Chapter 3: Tricks

"Have a good day, Nicolas. Remember, I'm picking you up today."

"Ok, I'll see you after school big brother."

My name is Nikolas. I'm six years old and today's my first day at elementary school. I'm what people call an animal folk. Basically, we're humans who have animal quirks. At least, that's how it normally is. My family and I are different though. Everyone in our family was born an animal folk, something that was unheard of outside of our old village. In fact, there were only two other families that were the same as us in that regard.

Of course, there's something else that sets us apart as well. I'm the only raccoon in my family and that's because I'm adopted. Everyone else is a wolf. Still, I'm happy to be with them and I love them very much. They never once treated me like I was 'someone else's child' and this goes double for my big brother Alexander. He's always nice to me, plays with me, takes care of me when I'm sick, and he's always there for me when I'm mad or scared.

"Oh, big brother, before you go, I want to give you something."

"Oh?"

I jumped into Alexander's arms and gave him a big hug. He hugged me back before setting me down. We wished each other good luck and I went to class, still a little nervous about how things would go.

After finding my seat in the back of the room and waiting for the teacher to arrive, I noticed that all the other kids were gathering around someone. I wanted to see what was going on, but could tell that I wouldn't be able to see anything thanks to the crowd. It also didn't help that everyone was getting a little too excited since they were starting to show off their quirks.

Just then, the classroom door opened, getting everyone's attention. We turned to see who it was and to my surprise, there was a man with silver hair and white smoke coming from his hands.

"Alright children, settle down. I know you're all excited for your first day, but we have some things to take care of first."

The rest of the class went to their seats while the man wrote his name on the board along with his quirk. His name was Mr. Tadashi, and his quirk was called 'Smokescreen.' It allowed him to create smokescreens at will, as well as turn his body into smoke.

I won't lie, as soon as I saw him, I thought he was the coolest person on the planet. Aside from my big brother of course. He looked like one of those super cool spies that dressed nicely and had a bunch of gadgets. His clothes were nicely pressed and he talked like a real gentleman.

"Ok everyone, I'm going to call you up one by one and have you tell me your name and one interesting thing about yourself."

We all nodded in response, and he started with a girl in the front row. I thought he would go alphabetical, but he went by row instead. This meant I was going last since I was sitting in the back. It didn't bother me though since it gave me time to think about what to say. At least, that's what I thought. Everyone's turn went by so fast and before I knew it, it was my turn.

"Thank you for sharing, Ayame. You're up next little guy."

"H-Hello, my name is Nikolas. I-It's nice to meet you all."

"Now, now, no need to be nervous. Why don't you take a deep breath and tell us a bit about yourself."

"Ok. Well, I'm from a Scandinavian village in Norway and I just moved here with my family at the beginning of summer."

"Wow, we have ourselves a foreigner. Tell me Nikolas, how are you enjoying Japan?"

"It's uh… it's really different here. It's so big and has a lot of bright colors, so it's really overwhelming. It's also a lot warmer here, which has been hard on my family. In fact, papa almost got heat stress because of how warm it is. He's fine, thank goodness, but we've had to do a lot of adjusting just to be able to live here."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm glad to hear your dad is alright. Have you been in touch with any agencies that could help with that?"

"Actually, papa was able to get us some help thanks to his work. See, he works as an engineer for a hero agency that specializes in making and working with machines that makes life easier for everyone. Things like gadgets that allow heroes to use their powers more effectively and devices that people can use to keep themselves safe until a hero arrives."

"When he told his boss what happened, his boss got a permit that let him install a special air conditioner that not only made our home a lot cooler, but also uses very little electricity. I think that since it was made by a hero agency, they needed the permit. I remember his boss saying that this was the perfect way to test it since it was actually meant for people whose quirks caused them to overheat."

As I finished, I saw that every eye in the class was on me. Before I could say anything however, the other kids started shouting about how cool papa must be and started asking about the agency he works for. Lucky for me, Mr. Tadashi was able to get everything under control.

Once things settled down, Mr. Tadashi thanked me for the story before asking me to explain my quirk. One of the kids asked what I needed to explain, rather rudely I might add. He said that I was an animal folk and that's all there is to it. Mr. Tadashi, however, felt differently and asked me to explain anyway.

