as the usual chapter. Since I didn't want to throw you guys off with the difference in length, I decided to split it up. And don't worry, all chapters from his monster will be updated quickly. Expect the next one tomorrow, and if needed, a third the day after that. I am going to try and get the first chapter of the tournament out this weekend (not entirely sure if I'll have the time/energy). And don't worry guys, come late July-early August things will settle down again and I'll be back to 1 chapter a week.

I hope you guys enjoy, again credit to Thalio for this chapter. You guys know how to contact me and if you're interested in diving deeper into this story, hop on the discord server. We've got fanart, sneak peeks into future chapters and random lore that will never be mentioned in the main story due to it either being just fun facts or not fitting the narrative. Alright, that's enough out of me. Have an awesome day dudes and dudettes!

Edit 20 mins later: Shit almost forgot! I am still accepting OCs for Upperclassmen (important), Villains (more important), and Pro Heroes

Purpose of a Hero

Mornings usually didn't smell like burned meals and possibly dangerous smokes, but today it did. Everyone knew how dangerous an indoor fire was; the smell itself was still oozing in the hallway just outside. So, without any longer interruptions, the occupants of the USAEI Girl's Dorm knew to immediately gather outside of the dorms to avoid suffocating while sleeping on top of their own beds.

Fortunately for the girls, the upperclassman had one or two things to say about the whole ordeal. Partly because they themselves went through the same thing once in their lives… But mostly because they'd just been forcefully woken up from their sleep.

But, if it wasn't because of the smoke, it could be because of one Clara Ramirez stomping and yelling her lungs out.

"Great! Absolutely wonderful job, Kazani! I didn't know you were a complete screw up in the kitchen as well! The list of things you can do without utterly fucking up grows shorter by the day!" She roared. The others were more or less surprised at how she had so much energy to run around angrily in a circle this early in the morning, "And what the hell did the rest of you do? All of you just fucking stood by, watching this… this monumental fuck-up take place not five feet from the sofa! Fucking terrific, all of you. Hey, why not go ahead and fucking burn the whole school down while you're at it? Your fucking friends are obviously not going to stop you."

"Oh, give her a break, she obviously didn't mean to. Besides, other people are helping us fix it! Maybe you should try to do the same!" Melody Halloway snapped back, trying to comfort the girl in question, who was just hanging her head the lowest it could while her redheaded friend patted her on the shoulder.

"Oh, that's a great fucking idea. Throw all the goddamn bullshit that all of you did this year to me, why don't'cha? Yeah, that'll teach you something," Clara said with a demeaning tone, sarcastically waving her hands with exaggerated gestures.

"Nobody could've prevented what had happened!" Melody fought back, motioning the fire and the alarm, "It's a completely normal risk to have when you're cooking!"

"THE DISHWASHER GOT ON FIRE, HALLOWAY!" Clara jabbed her finger as hard as she could towards the source of the smoke, "Who the fuck can do that?!"

"It was an accident!" Kira shot up, her face restraining from crying with embarrassment.

"Yeah, well, you started this mess, you fucking fix it, you Flamin' Failure. Don't go crying on Crybaby's shoulder and throw all the goddamn mess to someone else," Clara glared in response, obviously not taking any excuses.

"Listen," Eris Blackwood said. She was also tending to Andi before letting herself get in between the argument, "If you don't want to be helpful here, then get out. It's better to have only one thing to worry about this morning without you running your potty mouth everywhere."

"Yeah, nobody asked you to be here," Rylee Ingram added into the conversation.

Scoffing at Eris' answer, she turned to Melody again, "What the fuck is this? Barbershop fucking quartet of fucking failures? Do you know what you all are? A bunch of fucking incompetent morons!" She said before leaning down to her height and glared, "This little fucking cookery of yours is just a drop in the Caspian Sea—the same Caspian Sea that, may I kindly fucking remind you, started the second you had the genius thought of attending this bloody school! Oh, and don't forget that it is still growing faster than the speed of bloody light! If anyone here thinks that they don't hold any ounce of responsibility to what the hell happened, then oh boy I have the morning scoop for you!

