Young Writers Society

You've found yourself in an unfamiliar building.

You might know how you got there - by some strange magic, by a piece of faulty technology, by doors that should have opened into one building but opened into this one instead - while others may have simply woken up. Whatever the case is, you have found yourself here, in this place. You might be able to put a name to it, too. It's a "mall" but no mall you know would ever be this deserted. The stores are still present, despite being hidden behind crisscrossing metal. All you theoretically have to do is open one to get in. Even the food court is still available, with foods seemingly appearing out of thin air when you want them.

But why are you here?

And why is this mall so empty?

Maybe it hadn't been a good idea to run towards the villain's Warp Gate.

She let out a sigh as she looked around the building she was in, desperately trying to find some clue of where she was. It looked she was in a...mall, but she wasn't sure why the villains would come here of all places. Maybe they hadn't intended for her to follow them through, and had sent her there last minute. That would make sense. Bakugou was their target, not her, and she was sure villains would want a Quirkless hero just as much as the heroes did-

There was someone standing behind her.

Before they could even so much as touch her, she had spun around and kicked their legs out from underneath them. This, in turn, resulted in her almost getting flipped over their shoulder, but then she and her attacker finally looked at each other's faces.

"Oh," she said. Hideyoshi opened his mouth to say something, but then she cut him off with an "Oh!" when she saw the gaping hole in his stomach. It looked horrible, blood dripping all over the pristine floor. When she glanced down, she saw that her hero costume was covered in it from their brief battle.

She felt sick.

Hideyoshi glanced down.

"I forgot that was there," he absentmindedly commented, poking the gory wound with a finger. She quickly turned her gaze away, skin pale and stomach lurching.

"You-You need to lay down," she managed to get out. "Does someone in your class having a healing Quirk? I don't think any of the heroes do-"

"It's alright," he said.

"You have a hole in your stomach-"

"No, I don't," Hideyoshi said. The comment made her raise her head just a little - maybe it had been a hallucination? But there was still blood on his clothes, and a hole in his shirt-

But there wasn't a hole in his stomach anymore.

"...How?" she asked.

"Advanced Regeneration," he explained. "I like calling it Undying more - it sounds cooler - but beggars can't be choosers. I can't die an unnatural death, so a couple of stab wounds from a guy with weird blade teeth isn't going to worry me."

She stared.

"So, yes," he said, giving a smirk, "I would say someone in my class has a healing Quirk."

Emily awoke on the floor, which was odd enough as it was, but then she bothered to look around and...This wasn't Imani's. It took her a minute more to realize that this was Earth, or an imitation of Earth.

She hopped to her feet and went over to one of the closed storefronts, giving the gates a shake as if to ensure that yes, it was, indeed, a gate. She almost walked up onto the gate, used it as a floor as she usually did with whatever was serving as a wall in her current location, but then she remembered, Earth is the worst. No visible magic so long as the security cameras could be on.

She sighed and rifled around in her pockets as she walked aimlessly around, wondering how she had ended up here. If it was Kivvien, I'm going to steal that precious coat of his and use it as a curtain in the dark room.

She found a partially-eaten chocolate bar, the one she had tried to share with one of the new kids before she remembered that fairies were sensitive to sweets, and snacked on it was she walked.

She spotted the other two before they saw her.

She waved, "HI!" she greeted, cheerily, "Do either of you have any clue how I got here?"

Takano and Kyou both tensed when they heard the girl behind them suddenly speak - even though she had to be around their age from her voice, she had caught both of them unaware. And, considering how they had gotten here in the middle of a villain attack, Kyou had to wonder if she was working with them.

But then her comment registered, and some of the tenseness left him.

He and Takano turned.

"Not sure," he admitted. "I was going to say that you'd be in the same boat as us - probably some villain's quirk or something - but I've never seen you before."

"...She's not in your class?" Takano nervously asked.

"Nope," he replied, popping the 'p'. "Must not be in yours, either, if you don't know her."

