Turn Out The Lights

Don't tell your therapist about your dreams

I woke up and sucked in as much air as my lungs would allow, trying to steady myself. Jessica said she wanted me to write down as many of my dreams as I could remember, so I rolled over to grab my notebook out of my bag. After I got it all out I looked around my room and realized it was suddenly trashed. I must've been thrashing really hard since my pillow was across the room on the floor beneath the cracked television. A sense of relief flowed over me as I remembered that it was my television, not Sir's and that I didn't really have to replace it until I wanted to. I got out of bed and headed to the bathroom, determined to scrub the nightmare from my mind before it had a chance to fester.

That day was a training day at both agencies. Sir had me all wired up and set me against Centipeder. I was told to take him down, and that was it. I prepared to light up, but the look in his eye made me feel like something was wrong. I backed up a bit and settled my feet to take off. Moashi pulled out a knife and jumped at me, so I took off and fell behind him, kicking his back before landing. He fell onto the floor and the knife was out of his hand, so I cuffed him. We turned to Sir, and he called the match. I uncuffed Moashi and he complimented my tactics, telling me he was impressed I was able to react so fast. I told him I felt weird and something told me to jump.

"It's a quirk." Moashi and I turned to Sir.

"No, it's not. Its called an instinct," I shot back to my investor.

"That's not what your quirk factors say. A new one lit up before you took off when you said you felt weird. It's a quirk."

I rolled my eyes, "Yeah, okay. Whatever. Anyways, it was a good idea to come at me with a knife. What made you think of that?"

Sir started his shit again, "It is a quirk, and it's not 'whatever'. Look, your brainwaves changed when you used the quirk. I'm calling it 'Premonition'! I can't wait to add it to your file." He looked like a mad scientist with that wicked grin on his lips, and I was glad that he could finally stop harassing me over my stupid quirks. "Only a few more factors to activate!!" Or maybe not...

Over at the Fat Gum Agency, training was more about packing on weight and helping Tamaki out of his shell. Stretching normally went well, and even warmups or workouts, but sparring never did. And neither did fighting unless he could tell it was life or death, so my job was to help him get comfortable with fighting. Today I decided we could practice quirkless combat. He had to take me down and all I was going to do was avoid it. He threw a punch at me, and I stepped back. He threw another and I threw up my arm. He grabbed onto me and I kicked his chest to get him farther away. He let go of my arm, but latched onto my leg and started twisting, hard. I kicked at him again and tried to shake him off, but soon I was gonna fall. I decided that throwing him off his rhythm would work too, and pulled closer to him, wrapping my leg around his waist. Sure enough, he let go of my leg and I stepped back, giving us both more space. Apparently, he didn't want it though and headed back towards me with another punch. I swiveled to dodge it, but he tricked me and landed a hard punch to my chest with the other hand.

I stumbled back a bit and he looked more motivated, which was a good thing. He came at me again, and this time I retreated as quickly as he advanced. We danced around each other for a moment before he threw a kick at me, swiping a leg out from underneath me. I caught myself with my arms, but I had to be pressed to the ground for ten seconds to be down. He grabbed one of my arms and rolled me over, throwing me on my back. I hit the ground hard and tried to roll away as quickly as I could. As soon as I lifted my right arm, he pushed me back down, pinning all of my limbs to keep me down. I shook myself to try to get him off, looking over at the contact timer to see I had five seconds till he won. I pulled my back up, resetting the timer, and he pressed his chest against mine, making the counter start again. I shook again, harder this time, but nothing worked. I looked up to him, exasperated, and realized he was staring at me.