Melody was never the one to be moved by Clara Ramirez, she was used to people who had a mouthful like that. But the second the taller girl began jabbing her finger that Melody's chest, she realized how ticked off Clara must've been.

"You have presided over a shambolic… SHOWER OF FUCK-UPS! 'Melody Halloway, singing in the rain'!" Clara gestured again, this time motioning some sort of fantastical sign on top of the redhead, before circling away towards the other side of the hallway, "The day you show me that you can at least cook something decent is the day I know I'm fucking dead an' went up to heaven, drinking wine with fucking Gordon fucking Ramsay. I'm fucking done with this. You idiots can go fuck yourselves, I'm going to the cafeteria. Cha'-cha', see you fucks later."

Complete and utter silence filled the hallway. Even the upperclassmen were taken aback, all of them must've heard the same thing.

"'Flamin' Failure'," Eris parroted the exact same statement the magenta-haired girl had said as the latter disappeared in the crowded hallway, "That's a new one."

Melody could only sigh. Clara was sort-of right, now that she thought about it. It must've taken a while for something burning that violently to spread, if Melody and the others paid more attention, then surely, they could've prevented it from getting worse. Then again, none of them could see this outcome coming, regardless of the fact that it was Kira Kazani who was cooking breakfast.

"The fire's not settling down," An unamused Hazel Camellia Aria said as she poked her head from behind the doorframe of the girl's dorm room, who was followed by the scaly Diana Suharto, Epiphany the ghost girl, and other occupants of the dormitory who volunteered to help.

"We've stopped it from spreading any further, though," Diana the Komodo Dragon girl commented, before sneezing out her forked tongue, "This is really bad for my sense of smell…"

Epiphany was seemingly scorched from top to bottom when she came out from the dorm rooms, as her outfit was covered in soot as well as her hands. The others could only watch helplessly because they knew it wouldn't have hurt the ghost girl at all.

"Turns out I'm better at fightin' bad guys than fightin' fires," Epiphany whistled, looking at her blackened hands in awe. She had obviously gotten herself dirty while trying to handle the flames with her bare hands, "Who would've known."

"That's okay," Melody reassured her, before turning to another resident who was occupying the crowded hallway, "Thanks again for helping us, Sirius. Appreciated it."

The person in question was the only male in the building: Sirius Wilsk, also known infamously as the host of the ghost girl before them. Anyone had failed to notice how scared he must've been listening to Clara's angry rant, even though he was just right behind Melody all the time. Poor kid, he was almost on the verge of crying.

"I-it's fine… Epiphany's the one who urged me, anyway," The shorter boy replied sheepishly. He seemed to be the one who was the most worried about the situation, seemingly unwilling to be pulled into this incident, considering how he was still in his wrinkled bed attire.

"Well after Kazani practically ran across the yard, banged on our dorm's front door, and cried for any of us to help. We had to do something," Epiphany shrugged, shaking off the soot from her clothes, which only made more dust flying in the air. She doesn't seem to notice it, perhaps because she didn't need to breathe.

"The other boys were willing to help, too, you know…" Sirius told her. His attempt at scolding was unbearably pathetic.

Epiphany just gave her host a rather demeaning grin, showing that she was awfully being full of herself, "Yeah, you say that but you know you want to visit Miss Kazani's—"

"AAAAAAAHH!" Sirius' screamed suddenly with his face apparently flustered while waving his hand back and forth to land a hit on Epiphany, seemingly to shut her up, but the ghost girl had already poofed away into thin air with her last expression being a tongue stuck out at the boy.

With all the damage the kitchen fire had done, they had expected the effort of cleaning the rest of the dorms and preventing the spread to be quite the tough work. Lucky for them, calling for extra help yielded more preferable results. Melody would be lying if she hadn't said that she expected Kira to bring someone with the same elemental prowess of fire to help them. Then again, having an invincible phantom lady was good enough.

Other than that, it was good to know that the fire alarm seemed to be working in perfect conditions, knowing how it still refused to stop with just a small amount of smoke traces in the air. The ruckus that it made, as the sound echoed throughout the entire dorm building, seemed to have brought the attention of the students from the boy's dorm. Yet, that was the least concerning thing there was about this morning, specifically because Andi Ena—the girl born with a specialty just to be unlucky on this particular day—almost had vertigo from all the sirens blaring.

