#chapter 1.3

[to-fly-with-clipped-wings]

The Girl Who Lived Series Masterlist

Summary: Set in a universe where you are the chosen one, and Harry Potter is your best friend who tries to help you navigate the woes of being the lone hero of the wizarding world.

Aka a swap au where your parents are dead but the marauders + Lily are not. This fic is a multi-chapter one, and will pretty much cover all of the major events that happen at Hogwarts, with a slight twist since you’re the chosen one and not Harry. Eventual Harry x Reader, slowburn, friends to lovers.

Main Harry Potter Masterlist

Chapter 1.1: The Unexpected Visit

‘“I dunno what it was, no one does - but somethin’ about you stumped him, all right.” Hagrid turned to you, a mixture of warmth and respect blazing in his kind eyes. You straightened your back, preening under his gaze. So, what he was saying, basically was that you were the hero of the wizarding world. It had been you. The antidote to the disease. The champion. You were the saviour.’ OR: in which unexpected encounters open your eyes to a whole new world. One, it seems, you know nothing about, but knows everything about you.

Chapter 1.2: Train Rides and Talking Hats

‘“Oi,” you spoke, feeling your jaw clench at the blond boy’s demeanour. “I’d watch what I was saying if I was you, especially considering the crap that’s spewing outta your sewage-system of a mouth.” Draco Malfoy turned his sharpened gaze toward you. “And I’d be more careful if I was you. You don’t want to make enemies with the wrong people.” “Same goes for you.”’ OR: in which you hitch a ride on the Hogwarts Express and buckle up for one hell of a ride.

Chapter 1.3: To Win

Coming soon xoxo

[mrlove-loveme]

MLQC KPOP AU!

Chapter 1.3: A Voice Unheard

[Lucien POV]

   "And while I wait, happiness exists where I can get it. In these notebooks, where worlds of memories greet me, almost like a childhood friend who moved away for years and finally came bac-"

*bing*

   I look up from my book and see my phone on my desk, lit up.  I get up from my seat by the window in my room and head over to my desk. Its a message from my manager, MC, she'll be here soon to pick me. As soon as I finish reading the text, I feel my cat, Yuki, rub up against my leg.

   I go to pick her up, "Are you going to miss me?" I hold her up facing me. She meows as if responding. I can't help but smile, only for it to immediately fade. "At least someone will," I exhaled.

   My parents are both politicians, so they're rarely at home. They stopped caring about me the moment I said I wanted to pursue singing. You can say I am a bit of the family failure. They don't care what I do anymore as long as I don't create a scandal that can affect them and their campaign.

  But if they were honest with themselves, they'd see that my passion for singing is all their fault. When I was five, my parents put me in their church's choir as a way to "keep me out of trouble" and to give them an image boost for their campaign. But fell in love with it. Through singing, I could express everything I was holding in. Especially, since I was taught "better seen than heard.”

   Now all I can dream about is standing on a grand stage, so that they have to hear me, hear everything I have been holding on and prove to them that I am not a failure. 

   I place Yuki back on the floor, I go to fill her food one last time. I grab my suitcase and head for the door. As I open the door, I see MC, she looks young, maybe even younger than me. If that’s the case I wonder is will call me "oppa". I smirk at the thought. She adorable, like she needs to be taken care of, but at the same time there is this air of determination around, which makes me all the more interested. 

   “Anneyeonghaseyo, Lucien,” she says bowing, making me want to confirm our age difference, based on her formalities.

   “MC?” I say, smiling, stepping closer, decreasing the gap between us. “How old are you?”  I ask her still smiling.

   “Ummm… 21...I may be young but I am very capable!!” she says with that air of determination I noticed earlier. It's so cute how she wants to prove herself.

   “I know you are,” I say smirking “I was just asking since I’m older, you should call me ‘oppa’” I respond to her.  Her face turn beet red, her reactions are a lot more adorable than I expected.

