Renegade

Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover

"Have you heard anything from Grubby yet?"

Ren didn't always mean to eavesdrop on her customers, but sometimes, she just couldn't help herself.

"No, haven't seen him at all since last week."

Sometimes, it was all too difficult not to.

"Bartender, another round here, please!"

She wiped her hands down with a spare cloth, threw it over her shoulder and scurried over to the other end of the bar, where the three loud men—villains, no doubt—waited for her arrival and their quick refill of golden nectar. With a small smile, she nodded and swiped the empty glasses from the bar counter, then sidestepped slightly to the right to hold one of the glasses at an angle underneath one of the faucets on the draft tower. The other hand reached up to hold down the handle, and she made sure to keep her eyes on the level of amber liquid pouring into the glass even as her ears paid their attention elsewhere.

"I heard he got caught in some trouble with a hero."

"Grubby? No, you can't be serious."

"I'm not shitting you, man."

"Any idea who the bastard is?"

She let go of the handle and slid the refilled glass over to the man closest to her, nodding at the feeble 'thank-you' he offered her, before she held another glass underneath the faucet and begin filling it with the same liquid.

"No clue, but I've heard rumors there's a new hero in town, running around rounding villains up in the middle of the night."

"In the middle of the night?"

"Heroes don't sleep, man."

"It's not the Number One Hero, is it?"

"I think we would know if All Might himself ever shows his face around here. No, I think it's some B-rated hero or something. Don't think I've ever seen him on the charts, too, in fact."

Another full glass. No thank-you this time, though. Another client raised their hand and was calling for her from the other end of the bar. One more to go.

"What? A B-rated hero taking down Grubby? That's impossible, dude."

"Not impossible, man. Rumour has it this new hero's got some kind of Quirk that can cancel out other Quirks—sure explains how someone like him can take poor ol' Grubby down."

Huh. That sounds familiar.

"That's nothing but a whole lot of bull. There's no way a Quirk like that exists. I mean, what's the point of having Quirks then, if someone has an overpowered one just like that?"

Nope. It's not impossible.

"What do you think, bartender?"

"Huh?" Ren forced herself to look up, only to immediately find herself being the center of attention of all three men sitting on the other side of the bar from where she stood, eyes staring at her in genuine inquiry. "What?"

"What do you think about what Archie just said here?" one of the men asked again, smirking as he nudged the side of the man sitting beside him, who grunted and scowled at the gesture. "About some B-rated hero running around with a Quirk-erasing... Quirk?"

She pondered their question for a moment—not the content of the question itself, but of how she should respond to it—until she heard the sloshing sound of liquid spilling out, forcing her to snap out of her daze to realize she had dispensed just a little too much beer into the glass she was holding onto. She quickly yanked the glass away from the faucet as her other hand released the handle, then pulled down the cloth on her shoulder to start wiping the sides of the glass, ensuring it was dry before serving it out to the last of the three men.