Finally, they called the school's officials, who responded that they would send two of their staff to clean up the mess when they got the confirmation that the occupants are safe. When the girls all finally settled down, the two school staff (or they assumed were staff; they looked more like middle-aged men being squashed down to the size of children, with white hair and pale eyes like trolls) immediately went to work to resolve the incident once and for all. When they settled that it was safe to investigate the aftermath, an upperclassman named Shaula, a young girl with an odd-looking scorpion tail poking upwards from underneath her skirt, spoke to the first years half an hour later to bring them both the good news and the bad news.

"Well… the fire damage isn't too bad. Mostly just burns on the walls but most of the appliances will have to be replaced. We can go back inside in a few hours but the kitchen is gonna be out of commission for several days," She said, scratching her head in apparent mild inconvenience, "I suppose all of you will learn from today's mess, right?"

"We will," Melody assured her, feeling a little bit embarrassed herself, "Thanks."

Shaula, with a rather exasperated expression, then turned her head to the other second and third years and said aloud; "Sorry, guys. We'll continue the binge-watching a little later."

"Awww, what?"

"Damn, that sucks."

And thus, were complains that the first years had to suffer through this morning alone. Melody said nothing more about their entire ordeal as all of the girls huddled together in the cafeteria not long after. Everyone else seemed to be wanting to do something with their time outside the dorms but nobody had any plans whatsoever. Sirius and Epiphany had also gone back to the boy's dorm. It was obvious that all of them were more than irritated at the burning of their kitchen, but on top of all: they were hungry.

Settling for cafeteria food wasn't easy, considering that they all had to agree to share a room with Clara again. But most of the complaints from the group consisted of them having enough of having the same fast-cooked meal twice. Melody sort of understood. She used to live in a pizzeria, after all. "Cafeteria food bores me," Rylee Ingram said in agitation, she seemed to be much troubled by the loss of their kitchen, judging by how she turned into a blob of grumbling flesh in front of her unfinished pork cutlet, "Why can't I have cookies for breakfast?!"

"I don't favor it, as well. But I prefer eating cafeteria food over nothing," Diana said as she opened her mouth for another spoonful, "Besides, we don't have any alternatives."

A soft, pained moan could be heard from under the table. And suddenly, the head of Andi Ena slowly rose from her lying position. She seemed to be in a daze, still. "Oops," Diana said as she realized something. Then, she passed a metallic cup to her long-eared friend, "Here, tea, it'll help with the headache."

Andi looked down, up, and down again; all with the same furrowed expression. That blaring siren seemed to have affected her more than they had anticipated. The girl, however, was able to take the piping hot tea and blow on it, before sipping just a little bit of its contents. "Where am I…?" She breathed out. Her voice a mixture of a moan and a pathetic attempt to speak. It seemed as if she wasn't able to see straight yet either.

"Only the best place in the universe," Eris told her from across the seat.

Andi's face seemed to beam just a little, "Ahh… the Death Star…"

"Close," Eris responded, almost giggling, "The cafeteria."

And just like that, her small hopeful expression disappeared into a pout, "Oh…"

Melody chuckled, as well, while chewing on her own portion of food watching the tipsy-looking Andi getting comforted by Diana. The redhead needed something to laugh about when she knew that the perpetrator was still sulking beside her. If Melody could see auras, then Kira's facepalmed-towards-the-table position would give a concerning amount of bad juju.

Considering that this might've been Kira's first-time cooking (but somehow Melody doubted that, she didn't know why), it was sort of understandable that she had planned on celebrating her success, and now that everything went down in flames like this, Melody couldn't help but to feel pity for her. And to make matters worse, it was partly her fault for coming up with the idea of baking cookies and letting Kira help. She thought that having two inexperienced bakers were better than one because then they'd be able to share a commonality, but she didn't expect that it would be as bad as burning a dishwasher. Now that she thought about it: at what point did the dishwasher even catch on fire? She couldn't have left her eyes away from the kitchen that long, so it was astronomically impossible for it to catch flames in that short of an interval.