   “Ooo..oo...oppa?” she responds flabbergasted. I could definitely get used to this. She has Error 404 written all over her face.

   I leave her to recuperate and put my stuff in the trunk. She looks more composed as I walk past her to get in the car. 

   Gavin and Kiro are already here. "Anneyoeng," I smile at them. I don't remember too much about then since our training groups were different, but they must be good to have gotten selected to form Evol.

   "Annyeonghaeseyo hyung!" Both reply at the same time. Were they practicing this? It kind of amusing. 

   I go to close the door, but I catch MC already gripping at the door handle, ready to close. "NOONA!!" Kiro says in a loud scolding voice. She stops in her tracks looking guilty and shy at the word 'noona'. "We told you, you don't have to close the doors for us!" he says in an almost matter-of-fact tone.

   "Yea! We know you're trying to show us you're capable but we can at least close the door," Gavin adds on. MC looks skeptical, then she makes eye-contact with me.

   "Lucien-oppa, what's your thoughts,'' she says looking up at me, shyly, with rosy cheeks. I feel my heart-skip. Being that cute should be illegal.

   "The boys are right, we got this!" I say  grabing the door handle and close the door on her. I don't want anyone else to see her with that cute expression on her face.

   MC then gets into the driver's seat, and notifies Victor we're enroute. Victor was the only one I had trained with. I saw him as a rival because he has such great talent, it's gonna be hard transitioning into being teammates.

   But I'll do whatever it takes to make my dream come true, and maybe even win the heart of a certain someone along the way.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

End of Gestation 1.3

So. We saw Taylor’s first foray into the world of superheroics, although she hasn’t fought anyone yet. Ironically this is the first chapter in which she didn’t use her power.

We also met Lung and his Absurd Beanie Babies. Lung sounds like one hell of an antagonist, and I’m looking forward to seeing how Taylor tries to deal with their plot to exterminate an unspecified population of kids.

I feel like Lung is too strong to be just the final boss of this first mission. We might be looking at a longer-term antagonist here.

As for the quality of the chapter, I feel like it’s still improving. I feel like 1.2 had slightly more going for it on the characterization front, but that was following 1.1, so maybe I’m elevating it higher than it should be. 1.3 is by no means a bad chapter, though, and it pulled off what it was trying to do rather well.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Just moving from one block to the next, you could see the change in the area. As I made my way into the Docks, I could see the quality of my surroundings decline steeply.

Suddenly everything looks like it’s drawn really badly and some kid nearby loudly declares that his name is “Jhon Ebgret” while flailing a pair of… are those hams?

There were enough warehouses and apartments in the area for even the most destitute to find shelter, so the only people on the streets were unconscious drunks, whores and gang members.

Nice place.

I steered clear of any and all people I saw and ventured further into the area.

Where exactly are you going?

[krixwell-liveblogs]

I decided to move away from where I was and find a better vantage point to monitor their conversation, which seemed like a good compromise between my curiosity and my self preservation.

It’s kind of refreshing to see a hero with a proper sense of self-preservation, to be honest. And also, I think if Taylor went rushing in without thinking, I’d find it out of character, even though I’ve only had a couple of chapters to learn what that character is and still have a lot to learn about her.

Taylor is smart, creative and thorough. Rushing in without thoroughly considering the risks would seem odd.

I slowly backed away from where I was, glancing over my shoulder to make sure nobody was watching, and then circled around the rear of the building I was lurking beside.

She seems as if she’s done this a million times. This is her element. Yet she is a newbie.

My investigation paid off.  Halfway down the alley, I saw a fire escape that was leading up the back of the building that Lung and his gang were standing in front of.  The feet of my costume had soft soles, so I was nearly silent as I ascended.

See? She thinks things through, examining the surroundings and the opponents and thereby finds potential advantages for herself. She’s a tactician.

As someone with the power to lead an army of bugs, that’s a very useful trait.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

If you headed west from the Boardwalk, away from the water, you found yourself in the area the locals just called the ‘Docks’.

