Hey Now, You're a Brawl Star! (A Brawl Stars Story)

Piper Arc Chapter One

Trigger warning: minor discrimination

She had known she was a brawler since before she could properly talk. Her parents' favorite nickname for her was "little fighter", and they were constantly telling her stories about brawlers of old. Her parents loved to tell her about how she had summoned her weapon when she was just a baby and dropped it on the doctor's toes. Her name was still on a wall somewhere in the hospital, on a small metal umbrella cutout. Piper Louise Lupont, Earliest Presenting Brawler.

Finding out not everyone was okay with brawlers was less of a surprise and more of a disappointment. She had always known that people were mean to those with brawlatrophy, the condition that made someone a brawler, for no reason. In her parents' stories, brawlers often faced such discrimination. She just didn't think it would surface in her own family.

The Christmas that she was five, she had been gaily regaling her relatives with stories she had heard from her parents. Her aunts and uncles would smile and laugh as she told them, but even as a child she could tell that a few of the smiles were forced. When she was sent to bed, she decided to camp out on the staircase instead, so she could listen to the adults talking. She couldn't hear everything, but she could make out words like "vermin" and "tainted". It wasn't until she heard her mother's screech echo up from the kitchen that she figured out what the conversation was about.

"She can't help the way she is, Lucille!" Piper sat frozen in fear and shock.

They're talking about me, she thought, biting her lip to keep it from trembling.

"I know that, but you shouldn't enable her! She's your daughter, not your friend!" Her aunt and mother were cut off with a sharp cry of "Ladies!" from her father, but the damage had already been done. The people at the party could see Piper, sitting on the steps and close to tears.

Her mother took a few steps towards her. "Piper," she said. Piper covered her mouth and shook her head before dashing up the stairs and to her room. She flung herself into her bed and buried her head in her pillow, already starting to cry. As her small shoulders shook, she began to drift off to sleep.

When she woke up the next morning, she marched like a small soldier down to breakfast and plopped herself in her booster seat with all the grace she could manage. Her parents shared a look from where they were chatting by the coffee pot before going to sit on either side of her. Her Mom pulled a package of Pop tarts out of the cupboard before walking over, handing it to Piper before sitting down.

"Good morning, little fighter." her dad said, pulling the newspaper on the table open.

"Good morning, daddy."

"Hey, sweetheart. Me and daddy saw you on the stairs last night when I was talking to aunt Lucy."

"Mrs. Michaels says it's daddy and I, mommy."

Mrs. Lupont laughed at this. "Right, daddy and I. But, Piper, we wanted to ask you how much of the argument you heard, and if you're okay."

Piper sniffed and took a dainty bite of her pop tart. "I was sad last night, but now I'm okay, because it means I'm going to become one of the big cool brawlers that we see on TV. I'm going to be a hero, like them!"

"What makes you say that? I thought you wanted to work with fashion," Mr. Lupont said.

"Well yes, but you know what Spiderman says about power and responsibility. They coral-late." Both Mr. and Mrs. Lupont smiled at their daughter's words.

"Sweetie, It's correlate, not coral-late. And just because you're a brawler doesn't mean you have to be famous." Piper scoffed.

"Mommy, I wasn't saying I'm going to be a hero because I'm a brawler. Stacy in the other kindergarten class is a brawler, and she's never going to be a hero." Mrs. Lupont covered her mouth to hide her laughter as her husband nearly spat out his coffee.

"Piper, that isn't nice!" Mr. Lupont scolded.

"Neither is she, daddy. But I'm going to be a hero because someone was mean to me about my brawl-trophy, and I'm going to rise above it. You and mommy always say that all the great stars were people who rose above discrimi... discri... mean words." she eventually settled on, before taking another bite of her pop tart.

"Piper, that's not what we meant. Someone being mean to you doesn't automatically make you a hero. Only you can do that."

Piper looked at her pop tart contemplatively. After she finished her breakfast, she marched back up to her room in that same solemn way she had when she came down for breakfast.

About twenty minutes later, she came back down, dressed in a black dress and wearing a bright yellow mask across the top half of her face. She had her hair tucked under a black beanie, and she had draped a red cloth across her umbrella.

"Piper, dearest, what are you doing?" Mrs. Lupont asked.

"I'm going to go be a hero, mommy." Mr. Lupont sprung out of his seat to go grab his daughter.

"Why don't mommy and I help you until you're older?" he said, sweeping her into his arms and carrying her towards the couch.

"Fine."

Time skip brought to you by small children misunderstanding things

Two weeks later, Piper was standing in front of a town hall with her parents, holding a sign that read "I Have Brawlatrophy, I'm not a brawl atrocity". She was surrounded by others, some milling about preparing to march, others standing solemnly on the lawn of the town hall.

A few days before, a young brawler by the name of Nathan had died after a doctor refused to treat his injuries from a car crash. It was not the first time a brawler had been refused medical care, so some friends of Nathan had gathered a few brawler right activists to lead a protest in his honor. The group planned to march around the city, then stop on the lawn of the town hall in silent protest.

Piper held her sign steady in her small hands as her father lifted her onto his shoulders. Her parents had said that this was how she would become a hero. She could make a difference.

So she held her sign over her head as her daddy walked, chanting with all the others walking beside her. At one point, a man with a microphone stopped her daddy and asked to talk to her.

"Hey, kiddo, what's your name?"

"Piper. What's yours?"

"Well, my name is David O'Connor. Can you tell me what your sign says, Piper?" Piper smiled.

"I have Brawlatrophy, I'm not a brawl atrocity!" she recited. Mr. O'Connor smiled.

"That's really cool! Did you think of that yourself?" Piper nodded excitedly. "Wow." Mr. O'Connor readjusted his tie. "So, Piper, why are you here, at the protest?"

Piper looked him in the eye and confidently said, "I'm going to make a difference, and this is how I can start."

After that interview, her notoriety grew faster than she did. By the time she was six, people across the country knew her name. Piper, the Little Hero. People would come up to her on the street and ask for an autograph or a hug. People would yell dirty slurs at her from the opposite sidewalk, and she would wave at them and smile brightly.

Of course, once she went to the first protest, she was hooked. She kept begging her parents to take her to protests across the country, and she soon became a staple at most protests. People would seek her out at protests to make sure she had everything she needed. Anytime any sort of news station, Paper or otherwise, reported on a rally she was in the article somehow. Piper became a national symbol for brawler rights. Not in the sense that she walked around yelling about it constantly, but she was there and helping.

And, if she met her boyfriend at a protest, all the better for her.

I'm still taking a break from this story. You'll see why later! So, to all you loyal readers, thank you, please keep reading, and goodnight!