"Dishwasher aside…" Diana said suddenly. 'Crap, did I say that aloud?' Melody thought, glancing worriedly at Kira. "They were saying that they'll run out of pork cutlets before noon. So, today's lunch will be porridge."

"What?!" Rylee exclaimed, seemingly very unhappy towards the news.

"That's not fair," The small Hazel pouted in disappointment.

"However," Before the two of them could complain any further, Diana raised her scaly hand. There was a moment of pause before she continued, "There will be breadsticks."

The entire table fell into a commotion of 'boo's and one cry of 'Viva la revolution!'. "Can't we just eat lunch with the boys?" Melody suggested, seemingly confused why none of them had given the idea first.

"Mel, they're boys, they can't cook anything even if it cost them their lives," Eris told her without even a hint of mercy in her voice. She seemed to have been speaking from experience, "And I don't think their side of the dorms will let Kazani into their safe haven after they knew what she did."

Kira immediately lifted her head up in shock, "Everyone else knew?!"

"Who didn't? They would've thought it was you even if the villains were attacking," Eris said with a rather hearty chuckle, before Melody gave her a good strong punch on the shoulder, "Ow! I was joking! Sheesh!"

The disaster-prone girl suddenly smacked her forehead roughly against the table, before suddenly letting out a muffled cry, "My reputation is ruined!"

Melody had no particular problem with eating lunch in the cafeteria, except for the fact that she would rather not spend her afternoon held up in the school grounds. As much as she hated eating porridge for lunch, she was definitely more interested in eating somewhere different than the cafeteria for once. That was why she had the idea of baking cookies in the first place since she was trying to adjust herself to cooking on her own.

"Well, there's always the option of going to town," Hazel spoke up, looking through her smartphone, "Anyone fancy an Italian five-course fine dining meal?"

"I'm fine with whatever's not burned," Eris said in dismissal.

"Can we even afford restaurant food?" Diana asked.

Melody never thought about that, probably because she didn't know what she would spend it on. 'Well, it never hurts to tag along,' she admitted to herself. "There are a ton of restaurants in New York. There's gotta be something that caters to our budget, right?"

"Too bad none of them give delivery services," Rylee commented, seemingly trying to catch a glimpse on Hazel's phone, "Hey, here's something interesting: Halloway's Pizzeria. Said it used to be a popular restaurant in Brooklyn. It's cheap, too."

"Ugh," Melody grumbled aloud, "I'd rather not have my dad bother us while we're eating."

Eris raised an eyebrow, "Your dad?"

"Yeah? Y'know, big guy, red hair, screams like a blue whale?" Melody reminded them, making a rather overreacted gesture when describing her own father.

"Yeah, no, I know. I mean," It wasn't only Eris who had her eyes on Melody now, the others seemingly had their attention averted towards the redhead as well, "Why don't we just crash at his place?"

And with that sudden realization, Melody quickly began to loudly dismiss the idea, "Oh no. No. Nuh-uh. That is out of the question!" It didn't help how she knew that it was her fault for bringing up her family's restaurant; it made it so much harder to face the embarrassment of imagining her classmates being familiar with Carlyle. However, her exclamation was cut short when the others began showing signs of agreeing.

"Oooh, what kind of pizzas do they serve?" An enthusiastic Rylee said to Hazel, completely ignoring Melody and happily skimmed through the virtual menu.

"See if there's anything Hawaiian," Eris pointed out, also joining in on the fun.

Diana then pursed her lips, "Mmm… I can't eat pineapples."

Not even a second later, Melody found herself silenced by how eager her friends seemed to be. If it weren't for the fact that her father was the embodiment of every reason why a girl shouldn't bring her friends over to their houses, she wouldn't have any problems inviting any of them over.

They weren't exactly Nathan Larson, the only childhood friend who had earned the respect of her father, nor were they inherently familiar of her personal life. So, considering the things above, she would rather have them not visiting her living place for the weekends. On top of all, she was worried about how her father would react in front of her classmates, remembering how he almost went mental after hearing that Narruk Mondronen injured her in their first battle.