I explained to them that as a raccoon, I had very strong senses. Hearing, smelling, all that and just like the rest of my family, I had great night vision. I also explained that I was very fast and agile. My quirk didn't make me very strong, but I was still stronger than the average person and people who didn't have any short of strength enhancement power.

With that out of the way, I started to tell them about my second quirk. I explained that it was called 'Trickster' and that it allowed me to create illusions. I could even make an illusion so real that it could physically affect someone. At least, that's what the doctor said. I told them that I wasn't sure how it worked since I only used it twice. Once when I was attacked by a bear and again when I got into a fight with a bully.

This caught everyone's attention immediately. Some of the other kids looked at me with sparkles in their eyes while others seemed skeptical about my power. Mr. Tadashi, meanwhile, just nodded to me and said that if I wanted to learn more about my power, he could recommend an agency that might help. I told him that I do wanna learn more about it and he said that he'll have the information for me tomorrow.

It was now lunchtime, and I was happy to finally get a chance to breathe. After my first class ended, I was feeling a lot better about school. I had a teacher who seemed nice and some classmates who wanted to know more about me. Still, I was feeling anxious despite everything. Sure, it was only introductions today, but as the day went on, I noticed that I was getting more and more strange looks from the other students.

Sigh "What a morning. Is it really so weird that I'm a raccoon who can create illusions? I mean, I even said I can't control it, so why are they eyeing me so much?"

As I thought about this, I took out the lunch box that mama prepared for me. To my surprise it was a real bento box. It even had a theme to it. All the food was arranged to look like a colorful forest. It was so pretty to look at that just the sight of it made me drool from the excitement.

I was about to take a bite of the bunny shaped rice ball when the cafeteria door suddenly opened with a loud bang. I looked to see what was going on and saw a large and intimidating boy walk in. He had spiky red hair, huge red wings on his back, black horns on his head, and was a bit on the pudgy side. Behind him was a shorter boy who had short black hair, had these long spike-like blades coming out of his arms and had an average build.

They were definitely older than me and had to be at least three grades above me. Although, the shorter boy might be a grade lower than his friend. Still, my dad and big brother taught me to listen to my instincts and right now they were telling me that these two were dangerous.

"Alright, time for the best part of the day," the larger boy said in a pretty obnoxious tone. "Now, what am I gonna eat today?"

As the red head scanned the room, I noticed how worried the other students looked. Just about all of them had their heads down and were doing what they could to eat their food as quietly as possible. Even the older kids tried their best to avoid eye contact with the two newcomers.

After seeing what was going on, I returned to my meal and tried to discreetly eat my lunch too. I didn't realize it then, but I was eating my lunch a lot faster than usual. It was a real shame because I wanted to savor the bento box, but I also wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

"Hey kid, what 'cha got there?" Someone said as they put their hand on my shoulder.

The sudden touch caused me to start coughing up a little bit of food. Luckily, I had already swallowed what I was eating so it was just a few crumbs at most. Still, I had to hit my chest to stop myself from choking.

"Hahaha, looks like I caught you off guard there."

I shook my head before turning to see who it was and to my horror, it was the red-headed boy. The way he smiled at me made my fur stand on end and my blood go cold. At that moment, every last instinct I had was yelling at me to leave immediately. It was as if a thousand voices were screaming all at once, all of them telling me to run away.

"Hey, raccoon boy, you gonna say something or what?"

"I uh…"

"You know, I don't think I've seen you before. In fact, I don't think I've seen anyone like you before. You're more animal than human. Hah! You someone's pet or something?"

"P-Pet? No, I'm not anyone's pet!"

"Hey Boss, I think I know who this is," the shorter boy said as he walked over to us. "I'm pretty sure he's that foreigner that everyone's been talking about. You know, the one they say has two quirks."

"Is he," the larger boy said to his partner before turning back to me.

"Well in that case, how about you show us?"

"W-What?"

"Your second quirk. Show it to us."

"I uh… I can't. I mean, I still don't know how it works or rather, I don't know how to activate it."

"What do you mean you don't know how to activate it? You better not be holding out on us!"

"It's the truth, I swear! It's only worked twice."

"Oh yea, well you know what? I don't believe you."

I was about to ask the older boy what he meant when he suddenly grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and lifted me up. I grabbed onto his arm as I struggled to get free only to notice that he had a fist raised.

