Heroes, Vigilantes, and Villains

Chapter four

School passed with no more difficulty than normal. All of the students largely ignored my existence unless our teacher did something to remind them of it. Usually that only happens when I seem to be too comfortable in class, when things are going too smoothly for me. The only other time they acted like I existed was when they were bored enough to poke fun at me instead of doing work. Bakugo largely left me alone, only making a few story comments here and there, but he never touched me. Not since that day after school.

That's not to say that the others didn't.

When Bakugo toned down his treatment of me, his other two friends took up his slack, taking it as a sign to take up the blond's spot. After school one day, the other cornered me on my way home. The boy with the black hair drug me into an alleyway, a cold laugh already on his lips.

"Oh, this is going to be fun." The boy with the finger quirk said as he moved a hand over my mouth, holding it there while the other boy punched me in the stomach.

He's gotten stronger since the last time they did this.

Last year, Bakugo and the other two cornered me around this spot on the way home and beat the crap outta me, just like this. The blond had let his friends take some shots as well at the time.

Can't even use your own tactics to beat me? How pathetic.

There was nothing I could do to fight back. Both boys are stronger than me, each of them trying to get into a decent hero school probably. Not that I would've fought back anyways, there was no way that I could win in a fight against them both. All I could do was wait. Wait for Fingers to shift his hand the wrong way.

When he did, his hand yanking from the force of the other boy's beating, I bit into the finger hard enough to draw blood. The boy yanked his hand back, cursing and screaming loudly as he let me go. At his friend's screams, the other boy stopped hitting me and looked worriedly at the other boy. There was no way in hell that I was going to just stand here and let their slip up go to waste. Using the time, I dashed forward and began running home.

In all my years of being at school, sports and things of the like have never really gone my way. I just didn't have a knack for them like the other kids did. Not that it mattered since I was never allowed to play with them anyways. But running... that was something I could do better than anyone else in the class. I spent years pushing myself to be faster than the ones trying to hurt me, managing to clock the fastest mile time in our class, it was no different now.

"Damn it..." I cursed under my breath.

There were shouts behind me, each followed by the loud crack of a foot slapping the pavement below it, chasing after me. I'd hoped that they would be slower in their recovery. Without having to think too much about it, I changed the direction that I was running. Leading them to my home wouldn't do me any favors. I ran until I came across an area that most of the locals knew to avoid.

Dagobah Beach.

It was once a beautiful beach, something that I would have loved coming to as a child, if that'd been an option. The place had become something close to an illegal dumping ground long before I could go there as a kid. No one liked coming here for that very reason. Not caring that much, I looked over the railing, searching for a safe place to jump. The entrance was too far and the footsteps were too close, jumping was my only option.

I spotted a car with a crumpled hood and some trash bags laying on top of it. It was tall, close to the railing and would make for a soft landing. Seeing this as my best option, I jumped over the side of the railing.

The smell of old garbage wafted violently into my nose, but I ignored it, fighting down the gagging sensation that wanted to take over. Instead I diverted my attention to finding a decent foothold to get down. Staying here would make me a sitting duck.

I saw a slender pipe that looked promising and aimed my feet for it as I got down. It should have been an easy jump, even for someone as useless as me, but there was some type of residue on the metal. It was too slippery and caused me to fall down. Gasping, I felt myself falling, felt the sinking feeling in my gut as everything slipped away. Before even a gasp could be heard, I saw the sun disappearing between the piles of trash.

The sound of footsteps drew close, seeming to stop at the railing far above me, though the sound was muffled by the beating of my own heart.

"Where did that quirkless bastard go?" One of the boys screamed, his voice too muffled by the surrounding trash to tell which, but the anger was apparent.

Really it seemed all too much like a scene from a trashy movie.

"You don't think he was crazy enough to go in there, do you?"

"No way I'm going in there even if the punk was."

The conversation continued, but the voices faded away at a leisurely pace. I gave them a few minutes of space, making sure that they were truly gone before I bothered trying to get out of the hole I put myself in. There was a microwave to my left and a fridge to my right with its freezer open. I used these things for hand and footholds, pulling myself up and out of the mound of trash. A shard of glass ripped at my uniform, grazing the skin beneath it, but I didn't stop moving.

When I made it to the top of the mound, moving myself on top of the refrigerator. I couldn't help but realize just how out of shape I was. I could run away and take a beating, but when it came to physical strength, I had none to speak of.

Another good reason I can't be a hero, I guess...

Looking around, I noticed the wall was too high for me to go back to the car and climb on top of it to get out.

Just my luck. There was no way that I could scale that wall.

Gazing at the scene around me, I realized that the only real way out of here was to cross the sea of trash and make my way down to the entrance.

Sighing tiredly for the third time today, I started the trip over.

—-

By the time that I made it home, I smelled of garbage and had enough scratches on my skin to look like I lost a fight with an alley cat.

I need to clean these as fast as possible.

Death may be something that I was okay with, but infections were not the way to go about achieving it. They're messy and painful. With that in mind, I went straight to the bathroom across the hall from my room and took out some rubbing alcohol. There was no telling how many scratches there were in my body, so I took off the uniform and started to look over the damage. None of the cuts seemed all that deep, but it was hard to tell beneath all of the dirt and muck caking my skin.

Saving the rubbing alcohol for later, I stepped into the shower, turning the water on as hot as it would go. I watched as the water at my feet turned an oddly colored brown with red from the blood mixed in. I scrubbed away at my body harshly, not really caring much whether or not I was making the wounds worse than they were before. The only area that I bothered being careful with was my black and blue stomach and sides, still tender from the beating earlier.

When I got out of the shower and dried off, I gently treated the wounds with the rubbing alcohol, a stark contrast to my earlier treatment of them. The burn on the wounds was a negligible pain that I was all too familiar with. Most of the scratches weren't serious, nor visible enough to have bandages wasted on them. After wrapping my neck, I headed across the hall to my room to get dressed for the night.

Mom wouldn't be home for a little while longer, so I went ahead and ran my uniform through the washer. I'll sew it up tomorrow after school. Mom doesn't need to know the damage I caused it, or how I managed to do it. Looking at the sorry state of my book bag, I went ahead and emptied it, adding the yellow bag to the load as well.