No, wait, it was more dangerous to imagine how her father would normally react in front of her. She couldn't live with herself if her father had decided to hug her in front of every girl in the class. And imagine how bad it would be for her if she punched her back!

"Okay, then. It's settled," Rylee proclaimed ecstatically, "For lunch, we eat at Halloway's Old Man's!"

"Woah! What?! I didn't even agree to this!" Melody was quick to retort back, emotions and imaginary complicated situations stirring her thoughts.

"Well, of course, you wouldn't agree with it," Eris snorted at her direction, "The only people that you'd take to your place is Nathan Larson. Am I right?"

Melody sulked back. It wasn't completely untrue, but it also didn't mean that she'd let Nathan into her home anytime he wanted to. Besides, it was a pizzeria for Christ's sake! Anyone could enter at opening hours! Hell, she'd even let the boys visit her house if it weren't for— Wait… now that she thought about it… it would be very, very dangerous if the rumor of her in a love triangle with several of her male classmates got out to her dad. Oh God, she wasn't even sure if it was still a triangle! "Come on, Melody," Rylee persuaded, "It's only for today!"

"And not to mention the possibility of a price cut for being her classmates," Diana reaffirmed them.

"Okay, now that's just pushing it," Melody angrily fought back. Having her own friends near the one place she wanted to avoid for the rest of the semester was the last thing she wanted.

"She's right, guys…" A voice beside her spoke. When Melody glanced sideways at her friend, Kira was already lifting her head up from the table. Everyone could see the petulant look that she wore as her blank, furrowing eyes stared down at her hands.

"We shouldn't be crashing into someone else's home," She told them, her voice still raspy and monotone. Melody would be thankful if it weren't for the fact that she felt bad for having Kira to say that in her defense. Well, having her understanding was enough to her. With that, perhaps they could finally move on to find another place to eat. However, Kira still had things to say, "It would be bad if I burned another kitchen down... Let alone the restaurant of my classmate's dad…"

The cherry on top had been placed. Now Melody felt unwantedly guilty after hearing how close Kira was to breaking down to anxiety again. Again, it was sort of part of her responsibility as someone who had been at fault when the kitchen of their dorm burned down after an attempt at cookie baking.

Damn her conscience…

"Fine…" Melody sighed, "Just… don't say a lot of unnecessary things in front of my dad. I beg you."

"We promise, Melody," Hazel reassured her with a prim and proper smile.

"Chillax, we're just going out to eat. It can't be that bad," Rylee told her with a rather too-laxed smile. If Melody could portray how bad a situation where her dad eavesdrops on other people's conversations, then she would in a heartbeat.

She could only nod in a surrendering gesture, "Thanks Hazel, Rylee."

"Camellia."

"Camellia," Melody restated. Well, her gravestone had been marked. Now was the problem of what she would do before her deathbed. Maybe she could call her father and inform him of an oncoming party of high school girls, and making sure that he keeps a promise to stay out of their way for the rest of lunch?

"Oh, by the way, Melody," Eris called out to her, "Mind if I invite my brother? He'll feel left out if I didn't."

"Oh, uh, yeah, sure," Melody stammered, not entirely knowing how to answer her. She didn't think that they were allowed to bring more guests, but she supposed the idea of calling her father about their visit would be rather useless if by any chance another (needlessly disruptive) classmate of hers decided to come by and visit as well.

"Alright, so how about we meet at the intersection in the fifth avenue, here?" Hazel then placed her smartphone on the table to let the others see the directions of the town that she had just browsed.

Diana looked closely, before bringing up a finger up to her snout, "It doesn't seem to far from the school. How does 11:30 sound?"

"Make it 12 on the clock," Eris suggested, "I have something to do first. If y'all wanted to go first, it's cool."

"Alright, 12 o'clock, then," Diana remarked, before looking back at Melody, "Is that okay?"

Her father usually opens up at around 10 or earlier, simply because he needed to prepare Melody for school when they were still living together. She wasn't entirely sure if he had stuck to the same schedule when he moved. Well, knowing restaurants in general, it would be entirely logical if he was open at that hour.

