Beauty and the Titan

Chapter 43

XxXxX

"Zuku! Are you up? It's nearly time to go to the medical center!" A feminine voice resounded from behind the doors to his room.

Even when he heard it quite clearly it took him a long time to process the meaning of those words. Laying on his bed, he peered around the room in a stupor.

A colorful collage of decorations greeted him. Action figures, posters and other merchandise of comic book heroes littered the place. The largest one featured a group of superheroes in 'heroic' poses, 'The Almighty!' written above them in a thick and funky font. Outside the window an enormous wall stretched from one end to another, creating what his muddled mind recalled as a constant sight in the whole town.

"Zuku! Are you ready?" The doors to his room slammed into the bookshelf that stood near them, his body jolting in fright and landing face first on the colorful carpet.

"Oh dear… are you okay? I thought you already got up." The same female voice from before sounded from much closer.

His hands moved nearly on their own, slowly propping him up with the added help of someone picking him up.

His eyes focused on the two arms beneath him, the pale flesh of his fingers feeling out of place for some reason.

"Izuku?" Turning his head to the side he saw a rather young woman, her soft features scrunched up in worry as her green eyes scanned his face. Her long, black and green hair were in a ponytail that despite looking perfectly normal felt somewhat off.

"Mom?" It took him a few moments to realize that they were his own words, his voice feeling alien.

"You played your video games till late again?" She asked with a huff, clearly displeased. "You better be ready in a jiffy young man or I'm going to confiscate that console of yours for a few days." She threatened, getting up after making sure that he looked okay.

It didn't feel right. He knew that something was wrong, but what?

Staggering back up to his feet he slowly made his way to the bathroom, somehow managing to get to the sink on wobbly legs.

The face of a young teen greeted him, a pair of shining green eyes staring back at him from the mirror with surprise and uncertainty. With a trembling hand he reached up to his cheek, gently touching one of his freckles he stared at his reflection as it looked back.

It felt wrong. He couldn't put it in words, he couldn't even identify that feeling in any way. But it felt so wrong.

He ran a bit of cold water over his hands, splashing his face to try and dispel that strange feeling.

An image flashed before his eyes.

A giant of steel and iron glaring back at him, a single green eye staring into his as if waiting for something.

Spinning back he only saw the doors to the bathroom, his heart hammering wildly.

Maybe he really did play too many video games last night in the end.

XxX

"Mel, get up! There's no time!" A frantically moving black blur yelled, waking Melissa up way earlier than the blonde would ever consider doing so.

Tiredly sitting up in the certainly too stiff bed of her friend, the young inventor squinted her eyes at the blurry image of Momo who with a yelp nearly face planted into her dresser after kicking the door frame to the bathroom with her pinky toe.

"Calm down Mo, you're going to wreck the place at this rate." The blonde said, reaching out to the nightstand to search for her glasses.

"Ugh… Just get ready, please. We need to go to Izuku…" Cradling her foot, the ravenette grumbled out with a pained voice.