"W-Wait, please, I promise I'm not lying!"

"Then prove it."

"I told you, I don't know how it works. Mr. Tadashi said he'll help me figure it out, but until then I can't do it!"

"So now you're making excuses, huh?"

"Hey boss, I think this guy needs more than just a fist to the face to learn his lesson. How about I cut him up a bit?"

"Sounds good to me!"

"No, please, SOMEBODY HELP ME!"

"Hehehe, don't waste your breath, no one's coming to help. If you don't believe me, just take a look for yourself."

I did as he said and turned my head to the other kids. When I did, I saw all of them turning their heads away from me. Despite that, I still called out to them as I felt the tears forming under my eyes. Yet, no matter how much I begged, they all kept pretending not to notice.

It was at this point that the two bullies started laughing at me again. They kept saying how pathetic I was and said that no one was ever gonna help me because I was just some foreign rodent.

I didn't know which hurt more to be honest. The fact that no one was willing to save me because I was a foreigner, or that I'd been called a rodent. I could tell he wasn't bright, but even he should know that raccoons aren't rodents and that we're more closely related to bears.

Still, I didn't have any time to think. All I could do was watch as the larger boy readied his fist again while his partner moved in to cut me. It was clear that there wasn't anything I could do except continue to pray that someone would help me.

As I closed my eyes and waited for them to get it over with, I suddenly felt myself fall on the floor. When I opened my eyes, I saw the two bullies looking up at something. I looked up to see what they were looking at and there was a giant shadow creature standing above me.

Before I could understand what was happening, the strange beast let out a terrifying roar. All the other students started screaming as they ran out of the cafeteria, the bullies included. I was about to run too, but when I looked back up, the monster was gone.

"What's going on here! Where is the villain?!" someone called out as they ran inside the cafeteria.

I turned to see it was Mr. Tadashi along with some other teachers. Understandably, they were confused to just see me there. They gathered around me and asked if I was alright. One of the female teachers was even nice enough to wipe the tears off my face. They then sent me to the nurse's office after I explained to them what happened.

It was one-thirty in the afternoon, and I was still recovering. The school decided that all the students would be sent home for the day after seeing how shaken they were.

"Hey, Hina, how's our patient doing?" Mr. Tadashi said as he walked in.

"Hey Aoki, he's doing ok. Little guy is just sitting over there playing with a toy car I gave him," the nurse replied as she pointed to me with her thumb.

Mr. Tadashi gave her a nod before walking over to me. I could tell he was worried, even though he had a smile on his face. I tried to apologize to him, but he said not to worry. He explained that quirks flaring up like that is a very common thing here in Japan and that no one was hurt, so it was fine.

I still felt bad about what I did though, but just nodded to him. I honestly wasn't expecting my trickster quirk to activate like that, let alone create some kind of nightmarish demon.

The nurse found that strange too and asked me if anything in particular was going through my mind when I first spoke to her. I told her that I was just wishing for someone to save me. For someone to stop those two and make them go away. I of course told the same thing to Mr. Tadashi, who gave me a pat on the shoulder.

We talked for another ten minutes before the nurse said that my brother would be here to pick me up soon. From the uneasy look on her face, I could tell that Alexander wasn't happy with the news. I started to worry about the bullies because if my brother got his hands on them, I'd probably never see them at school again.

After another seven minutes of waiting, my brother walked into the nurse's office and everyone could tell he was upset. Both faculty members were intimidated by the large wolf man and readied themselves for a fight. Alexander shook his head at this and just told them he was here to pick me up. My teacher turned to me, and I just nodded.

"Interesting first day, huh?" Alexander asked me as we walked out the school door.

"Y-Yea."

"Do you… wanna talk about it?"

I just shrugged.

"Do you wanna hold my paw?"

I nodded before I took a firm grip of my big brother's paw.

We walked in silence for a few minutes before I looked up at him. He looked like he was deep in thought, which usually meant something was bothering him.

"W-What about you? Is UA everything they say it is?"

sigh "Let's just say my first day didn't exactly go as planned either."

"How come?"

"I'll uh… I'll tell you later. For now, let's go get something to eat. I can tell you're hungry and frankly, so am I."

I looked up at Alexander for a second before giving him a smile.

"Yea, ok."