"That's… fine," She told them, still hesitant having her girl-friends visit her home. The table then turned into a loud chatter of delight.

"Wonderful," Hazel clapped her hands together, "This will be so much fun!"

"Seconded," Rylee exclaimed, "Finally, something better than cafeteria food!" With a rather heavy heart, Melody looked back at Kira, before she felt a sudden surge of relief. The girl in question seemed to be enjoying the thought of visiting Melody's home more than what she had claimed herself to be. Of course, there was still a little piece in Melody's thoughts that wondered if there were still some things that bothered her, but regardless if that was the case, she was glad that the two could move on.

Though, Melody herself wasn't entirely anticipating a guest visit to her household. She still had some amount of doubt in her mind. In the end, she settled that if it was only them, and just one boy, she'd at least be able to have fewer things to worry about.

ENDING OF CHAPTER 23

"—and thus, is why we three had also decided to accompany the girls on this merry occasion!" The voice of Lyon McAllister spoke with enough enthusiasm to gnaw even further at Melody's already frayed nerves. The sun was shining ever so brightly, and the bustling crowds of students around them filled the air with an atmosphere of nostalgia and serenity. Several teenage couples are out on their dates, eager to take their special other to a promised destination. Numerous groups of friends, both males, and females, joyfully enjoying the time of their youth with each other. All this positive energy and all Melody Halloway could hear was another disappointment.

"Wasn't this supposed to be a girl's occasion?!" Melody barked, seemingly very upset when another uninvited three appeared before her, "This wasn't what we had planned!"

"Don't look at me," Diana told her, feeling a tad bit responsible for the planning of the lunch, "They came here on their own accord. I was tending to Andi the whole time."

"I forgot everything that had happened in the past three hours!" Andi chirped, unsettlingly happy. The three girls were accompanied by both Rylee and Kira, who all were waiting for the others to arrive at their meeting point. Only to be met by these three guests. Melody then jabbed a finger at their other three guests.

"They don't have a reason to be here! We came here because we couldn't use our kitchen anymore!"

"Hey, if it's any consolation, we're also sick of our dorm cooking," Marcus McPherson reassured her with a happy-go-lucky smile. His casual attire greeting the others with a classic 21st Century band, complete with a set of blue jeans and sneakers, "You should've seen it. Narruk's been fucking nuts in the kitchen. Thinks he's some sort of 5-Star Michelin Chef. Well, I would give him the credit if all he had ever cooked wasn't consisting of store-bought eggs, Chinese take-outs, and pizza pockets."

"Quite so!" Lyon said with a joyful clap, his unhinged smile still strewn all over his face, "So, please forgive us if our presence here has been less than what you have desired."

Melody could only forgive him for two things: One, she didn't want to waste time out here in the intersection of the road, out under the sun, wasting her time grumpily imagining what painful punishments she could befall upon these uninvited guests. And two, she had no place to say what anyone could and could not do. The whole point of inviting (or more accurately: letting) the girls into her home was because she could not do one simple task of screwing up breakfast. She would've understood more if they had come to the pizzeria looking for food, but obviously, they were just here to tag along.

"Okay… But why are you here?" Diana said to the last of their guests, the one who had been silent ever since coming here.

"Got dragged along," Oliver Ferdinand said in a robotic monotone. His unblinking shadowy eyes stared through the other's soul as they wondered how uncomfortable it must feel to wear that jacket in this weather, "Was going to buy ramen…"

Lyon then turned to Melody yet again, "As you can see from Oliver's excitement, please allow us to partake in your activity if it is not too much to ask."

"But I'm not—"

"Of course, we'll try to keep ourselves well-behaved!"

To Melody, it wasn't the problem of whether or not a visitor from her class was misbehaving, if that was the case she would've just thrown them out of the restaurant without a second thought, but it was the problem of whether she was ready to show the full clingy side of her dad as close as the food will be.

She glanced at Kira who stood beside her, the latter only tilted her head in apparent puzzlement when she noticed Melody's gaze.

At this point, she could only expect the entire class to arrive, "Fine, but make sure you don't—"

"YAHOO!" The shout surprised all those who occupied the intersection. When they turned to look into the distance, towards the street leading back to the school, they saw Eris Blackwood waving at them as she approached.