Emily blinked, "I'm sorry, what was that about a villain? Also, there's a hole in your shirt." She took another bite of her chocolate bar, closing the last of the distance between them so they could talk more comfortably.

The pair appeared human. She hadn't seen fangs on either of them when they talked, so that ruled out them being fellow vamps. They DEFINITELY weren't any kinds of fairy, their skin tones gave that away before the possibility of hidden wings even crossed Emily's mind. If they were any kind of Nerdifaean, they were likely mixed breeds.

Or, more likely, they hadn't crossed a rift and they actually WERE from Earth. Or another world.

She shrugged off her own thoughts, finishing off her snack and patting herself down for something else to chew on as she awaited an answer.

"Oh, I know," Hideyoshi said, in a nonchalant way that should have never been used by someone who had just been stabbed. Not for the first time in her life, Saki thought that people with Quirks were more than a little... weird.

"We're students at U.A.," Saki said, answering the girl's first question. "I'm Null, and this is Hideyoshi."

"Kyou also works," Hideyoshi casually added. She sent him a confused look. Did they already know each other? "I spent a few years in America - I'm comfortable with that, too."

Saki couldn’t help but continue to stare at the strange boy before her; she had never met anyone quite like him, and she had an incredibly interesting class.

"But, anyways," Hideyoshi said with a dismissive wave of his hand, "we're students there, and we were fighting some villains before ending up wherever we are."

"Uh-hu," Emily said, pulling a Thallassiellan candy from her pocket and using her fang to dig into the tough taffy-like sweet, "Well, I'm Emily. I work at Imani's Inn with creep-o rapier kid and some other freaky folks, I have no idea what U.A. is, but I'm pretty sure it's pretty well known where you're from?"

She broke off a piece of the candy and began the rather difficult venture that was chewing it. Merpeople had some seriously sharp teeth.

In the end, Emily settled on using a bit of venom to dissolve the stuff to a chewable level. Her face twisted up at the sudden taste like bitter blood that went away after about a second of doing its work.

They stared.

"You haven't heard of the U.A.?" Takano managed to get out, eyes wide. Kyou was resisting the urge to make a similar expression on his face - he had a calmness to maintain, but who didn't know about the U.A.? Everyone knew about it. It was one of the top hero schools in the country - no, the world. They even had All Might working there, and people had known who he was back when he lived in the United States!

She shrugged, "Look, I'ma world-hopper, so I'm probably just from another side of your particular rift. Speaking of which, do you guys have any magic or the like where you're from?"

She thought up a spell to knock out the cameras. Something subtle, easily disguised as something else. Did she have any of her tools on her? She felt around in her pockets. No, but she did have a ziplock bag of Krinian crackers. Why did she have so much mer-food?

She glanced up at the corners, spotting one of the offending cameras. She was really sick of walking on the floor. She could use something from Nerdifae, maybe a Rykvor-style discretion spell? She reviewed the movements for such a thing.

Yep, that would work. So long as the kids wouldn't be put-off by it.

Saki and Hideyoshi stared.

...Again.

Quirks had been around for a long time, and, though she thought some of them were kind of weird, Saki was mostly used to the craziness. But, for some reason, the idea of another world - or, apparently, multiple ones - was making her head hurt, because that was an entirely different level of craziness right there.

"We have Quirks," Hideyoshi said. "I guess that's a little bit like magic. Well, some people have Quirks - not all of them. I forget the exact number, but there's a solid chunk of the world without powers like that."

Saki shifted uncomfortably at the comment.

Emily saw Saki shift and put two and two together. So one of two was super powered. Good to know.

She grinned, fully exposing her fangs for the first time, "Perfect," she chirped and placed two fingers on her left palm, them made a flicking motion. Red sparks danced off her fingers and fizzled out before they got the ground.

The cameras now incapacitated, Emily sighed and hopped up onto the wall, even her clothing acting as though gravity had suddenly decided that was the floor.

"So, tell me more about these 'quirks' of yours," she said to Hideyoshi.