I'd imagine docks would be by the water, but apparently not these presumably non-literal ones.

When the import/export business in Brockton Bay had dried up, there had been a whole lot of people who were suddenly out of work. The richest and most resourceful people in town had managed to make more money, turning the city’s resources towards tech and banking, but all of the people who had been employed on the ships and in the warehouses had few options left to them. They faced leaving Brockton Bay, sticking around while scraping up what little work they could or turning to more illicit activity.

So basically, business dried up (maybe that's why the Docks aren't by the water... or vice versa) and while the bourgeoisie survived through other means, the proletariat was dropped into the abyss of poverty and crime.

I feel like this story is beginning to show something that may well be one of the big reasons why it's so loved by the fandom: Everything seems to be very thought through.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

He went by ‘Lung’,

Oh hey, there he is! So this is Lung. I wonder if he might have breath powers? But then the mask would probably get in the way.

had successfully gone toe to toe with whole teams of heroes and had managed to keep himself out of jail, as evidenced by his presence here.

Yeah, I don’t think Taylor is going to try to fight this guy unless she absolutely has to. She’s too smart for that.

As for his powers, I only knew what I could scrounge up online, and there were no guarantees there.  I mean, for all I knew, he could have misled people about what his powers did, he could have a power he was keeping up his sleeve for an emergency, or he could even have a very subtle power that people couldn’t see at work.

If my mind control hypothesis is true (I wouldn’t call it a theory just yet, the only basis I have for it is the word “expressionless”), then that would definitely count as a “subtle power that people couldn’t see at work” if used in a certain way.

The information online and in the papers had told me this: Lung could gradually transform. 

Gradual transformation? Interesting. So kind of like Steven Universe-style shapeshifting, where you can either change the whole body or just a part of it according to your will, I’d imagine. Could be quite versatile in combat.

Maybe it was based on adrenaline, his emotional state, or something, but whatever it was, it made his powers more potent the longer he was in a fight. He healed at a superhuman rate, got stronger, got tougher, got bigger, and he grew armor plating complete with blades at each fingertip.

So basically, take him out quickly, or he’ll grow way tougher. A good power to mix hypothetical mind control with if having his henchmen fight the superhero while he’s present “counts” as being in a fight.

Rumor had it that he even grew wings if he fought long enough.  If that wasn’t enough, he was a pyrokinetic, which meant he could create flame out of thin air, shape it, intensify it, and so on.

Man, you’re really outclassed here, Taylor.

Incidentally, Lung shows off how people can develop a variety of mostly unrelated powers, so I suppose that means there’s room for Taylor to develop new ones too, probably. Depends a bit on what exactly causes the development of powers. It could be one single force playing by the same rules for everyone, or it could be many different things. Time will tell, and also Wildbow. Hopefully.

That power apparently got stronger as he transformed, too.  As far as I knew, there wasn’t an upper limit to how strong he could get.  He only started returning to normal when there was nobody left to fight.

Daamn, Lung, you stronk. I’m starting to understand why Lucy seemed so proud of managing to “almost obliterate him” in a roleplaying game based on the Worm setting. He’s tough!

And certainly not a good first enemy for Taylor to go up against. He could swat her like a bug.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

The Boardwalk was where the tourists came. Running north-to-south along the beach, there were shops that sold dresses for over a thousand dollars, cafes with ludicrously expensive coffees and stretches of wooden walkways and beaches where tourists could get a great view of the ocean.

Sounds nice.

From pretty much any point on the Docks, you could see one of Brockton Bay’s landmarks, the Protectorate Headquarters. Besides being a marvel of architectural design with its arches and towers, the PHQ was a floating base of operations that a squadron of local superheroes called home, outfitted with a forcefield bubble and a missile defense system. There had never been occasion for either to be used, but I had to admit, it made you feel safer.

The Protectorate is a superhero team confirmed!

...I probably sounded rather silly when I theorized about them being a sinister big brother type organization running a dystopian society or something, didn't I. :P