Melody almost thought to herself, "About time!" before she realized the extra group of people Eris brought along. A vividly visible one was the shortest, who was Hazel Camellia Aria, seemingly leading Eris to the spot that they all had promised to meet. Behind Eris was her brother, Alexander Blackwood, also in his uncannily similar casual attire as his twin sister, he seemed to have gotten the invite.

The others, however; consisting of a rather scathing Lyle Wolfbane, a disinterested Narruk Mondronen, a somewhat eager Andrew Abrams, a hesitant little Sirius Wilsk, and surprisingly, her childhood friend Nathan Larson. Lyon was the first to greet them as they walked down the concrete road towards the pedestrian's intersection to where the others were standing. "Ah, so good to have you with us finally, Eris!" He said with joy.

"You all seemed to have gotten my memo," Eris remarked, smirking at the other two boys.

"Of course, we wouldn't miss a chance to learn more about Melody Halloway's personal life!" Melody's train of thoughts silenced, "Wait… that's not what they said they were doing…"

"Yeah, yeah, big guy. Do what you want on this fine, fine morning," Eris dismissed him completely, before walking towards Melody with a ready grin, "Seems like I owe you an explanation."

"Don't," Melody commanded her, shaking her head in exasperation, "I don't even care anymore."

"Well, that's good. I wasn't planning on telling you that it was me who invited Larson, anyway," she said. Her smirk growing.

Melody closed her eyes, a visible pursed smile could be seen on her lips, "That true, Nathan?"

"Yep," And as if on cue, the half-leopard boy approached her with a rather long stride, "She's nice enough to invite the only FH1 student here, you should learn and do the same."

Melody crossed her arms and scoffed, "Yeah, right. Just so I could expose all of your little cat toys in front my friends?"

"Hey, you're the one who kept them," Nathan shrugged in return.

"This is why I never invite you over anymore." Then, Narruk the werewolf boy in casual checkered shirt decided to barge into their conversation the second the two began to ramble about.

"Excuse me? So, when are we going to this pizzeria?" As Hazel was leading the group, she quickly reopened her phone and checked for directions.

"This way. Right, Melody?" She said, pointing to one of the turns.

Melody looked at what she was pointing and said, "Nah. Let's just take a shortcut through a one-way road. It's just around that corner."

"Finally. I'm starving," Lyle Wolfbane harrumphed, crossing his purple-ish sleeved arms. Melody looked at the crowd that had gathered, somehow feeling a slight pang inside her chest. Worried as she was, there was nothing she could do about it, not when all of them were already gathered in the town with hopes of eating together as classmates. Walking there would only take a couple of minutes, perhaps quicker if fate allowed them. However, it gave Melody some time to reminisce; how long had it been since the last time she brought home friends other than Nathan? She knew for a fact that for now, it was only him that could handle her hotheaded nature, she herself found it rather exhausting from time to time.

Little by little, as they went to the path guided by Melody, aided with Hazel's trusty virtual map, the class of FH2 began to merge into the background. Talking, gossiping, chattering, all of them seemingly having fun with each other; blending into the sight of teenagers and high schoolers, you wouldn't even notice that they were heroes in training. It was almost magical. Sometimes she wondered if what her family lacked was something normal. Something untouched by Quirks and superheroes. Her thoughts were cut short when a two-story, red-bricked building came into view just as they came out of the corner of the alleyway, just across an asphalt road between the two pavements. The street was a bit less crowded than on the intersection from before, but perhaps it was because of the place setting, and the fact that it was further than the main road. The Halloway's Pizzeria sign was the first to get their attention, without a doubt.

Melody sighed, thinking that this was it: judgment day. Of course, she could be just overreacting, not to mention that they were only here to eat (apart from Lyon who Melody had to make sure to get him as far away from her room as possible). If Carlyle had any other ideas, she would deal with it later on. "That's the place," She gestured to the others.

"Smaller than I expected," Andi mused.

"Well, it's a two-star restaurant," Hazel said as she checked her phone, "Oh, wait a minute. It's one and a half."