"Whoa," Kyou and Takano said simultaneously. They glanced over at each other at the comment - it was an awkward moment he was all too glad to end. He had never seen a Quirk like that before. He knew hers technically wasn't a Quirk in their sense of the word, but it was a power all the same.

Then, realizing he had been addressed, Kyou said, "I just have one Quirk. Most people do - if they have multiple Quirks, it's genetics. One from the dad, one from the mom. My Quirk's called Advanced Regeneration. I can't die an unnatural death."

He thought for a moment, glancing over at Takano and noticing her discomfort. After all, she was Quirkless. Everyone in the school knew. He might not truly be the same as her, but he had spent a large amount of his life believing he had no Quirk.

"But," he added, resting his hands behind his head, "it's pretty useless, except for avoiding dying, so I do a lot of extra stuff on the side to make up for it. I do research, study up on present heroes and villains, do some exercising..."

He trailed off, waiting for Takano to make some sort of comment.

But all she did was nod.

"Yeah, that does sound kinda pointless. Though my friend, Kiv, might have a use for such a thing. Because he's a moron." She gnawed off another bite of her candy and once-again dissolved it to manageability.

"'Course, most everyone where I'm 'from', or where I've been for the last," she looked 'up', counting silently, "I don't know, fourty years or so? Anyway, there they don't really have exclusive powers. Magic and stuff is a skill you learn over time, like sewing or astrophysics. I'm pretty good at it because I've had a whole lotta practice. I'm actually a teacher where I'm from. I show some of the kids how to use basic practical and defense magic, offense magic for the older ones who get picked for field work. You know, that kinda thing."

She began to attempt to bite off another piece of candy.

Kyou gaped at her.

"How-how old are you?" he managed to get out. Takano was giving him a look when he glanced over at her, but he was still too amazed by the possibility of her being far older than she looked. "And how many Quirks do you have?"

Emily plopped down on the wall, sitting cross-legged as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Well, that first question is kinda complicated. Historians tend to get the dates a little wrong -or a lot wrong, in some cases- and my memory isn't the greatest but, uh, do you guys have the whole B.C.E. system with your dates? Or even just a period of time called 'Ancient Egypt'? Anyway, I'm from there, or, then. My 'First Life' as some of the other vamps call it was as Meketaten, a, uh, princess of sorts. Anyway, my family faked my death when I got bitten and sent me off to not be murdered by my own people, or, you know, just the sun."

She laughed, "Or maybe my head's just making up memories again. I can't even remember where I was during the American Revolution anymore. I mean, I'm pretty sure I was in Japan, but I also could have already crossed the rift at that point. It's all a little blurry is what I'm saying." She took another bite of her candy, this time not even flinching at the change in flavors.

"As for your other question," she continued, "I don't actually have any 'Quirks', at least, not how you guys would recognize them. Who knows, maybe you people use the same strands of magic as the lovely people of Nerdifae. Either way, I use a more...teachable, kind of magic. I mean, I use a few kinds of magic, but I haven't used anything from Earth in a while. If you guys really wanted I could teach you a few spells. In my experience, it doesn't matter what world you're from, so long as you have someone who learned from the world of the magic's origin, you should be able to cast."

She finished off the last of her candy and pulled out the crackers. She popped one into her mouth and thought about what kinds of spells she could teach them.

There was no way she was giving them the full Protector's Training. That required a great deal of equipment anyway, not to mention the amount of super-dead she would be if Imani found out she was sharing that stuff cross-worlds. Well, actually, Imani would be more disappointed than anything, but them Emily would just spontaneously combust in shame (something she was sure would happen despite that lack of proof that such a thing was possible), so same effect.

She could give them the basic training. The kiddie stuff. Here's how to get the cosmic energy to make that thing float, here's how to get it to open a jar of jam, here's how you- No, she imagined the two kids standing before her would be a little insulted by the childishness of it (even if they were, literally, actually, children).

Emily nodded solemnly in her head. It was time to employ the make-it-up-as-you-go-along-and-pretend-you've-done-this-a-thousand-times method.