With a twitch of an eye, Melody painfully admitted her family's infamous reputation as a New Yorkian back-alley character of a restaurant, "Don't… expect much from it…"

Rylee nodded in agreement, "Well. As long as there's food."

Melody felt a little disappointed hearing that. She couldn't deny the simplicity, not to mention how out of place this restaurant was from her usual Brooklynian hometown. Well, it wouldn't be her problem anyway, if any of them got cold feet. After all, they were here for lunch, not sightseeing. She proceeded to guide them across the road, through the zebra-crossing marked not far from their destination. It was sort of sad, to be honest. It was like looking through a time machine into the 21st century while living in the 23rd. If people really treasured classics, then this surely wasn't the right example.

"Woah, it looks exactly the same as the one back in our neighborhood," Nathan whistled in awe as they got closer, nudging Melody by the shoulder, "They still serve those anchovy and cheese toppings?"

At least there was him; perhaps the only boy out of time. "I don't know," Melody nudged back aggressively, "You're the only person who would ever order it. It's not even on the menu."

"We can order things out of the menu?" Said Lyle as he barged in on their conversation from behind, smiling as he did, "Well, that makes ordering things in this shady back-alley restaurant easier, then."

"I'll just have whatever's omnivorous," Diana remarked. Hazel, who was standing next to Melody, brought a finger up to her chin and said.

"I wonder what I'll have. I haven't eaten any low-class restaurant servings in a long time."

"Anything with meat is fine!" Rylee pumped up the air with an impatient tone.

"Oh, contraire!" Lyon started, holding up his index finger pompously, "The best topping to accompany a classic Italian meal is broccoli and cheese!"

"I'm allergic to cheese…" Sirius said to himself. His small dangling cowlick seemingly wrinkling in response. Ignoring their comments, Melody approached the entrance; just a pair of aluminum framed glass doors, decorated with an open-closed hanging sign. A brief jog got her just where she needed to peek inside through the foggy glass. The others behind her waited for some sort of signal—some even took note of the architecture of the pizzeria's simple-bricked nature. Melody herself took her time seeing if the coast was clear of whatever invisible danger that she had in mind.

She only saw a couple of patrons through the glass door, but there were enough tables for everyone she brought. She didn't exactly think about where she would eat, remembering how she usually liked to get herself held up in her own room with a leftover pizza. Even with Nathan coming over, the two would just usually hang out in the living room… or in the pantry where they nibble and munched on Carlyle's ingredients for late-night snacks. She would most likely be accompanying her class in the customer's common dining area since her family didn't have any special private rooms for occasions like this. It was a weird thought when she imagined herself in a social circle, in public, with people other than Nathan.

When she opened the entrance, a little bell rung overhead. They were met with a simple dim yellow lighting overhead, with bright vagrant colors passing through the name of the restaurant in multicolored stickers from outside the windows. The sound of their footsteps quickly began filling the waiting area, stopping right behind the wooden menu stand and a simple potted plant. But then she saw that the cashier was unmanned, perhaps because of the lack of customers this hour. Carlyle or Anthony should be greeting them any moment now after hearing that bell. It was now or never to inform them of what they would expect…

"Well, this is it," Melody said aloud so that everyone could hear as they entered the pizzeria, "I… uh… have to warn you about my dad."

"Yeah, we know," Lyle interrupted, "He already gave us his first impressions."

"No, not that," Melody remarked, feeling her cheeks burn at the mention of the time Carlyle tried hugging her in front of everyone, "It's just that… in front of others, he can be a little—"

CRASH!

"WHAT THE HELL, ANTHONY?! THAT WAS OUR WEEK'S WORTH OF TOMATO SAUCE, YOU BUFFOON! NO, NO! GRAB THE MOP! ARE YOU TRYING TO GET YOUR PAYCHECK CUT?!" Melody closed her eyes and hung her head. Seemingly accepting that her life was some sort of divine punishment sentenced by the gods for a grave sin that she apparently did in her previous life.

"… a little harsh…"

Purpose of a Hero

Thanks for reading! I hope you guys enjoyed. No teaser for this chapter since the next will continue this mini-storyline.